A Rant on the Annoying Nothing-Burger that is Presuppositionalism

[Glossophile]

I've been watching the debate between Matt Dillahunty and Tyler Vela on Modern-Day Debate, and I have to ask.  Is it just me, or does presuppositionalism seem to be enjoying a bit of a surge lately?  It could just be a sampling error on my part, but in any case, whenever such arguments come up, they just annoy me.  For me at least, they're roughly on par with the ontological argument(s) in its sheer vapidity and circularity.  It's as transparent and blatant of an attempt to stack the deck as I've ever seen!

As many of us know, the main idea of presuppositionalism is that God is a necessary precondition or grounding for coherence and reason itself, so any attempt to coherently reason against theism implicitly presupposes theism and is thus self-defeating.  There are two major problems that the proponents never seem to grasp and/or acknowledge.

First, the necessity of God as a precondition for rationality is nothing more than a bald assertion.  Attempts to justify it seem disproportionately few, and those attempts that are made reliably turn out to be quite weak, often at least vaguely reminiscent of cosmological or teleological arguments, with the same or similar flaws.  More often, the theist will just baldly assert this premise and immediately move on almost as if its truth were obvious and taken for granted.  As I recall, this central assertion was the essence of the first premise in the deductive argument offered by Tyler Vela in the debate, which made the flaw especially clear.  There's little point in proceeding if not even the first premise is substantiated.  

Second, it purports to solve a problem that it doesn't actually solve, often without even trying to explain how the supposed solution works.  The problem in question is that any worldview, however logical, must inevitably and ultimately reduce to a set of irreducible brute assumptions that simply cannot be justified in any way that isn't either tautological or circular.  For many if not most or all of us, that epistemological bedrock is composed of what philosophers know as the three classical laws of logic, but the specifics don't really matter.  The point is that no epistemology can ever be completely self-contained and self-justifying in the way that presuppositionalists seem to want so desperately.

I hesitate to even call this a "problem" rather than just a hard fact of life, but if we grant that it is a problem, again, God does nothing to solve it.  At best, theism just passes the buck.  God has revealed his existence and necessity for reason in such a way that you can be sure?  Good for you!  But there's still at least one hidden and unsubstantiated premise there, namely that your experience of that revelation couldn't be the result of delusion and/or deception.  However confident you may be in a particular revelation, it was still inevitably filtered through potentially fallible and/or manipulable senses.  So contrary to what he/she thinks, the presuppositionalist still has to make at least one assumption (i.e. that his/her experience and interpretation thereof is infallible) that is no less arbitrary than whatever secular axiom(s) the skeptic assumes.

Plus, no proposition about any deity is irreducible.  That is to say, any such claim can at least potentially be justified in ways that are neither tautological nor circular (e.g. any evidentialist argument for God).  I'm not saying such arguments will be sound, but at least they'll be coherent.  So you haven't really reached epistemological bedrock.   There's still at least one more layer of logic you can peel back.  "How do you know?" doesn't suddenly become an incoherent question once a god has been posited.  Faced with something like the classical laws of logic, on the other hand, that question (or at least any attempt to answer it) quite arguably does become incoherent.

In short, there's no escaping one's phaneron.  Not even God can ever extract your brain from a proverbial vat.  So any presups out there, if you take nothing else from this, please, for the love of the God who supposedly grounds everything, finally learn and accept this simple fact: God does not solve the problem you think he solves.

[Alan V]

This is not a rant. It's a beautifully expressed argument.

Presuppositionalism is really the essence of theistic belief, since it maintains that assertions can suffice for epistemology if they are believed in strongly enough. This is what happens when theism tries to masquerade as philosophy.

[brewerb]

Presupposition sounds like the last gasp of the desperate.

[Dānu]

If I'm understanding correctly here, the proposition that God is a prerequisite for rationality traces, typically, to the argument from reason which C.S. Lewis is well-known as a proponent of, though there have been others before and since. I'd be interested to hear your critique of that argument if that is indeed what you are alluding to here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_reason

[Deesse23]

Looked up the vid on YT
Jebus, its >2h
Ok, fast forward to a random position near the 1hr mark (53:00 to be precise)
Dillahunty: "Can god scientifically prove his existence?"
Vela: "Depends on what you mean"
Dillahunty: "Can he prove his existence, scientifically"
Vela: "No, he cant. He also cant make a married bachelor"
Dillahunty:"Can he make his existance provable?"
Vela:"if you mean by verifiable, repeatable tests, no. Can he make something non-natural natural? Of course not. God cant make empirical evidence for non-empirical facts"
Dillahunty: "So, god cant take human form and provide evidence for his divinity!?"
Vela:"Yes he did!...well, let me fininish first what i wanted....."
Dillahunty: *smiles*


One random minute, and there is all i needed to know.

[Glossophile]

If I'm understanding correctly here, the proposition that God is a prerequisite for rationality traces, typically, to the argument from reason which C.S. Lewis is well-known as a proponent of, though there have been others before and since.  I'd be interested to hear your critique of that argument if that is indeed what you are alluding to here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_reason

Ah, yes, the old "brain fizz" argument!  My primary criticism is the first premise, in that I don't accept it, though I certainly appreciate the use of the word "nonrational" instead of "irrational."  Intuitive though it seems at first, the notion that order (of which reason is a type) cannot emerge from fundamentally chaotic constituents is almost certainly false.  According to your source, computers are not infrequently cited as a counter-example, and I think they may be a compelling one.  Now, a sufficiently unsophisticated theist may seize upon that and say, "Ah, but computers were designed by intelligent beings, so by analogy, that actually proves that human reason requires a designer!"  However, I think this misses the point, or at least it relies on selectively appealing to causes more remote than those implied by Lewis' argument.  The point is that the transistors inside a CPU are no more inherently rational than the neurons in a human brain, yet both are comparably proximal in their causation of rational inferences and conclusions.  This is all it takes to call the first premise of the argument from reason into doubt.  Further analogizing the human designers of computers to a divine designer of the human brain is, I contend, shifting to a different theistic argument entirely, which is likely to have its own issues.

Also, if the example about the neighbor's dog is indeed representative of the argument as originally put forth, it's not a very good one.  Being afraid of one dog because of a bad childhood experience with a presumably different dog is not necessarily irrational or even non-rational.  Granted, it's a crude form of induction, in that it assumes that most or all dogs have the same or similar dispositions, but given the stakes (i.e. a potential mauling or other negative experience), the impulse to err on the side of caution is at least easily understandable.  Lacking in nuance?  Certainly.  Misinformed?  Perhaps.  But I wouldn't go so far as to call it wholly irrational, especially if the person's experience with dogs subsequent to that childhood trauma was limited.  In some sense, the burden of proof is arguably on others (human or canine) to demonstrate that dogs can be friendly in proportions sufficient to make it worth the risk of interacting with a largely unfamiliar pup.  Until that burden has been met, it may actually be quite logical to avoid dogs.

There's a certain pragmatic quality to the above, which I think is fortuitous, because if asked how rational inferences can emerge from fundamentally non-rational mechanics, I consider pragmatism to be at least one major contributor to such emergence.

[Cheerful Charlie]

If I'm understanding correctly here, the proposition that God is a prerequisite for rationality traces, typically, to the argument from reason which C.S. Lewis is well-known as a proponent of, though there have been others before and since.  I'd be interested to hear your critique of that argument if that is indeed what you are alluding to here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_reason

Presuppositionalism is an old idea with roots in Greek thought.  The idea that the arche, basic underlying reality is God can be found in Anaximenes, founder of the Cynics in the theology of Xenophanes, and in the basic religious ideas of the Stoics.  From there it traveled to Plotinus and others, and then to Christians such as Augustine.  It was strongly revived by Kant in his book, "The Only Possible Argument in Support Of A Demonstration Of The Existence Of God". And Descarte's argument, God must be the basics of all logic, morality, metaphysical necessities. It is entangled in various other theological theories such as the simplicity of God.  So it is an old idea.  It's modern version has been articulated by theologian Cornelius Van Til.  Also known as the Transcendental Argument for God.  So this has ancient roots in Greek thought and has modern day expressions.  It is through Van Til that this argument has become popular and and is becoming known by "sophisticated" theists.
   
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcende...nce_of_God
...
The TAG is a transcendental argument that attempts to prove that God is the precondition for logic, reason, or morality. The argument proceeds as follows:[4]

1. God is a necessary precondition for logic and morality (because these are immaterial, yet real universals).
   
2. People depend upon logic and morality, showing that they depend upon the universal, immaterial, and abstract realities which could not exist in a materialist universe but presupposes (presumes) the existence of an immaterial and absolute God.
   
3. Therefore, God exists. If He didn't, we could not rely upon logic, reason, morality, and other absolute universals (which are required and assumed to live in this universe, let alone to debate), and could not exist in a materialist universe where there are no absolute standards or an absolute Lawgiver.
   

If God is perfectly good, fount of all morality, then God being good would create a world where there is no moral evil.  If God creates all the rules, the foundational logic and metaphysical necessities of the world, God could do so.  God could easily create the world so all have free will, such as god enjoys, and Free will, such as God enjoys, and would freely choose to do only moral good.  And here the whole set of theories of presuppositionalism fall down.

We end up with some bad theological rationalizations form here.

1.  God is not good as we understand that term.
     But we have claims that God has sub-goodnesses, mercy, compassion, and God is fair and is just.
     We see a sort on intellectual nihilism where words and concepts and logic get abandoned to support an empty belief.
2.  God is not a moral agent.  god owes us no moral obligations.
     Roots of the argument reach back to the Middle Ages.  and are more or less popular today with people arguing these ideas.
     Obviously not a viable idea.  an all powerful agent who is all good but does not act when that agent could is not as claimed,           good.     
3.  God is incomprehensible, inscrutable. His ways are not our ways.
     Rank rationalization.  It is rank abandonment of reason, rationality, and strips God of all meaning.

Presuppositionalism (TAG, Simplicity of God) self destruct when we consider it's own claims about God, goodness and creation of logic and the world, and all its metaphysical necessities.

This whole theological fantasy can be hard to argue for an atheist who has no real where this argument came from, and how to tackle it when they are first confronted with it.  Another reason it is becoming popular is that it has recently been popularized at the non-specialized theological level by theologians like Frank Turok, whose book "Stealing From God" has given this argument a boost aimed at theists outside of the academic setting.  Greg Bahsen is another TAG populist. He has written a book, "Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis".

[Cheerful Charlie]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_reason

Same thing from a slightly different approach. C.S. Lewis followed this line of reasoning and has resulted in a lot of debates on the subject. Again, there is nothing more prone to confusing themselves than philosophers with a theological bent.

[GenesisNemesis]

Presuppositionalism is just a rationalized form of circular reasoning.

[possibletarian]

Can we trust a rationality given by a god who jumps about the place like a maniac ?

I mean seriously how do we test it ?

[Bucky Ball]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_reason

Same thing from a slightly different approach.  C.S. Lewis followed this line of reasoning and has resulted in a lot of debates on the subject.  Again, there is nothing more prone to confusing themselves than philosophers with a theological bent.

That would be "wanna be philosophers" with "a wanna be theological bent". As I recall, he was neither.