“From time immemorial all people have assumed that they must begin with thinking with themselves for there is no other place where they must begin. (p. 212) If man were the starting point, we all would have this in common and thus an initial point of contact. (pg. 214)
We must start with ourselves rather than God:
1.) It is psychologically impossible for us to start with God (as it is impossible for God to start with us.)
2.) It is logically impossible for us to start with God for we cannot affirm God without assuming logic and our ability to predicate.
3.) It is logically impossible to show the rational necessity of presupposing God except by rational arguments. (pg. 223-224)
That is, we admit, the charge of autonomy … that we begin autonomously.” (pg 231)
Sproul, Lindsey, Gerstner (SLuG)
Classical Apologetics
1.) The appeal “from time immemorial” is an example of the “ad-populum” fallacy. It is an appeal that the statement put forth is true simply because a large number of people have believe it is true. Gordon H. Clark used to famously say; “You don’t come to truth by counting noses.”
2.) It is also not true that “from time immemorial all people have assumed” what SLuG insist all people have been assuming. Those who have done all this assuming have largely belonged to the Golden Age of Greece (300-500 BC). There were plenty of people who did not belong to this pre-Socratic Greek philosopher age who are not being taken into consideration. All people have not always assumed, though doubtless many people did. What SLuG has done above is to errantly assume that “all people assumed” the Greek philosophic concepts of human autonomy and sufficiency of reason. Clearly, the authors of Scripture did not assume these concepts of Greek philosophy.
3.) When SLuG offers; “for there is no other place where they must begin,” in the matter of thinking except for themselves as the thinkers, they already give away the game. This is a subtle embrace of De Cartes, “I think therefore I am (cogito ergo sum). ” For anyone to think that thinking must begin with the thinker is to presuppose humanism. It is to presuppose a man centered universe. Now, of course, man must do the thinking. That is not the question. The question is, “On what basis of authority does man conclude what he concludes when he does his thinking.” For SLuG man’s authority for concluding what he concludes when he thinks is man. However, the questions that should immediately presents themselves to SLuG is, “What does God say about me as a thinker?” “What does it even mean to be a thinking man?” “What is my thinking unless it is thinking that is consistent with God’s thinking?” “Is thinking even thinking if it is not an attempt to think God’s thoughts after Him or would it better be called “‘anti-thinking thinking?'”
4.) “all people have assumed that they must begin with thinking with themselves for there is no other place where they must begin.”
There is no other place to begin thinking except with themselves as the source and authority of their thinking? Scripture begs to differ. In Isaiah 8:19-20 Israel was chasing after alternate sources and authorities as the foundation of their thinking.
19When men tell you to consult the spirits of the dead and the spiritists who whisper and mutter, shouldn’t a people consult their God instead? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? 20To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.
If SLuG had been speaking instead of Isaiah, SLuG would have advised the people of Isaiah’s time to consult with themselves thinking instead of consulting with the spirits of the dead and the spiritists. However, the answer would have been the same
20 To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.
Scripture teaches that our beginning point in all our thinking should be God and His Word. The beginning point in all our thinking is not the autonomous thinker doing the thinking sans SLuG and all Natural Law theories.
5.) Next they offer up; “If man were the starting point.” Is this a concession that there might indeed be a different starting point besides man? What SLuG is seeking to do here is to corral everybody into embracing man being the starting point. The “thinking” seems to be; “If those nasty presuppositionalists, who contest this matter of a humanist starting point, would just go away we could make progress because all men would then have common ground.”
6.) Even if we would have all this in common, in terms of a starting point for out thinking, that wouldn’t mean the results would be successful evangelism. The God that is arrived at via the means of a Natural Law thinking that posits that man is the beginning point of all thinking is not the God of Christianity. The God of Christianity can never be the end result of a thinking that is characterized by man being the authoritative beginning point in concluding that God is. The God that is arrived at by the Arminian starting point of man by necessity must be only an Arminian god. That god is not God.
7.) This kind of thinking that SLuG is offering above moves the idea of common ground between the believer and the heathen from a common ground that says all reality is reality as God names it to a common ground that says all reality is reality as man names it. By beginning with the autonomous man with his man-centered reasoning as the “initial point of contact” we have allowed the autonomous man to think he has no reason to give up his autonomy. Such a man, even if he “accepts” God will be accepting a god whose authority is not self-attesting but will be accepting a god whose authority will have as its foundation autonomous man’s authority.
8.) Next SLuG claims that “it is psychologically impossible” for us to start with God. I am not sure what is meant here by invoking psychology. Perhaps SLuG means that it has to be man who thinks. Again, no one doubts that. The issue here isn’t whether or not man has to be the one who thinks. The question here is; “On what (or whose) authority is man, as the one who is thinking, required to presuppose in his thinking.” SLuG insists that autonomous man is his own authority. Presuppositionalists insist that man can never be presuppositional-less in his thinking and so man, when he thinks, is required to not presuppose his own authority in his thinking but is to presuppose God and His Word in his thinking.
9.) Scripture clearly teaches that we must presuppose God and His Word in our thinking. Scripture teaches;
“In thy Light we see light.” Psalm 36:9
Here we see that only as God and His Word is presupposed can we come to true truth. If we are to have any light, it must be light that finds God as the ultimate source of our light. God is the beginning point of all knowing (light).
Jesus Christ said;
“I am the way the truth and the life.” (John 14:6)
Obviously, there is no coming to any truth as a thinking man unless that truth begins with He who is the truth.
Paul says in Colossians 2:3 the inspired Apostle who was not beginning with Himself writes;
in whom (Christ) are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
The first hidden treasure of wisdom and knowledge the heathen must be presented with is that he is not the one in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. It must be pressed upon the heathen, (quite to the contrary of SLuG) that he must yield to the Lord Christ if he desires to be one who can think well. Indeed, this truth must also be pressed on SLuG and their autonomous thinking Natural Law followers.
10.) SLuG next moves on to this claim;
It is logically impossible for us to start with God for we cannot affirm God without assuming logic and our ability to predicate.
a.) Here SLuG moves on from psychology to logic. However, they don’t seem to understand that logic is only logical if one begins by starting with the God of the Bible. Logic that does not presuppose God will quickly become illogical logic. In order for an appeal to logic to make any sense God must be the one whom we start with and whom we affirm.
b.) What SLuG has done here is that it has lifted abstracted logic above God who alone makes logic, logical. If our starting point is with autonomous man logic can arrive at anything. Why, a logic that does not presuppose God can even arrive at the idea that men can be born who are inhabiting a female body.
c.) Similarly, the ability to predicate presupposes that autonomous fallen man’s ability to predicate apart from starting with God’s predicating.
11.) Finally SLuG reaches for this
It is logically impossible to show the rational necessity of presupposing God except by rational arguments.
a.) The idea of what is possible or impossible in terms of logic is entirely dependent upon presupposing God since God is the one upon whom logic is dependent in order to be logical.
b.) Scripture teaches in Colossians 1;
16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
When we read above “all things were created by Him, and for Him,” and again “by him all things consist,” I take that to be inclusive of the ideas of logic and rational arguments. In other words logic is God’s logic and so in order for logic to be employed one must do so by starting with and presupposing the God of logic. Similarly, rational arguments can only be rational if the God of rationality is presupposed.
So because of the above statements we presuppositionalists quite agree that;
It is logically impossible to show the rational necessity of presupposing God except by rational arguments.
We only go on to say that since logic can only be logic if it is God’s logic, it is logically impossible to use logic in order to show the rational necessity of presupposing God except by rational arguments that presuppose God.
All apologetics is presuppositional since all argumentation requires a beginning point that can only be proven by the rational extension of that beginning point by way of evidences that substantiate that beginning point.
Now, this in turn means that we can either start by presupposing God and His Word as our axiomatic starting point or we can start by presupposing ourselves and our own Word as our axiomatic starting point. However, in each case (whether theocentric or anthropocentric – theonomous or autonomous) each person is starting from a point of premise that is held as a non-variable given. There is no such thing as a view from nowhere or from no one. This is SLuG’s chief error. SLuG believes there is a neutral point (a point from nowhere) where logic, rationality, and argumentation can progress. This is in no way accurate. It is the error that all Thomistic, Natural Law positions make.
These differing starting points explains why contrasting men can look at the same “fact” and name it as a polar opposite fact. It is not the fact that is different as between the two interlocutors it is the fact that the two interlocutors are different and being different in their beginning axioms the same fact becomes two different facts – one being accurate and the other being inaccurate, or both being inaccurate.
The man who presupposes himself at his own beginning point still may differ from other men who likewise begin with themselves as their beginning point premise. For example, the autonomous evidentialist will see proof in evidence that he autonomously defines while the autonomous existentialist will push him aside in disagreement and insist that proof must come by way of personal experience and the autonomos mystic will push both aside and insist that proof comes from some kind of un-nameable subjective experience.
However, you slice it though, all men are presuppositionalist. The only question is which presuppositions are the proper presuppositions. The Biblical Christian insists that one must return to God’s presuppositions as found in Scripture. SLug, like all Natural Law (Thomist) advocates are just in serious error.