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Van Tillian Presuppositional Apologetics

by Brian Bosse, Copyright June 24, 2009, all rights reserved. 487 views

The following paper I wrote a couple of years ago and will be soon revising.


A Critique Concerning Certainty


It critiques what is sometimes called the strong modal claim of the apologetic method of Cornelius Van Til. The conclusion the paper reaches is that the Van Tillian apologetic does not provide certain proof for the existence of God. Enjoy!


Comments

1 • wanttruth2 • March 03, 2010 • 12:07 PM

I’m a bit confused.  Am I missing something here? When putting this paper together, you use “absolute certain” language.  Isn’t this what the Presuppositional method is basically stating?  I am typing this response to your article.  Am I mistaken about this, or should I doubt the “absolute certainty” that this sentence is being typed by me?  In a a non-christian worldview, one cannot provide the necessary preconditions for intelligibility but this alone only proves that the non-christian worldview cannot account for intelligibility (or anything else for that matter), and does not prove the christian God.  If God exists, and I believe He does, He says that we can know “absolutely”.  Not only this but one must presuppose the God of the bible to know the “facts” truly, in principle, and not from the myth of autonomous reason.  If we employ the tools of logic autonomously apart from presupposing the God of the bible, we are reduced to absurdity.  What am I missing?