“The Theistic Preconditions of Knowledge: A Thumbnail Sketch” by James N. Anderson

One of the distinctive claims of Van Tilian apologists is that human knowledge presupposes the existence of God; therefore, since we know at least some things, it follows that God must exist. In recent months, while surfing the blogosphere, I have encountered several times the insinuation that Van Tilians invariably forward this claim without any argument. For example, one commenter going by the moniker ‘Yo Mama’ (not to be confused with Yo-Yo Ma, the acclaimed Chinese-American cellist) remarked that she had never come across a presuppositionalist who had offered argumentative support for the claim that knowledge presupposes God. In truth, I suspect this tells us more about Yo Mama’s diet of reading than about the efforts of presuppositionalists to defend their arguments. Reasoned support for the claim can be found in the writings of Cornelius Van Til, John Frame, Greg Bahnsen (see also his lectures and debates, particularly his debate with Edward Tabash), and Michael Butler. Similar arguments have been formulated by Alvin Plantinga, Dallas Willard, and Victor Reppert; and while these Christian philosophers would not consider themselves ‘presuppositionalists’ in the conventional sense, their arguments have often been endorsed as supportive of presuppositionalist claims. …

“Comments on John Johnson’s Response to Frame & Hays” by James N. Anderson

1. Johnson’s article is shot through with a confusion between arguments for presuppositional apologetics (i.e., as a distinctive methodology) and presuppositional apologetic arguments (i.e., the actual arguments employed by presuppositionalists). In his introduction, Johnson states that his goal is to show that Muslims could use Van Tilian presuppositional arguments just as well as Christians: “My point is not that Islamic apologists are using the Van Tillian system to promote Islam. Rather, I wish to show that they easily could if they so desired.” …