Shall We Argue Transcendentally? (Greg Welty)

“Shall We Argue Transcendentally? A Perspectival Debate on Apologetic Methodology” by Greg Welty

The purpose of this essay is to give the modern-day Reformed apologist some perspective on this thorny dispute about the appropriate legacy of Van Til for apologetic method. The following pages will seek to defend at length the flexibility in method that Frame has enthusiastically brought to the Van Tillian school of apologetics, showing how Frame applies the principles of common grace and depravity to apologetic method more consistently than Van Til himself. But that flexibility will be defended in a way that remains sympathetic to the core concerns of those who would wish to maintain transcendental argumentation as the exclusive way to honor Christ in the defense of the faith. It will be seen that, despite well-intentioned criticism to the contrary, Frame’s “presuppositionalism of the heart” is the best way to preserve Van Til’s distinctive theological legacy while avoiding Van Til’s mistaken inferences from that theology to the area of methodology.

 

The present thesis proceeds in two steps. First, Van Til’s best arguments for a transcendental approach will be neatly presented, correlated with Frame’s best criticisms against the necessity of that approach. Second, in the aftermath of this hopefully illuminating exchange, an attempt will be made to more precisely articulate the proper relationship between transcendental and traditional arguments in the repertoire of the Reformed apologist.