Specter of Reason

As you may know, I posted a short argument back in December proving that presuppositional apologetics cannot produce valid arguments. I should have been clearer about what that means. After all, presuppositionalism per say does not make arguments. People make arguments. And, obviously, a person can be a presuppositionalist and still make valid arguments about all sorts of things. So why did I say that presuppositional apologetics cannot produce valid arguments? Presuppositional apologetics are arguments for presuppositionalism, and are thus either directly or indirectly arguments against atheism. When I said that presuppositional apologetics cannot produce valid arguments, I meant that there can be no valid arguments for presuppositionalism, and that presuppositionalists cannot claim there are any valid arguments against atheism. No matter what a presuppositionalist says, they cannot regard it as a valid argument against atheism. If a person is arguing for presup...

Presuppositional apologists make the following two claims: 1. All valid arguments do not beg the question. 2. All knowledge presupposes the existence of God. Atheism may here be defined as any explicit or implicit denial of the existence of God. Thus, if one presupposes the existence of God in an argument, one begs the question against atheism. Now consider that all valid arguments presuppose knowledge. Combining this with the second claim above, we find that all valid arguments presuppose the existence of God. Therefore, all valid arguments beg the question against atheism. Therefore, all valid arguments beg the question . This contradicts the first claim. Therefore, at least one of the two claims is invalid. To avoid contradiction, presuppositional apologists must abandon one of their two claims. They must either claim that valid arguments can beg the question, or they must claim that there is knowledge which does not presuppose t...