I’ve talked about question begging extensively in my essays and usually bring it up in virtually every argument. This is not because of an obsession of mine (although I do wonder at times), but because of the prolific nature of the informal logical fallacy. Once you start to recognize it, you realize how virtually everyone in the world of argument and discussion is using this cheat to make a point. Enter presuppositionalism.
For those unaware, presuppositionalism is a Calvinist framework for argument, largely constructed by a Dutch guy, Van Til, in the mid 1900s. The way it works is simple - it states that you must presuppose God as the root of all logic and truth before you can be sure of anything. On its face, it seems convincing - without a fixed, unmoving source of truth adjudication, you can’t be sure that ultimately what you “know” is true. The operative nature of the argument, by Calvinists, is typically to refuse to engage in argument with anyone until they can argue, sufficient for the Calvinist to believe them, that their logic is sufficiently grounded in a reliable, unmoving source. It should be of no surprise to anyone that the only conception of God that a Calvinist will accept as truth-grounding is their own. So the move is simple - presuppose that God must match the Calvinist, Neoplatonic mystery, and argue with that presupposition that the opposition can’t be correct until they share that presupposition. It sounds fancy, and it has a lot of support, but boil it down and you’ll see that it’s not just question begging, it’s childish.
The Question Beg
The question beg is obvious quickly - the presuppositionalist argument presupposes the Trinitarian God in order to prove the Trinitarian God - that’s definitional question begging. Now let’s boil that argument down and see what it looks like outside of this theological debate with a lot of fluffy words to hide its purpose, and apply it to an argument about food:
I submit that I have the best taste buds, so I propose that we taste test something. Upon you scoring food differently than me, I argue with “See, your taste buds are inferior to mine, otherwise you’d have come up with the same score as me.”
Childish, right? That is nearly the entire move of presuppositionalism, with little caveat, and its only purpose is to try to force the opposition off of neutral debate foundation and into their own framework prior to even having the debate, i.e. “Once you like the same food as me I’ll concede that your taste buds are no longer inferior”. This analogy points out what presuppositionalism is actually arguing over - not whether truth is grounded as claimed, but which system is better/more coherent/more consistent. The circularity is justified on the basis that it’s a superior foundation of reliance for knowing anything (aka epistemology). So it’s doing a big mislead to draw you into argument - either you can’t see the circularity and the presuppositionalist wins by default, or you discover the circularity and refuse to grant the question beg, forcing the presuppositionalist to move the argument where they really want it which is: “but this system for knowing is better” - which it certainly is not.
Ignorance Protectionism
Virtually every debate I’ve had with Calvinists who use presuppositionalism (and to be fair I have only addressed a small subset myself) has resulted in the same maneuver - a refusal to engage in the actual argument on the basis of my own lack of ability to root my truth in something. So the presuppositionalist refuses, before engaging, in even addressing my claims until I already agree with them.
If it weren’t already obvious, this is a framework that implicitly, and perhaps explicitly, protects ignorance when used in this manner, and there’s virtually no religion that couldn’t use the same move - “I believe you’re wrong, so you’re already arguing from a place of wrongness and you can’t substantiate your truth because it rests on wrongness therefore I won’t engage until I know that you can substantiate your truth in rightness by agreeing with me on the correct theology”. This whole strategy is absurd, but notice what the refusal to engage is actually based on - the other person’s unknown and unfalsifiable thoughts and not the argument - it’s a genuine genetic fallacy. To add to the clarity of the absurdity: the presuppositionalist is refusing to exercise their logic (which they believe to be reliable) until their opposition has different thoughts in their head about the metaphysics of God. What’s interesting is that a presuppositionalist doesn’t actually have to do that - there’s nothing stopping them from addressing the claims from the other person, they just seem to feel self-justified in question begging their own framework (despite it being a logical fallacy to do so), because they believe the other person is wrong before their argument is started.
Every religious person can adopt this practice - “Well your theology is wrong, so any argument you make from it is invalid, so I don’t need to listen to you until you’re right” - perhaps only Calvinists are hubristic enough to be fooled sufficiently into thinking it’s a valid (or even mature and polite) move in civil, logical, argumentative discourse. Perhaps, as well, that comes with the same hubris of believing you’re elect and others are not.
Why It Is Invalid
“Presuppositionalism is an argument against humanity being able to properly evaluate truth or fiction without reliance on the specific metaphysics of the trinity, while presupposing humanity’s ability to evaluate truth or fiction devoid of those specifics as its initial premise - thus, presuppositionalism eats itself.”
Even a rational person might be wondering at this point - “But is the Calvinist’s point valid? Do I have to justify my truth by rooting it in God and is my truth arbitrary if I don’t?” First, let me practice the quintessential presuppositionalist question beg with “The fact is, it’s not valid, and if you think it is, you’re reasoning from invalid logic and can’t know what’s right or wrong until you recognize that it is invalid.” How was that?
So let’s take this seriously. First - what does it mean to root your logic in God? Frankly, it’s unclear, but the general Calvinist distinction is that God is not only the author of truth, but its actual source - as in truth emanates (that’s a dangerous word to use because of its theological implications) or proceeds forth from God. There are three big questions to ask that either defeat this notion or render it pointless:
1) Who receives the truth and in what fashion that proceeds from God?
2) What is the truth that “truth proceeds from God” grounded in?
3) If I don’t presuppose truth proceeds from God, will that affect whether or not my claims are truthful?
Who receives the truth and in what fashion? This question really resolves the entire equation - at every point, truth must be adjudicated or assumed by the observer. The Calvinist observer is admittedly fallen, sinful, and inherently imperfect - so unless the Calvinist is somehow temporarily perfect, it doesn’t matter what they claim their truth is rooted in, because they’re the ones evaluating the truth and with an imperfect and incomplete toolkit - they are in the same place as their opponent and frankly, if their opponent has a belief system of “perfection while evaluating truth” or similar, then they’d have a stronger stance against the Calvinist. The Calvinist rebuttal may be at this point to argue that they’re guided by the Spirit in receiving truth, but unless they can claim actual, personal perfection (and they don’t as far as I know) in the moment they receive that guidance from the Spirit, then they are still subject to imperfection and thus an unknowable amount of improper handling of the Spirit. So at every point and pass, the Calvinist is their own final authority, just like everyone else, and a claim of infallibility of source does nothing to reconcile them because they make that assumption and presupposition from a fallible final authority and, perhaps more importantly, cannot demonstrate their own claims of infallibility.
What is the truth that “truth proceeds from God” grounded in? If you say… God, then you’ve question begged and the argument is circular. A good practitioner of presuppositionalism may concede this point, and instead argue that the presupposition is acknowledged and intentional, because without it you can’t make a coherent argument of any type - but that is the very question beg we discussed at the beginning and in order to evaluate the idea that the presupposition is necessary for coherence is itself not justified if coherence itself cannot be evaluated without it. Presuppositionalism is an argument against humanity being able to properly evaluate truth or fiction without reliance on the specific metaphysics of the trinity, while presupposing humanity’s ability to evaluate truth or fiction devoid of those specifics as its initial premise - thus, presuppositionalism eats itself.
Justification of knowability requires its own justification - the necessity of such a justification is its own premise which does not need to be granted. The presuppositionalist isn’t actually justifying how they can rely on truth better because of their Trinitarian theology, because their justification requires granting their theology as part of the justification - thus they don’t actually justify, and in their own way equivocate “justification” in general. Circularity of argument doesn’t actually justify anything - evidence at least moves the needle, even if it doesn’t guarantee anything (neither system can do that).
The typical rejoinder is that in order to even argue against the presuppositionalist you have to borrow their presuppositions - this does not follow, however. In order to make this rejoinder they must presume (once more) that any overlap in presupposition was theirs to begin with - such an argument can only be made by assuming their own framework and once again the question is begged that their framework is the valid one inside the argument for the validity of their framework.
If I don’t presuppose truth proceeds from God, will that affect whether or not my claims are truthful? Arguing that your presuppositions affect the truth of your claims is obviously false and a genetic fallacy. The presuppositionalist move in response to this question is to move the point ad hominem, and instead argue that while your claims could be true, you personally can’t evaluate their truthfulness. If the presuppositionalist at this point had superior truth evaluation tools, they could presumably at this point just use them and adjudicate the claims generously on behalf of their opposition - they would rather, however, take the opportunity to try to somehow leverage the opposition into their position via their question begging framework. As previously identified, however, the presuppositionalist maintains the same problem as their opponent of only having access to an imperfect toolkit, thus their efforts to evaluate truth are no better and at best are only ever “best effort” - same as every other imperfect observer - despite any claims they may make.
How to Approach It
So, how do you approach someone in an argument that refuses to engage until their opponent’s mental model matches their own? There are several methods, some of them humorous and equally juvenile, and some of them more serious and useful.
The Debate Stage
This is the most effective place to engage the enthusiastic presuppositionalist, because their entire maneuver is to move the debate topic to their question beg. If they don’t have control over the debate topic and must engage with a prompt they can’t change, then they’re much more restricted in their efforts and must engage with logic like everyone else and any premises they presuppose can be called out and they must answer for and justify them. A spectacularly talented logician may be able to pull off bringing any subject back to presuppositionalism, even in the face of a rigid prompt, but an equally talented opposition can deny them their unearned premises and refuse the move.
The Turnaround
The most honest approach to engage is to argue the point they ultimately want to argue, but be better at it. The point they want to argue is that their system for knowing is better, so you can simply do a better job of arguing against it with truth being universal and readily testable at all times and in all instances. If truth has an author (instead of being eternally self-existent) then it is inherently unstable and unreliable. Even if that author promises to never change, the fact that they’re powerful enough to do so reduces the reliability of truth beneath that of a universal, unchanging self-existent reality. You can’t fully rely on something being true if it’s subject to its author changing it in real time - even if the author promises not to do so.
This isn’t an argument that truth as a reality provides certainty in knowing, as neither system provides that; instead, it’s an argument that a self-existent reality, with no subordination to authorship, is always readily available for test and observation, as it’s part of the fabric of reality itself.
In order to further argue the superiority of truth being eternal, universal, part of reality as we know it, and inherently unchanging - you can adopt the Thomist framework and argue that non-truth simply doesn’t exist, same as nonsense, and thus you can regard truth as unchanging and test your knowing of it against reality itself. Furthermore, logic and math are practices - thus if a presuppositionalist contends that you may know that an instance of logic is reliable, but have no way of knowing the whole is reliable - beyond arguing “neither do you in your system”, it can be argued easily that it’s unnecessary for me to know the truth of all things, only that which I am actively testing and depending on and I can prove those things when I need them the same as proving 1+1=2 and relying on it - it’s only through the Calvinist’s system that those details are subject to change.
The problem with this approach is that it requires an honest evaluation of logic from both sides, and by virtue of trying to justify question begging, the Calvinist has initiated with a clear intent not to do so.
The Hypothetical
This is where things start to get fun for the opposition - if a presuppositionalist attempts to refuse your use of logic before evaluating it on the basis of your worldview, then simply present it in a hypothetical where they viewed your worldview as capable of justifying your evaluation of truth sufficient to satisfy them. “Sure, you don’t think I can substantiate my world view, but say if you thought I could, how would you respond”. It’s annoying to have to do, for sure, like trying to get around an LLM’s needless guardrails with a specialized prompt, but perhaps an effective method at moving the conversation forward.
The Temporary Grant
Perhaps a more dangerous move is to tell the Calvinist that during any argument with them, you will hold provisionally in your mind the Trinitarian God to be the true God and assume your truth is rooted in Him (it?), and thus during any conversation with them, your worldview is substantiated. This is equally as juvenile as the other’s move, and is yet untested, but if deployed properly could at the very least provide entertainment.
The Mirroring Question Beg
Here’s where one will certainly cause a stalemate and potentially force the presuppositionalist into their ironic “superior coherence and consistency” argument, exposing their ultimate reliance on fallible evaluation instead of the claimed infallibility, and off of their refusal to participate. It goes like this, and you may choose any arbitrary criteria for determining they are derived from “wrongness”:
Presup: You can’t justify your worldview because you can’t know for sure what is true
You: Your worldview relies on Calvinism, which is false, so you can’t know that that logic is true, because your logic is derived from falsehood.
Presup: You can’t know that, because your worldview isn’t substantiated
You: You can’t know that I can’t know that, because your worldview isn’t substantiated
… Back and forth until subject change …
Final Thoughts
If a Calvinist tries to prove something via presuppositionalism, refuse to grant the premise, point out the circularity, and ask them to demonstrate their assertions and assumptions - especially surrounding infallibility. You’ll see that they abuse logic to the point where they’ve created something beyond logic entirely and are calling it by the same name - which is its own fallacy of equivocation.
The fact is - every human is operating on best effort, there is no other. This is observed by nature of every decision and determination coming down to the individual - including whether or not to accept someone else’s decisions and determinations. There’s no point where we’re not in control of our wills - we may not always be in control of our capacities, but inasmuch as our will has a place to act it is ours alone. This is fundamental to God’s eternal plan for us - to become our own agents. This is why Jesus taught the parable of the talents - not because He was simply beckoning us to use the gifts He gave us, but because He wants us to become self-sufficient in our exercise of will and faith, such that we can be trusted to do good works on our own. This world seems to be constructed exactly to that end.
Nearly every scientific and mathematical philosophy brings major notions of humility to the table regarding knowing or “epistemology” - an admission that modeling and assumptions can seemingly narrow us down to what we hope is the truth, but that ultimately a single, unknown variable could reshape and defeat that hope or assumption of convergence on truth. This concept of best-effort is baked into falsifiability itself - when we falsify something, we falsify the things around what we hope is the truth - it’s because we acknowledge we can’t actually prove or “truthify” anything. Science and math humbly model around what seems true and acknowledge that there are no guarantees - to suggest that those fields are unreliable unless every participant or observer holds a particular pagan metaphysical picture in their head while practicing or observing them defies all reason.
This is also why the framework God has provided of continually calling prophets is so essential to our progress as humanity and individuals - everything we do is best-effort, both by us and by His prophets. That in no way means the tools we have and the prophetic teachings are unreliable, it just means they’re imperfect. A hammer is reliable, even if it’s capable of having flaws - to suggest that hammers can’t be used at all on the basis of not knowing 100% for sure whether it will break on the next stroke defies reason as well as any pragmatism or observation that can be applied to our world as we know it.
A final note
Calvinism and presuppositionalism function in a similar manner to Catholic theology in that they have had so much thought put into them and come up against so much opposition that by now they have an answer to virtually every question and a redirect ready for virtually every rebuttal. That rigor is more often than not a substitute for correctness - or else the most rigorous theology likely would have won out by now.
The reason the rigor isn’t a real indication of correctness is because having an answer is not the same as being correct - and ultimately the answers in any theological system end up on faith or unfalsifiability. You see this with the trinity itself - the terms “person” and “being” are repeated ad nauseam in response to questioning, without acknowledging their equivocation into new, ambiguous terms and their failure to actually resolve the paradox they’re describing.