Critiquing Presup: What the Presuppositionalist is NOT Saying…

Critics of presuppositional thought (especially those who espouse atheism or agnosticism) frequently seem to get confused as to what the presuppositionalist is arguing for, or they are not confused but they intend to set up a strawman in order to attack that which threatens their version of reality. Here is an example of what the presuppositionalist is NOT saying…

“One must believe that God exists in order to be moral.”

This is a complete misunderstanding of presuppositionalism. Presuppositionalism is not promoting the notion that in order for one to be moral, one must believe in God. Nothing could be further from the truth. Atheists and agnostics can certainly exhibit morally upstanding behavior. Why? Because atheists and agnostics are image bearers of God, and as such, they know right from wrong. Therefore, their denial of the existence of God has no bearing on their ability to exhibit morally upstanding behavior (only their desire to do so or not to do so does).

What the presuppositionalist IS saying is that without God, morality does not exist.

Therefore, it is not possible to be moral if God does not exist. Why? Because, God is the prerequisite of the existence of morality. That’s the point of presuppositionalism, it presumes the existence of God, who is the arbiter of morality. In other words, according to presuppositionalism, if God does not exist, then morality does not exist; which then makes it impossible for the unbeliever to live philosophically consistent when they proudly say that they exhibit morally upstanding behavior (even though they say that God does not exist).

Regardless if one agrees with presuppositionalism or not, I’m just asking that the critic of it critiques what it actually is, rather than critique a misrepresentation of it.

If you are an advocate of presuppositional thought, and you have experience in debating those who oppose it, then it is pretty safe to assume that you have gotten some wrong accusations thrown back at you from the presuppositional critic. Hopefully, this will shed some light on the nonsense that we must sometimes endure regarding this subject…

Colossians 2:8-10 (HCSB) 
“Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elemental forces of the world, and not based on Christ. For the entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily in Christ, and you have been filled by Him, who is the head over every ruler and authority.”

Godspeed, to the brethren!

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