Presuppositional Classicism: A Both/And Apologetic
I’ve spent years caught between two camps that don’t much like each other.
On one side, Greg Bahnsen and the presuppositionalists. No neutral ground. The unbeliever borrows from the Christian worldview every time he appeals to logic, morality, or induction. The transcendental argument doesn’t meet the skeptic halfway. It exposes that the “halfway point” was Christian territory all along.
On the other side, R.C. Sproul and the classical apologists. Natural theology. Thomistic proofs. The willingness to meet the unbeliever on shared ground and argue from common premises to theistic conclusions. Sproul thought Van Til and Bahnsen were fideists in disguise, even if they’d bristle at the label.
I’m convinced both are right. And I don’t think that’s a contradiction.
Here’s where I land. Call it presuppositional classicism, if you need a name.
I hold the presuppositionalist conviction: Christian theism alone provides the ultimate ground for intelligibility. Logic, induction, moral realism, the correspondence of mind to world. These aren’t free-floating tools anyone can pick up. They have a source. And that source is Logos.
But I’m also willing to do something Bahnsen’s harder followers sometimes resist. I’ll grant that other frameworks can achieve internal coherence.
Naturalism, rigorously worked out, doesn’t necessarily contradict itself. A committed atheist can construct a system where the pieces fit together, where the definitions are consistent, where the logic holds. I’m not going to pretend otherwise. That’s not where the argument is won or lost.
The argument is won on cost.
Coherence is cheap. Lots of systems cohere. Solipsism coheres. Nihilism coheres. The question isn’t whether your system contradicts itself. The question is what you have to pay to keep it running.
Take naturalism’s terminal move: brute fact.
The universe exists. It has the structure it has. It exhibits the regularities it exhibits. And there’s no further explanation. Not “we haven’t found one yet.” There isn’t one to find. The question “why this rather than something else or nothing at all?” is malformed. Stop asking.
That’s coherent. But look at the invoice.
First, it’s epistemically arbitrary. Science runs on the assumption that phenomena have explanations. The naturalist pursues that assumption all the way down, then exempts the most fundamental question from it. Why? Because otherwise the answer might not be naturalistic. That’s not a discovery. That’s a boundary condition imposed to protect the framework.
Second, it makes rationality itself a brute fact, or an accident of brute facts. Your cognitive faculties are the product of a process selected for survival, not truth. That they track truth is either cosmic luck or yet another brute fact. Either way, you’re trusting an instrument with no warrant for its reliability. Borrowed capital. Borrowed from where?
Third, and this is the one that sticks, it forecloses inquiry. Philosophy begins in wonder. Brute fact is the refusal to wonder past a certain point. It’s coherent the way refusing to open a door is a coherent navigation strategy. You won’t find anything dangerous in the next room. But you won’t find anything else either.
The naturalist hits a wall. The wall isn’t an answer. It’s the absence of one.
The Christian alternative isn’t “we have all the answers.” It’s that the question remains open because reality is the kind of thing that has an answer.
And here’s the asymmetry that matters: we have a font that doesn’t run dry.
Ontology. Existence is intelligible because it flows from a source that is intelligibility itself. Creation reflects mind. It isn’t arbitrary.
Epistemology. Your faculties track truth not by accident but by design. The correspondence between mind and world is a feature, not a cosmic fluke. You can trust reason because reason is grounded in Reason.
Teleology. Things have purposes. Real ends, not projections. The universe isn’t just moving. It’s going somewhere. Inquiry is an adventure, not a cataloging of accidents.
Mereology. Parts and wholes relate in structured ways because structure is fundamental. The universe holds together because it’s spoken into coherence. Logos again.
The naturalist can mimic some of this. Emergent properties. Useful fictions. Pragmatic justifications. But those are IOUs, promissory notes against an account that never gets funded. The Christian framework isn’t issuing IOUs. It’s writing checks against an infinite account.
And here’s what seals it: these resources extend beyond the physical.
Naturalism is a closed system by definition. Whatever exists is physical, or supervenes on the physical, or reduces to it. Consciousness, meaning, value, purpose. All of it gets squeezed into matter-in-motion or shown the door.
But the Christian framework isn’t bounded that way. The physical is real, but it’s not the basement. Moral realism has a ground. Abstract objects have a home. Consciousness isn’t an anomaly to be explained away. Mind precedes matter. The personal is fundamental.
The physical world, on this view, isn’t all there is. It’s a surface. And the deeper reality isn’t less real. It’s more real. The physical participates in it.
So what’s the apologetic posture that emerges from all this?
It helps to distinguish method from destination. Classical arguments function as guided tours, not foundations. They don’t replace the transcendental argument; they prepare the ground for seeing why it’s necessary. You walk someone through the cosmological argument, the moral argument, the argument from reason, not because these are the final word, but because they surface the questions that lead to the final word. Where does contingency bottom out? What grounds moral obligation? Why trust the faculties making the argument? Classical method. Presuppositional destination.
Hospitality with a purpose.
I’m not refusing to enter the naturalist’s house. I’ll walk through it. I’ll note what holds together, admire the internal consistency where it exists, take the framework seriously on its own terms.
And then I’ll ask about the foundation.
Not “your system contradicts itself.” That’s too easy, and it’s often not true. The question is deeper: what does your system rest on? Where does the ground come from? And what does it cost you to stop asking?
The presuppositionalist in me knows where inquiry leads. The classicist in me is willing to walk there with you.
That’s presuppositional classicism. Both/and, not either/or. The transcendental edge. The classical patience.
This may seem strange to some, but I’ve embraced the oddity.
Come in. Let’s look at your foundations together.