In chapter four, Apologetics as Proof: Transcendental Argument, Frame states that the transcendental argument for God’s existence (hereafter TAG), a form of argumentation that has become something of the bread and butter of presuppositionalists. Cornelius Van Til sometimes referred this view as transcendental and sometimes presuppostional.
Background
The term transcendental became a major philosophical concept first in the writings of the highly influential thinker Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Van Til answered the question “What are the conditions required for an intelligible universe?”: the condition of universal intelligibility is the biblical God.
Frame calls a viciously circular argument: presupposing God in our epistemology and then using that epistemology to prove his existence. Van Til answered the charge of circularity by claiming that the Christian circle is the only kind that renders reality intelligible on its own. Van Til believed that we should not use arguments that prove God is, for example, merely a first cause or an intelligent designer or a moral legislator. Scripture presupposes that God is the source of all reality, hence all truth, all knowledge, and rationality, all meaning, all actuality, and all possibility.
Here are the more specific claims of TAG or the Transcendental Argument for God’s existence.
Logic Demands the Existence of God
God is logically necessary in the sense that without him, the use of logic would be impossible. The point, is rather, is that God existence is necessary to the very existence of logic, for God is the very source of logical truth. So there is no logically possible world in which god does not exist.
Ethics Demands the Existence of God
The question of morality is like that of logic Morality is first based in God’s nature, not on his arbitrary fiat, nor on some principle independent of him. God could not will that cruelty is good, for cruelty is not good; it is incompatible with God’s own nature. An atheist or agnostic is not able to give an adequate reason for believing in absolute principles.
Science Demands the Existence of God
God has ordained a basic uniformity to nature. God is free to work either through or outside of these natural laws. These unusual occurrences we normally call miracles.
Questions
1. Frame questions if TAG can function without the help of subsidiary arguments of a more traditional kind. If Aquinas argued correctly in showing that God is the first cause of everything, then God is the transcendental condition of everything: of meaning, coherent thought, and predication, as well as motion, etc. On that understanding, Aquinas’s argument, like Van Til’s, is transcendental and presuppostional.
2. Frame states that he does not agree that the traditional arguments necessarily conclude with something less than the biblical God. The teleological argument argues that God is the designer not merely a designer.
3. Frame believes that the traditional arguments often persuade as in the causal argument which presupposes a Christian worldview.
4. Frame questions Van Til’s slogan “Christian theism is a unit” because one single argument can prove Christian theism.
5. Frame advocates that TAG requires supplementation by other arguments.
6. Frame again argues that no single argument will prove the entire biblical doctrine of God.
TAG and the Trinity
Frame notes that some apologists claim that the presuppositional approach is merely theistic, as opposed to distinctly Christian. John Warwick Montgomery originally made this argument in the article “Once upon a A Priori.”
Frame refutes this view stating that the epistemological argument reduces to the ethical, and the ethical argument shows that here must be an absolute person. Person here includes interpersonal attributes, such as love. So, the God presupposed by ethics, epistemology, and logic must be multipersonal.
Negative and Positive Arguments
Van Til insisted that transcendental arguments are authentic only if presented negatively rather than positively. A negative or “indirect” argument is sometimes called a reduction ad absurdum. For example: “God doesn’t exist; therefore, causality (cause and effect) is meaningless.” Since we are unwilling to accept the conclusion, we must negate the premise and say the God does exist. Frame argues that TAG can be positively just as effectively: “Causality, therefore God” or “Without God, no causality, therefore God.”
Absolute Certainty and Probability
Van Til thought that “absolutely certain argument” for Christian theism was possible. Frame argues that God wants us to be certain of the truth of Christ (Luke 1:4) and of our salvation (1 John 5:13). This is certainty of a person.
There is also certainty of evidence. General revelation is so plain and clear that it obligates belief and obedience—leaving us without excuse (Romans 1:19-20). John speaks of Jesus’ miracles (“sign”) as warranting belief (John20:30f.), and Luke speaks of the “convincing proofs” (Acts 1:3) that Jesus presented to the disciples after the resurrection. The evidence for Christian theism, therefore, is “absolutely certain.”
But Frame does not agree that certainty can apply to argument. In a subjective sense, there is no certain arguments. No single argument is guaranteed to create certainty in all its hearers. Insofar as his arguments communicates truly the evidence that God has revealed in nature and Scripture, it may be said to convey the certainty of that evidence. But insofar as the argument obscures, misconstrues, or distorts the evidence, insofar as it fails to present that evidence as it is, it lacks authority and therefore may not boast absolute certainty.
Is there any room for arguments that claim only a probability of being true? Van Til thought that if we claim anything less than absolute certainty, we are “virtually admitting that God’s revelation to man is not clear.”
Frame believes one might describe as “probable” those arguments that, because of their inadequate or incomplete presentation of the evidence, fail to be absolutely certain. The inadequacy might be due to sin or to a lack of understanding.
Van Til noted that an ideal argument maybe imperfectly presented: “We should not tone down the validity of this argument to the probability level. The argument may be poorly stated, and may never be adequately stated. But in itself the argument is absolutely sound” (Defense of the Fatih, 255). Are we certain that Christ is God? Yes! But if the preacher poorly or inadequately preaches a sermon on the deity of Christ, does that make the truth any less certain? No!
Frame repeats four times and concludes this section saying, “Insofar as the argument conveys the evidence truly, it is also conveys the absolute certainty inherent in the evidence