Presuppositionalism and Calvinism: the Biblical Answers to the Fundamental Problem of Epistemology

Discussion forum post by Colin Cutler from Principles of Biblical Reasoning, fall 2007:

"I cannot forgive Descartes. In his whole philosophy he would like to do without God. But he cannot help allowing him with a flick of the fingers to set the world in motion. After that he has no more use for God." ~Blaise Pascal

I read the first few of Descartes' "Meditations on First Philosophy" my junior year of high school. Sometime in the following year, I also read Francis Schaeffer's "How Should We Then Live?", and I was surprised by his criticism of Descartes' philosophy. After all, Descartes set out to prove the existence of God; what problem could an evangelical such as Schaeffer have with that? I came to realize later, though (especially in the last year or so), that Schaeffer's problem was not so much with the substance of Descartes' philosophy as with the methodology. Descartes strips all belief away, coming to rest on what he saw as the sole irrefutable first principle: "I think, therefore I am."

However, even in this, Descartes assumed that a person must be doing the thinking and that he was that person; many would later come to question this principle as well. As it turns out, starting from empirical evidence, there is no way to know. Materialistic philosophy and empirical scientism is necessarily arbitrary. Philosophers--and especially scientists--posit that we are in a closed deterministic system, because for it not to be so would defy natural law. Note the self-evident circular argument: all things must work according to natural law, or they would not work according to natural law. However, they have no way of knowing that there IS natural law or that what they have observed to be normal is actually prescriptively normative; for all they know, it could be random chance that these facts coincide (and, in fact, most materialist do believe random chance coexists with natural law). The problem is, though, that if there is random chance, then simply one counterexample could disprove their entire theory of natural law as prescriptive, and that one counterexample could possibly exist. If it can possibly exist, then natural law is not prescriptive.

For example, we may observe nerve synapses firing, but--the question of whether we really observe them or not aside--we only associate these with thought because, in all observed circumstances, thought occurs when nerve synapses fire. That we have observed this in all past cases does not necessarily mean that the firing of nerve synapses causes thought. It makes it very likely, but if there is any possibility of variation, it would follow that the firing of nerve synapses is not the absolute cause of thought. (if you can't tell, I put little stock in statistics)

The problem is in attempting to argue from particulars to universals, then back again. Biologists classify observed animals by observed similarities: e.g., all insects have six legs. More properly put, though, all animals with exoskeletons and six legs are classified as insects. Scientists observe all animals with exoskeletons and six legs, and then arbitrarily class them together. There is nothing inherently wrong in this, as a means of referential classification, but they must remember that the proposition "all insects have six legs" is only true by their own stipulated definition as to what an insect is. If the universal "insect" only has definition in reference to the particulars which it comprises (grasshoppers, ants, cicadas), then any further particulars that are thrust into that universal are thus classified, not because of any relation they have to the universal, but the relation they have to the other particulars.

It is in this way that postmodernists rightly critique modernists for their dogmatism: the modernist has no right to be dogmatic when all he is doing is imposing subjective categories upon facts that may or may not be ultimately categorized. Postmodernists rightly critique all philosophies based upon human autonomy as necessarily subjective.

The error of the postmodernists, though, is in then positing that there is no objective truth. That our subjective systems are not objective does not mean that there is no true object of knowledge, but rather that our systems probably do not coincide with it. They are also correct to say that we cannot know what objective truth is, starting from ourselves. Any attempt to categorize is, as they constantly point out, arbitrary.

There is, however, at least one option that would explain and give an adequate foundation for knowledge: a combination of external and internal interpretive revelation by a Person who is non-creation, yet involved in creation. It cannot be solely external revelation (as with the Deists), for that assumes (wrongly) that our senses are adequate to accurately read the world around us AND that our categorization of "brute facts" is correct." This is strict particularism. Nor can it be solely internal revelation (certain forms of mysticism), for then our knowledge has no correlation with observation, the nature of external being in our view is compromised, and there is no higher common standard by which we can appeal to others. Nor can it even be a definite external revelation with an indefinite internal revelation (such as the "suasive grace" of Wesleyans, Arminians, Romanists, etc.), for then we still have no KNOWLEDGE that our belief correlates to truth, only a persuasion that it does so. Nor can the Person be a part of, or the whole of, creation (as with the pantheists), for then it speaks with no authority as a universal cause of being, and there is no allowance or meaning for particulars; this is strict universalism (in the metaphysical sense, not the soteriological). Strict particularism has facts with no meaning, thus no way to interpret the brute facts; strict universalism has meaning, but no distinct facts to mean anything.

For us to have knowledge, we must have a definite external revelation to which our knowledge must correlate, and definite internal revelation that the external revelation is true. We have the former in the Bible, which purports to be the very words of God, and through which He tells us what the world is, what the meaning of it and its events are, how it came to be, and where it is going. Through it, He tells us who we are, and how we ought to live and why. The latter we have in the witness of the Holy Spirit, by the grace of regeneration and the gift of faith (what is popularly known as "irresistible grace," but more properly as "efficient grace"), which He sovereignly grants to those whom the Father has loved since before the beginning of time.

"For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God....the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory....But God has revealed them to us through His spirit....Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God." (1 Cor. 1:21-24, 2:7, 8, 10, 12)