...also known as the Transcendental Argument for the existence of God (TAG). For those unfamiliar, a brief overview of TAs (Transcendental Arguments) by John Frame can be found here. With respect to TAG in particular, quoting Frame:
Traditional apologists have often argued that causality (for example) implies God. A transcendental argument makes a stronger claim: that causality presupposes God. The difference between “implies” and “presupposes,” according to Peter Strawson and Bas Van Fraasen, is that in the latter case God’s existence is implied either by the assertion or the denial of causality. That is, not only does the existence of causality imply the existence of God, but even to deny (intelligibly, if it were possible) the existence of causality would be to invoke a framework of meaning that presupposes God’s existence. Don Collett argues that the Strawson-Van Fraasen kind of presupposition is identical with Van Til’s. So if creation presupposes God, even the denial of creation presupposes him, and the atheist is like the little girl slapping her father while sitting on his lap.
Transcendental arguments are most at home in application against some form of skepticism (though they have other potential applications as well). Essentially, TAG argues that God is the necessary precondition for certain realities to which even the skeptic must grant legitimacy, such as predication (Van Til), the uniformity of nature or absolute laws of logic (Bahnsen), knowledge (James Anderson), morality (Frame), etc. Doug Jones has even presented an informal TA for buying milk, and I've offered one elsewhere based on arithmetic.
TAG presents analogs to the classical deductive modus ponens and modus tollens argument forms, the analog being found in the differences between implication and presupposition, as such (cf. Don Collett "Van Til and Transcendental Arguments" in Revelation and Reason by K. Scott Oliphint). It is one thing to argue that "P implies Q" and an altogether different thing to argue that "P presupposes Q," though the argument form will appear very similar. This similarity has at times led to confusion on the part of skeptics and critics in responding to the TAG.
And criticism for TAG abounds. For a succinct reiteration of Sean Choi's "Fristianity" criticism of Bahnsen's formulation of TAG in the Bahsen-Stein debate, see Mitch Leblanc's article here. Leblanc also reprises Michael Martin's TANG (Transcendental Argument for the Non-existence of God), which, in my humble opinion, has about as much philosophical value as the corresponding orange-flavored drink has nutritional value (i.e. little-to-none). For further commentary, see the on-going discussions between Leblanc and Chris Bolt of choosinghats.com.
Richard Dawkins' website appears to confuse the presuppositionalists' TAG with Alvin Plantinga's "Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism" (EAAN). This is understandable, given that the EAAN is a kind of TA, and Richard Dawkins is obviously too "busy" to understand the difference between the two positions, given that he's too busy to debate the world's foremost Christian debater, William Lane Craig. (If the comments section of Dawkins' website is any sort of indicator of contemporary atheistic and skeptical thought then we can expect the TAG and EAAN to continue to be thoroughly misunderstood and misrepresented. It's like asking penguins to study quantum mechanics.)
Christian apologist John Warwick Montgomery argues that TAG is only capable of proving a robust monotheism, but that it is insufficient to prove Christian theism in particular. The Fristianity objection mentioned above questions whether or not a hypothetical "Quadrinity" might be equally as sufficient as the Christian Trinity in providing the necessary preconditions for intelligibility. Others have argued that TAG is really a traditional deductive theistic argument, akin to Thomas Aquinas' "Five Ways" or Anselm's Ontological Argument, and subject to similar criticisms (of the kind where presuppositionalists have tended to agree with skeptics).
I see an immense amount of epistemic and apologetic value in the TAG and have gained a great deal of insight from Van Til, Bahnsen, Frame, et al. I also think the prevalent criticisms (such as TANG) are pathetic (though the Fristianity objection may require a slight attenuation of the strong modal TAG claims). However, I see one glaring issue with TAs in general and with the TAG in particular. I'm raising this issue in the hopes of progressing and elevating the intramural discussions amongst presuppositionalists regarding TAG, though I recognize that my point (if sound) may provide some amount of apologetic ammunition to the skeptic. (The fact that the issue I'm about to raise hasn't been brought up by anyone on the skeptical side of the discussion is rather telling regarding the superficiality of interaction there, in my opinion.) If my criticism misses the mark, I'd be very glad for someone to point it out clearly to me. In any event, I hope I can contribute in some small way to the "evolution" of presuppositionalism, even if it might only be as cannon fodder.
That being said, it appears to me that the greatest problem with the TAG is that it claims more than it proves. The TAG argues that the metaphysical existence of the Christian God is the necessary precondition for intelligibility, predication, induction, logic, etc. However, even once TAG is granted as valid, this doesn't establish the necessity of the existence of God; it only establishes the necessity of belief in God in order to be consistently rational, scientific, moral, etc. It is enough to make predication, induction, morality, knowledge, etc. possible if we believe that God exists, or even if it looks for all the world as if God exists, but that doesn't mean God actually exists.
There is an often overlooked gap here between belief and reality. In order to bridge the gap, it is necessary then to argue that to coherently believe in the existence of God we must be able to establish whether or not God exists, establishing a knowledge claim regarding the proposition. But this is just a kind of verificationism, by which something is only intelligible if we are able to confirm or disconfirm it. This makes the TAG (and TAs in general) seem rather weak in arguing against skepticism, since it must rest on a kind of verificationism (which could quite very well stand on its own apart from a TA), making it redundant to assert both a verificationist argument and a transcendental argument.
I can rephrase the criticism as a dilemma: if we dispense with the TA's verificationist assumptions then we fall short of refuting skepticism, but if we accept the necessity of verifying God's existence (which is the point of TAG) then the TA is redundant.
I can see a few potential responses to the criticism, but none of them seem too promising with respect to the Van Tillian "transcendental project" as we've known it. I imagine a similar criticism has been raised at some point somewhere, though I haven't seen it yet. (Though I recognize that David Hoover raises some criticisms which dovetail with my own.)
Maybe I'm missing something? Let me know what you think.
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