Transcendental argument for the existence of God
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The Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God (TAG) is the
argument An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialectic ...
that attempts to prove the
existence of God The existence of God (or more generally, the existence of deities) is a subject of debate in theology, philosophy of religion and popular culture. A wide variety of arguments for and against the existence of God or deities can be categorized ...
by arguing that
logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...
,
morals Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of cond ...
, and
science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
ultimately
presuppose In the branch of linguistics known as pragmatics, a presupposition (or PSP) is an implicit assumption about the world or background belief relating to an utterance whose truth is taken for granted in discourse. Examples of presuppositions includ ...
a supreme being and that
God In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...
must therefore be the source of logic and morals. A version was formulated by
Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
in his 1763 work '' The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God'', and most contemporary formulations of the transcendental argument have been developed within the
framework A framework is a generic term commonly referring to an essential supporting structure which other things are built on top of. Framework may refer to: Computing * Application framework, used to implement the structure of an application for an op ...
of
Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
presuppositional apologetics Presuppositionalism is an epistemological school of Christian apologetics that examines the presuppositions on which worldviews are based, and invites comparison and contrast between the results of those presuppositions. It claims that apart from ...
.


Transcendental reasoning

Transcendental arguments A transcendental argument is a deductive philosophical argument which takes a manifest feature of experience as granted, and articulates what must be the case so that such experiences are possible.Transcendental-arguments and Scepticism; Answering t ...
should not be confused with arguments for the existence of something transcendent. In other words, they are distinct from both arguments that appeal to a transcendent
intuition Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning. Different fields use the word "intuition" in very different ways, including but not limited to: direct access to unconscious knowledge; unconscious cognition; ...
or
sense A sense is a biological system used by an organism for sensation, the process of gathering information about the world through the detection of Stimulus (physiology), stimuli. (For example, in the human body, the brain which is part of the cen ...
as evidence, and classical apologetics arguments that move from direct evidence to the existence of a transcendent thing. They are also sometimes said to be distinct from standard
deductive Deductive reasoning is the mental process of drawing deductive inferences. An inference is deductively valid if its conclusion follows logically from its premises, i.e. if it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be false ...
and inductive forms of
reason Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, ...
ing, although this has been disputed, for instance by Anthony Genova and Graham Bird.


Ash'ari

Medieval
Ash'ari Ashʿarī theology or Ashʿarism (; ar, الأشعرية: ) is one of the main Sunnī schools of Islamic theology, founded by the Muslim scholar, Shāfiʿī jurist, reformer, and scholastic theologian Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī in the ...
Islamic theologians formulated a type of transcendental argument based on the notion that morality, logic, etc. cannot be fully understood apart from revelation and thereby, belief in the
Quran The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Classical Arabic, Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation in Islam, revelation from God in Islam, ...
and the Islamic truth claims were necessary in order to interpret the external world. For al-Ashari and others, it does not make sense to argue against religion using a priori assumptions about morality or scientific probabilities when these can only be understood in light of divine revelation.


The argument

The TAG is a transcendental argument that attempts to prove that God is the precondition for logic, reason, or morality. The argument proceeds as follows: # God is a necessary precondition for logic and morality (because these are immaterial, yet real universals). # People depend upon logic and morality, showing that they depend upon the universal, immaterial, and abstract realities which could not exist in a materialist universe but presupposes (presumes) the existence of an immaterial and absolute God. # Therefore, God exists. If He didn't, we could not rely upon logic, reason, morality, and other absolute universals (which are required and assumed to live in this universe, let alone to debate), and could not exist in a materialist universe where there are no absolute standards or an absolute Lawgiver.
Cornelius Van Til Cornelius Van Til (May 3, 1895 – April 17, 1987) was a Dutch-American reformed philosopher and theologian, who is credited as being the originator of modern presuppositional apologetics. A graduate of Calvin College, Van Til later received ...
likewise wrote: Therefore, the TAG differs from
thomistic Thomism is the philosophical and theological school that arose as a legacy of the work and thought of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), the Dominican philosopher, theologian, and Doctor of the Church. In philosophy, Aquinas' disputed questions ...
and
evidentialist Evidentialism is a thesis in epistemology which states that one is justified to believe something if and only if that person has evidence which supports said belief. Evidentialism is, therefore, a thesis about which beliefs are justified and which ...
arguments, which posit the existence of God in order to avoid an infinite regress of causes or motions.


Reception

Some reject the validity of the argument pointing out various flaws, such as a category error involved in the first premise of the argument, namely that just because there is a statement that is universally true it will not make that statement a part of reality in itself. Another issue pointed out is that it is not needed to have a god to have logic or morality. In particular the existence of multiple logic systems with differing axioms such as
non-classical logic Non-classical logics (and sometimes alternative logics) are formal systems that differ in a significant way from standard logical systems such as propositional and predicate logic. There are several ways in which this is done, including by way of ...
as well as multiple radically different moral systems constitutes evidence against the idea that logic and morality are actually universals. Furthermore, the existence of theorems like
Gödel's completeness theorem Gödel's completeness theorem is a fundamental theorem in mathematical logic that establishes a correspondence between semantic truth and syntactic provability in first-order logic. The completeness theorem applies to any first-order theory: I ...
and the soundness theorems for classical logic provide justification for some logic systems like
classical propositional logic Propositional calculus is a branch of logic. It is also called propositional logic, statement logic, sentential calculus, sentential logic, or sometimes zeroth-order logic. It deals with propositions (which can be true or false) and relations ...
without using any god hypotheses thus contradicting the first premise of the argument. It is worth noting however that Gödel also produced a classical propositional proof of god in
Gödel's ontological proof Gödel's ontological proof is a formal argument by the mathematician Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) for the existence of God. The argument is in a line of development that goes back to Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109). St. Anselm's ontological argum ...
.


See also

*
Christian apologetics Christian apologetics ( grc, ἀπολογία, "verbal defense, speech in defense") is a branch of Christian theology that defends Christianity. Christian apologetics has taken many forms over the centuries, starting with Paul the Apostle in ...
*
Argument from morality The argument from morality is an argument for the existence of God. Arguments from morality tend to be based on moral normativity or moral order. Arguments from moral normativity observe some aspect of morality and argue that God is the best o ...
(some forms of which are TAGs)


References

;Notes *E. R. Geehan, ed., ''Jerusalem and Athens: Critical Discussions on the Philosophy and Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til'' (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1980). *Greg L. Bahnsen, ''Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis'' (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1998). *John M. Frame, ''Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought'' (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1995). *Steven M. Schlissel, ed., ''The Standard Bearer: A Festschrift for Greg L. Bahnsen'' (Nacogdoches: Covenant Media Press, 2002). *Greg L. Bahnsen, ''Always Ready: Directions for Defending the Faith". Robert R. Booth, ed. (Nacogdoches: Covenant Media Press, 1996). *John M. Frame, ''Apologetics to the Glory of God: An Introduction'' (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1994). *John M. Frame, ''The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God'' (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1987).


External links


Articles


Responses to Atheist Philosopher, Michael Martin
An appraisal of Postmodernism, specifically Deconstruction, in light of Van Til by Jacob Gabriel Hale.
The Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God
by Matt Slick.


Debates


"The Great Debate: Does God Exist?"
Audio (listen/download format) of a formal debate between Christian Greg Bahnsen and skeptic Gordon Stein from the
University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and pr ...
.
The Martin-Frame Debate
A written debate between skeptic Michael Martin and Christian John Frame about the transcendental argument for the existence of God.
The Drange-Wilson Debate
A written debate between skeptic Theodore Drange and Christian Douglas Wilson.
"Is Non-Christian Thought Futile?"
A written debate between Christian Doug Jones and skeptics Keith Parsons and Michael Martin in ''Antithesis'' magazine (vol. 2, no. 4). {{DEFAULTSORT:Transcendental Argument For The Existence Of God Christian philosophy Arguments for the existence of God