The Failure of Van Tillian Presuppositional Apologetics

Guest Essay Written by Cat_Lord:

1. Introduction

Throughout the course of Christian history, there have been many and various attempts to argue for the truth of Christianity. In this post, I will discuss one popular form of apologetic argumentation named presuppositionalism. The main points I want to write about are what this apologetic is as it relates to Cornelius Van Til, its relationship to what are called “transcendental  arguments” in the philosophical literature,  give examples of how presuppositionalists often proceed with their argumentation, and finally point out some problems with this apologetic.

 2. Presuppositions? Presuppose? Presuppositional(ism)? Whaaaaaa… ?

Not surprisingly, there are different ideas about presuppositional apologetics amongst Christian apologists. Even the words “presupposition” and “presuppose” are not used in a uniform fashion. Francis Schaeffer, for example, had a different kind of presuppositionalism to his teacher, Cornelius Van Til.  

In terms of sources, I will be leaning into some of what “the father of presuppositionalism,” Dr. Cornelius Van Til wrote, coupled with interpretative help from two of his former students: the late Dr. Greg L. Bahnsen and Professor Emeritus Dr. John Frame.

2.1. A Quick Note About Terminology

In this article, when I use the term “presuppositionalism,” I mean such of the Van Tillian type, not the Schaefferian kind (or any others, for that matter). Another interchangeable synonym I use for “Van Tillian presuppositionalism” will include “TAG” (Transcendental argument for the existence of God).

3. So then, just what is presuppositional apologetics?

3.1. I would like to define two senses of the word “presupposition” which are relevant to this discussion.

3.1.1. For Bahnsen, one sense of the word “presupposition” could mean a basic assumption about the world as well as an ultimate starting point. This can be demonstrated by quoting from his book, Always Ready (hereafter “AR”).

• Basic assumption:  “The two systems, that of the non-Christian and that of the Christian, differ because of the fact that their basic assumptions, or presuppositions differ.” (AR ch. 3)

• Ultimate Starting point: “Eventually all argumentation terminates in some logically primitive starting point, a view or premise held as unquestionable. Apologetics traces back to such ultimate starting points or presuppositions.” (AR ch. 17)

3.1.2. The other sense of the word “presupposition,” which is pertinent to this discussion, could be construed as transcendental. This is talked about by John Frame in his book Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis Of His Thought (hereafter “CVT”). In ch. 10 Frame tells us that  “there is the phrase ‘reasoning by presupposition,’ which for Van Til designates the ‘transcendental argument’ for Christian theism.”

By transcendental here, Van Til means presuppositions that are necessary to make sense of our experience. More on transcendental arguments in section 4 below.

3.1.3. To summarise, “presuppositions” could mean (a) basic beliefs in our worldview or ultimate starting points, but could also be used in this sense that they are (b) “transcendental” or necessary for our experience to make sense.

3.2. Worldviews

What does Bahnsen mean by worldview? In AR ch. 16 Bahnsen writes that “A worldview is a network of related presuppositions in terms of which every aspect of man’s knowledge and awareness is interpreted.”

What is presuppositional apologetics then? Presuppositionalists argue that for any aspect of our experience to make sense at all one has to presuppose the truth of Christianity.

In Van Til’s Apologetic (hereafter “VTA”)  ch. 3, Bahnsen writes that “Van Til proposed that the Christian worldview ‘alone’ provides an outlook wherein ‘human experience in all of its aspects has meaning.’ The alternative views reduce to absurdity because they render reason, science, ethics, etc., nonsensical or incoherent.”

In The Protestant Doctrine Of Scripture ch. 5 Van Til claims that “… the procedure of science and the procedure of philosophy cannot be shown to be intelligible unless they are carried on the presupposition of the God who speaks to man in Scripture.”

3.3. To provide an overall summary of section 3: presuppositionalists claim that everyone has a worldview – a network of presuppositions by which we interpret the world – but that only Christianity can make our experience intelligible.

A bold claim! So then, how do they actually argue for that? This will be looked at in section 6. First, let’s look at what a “transcendental argument” is.

4. “Transcendental”? What is that, some kind of weird experience?

4.1. I’ll  let two philosophers define what a transcendental argument is.

4.1.1. Robert Stern states that:

… transcendental arguments are taken to be distinctive in involving a certain sort of claim, namely that X is a necessary condition for the possibility of Y… the Y in question is then normally taken to be some fact about us or our mental life which the skeptic can be expected to accept without question (e.g., that we have experiences, or make certain judgements, or perform certain actions, or have certain capacities, and so on), where X is then something the skeptic doubts or denies (e.g., the existence of the external world, or of the necessary causal relation between events, or of other minds, or the force of moral reasons). (“Transcendental Arguments” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

4.1.2. Julian Baggini mentions a two step procedure to transcendental arguments:

1. Whatever the sceptic says, it is given that we have certain experiences or, anyway, some given.

2. Given the given, we must then ask what must be the case in order for the given to be possible.

This is the simple essence of any transcendental argument: it starts with what is given and then reasons from this to what must be true in order to make the given possible. (The Philosopher’s Toolkit (hereafter “TPT”) ch. 5)

4.2. Example of a transcendental argument in action

It may be helpful to have an example. Baggini gives us one:

John Searle has offered what he views as a transcendental argument for external realism – the view that there is a real world that exists independently of our experiences in the same way our experience and thinking shows it to be. (TPT ch. 5)

I’m sure we’ve all wondered about the status of the external world. How then does Searle reason using a transcendental argument? Baggini continues:

His argument works by taking as its given the fact that ordinary discourse is meaningful. If, for example, we agree to meet at a certain place and time, that is meaningful. Searle’s argument is that, since this is meaningful, and it is only meaningful if external realism is true, external realism is therefore true. (TPT ch. 5)

Baggini notes that Searle’s argument stems from Wittgenstein, explaining that “Searle’s argument derives from Wittgenstein’s famous private language argument, which holds that language can only be meaningful if we live in a shared, public world – since language is meaningful, we do live in such a world.”

As to the current status of transcendental arguments, Baggini ends his paragraph by telling us that “Transcendental arguments, then, are very much alive and well and still a useful part of the repertoire of argumentative techniques.”

5. How does Van Tillian presuppositionalism relate to transcendental arguments?

For the Van Tillian presuppositionalist, the Christian worldview is the transcendental, the necessary presupposition for the possibility of any experience. They take any given experience, and then attempt to argue that Christianity must be true (presupposed) in order to make that given experience possible.

In other words, Van Tillian presuppositionalism is an attempt to use transcendental argumentation to prove that Christianity is true.

In A Survery of Christian Epistemology ch. 1, Van Til notes that “A truly transcendental argument takes any fact of experience which it wishes to investigate, and tries to determine what the presuppositions of such a fact must be, in order to make it what it is.”

Van Til explicitly links that to belief in God. He continues in the same chapter:

It is the firm conviction of every epistemologically self-conscious Christian that no human being can utter a single syllable, whether in negation or affirmation, unless it were for God’s existence. Thus the transcendental argument seeks to discover what sort of foundations the house of human knowledge must have, in order to be what it is.

Van Til doesn’t think the debate between Christians and non-Christians can be settled by appealing to “facts” or “laws.” Rather, in The Defense of the Faith ch. 6 (hereafter “DOF”), Van Til claims:

The question is rather as to what is the final reference-point required to make the "facts" and "laws" intelligible. The question is as to what the "facts" and "laws" really are. Are they what the non-Christian methodology assumes that they are? Are they what the Christian theistic methodology presupposes they are?

For Van Til, what makes these facts and laws intelligible? He argues that all the:

theistic proofs… reduce to one proof, the proof which argues that unless this God, the God of the Bible, the ultimate being, the Creator, the controller of the universe, be presupposed as the foundation of human experience, this experience operates in a void. This one proof is absolutely convincing. (Common Grace and the Gospel ch. 6)

To summarise this section: the Van Tillian flavour of the presuppositional argument is an attempt to use a kind of transcendental argumentation in order to prove that the God of the Bible is the necessary precondition (or presupposition) for the possibility of any experience whatsoever.

In the next section I will discuss how they try and go about this.

6. How do Van Tillian presuppositionalists argue?

6.1. Their argumentation strategy can be simplified thus:

6.1.1. The Christian apologist should assume the truth, for the sake of argument, of the non-Christian worldview your opponent is presenting, in order to reduce it to absurdity. Show that logic, science, morality or any experience is nonsense, if their worldview is true.

6.1.2. Then, invite the non-Christian to “step inside” the Christian worldview to show that logic, science, morality - indeed any type of legitimate experience - makes sense within the Christian worldview.

6.1.3. The presuppositionalist then argues that, given the above, the non-Christian is actually presupposing the truth of Christianity, even while arguing against it. For only Christianity can account for the possibility of logic, science and morality. In other words, “atheism presupposes theism.”

This is confirmed by Van Til, where he explains the above presuppositional methodology:

The Christian apologist must place himself upon the position of his opponent, assuming the correctness of his method merely for argument’s sake, in order to show him that on such a position the “facts” are not facts and the “laws” are not laws. He must also ask the non-Christian to place himself upon the Christian position for argument’s sake in order that he may be shown that only upon such a basis do “facts” and “laws” appear intelligible. (DOF ch. 6)

6.2. Example debates

If you like watching debates, you can go to YouTube and type in the search bar:

6.2.1. Gordon Stein vs Greg Bahnsen.

In this debate, Bahnsen attempts to argue that logic presupposes the Trinitarian God in the transcendental sense. That is, Bahnsen claims that Stein the atheist attempts to use logic against Bahnsen the Christian, and yet in order to do so, has to presuppose the truth of Christianity in order for his objection to even make sense. It’s an attempted transcendental argument on Bahnsen’s part. (The transcript to the Stein-Bahnsen debate is here).

6.2.2. Edward Tabash vs Greg Bahnsen.

Here Bahnsen argues that attempts to use science against Christianity fail because, you guessed it, science would only make sense if Christianity were presupposed to be true. For it is only Christianity that makes sense of the possibility of science in the first place. Transcendental argument strikes again! (The transcript to the Tabash-Bahnsen debate is here).

A couple of 90s debates from the Internet Infidels:

6.2.3. The Martin-Frame Debate The Transcendental Argument for the Nonexistence of God (1996)

6.2.4. Butler’s Defense of TAG and Critique of TANG – Michael Martin (1996)

7. Issues With TAG / Van Tillian Presuppositionalism

I would like to outline some of the issues, as I see them, with this style of argumentation. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list. Note that there is often overlap between the issues below.

7.1.  Christian Theism as a Unit (CTU)

7.1.1. Van Til, Bahnsen and the scope of what they’re trying to prove

Van Til and Bahnsen argue that Christianity is a package deal, a complete worldview, or even a “unit” that one must presuppose for our experience to be intelligible.

Bahnsen claims that:

In apologetics we must become accustomed to thinking in terms of “package deals.” The unbeliever has a certain view of reality, man, etc., and his theory of knowledge and method of reasoning not only are used to support that particular view, but also are determined by it; it is a package deal. (VTA ch. 3)

This idea of “Christian Theism as a unit” comes from Van Til himself (DOF ch. 6), where he asserts:

For better or for worse the Protestant apologist is committed to the doctrine of Scripture as the infallibly inspired final revelation of God to man. This being the case, he is committed to the defense of Christian theism as a unit. For him theism is not really theism unless it is Christian theism. The Protestant apologist cannot be concerned to prove the existence of any other God than the one who has spoken to man authoritatively and finally through Scripture. (bolding mine)

7.1.2. Problems with the scope of their claim(s)

It is claimed that our experience presupposes the entirety of the Christian worldview? Really? One argument proves the whole of their informed-by-Reformed-Theology-interpretation-of-the-Bible worldview? That certainly seems like overreach.

For example, I can understand Searle’s transcendental argument (4.2. above) that because “ordinary discourse is meaningful ” and that “since this is meaningful, and it is only meaningful if external realism is true, external realism is therefore true.” Here “external realism” is the necessary presupposition for the intelligibility of meaningful discourse.

Whether you agree with Searle’s argument or not, there is a kind of understandable sense to it. Right?

Not so with Van Til or Bahnsen. Imagine arguing that because “ordinary discourse is meaningful” that “Jesus rose from the dead, performed miracles, is a member of a mysterious Trinity, Abraham lived in Ur, ‘Their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open’—Hosea 13:16, and so on” is the necessary presupposition for the intelligibility of meaningful discourse.

Whether you agree with Van Til/Bahnsen’s argument or not, there is NO kind of understandable sense to it. Right? Surely they require more independent argumentation for each and every claim they make for Christianity.

7.1.3. John Frame chimes in

Interestingly, John Frame - a former student of Van Til - sees the above as a problem, too. Frame agrees that “Proving Van Til’s conclusion… is a pretty tall order. It requires a highly complex argument to show that all the elements of biblical theism are presupposed in intelligible communication.” (CVT ch. 23)

Frame rightly states that a Muslim would not be convinced by this line of reasoning:

A Muslim, for example, might well agree with Van Til that the source of universal intelligibility must be personal, but would disagree with Van Til’s view that that source must be Trinitarian. Therefore, a Van Tillian apologist would have to go into some detail in showing that intelligibility requires an equal ultimacy of one and many, and that such equal ultimacy in turn presupposes the ontological Trinity. (CVT ch. 23)

What about a romanticist theist? That is, as Frame further comments, one:

who agrees that intelligibility presupposes a God of love, but disagrees with the necessity of presupposing a God of justice. At that point, the Van Tillian apologist would have to show that the attribute of divine justice is necessary if the world is to be intelligible. (CVT ch. 23)

The Van Tillian argument is far too simplistic, its scope too far-reaching. Frame thinks so, too. He points out:

Van Til phrases his conclusion in a way that makes it look far simpler than it is. One gets the impression that all the arduous labors of past apologists, proving this or that, can now be bypassed. Now, it seems, we only have to prove one thing, that universal intelligibility presupposes God. But that one thing is so complex that it, in turn, presupposes all the other things. (CVT ch. 23)

Indeed. Where is the actual argumentation for this? Not just the actual assertion, but premises to conclusion argumentation. HINT: nothing

7.2. What exactly are we supposedly presupposing for Christianity to be the transcendental, the presupposition of the possibility of intelligibility of any experience?

So far as I know, this has never been successfully argued nor satisfactorily answered. And when there is an attempted answer, no two Christian presuppositionalists can seem to agree on what the conclusion of the transcendental argument is supposed to be.

Do we only need to presuppose the Old Testament, for example? What if we replaced Leviticus with Playboy magazine? How is it that some putative historical claim, like “Abraham lived in Ur,” a necessary presupposition? For the Reformed presuppositional apologists, which doctrines are supposed to be the presuppositions of intelligibility? A few, some, most, all?

Another way of putting it is that there are so many different kinds of Christianities out there, and no proponent of TAG has ever really demonstrated why their version of Xianity should be the version that is to be presupposed.

Challenge to the presuppositionalist: as Van Til would say, let’s “for the sake of argument,” assume that (66-book Bible Protestant) Christianity is true. I ask you then go through the literally billions of possible versions of Christianity in my immediately preceding link above, and show why your particular version is correct, while demonstrating the others are not.

Even if you successfully sift through the billions of available versions of Christianity, somehow showing that your own particular interpretation is correct, would you kindly show how the one you arrived at can show that it provides the only presuppositions necessary for the intelligibility of experience – as TAG claims.

7.3.  Fristianity counterexample

An interesting counter-example cropped up in the 90s on the old Yahoo email-based discussion forum called “The Van Til List.” I don’t think it has been successfully rebutted by any presuppositional apologist.

This counterexample makes a similar argument to Van Tillian apologists, but modifies it with a new religion called Fristianity. Let’s get creative: instead of a Trinity, we might have a Quadrinity. Instead of the 66 books of the Bible, we could have 65, with mirrored-yet-different stories and genealogies, poetry, etc., all  having their own unique Fristian flavour. Perhaps Abraham lived in Australia in this version for instance.

Fristian apologists then argue transcendentally that you must presuppose it in order for our experience to be intelligible. Thus when the Christian and the Fristian argue, the Christian has to assume the truth of Fristianity to even begin to argue against it, because Fristianity is the precondition to the possibility of intelligible experience.

What this seems to illustrate is that many presuppositionalists claim that their particular version ™ of Christianity is the precondition to intelligible experience, but they never actually demonstrate it. It also shows the need to delineate exactly and specifically what the transcendental presuppositions of the possibility of experience actually are. In my experience, the presuppositional apologist claims are vague and far overreaching.

NOTE: my representation of Fristianity is different from that which was on the Van Til email group, but that doesn’t matter, as the main thrust of the argument is similar.

7.3.1. John Warwick Montgomery Against Van Til

In Jerusalem and Athens (hereafter “JAA”), a book which was (Dedication section of book) “dedicated to Cornelius Van Til on the occasion of his 75^th birthday and 40^th anniversary as professor of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary,” John Warwick Montgomery, himself a lawyer, Christian evidentialist apologist and theologian, supported the above point (7.3) in ch. 21:

… all the non-Christians whom Van Til chooses to criticize could employ his own two-edged sword against him, crying… : “Such criticisms are irrelevant, for right reason – true interpretation of fact and genuine application of the standards of consistency – begins with commitment to my presuppositional starting point!”

How does the Van Tillian – or the Fristian - presuppositionalist get past this?

7.4.  Uniqueness Issue

I’m going to  be generous, for the sake of argument, and run a thought experiment where the presuppositionalist argues successfully in a particular apologetic setting. Let’s say we compare Christianity with Religion_A. The Christian apologist finds internal issues and contradictions within Religion_A, thereby showing that it should be rationally rejected. The Christian then shows that it can in fact account for logic, science and morality. The Christian has therefore shown that only Christianity can account for our experience.

See the problem there? What about Religion_B? In the above example, Christianity would have shown that in this particular instance it is the better worldview, and perhaps that it is sufficient to account for experience, but it has not shown itself to be the only one. That is, it hasn’t shown itself to be a necessary condition for the intelligibility of experience – which is what TAG demands.

7.4.1. Again, John Warwick Montgomery has a particularly telling rebuttal of Van Til’s apologetic:

And even if it were possible in some fashion to destroy all existent alternative world-views but that of orthodox Christianity, the end result would still not be the necessary truth of Christianity; for in a contingent universe, there are an infinite number of possible philosophical positions, and even the fallaciousness of infinity-minus-one positions would not establish the validity of the one that remained (unless we were to introduce the gratuitous assumption that at least one had to be right!). (JAA ch. 21)

Presuppositionalists arguing against opposing non-Christian worldviews one-by-one, even if successful, will never show that only the Christian worldview is the presupposition for the intelligibility of or experience - which is what TAG demands.

7.5. Problem of Criterion

Van Til and Bahnsen claimed that only Christianity could provide the preconditions of the intelligibility of any experience whatsoever. I believe a classic problem of criterion can be applied in criticism here:

How do you know that God / Christianity provides the preconditions or “transcendentals” to human experience, unless you already know what those transcendentals are in the first place? In other words, surely we would need to have a set of criteria about what these so-called “transcendentals” are, and THEN see if Christianity fits those criteria.

Van Tillian presuppositionalists get it backwards. They assert that God is the transcendental presupposition for the possibility of experience without knowing or justifying what the “transcendental presuppositions” are in the first place.

7.6. The Atheist Worldview

Van Til, Bahnsen, and other “worldview apologists” argue against a so-called atheist worldview. For example, in his debate with Stein, Bahnsen claimed “The atheist worldview is irrational and cannot consistently provide the preconditions of intelligible experience, science, logic, or morality.”

This is a strawman, a misrepresentation of atheists, because there is no atheist worldview. That is, atheism is not a worldview. As the American atheists state, and that in bold lettering, “To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods.”

Since it is a strawman argument, it fails from the very beginning.

7.7. Van Tillian Presuppositionalism’s Fallacy of the False Dilemma

7.7.1. The Dilemma

What is a false dilemma? “A false dilemma occurs when a limited number of choices, outcomes, or views are presented as the only possibilities when, in fact, more possibilities exist.” (Source)

Both Van Til and Bahnsen are guilty of committing this fallacy. Both assert that there are only two worldviews: Christianity and non-Christianity (in whichever form that takes).

Bahnsen commits the fallacy of the false dilemma when he states that there “is at base only one non-Christian worldview; logically speaking, it is the negation of… the denial of some or all of the propositions used to summarize biblically-based Christianity (e.g., the Trinity, creation, providence, sin, incarnation, redemption, regeneration).” (VTA ch. 5)

Van Til also embraces this kind of reasoning when he erroneously claims that “Every method, the supposedly neutral one no less than any other, presupposes either the truth or the falsity of Christian theism.” (DOF ch. 6)

7.7.2. The Rebuttal to the dilemma

The claim that there are only two worldviews is plainly false. It is easily refuted by simply looking at the vast number of worldviews that do, in fact, exist. An empirical refutation if you will.

My own suspicion is that this claim – that there are only two worldviews -  is made by Van Tillian presuppositionalists in order to ward off the powerful rebuttal towards presuppositionalism, which came from evidentialist apologist John Warwick Montgomery (outlined in sections 7.4 and 7.4.1 above).

Of note, another way we could easily rebut Van Til and Bahnsen is by using the Fristianity counterexample in section 7.3 above. To mimic Bahnsen, “There is at base only one non-Fristian worldview; logically speaking, it is the negation of…” the doctrines espoused by Fristians.

7.8. In the end, Presuppositionalism reduces to an undemonstrated assertion

For example, Bahnsen claims that the “atheist worldview” cannot account for the use of logic. He claims that “From a Christian standpoint, we have an answer – obviously they reflect the thinking of God. They are, if you will, a reflection of the way God thinks and expects us to think.” (Debate with Stein)

Here’s the problem: he claims that the laws of logic “reflect the thinking of God” is the transcendental to our experience. But where is the actual demonstrable proof for that? How does he actually know or even demonstrate that the assertion “logic reflects God’s thinking” is a transcendental? That it is a precondition to intelligibility? It boils down an arbitrary claim, not a proof.

Bahnsen certainly gives an account (or a wonderful, mythical story) of one way Christians look at God’s relationship to logic (unsurprisingly, not all Christians would agree with Bahnsen’s account here), but certainly doesn’t show that his account is even sufficient, let alone necessary as a precondition - which is what a transcendental argument is aiming for.

The example above I gave with presuppositional apologetic claims about logic, can also be applied to their other claims about science, morality and whatever other aspect of experience they claim can only be accounted for by Christianity. It’s assertion, not transcendental demonstration, all the way down.

To summarise: presuppositionalists certainly give an account (or a wonderful, mythical story) of one way Christians look at God’s relationship to [insert issue here], but don’t show that their account is sufficient, let alone necessary as a precondition - which is what a transcendental argument is aiming for. It boils down to an arbitrary claim, not a proof.

As John Frame says, “To my knowledge, Van Til never argues the point, but merely asserts it.” (CVT ch. 23)

8. Transcendental Arguments in Philosophy

The scope of this article is to focus on Van Tillian presuppositionalism and its attempted use of transcendental argumentation in its attempts to prove God’s existence, not to discuss the philosophical literature about it. Be that as it may, it may be pertinent to ask: is the very idea of transcendental reasoning itself reliable? If transcendental arguments aren’t actually a reliable form of reasoning then the TAG fails from the outset.

Rather than get into that here, I’ll direct you to two articles about this topic from: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Any such objections to transcendental arguments in these articles that you find convincing could also be used against Van Tillian presuppositionalists and also added to section 7 above.

Suffice to say, that even if transcendental arguments are reliable, Van Tillian presuppositionalism has completely and utterly failed so far in its attempt to argue for Christianity as the necessary precondition for the possibility of experience. And if such forms of arguments are not reliable, TAG still fails.

9. Conclusion

Van Tillian presuppositionalism’s intention and stated goal  is to produce a transcendental argument for Christianity. In this sense, it escapes the common charge that is a question begging argument. However, it in all actuality ends up being a question-begging assertion. That is, TAG is asserted but never successfully demonstrated. In this sense, it is de facto question begging.

In my experience, when certain issues, such as in section 7 above, are pointed out, presuppositional apologists often dig their heels in, beat their chest, and repeat the mantra “Without God you couldn’t prove anything!” each time a little more loudly than the previous.

--Cat_Lord

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:

Apart from how y’all might comment on the above article, I would like to ask how DC commenters would answer these two questions:

 Q 1. What would you say if a presuppositionalist turned up in this thread arguing:

A. Atheists (or any other non-Christian type for that matter) cannot account for science, logic and morality.

B. However, (only) Christianity can.

C. Therefore, you atheists (and other non-Christians) are “borrowing from” Christianity to even make sense of logic, science and reason.

Q 2. Given Baggini’s definition of the transcendental argument, that it “starts with what is given and then reasons from this to what must be true in order to make the given possible” (section 4.1.2.), do you think that we atheists can, could or should make use of transcendental arguments as well, especially when Christian apologists go “full nuclear” against us in their last line of defense – that is, when they argue we couldn’t know anything anyway?