Without Excuse Sample 1

Without Excuse:
Scripture, Reason, and

Presuppositional Apologetics
Edited by
David Haines
Copyright © 2020 The Davenant Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1-949716-03-1
ISBN-13: 978-1-949716-03-0
Cover design by Rachel Rosales, Orange Peal Design

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
J. T. Bridges (PhD, Southern Evangelical Seminary) is the Academic Dean

and Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Southern Evangelical Seminary.
Bridges’ current academic interests include: the philosophical theology of
Thomas Aquinas, philosophy of science, and important issues subsumed
under the philosophy of religion. He has authored a number of articles in the
Christian Apologetics Journal. J.T. is married to Serena, with whom he has four
children.
Travis James Campbell (PhD, Westminster Theological Seminary) is a

history teacher at Deerfield-Windsor School in Albany, GA. He also serves
as a ruling elder at Northgate Presbyterian Church.
Winfried Corduan (PhD, Rice University) is Professor Emeritus of

Philosophy and Religion at Taylor University. Winfried has published
numerous articles and a dozen or so books, including Handmaid to Theology:
An Essay in Philosophical Prolegomena, No Doubt About It: The Case for Christianity,
In the Beginning God: A Fresh Look at the Case for Original Monotheism, and
Neighboring Faiths: A Christian Introduction to World Religions. He is listed in Who’s
Who in America, and Performs folk music on StreetJelly.com on most
Thursday nights at 9 pm Eastern.
John DePoe (PhD, University of Iowa) is the academic dean of the Schools
of Logic and Rhetoric at Kingdom Preparatory Academy, Lubbock Texas.
He is the author of numerous articles in journals such as Philosophia Christi,
Ratio, and the International Journal for Philosophy of Religion. He has also
contributed to numerous collaborative books. He specializes in
epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of religion.
John R. Gilhooly (PhD, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the

assistant professor of philosophy and theology, and director of the honors
program, at Cedarville University. His doctoral dissertation, titled “Angelic
Assumption of the Body in Thomas Aquinas and Scripture,” was a defense
of Aquinas’s angelology. His research interests are the history of philosophy
iii
(esp. medieval), the philosophy of religion (esp. the problem of evil), and the
philosophy of love and sex (esp. gender and marriage).
Nathan Greeley (PhD, Claremont Graduate University) is currently an

adjunct professor of philosophy at Indiana Wesleyan University in the
College of Adult and Professional Studies. His research interests include the
relationship between faith and reason, and the history of natural theology and
Christian apologetics, particularly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
David Haines (PhD, Université Laval) lives with his wife and their four
children in Québec. He is associate professor of philosophy and religion at
Veritas International University, associate professor of ethics at Séminaire
Baptiste Évangélique du Québec, and has taught history of Christian
Apologetics at FTE-Acadia. He is also the founding president of Association
Axiome, an association of French Evangelical scholars, and the Christian
Philosophy and Apologetics Center. He has published a number of articles
on natural theology and co-authored a book on natural law. His academic
research focuses on ancient and medieval metaphysics, C. S. Lewis,
Thomism, and natural theology.
Kurt Jaros (PhD in progress, University of Aberdeen) is the Executive

Director of Defenders Media and host of the Veracity Hill podcast. He is
currently a PhD student studying the doctrine of original sin in the writings
of monks from southern France in the fifth and sixth centuries. He holds a
Master’s degree in Christian Apologetics from Biola University, and a
Master’s degree in Systematic Theology, from King’s College London. He
currently resides in the suburbs of Chicago with his lovely wife and two
daughters.
M. Dan Kemp (PhD in progress, Baylor University) has a BA in Politics,

Philosophy and Economics from The King's College (NY) and an MA in
Philosophy from Georgia State University. He currently lives in Waco, Texas
with his wife and two children while he studies philosophy at Baylor Univer-
sity.
Bernard James Mauser (PhD, Marquette University) has written for various
conservative think tanks, and he currently teaches at both Southern
iv
Evangelical Seminary and Liberty University. He was formerly a funded
scholar at the Acton Institute. He is the author of a book on the Bible called
Reading to Grow.
Joseph Minich (PhD, The University of Texas at Dallas) is a Teaching

Fellow with The Davenant Institute. The founding editor of Ad Fontes, he is
also the author of Enduring Divine Absence and the editor of several volumes
with The Davenant Press. Currently, he is host of the Pilgrim Faith podcast
and a regular contributor for Modern Reformation. He lives in Garland, Texas,
with his wife and four children.
Andrew Payne (PhD in progress, Southern Evangelical Seminary) is a

professor of philosophy at Mitchell Community College and is currently
working on his Ph.D. in the philosophy of religion. His interests have largely
centered on the relation between Scholastic natural theology and early
Reformed thought, particularly the works of John Calvin and Francis
Turretin.
Thomas Schultz (PhD ABD, Saint Louis University) is the Assistant

Professor of Theology and Student Ministries at St. Petersburg Theological
Seminary and the founding director of FaithReasons Institute.
Manfred Svensson (PhD, University of Munich) is Professor of Philo-sophy

at the University of Los Andes, Santiago de Chile. His work is dedicated to
the Augustinian tradition, to questions of continuity and discontinuity
between medieval philosophy and the Protestant Reformation, and to
contemporary authors like Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer and C. S. Lewis. He has
great interest in rival understandings of toleration. He has authored
numerous books in Spanish including Theorie und Praxis bei Augustin (Freiburg,
2009) and Reforma protestante y tradición intelectual cristiana (Barcelona, 2016); and
is the co-editor of the recently published Aquinas Among the Protestants.
v
CONTENTS
Preface viii
Joseph Minich
1 The Bible, Verification, and First Principles of Reason 1

M. Dan Kemp
2 Faith and the Natural Light of Reason 32

Kurt Jaros
3 The Place of Autonomous Human Reason and Logic in Theology 52

John DePoe
4 The Structure of Knowledge in Classical Reformed Theology: 64

Turretin and Hodge
Nathan Greeley
5 Moderate Realism and the Presuppositionalist Confusion 91

of Metaphysics and Epistemology
J. T. Bridges
6 Presuppositions in Presuppositionalism and Classical Theism 128

Winfried Corduan
7 Presuppositionalism and Philosophy in the Academy 151

Thomas Schultz
8 The Use of Aristotle in Early Protestant Theology 179

Manfred Svensson
9 The Use of Aquinas in Early Protestant Theology 195

David Haines
10 Classical Theism and Natural Theology in Early Reformed Doctrines 231

of God
J. Andrew Payne
11 Van Til’s Transcendental Argument and Its Antecedents 253

John R. Gilhooly
12 A Tale of Two Theories: Natural Law in Classical Theism and 274

Presuppositionalism
Bernard James Mauser
vi
13 Van Til’s Trinitarianism: A Reformed Critique 289
Travis James Campbell
PREFACE
Joseph Minich
THIS VOLUME is quite critical of the philosophy of Cornelius Van Til

(1895–1987) and his followers. But many of this volume’s authors offer such
vii
criticism in the spirit of theological sons to a father, recognizing that Van
Til’s influence has also been for their good. These essays are, therefore, of-
fered to the church in a spirit of gratitude for our fathers in the faith and for
their virtues—even if we seek to make the case that the Van Tillian tradition
has committed several errors that have had a significant impact on the life of
the church. Balancing on these registers is difficult, and because there is to
be no party spirit in the kingdom of God, it is fitting at the outset to name
some of the ways in which the Van Tillian movement served the church dur-
ing the complex twentieth century.
Of first importance, Van Til and his disciples were confident in the au-
thority and inerrancy of Scripture. For all the ways we have perhaps disagreed
about the usefulness and necessity of extra-scriptural revelation, in no way
should we neglect the example of their unwavering confidence in Scripture
(God’s own speech to us). Indeed, for the Christian, the Bible is of the great-
est importance, the very word of God. God’s word is a source of truth and
life, that which is worthy of our reliance and which both fittingly commands
and has rightfully earned our trust. In this, we should not be one iota less
confident than the followers of Van Til.
Second, Van Tillians were conscious of the spiritual and moral battle
that often stands behind an intellectual battle. While they perhaps risked pro-
jection in certain cases, they were undoubtedly correct about the relationship
between a misshapen will and the misshapen perception of reality.
Third, the Van Tillians insist that Christianity has something to say con-
cerning all of life. While we might disagree about what this means precisely,
it is nevertheless the case that the redemption of creation through the gospel
has in its scope the whole of the world in all of its aspects. In this, they were
faithful sons of their father, Abraham Kuyper.
Fourth, the Van Tillians cultivated theological creativity, fresh insight
into Scripture, and the possibility of growth in knowledge.
Fifth, the Van Tillians were good at keeping the gospel at the fore. They
have made bold evangelists. While we might not always agree with their par-
ticular arguments, we can only covet their heart.
Sixth, whether we agree with his philosophy or not, Van Til appreciated
the importance of satisfying the Christian mind. Part of what has drawn so
many people to Van Tillianism is its desire to give a satisfying account of
reality relative to our distinctive Christian understanding. Many Christian
viii
churches are alienating to thinking persons, and Van Til sought to address
this both pastorally and professionally.
Seventh, a lot of modern work is lending credibility to the Van Tillian
insistence that Scripture at least anticipates many philosophical insights.
Eighth, Van Til’s movement has functioned (sometimes via later disci-
ples) as a gateway drug to some useful philosophical insight, particularly on
the nature of knowing.
Ninth, even if the Van Tillian movement tends towards biblicism, its
expectation of finding relevant Scriptural insight into many fields has (in
more competent hands, at least) yielded much insight and fruit. There are
many questions that might not have been asked of Scripture apart from Van
Til’s influence.
Tenth, and crucially, Van Til cultivated an awesome view of God’s gran-
deur, but also of God’s availability to the creature and sinner. In a century
when so much of Christianity has been reduced to fluff, and granting that
not all who “talk big” about God are being truly pious, it is nevertheless a
priceless legacy to have fathers who speak reverently of an awesome God, and
who lead us to the One who gives Himself to us in His creation and cove-
nant.
To the extent that we differ from our fathers and brothers, we differ as
partners, therefore, in the project of God’s kingdom. While we seek to go
beyond and even depart from them in many respects, we go as building on a
foundation and set of evangelical instincts which still inform our own con-
cerns and priorities. It is our hope and prayer that these essays are received
in the spirit they are intended—as a good-willed offering to fellow pilgrims
on the journey to Christian maturity.
ix
x
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
MANY THANKS are due to Onsi Kamel, editor-in-chief of the Davenant

Press, for his help throughout this project, and for everything he did to bring
it to completion. This book would not be what it is without his input. I would
also like to thank the contributors to this volume for their many efforts to
bring it to fruition. This was, for everyone involved, a labor of love.
xi
I:
THE BIBLE, VERIFICATION, AND
FIRST PRINCIPLES OF REASON
M. Dan Kemp
INTRODUCTION
CORNELIUS VAN TIL once claimed that “We cannot subject the authori-
tative pronouncements of Scripture about reality to the scrutiny of reason
because it is reason itself that learns of its proper function from Scripture.” 1
John Frame says of Van Til’s thought that “human beings are obligated to
presuppose God in all of their thinking.” 2 Van Til and Frame claim that God
is the ultimate basis of all knowledge. One famous reply to this view claims
it is self-undermining insofar as the Bible does not consider itself to be the
sole source of knowledge of God or many other things. The Bible, the reply
goes, does not ask its immediate recipients to accept without verification the
word of a purported prophet as a word from God. Frame replied that the
verification promoted in Scripture is itself a word from God and must be
accepted as such. Thus, they say, the Bible remains the sole basis for theology,
and the integrity of sola scriptura is preserved.
In this chapter, I argue that, if the Christian Scriptures constitute or
form the basis for all human knowledge, attempts to verify the Christian
Scriptures are not epistemologically profitable. This result is particularly acute
in readings of Scripture passages that seem to provide methods of verification
for a word of God. I argue that the position put forward by Clark, Van Til,
and Frame entails a reading of these passages that renders them useless as
1 Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed,
1955), 125.
2 John M. Frame, “Van Til and the Ligonier Apologetic,” Westminster Theological Journal
47 (1985): 282.
1
THE BIBLE, VERIFICATION, AND FIRST PRINCIPLES
criteria of verification, even though, on the contrary, the passages present

themselves as such. In short, the popular reply to critics of the Clark and Van
Til school mentioned above does not succeed.
If Scripture forms the basis of all knowledge, then all arguments for the
trustworthiness of Scripture are circular. Philosophical positions which view
circular reasoning as licit have long been criticized. The absurdity of circular
demonstration follows from the idea that premises should be better known
than conclusions. If B is the premise for conclusion C, then B is better known
than C. But if circular demonstration is possible, then C may be a premise
for some conclusion A, which is a premise for the conclusion B, from which
it follows that C is better known than B. It follows that B is better known
than C and C is better known than B; or, in other words, that B is better
known and not better known than C, which is absurd. 3 But why should we
think that premises ought to be more plausible than their conclusions? In this
section, I will show why it is important that premises be more certain than
their conclusions. In other words, I will show why it is that premises of suc-
cessful arguments make their conclusions more plausible than when con-
ceived without them. If my argument succeeds, then the traditional argument
against circular demonstration goes through.
I start with a preliminary description of the view that Scripture is the
source of all reason, and I briefly discuss what motivates this view. Then I
look at two biblical examples of divine revelation being tested by those who
receive it: Moses’ miracles in Exodus 4 and the standard for prophets in Deu-
teronomy 18. I then analyze the difference between fallacious and non-falla-
cious question-begging arguments. The difference will explain why the reply
to the main argument is implausible. Briefly, non-fallacious question-begging
arguments have no pretense about their circularity. They are not fallacious
because they are not trying to convince the interlocutor of anything. On the
other hand, fallacious question-begging arguments include multiple irrelevant
premises since the conclusion has already been accepted. I then argue that
the reply to the main argument makes the fallacious sort of question-begging
argument, by including things in the argument that end up failing to
3
The argument goes back at least as far as Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics (72b33–73a5).
See Christopher Shields’ Aristotle, 2nd ed. (New York, NY: Routledge, 2014), 133, for
a presentation and discussion of Aristotle’s argument against conceptions of demon-
strative reasoning as circular.
2
M. DAN KEMP
contribute any credence at all to the conclusion. Finally, I consider and re-
spond to possible objections.
I should address one potential concern before getting into the main of
my argument. Readers might wonder why it is worth reading a philosopher
about this question. Isn’t it arrogant for a student of philosophy, who lacks
training in the formal skills of exegesis and the relevant scholarly body of
literature, to comment on this dispute? Shouldn’t it be left to theologians and
biblical scholars? Under some circumstances, this charge might land. I do not
think it does for this debate, however, since no complicated exegesis is re-
quired for my argument. This chapter concerns the use of evidence, its rela-
tion to circular arguments, and these two things applied to particular passages
in Scripture.
PRELIMINARY TERMINOLOGY AND MOTIVATION
In this section, I will define and motivate the view that the Bible is the source
and standard of all knowledge. To Cornelius Van Til, “The Reformed apol-
ogist assumes that nothing can be known by man about himself or the uni-
verse unless God exists and Christianity is true.” 4 Presumably, Van Til does
not intend to assert merely that if God did not exist, there could be no
knowledge because there would be nothing at all to know. This would not
provide the Reformed apologist with an apologetic, since it would not ex-
plain, but only assert, that the universe depends on God. Just as the fact that
humans could not know anything if neurons or atoms did not operate as they
do does not imply that there was no knowledge until the 1890’s, neither does
the fact that our knowledge depends on God’s existence imply that it depends
on knowledge of God’s existence. Rather, Van Til is directly asserting an epis-
temological dependence relation: that any knowledge at all depends on
knowledge of God and Christianity. In other words, no knowledge can be
had without first having knowledge of God, who can only be known by rev-
elation. Thus, the revelation of God, the Christian Bible, is the first principle
for “Christian”—that is, true and genuine—knowledge.
First Principles
Advocates for this view motivate it by noting the need for a first principle of
reason. A principle is an explanation of a thing. We can introduce this idea
4 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 317.
3
by identifying it as the answer sought for when we ask various “why” ques-
tions. Why does the earth revolve around the sun? Why is the plant in my
window tilting toward the sunlight the way it is? and so on. Legitimate an-
swers to these questions explain the phenomenon we are considering. But
say you want to know the explanation of that explaining principle. You keep
asking “why” until you reach the end of the explanatory line by reaching a
principle that explains and neither has nor requires an explanation.
The explanations of our knowledge of these principles, however, are
not identical to the explanations of the principles themselves. Humans are
not privileged to have knowledge of the world, to paraphrase Aristotle’s fa-
mous quip, from the perspective of nature, absent great study or revelation.
Hence, we also ask a different sort of “why” question. Why did the jury con-
vict the criminal? “Because he was guilty” will not suffice as an answer. “Be-
cause the jury found him guilty,” is the right sort of answer, but one which
requires further explanation. “Because the evidence was overwhelming.”
“Because several reliable witnesses testified to seeing him commit the crime.”
“Because we found a note written by the defendant saying he planned to
commit the crime.” These answers follow what has sometimes been called
an explanatory order of discovery, as opposed to the explanatory order of
causes mentioned above. If you ask someone to explain how he knows that
water turns to gas when heated to 212 degrees Fahrenheit, you do not expect
him to start telling you about how at a certain match of temperature and
atmospheric pressure, the vapor pressure of the water equals the pressure on
the water by the atmosphere, and so on. In fact, this would not answer your
question at all. In other words, you do not expect him to tell you why water
turns to gas when sufficiently heated. One can know that water behaves this
way without knowing why, from which it follows that the means by which
one comes to know that is not solely the explanation why it is that. 5
The answers we want to this latter sort of “why” question provide a
basis for believing a proposition. The basis, moreover, is a normative princi-
ple governing our beliefs rather than, say, physical laws or biology. The latter
are certainly requirements for human reason as we currently experience it
without themselves being rational bases. For example, the soundwaves and
neurons that allow me to understand what my teacher says are a cause of my
knowledge. They are not, however, the normative feature we appeal to when
5 Unless otherwise noted, any further mention of “first principles” refers to first
principles of discovery.
4
M. DAN KEMP
we think of knowledge having a ground or basis. Like principles of being or

causes, principles of discovery eventually bottom out. When that happens,
we have reached what we can call first principles of discovery. These princi-
ples are self-evident in that they possess everything they need to be known
to a rational being. But self-evidence is not sufficient to make something a
first principle, since it is possible for something to be demonstrable and self-
evident. A first principle is a principle that cannot be explained by other prin-
ciples. Thus, a first principle of discovery cannot be inferred by other princi-
ples. If it is to provide a basis for demonstrative knowledge, it must be
indemonstrable and self-evident. 6
A first principle of reason, then, must be an ultimate and normative
basis of reason, as opposed to the metaphysical or material basis that might
obtain. To give an example of how a series of “why” questions might termi-
nate in a first principle of reason, imagine that you ask me why it is that I
believe that I was born in Nuremburg. I reply that my parents told me I was.
If you ask me why I believe my parents, I will tell you that they have been
generally reliable in the past. Now here you can ask me at least two questions:
(a) how I know that my parents have been reliable, and (b) why reliable wit-
nesses ought to be believed. There appears to be no answer to (b), which asks
for a reason to believe a self-evidently true proposition. Under normal con-
ditions, and absent defeaters, reliable witnesses ought to be believed. My an-
swer to (a) might be that my senses and memory tell me that many things my
parents told me were in fact true. You might then ask me why I ought to trust
my senses and why I ought to trust my memory. To that, again, I need not
give an answer. I do not draw an inference from some more basic principle
to my trust in my senses and memory. I just find myself doing so, and it seems
right to do so.
It is conceivable that there could be more than one first principle of
reason. The example above illustrates, for instance, how sensory experience
and authority could be distinct epistemological bases. These various first
6 These two features are necessary but not sufficient to make a proposition a first
principle, according to Aquinas. The further feature required is motivated by the
difficult problem of how we come to know first principles. See Scott MacDonald
“Theory of Knowledge,” in The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas, ed. Norman
Kretzmann and Eleonore Stump (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press),
169–70. My thanks to David Haines for pointing this out. We need not discuss this
problem here, however, since the description of first principles above is sufficient
for my argument.
5
principles would each be “ultimate” in the sense that they cannot be reason-
ably questioned as reliable guides and they provide a basis for other non-basic
beliefs. 7
If there are multiple first principles, then “the ultimate standard” does
not necessarily mean “the foundation or basis.” For instance, a principle can
be ultimate in the sense of overriding other principles. Imagine someone who
is hard of hearing. He can still get along fairly well in conversation because
his hearing still gives him some knowledge. The fallibility of this knowledge
is, however, increased due to the defects in his hearing. This greater fallibility
often leads him to make mistakes that have to be corrected. One way to cor-
rect his mistakes would be to clarify a statement by writing it down. So, he
thinks he heard someone say at a gathering that they are “getting an evening
gown,” but his friend quickly writes a note to him that says he is “moving
out of town.” Of course, he is able to read because his eyes are able to accu-
rately perceive the letters on the page. Thus, the perception of his eyes over-
rides the perception of his ears, in this case. Notice, however, that this does
not mean that his ability to hear is not its own distinct source of knowledge.
He usually does hear things correctly and does not need correction.
Some say that the Word of God is “ultimate” in that it is overriding, like
my sight in the example above. The Word of God, however, is absolutely over-
riding in that no other source of knowledge could defeat it. This view is com-
patible with recognizing multiple basic principles of knowledge, principles
that cannot be challenged and immediately provide the subject with
knowledge of some matter. For instance, one can know something by his
senses, which have no further basis, and then later be told the same thing by
someone he trusts. The same thing known is given by two distinct and inde-
pendent principles of knowledge, sense experience and trustworthy authority.
Neither is based on the other, and each is able to give knowledge of some-
thing without the other, like the way we might hear a dog barking and then
see the dog that is barking. God provides us, on this view, with the ability to
know various things and supplements or overrides those abilities with special
revelation. So, if there is more than one first principle, then “ultimate” is not
the same as “basis,” since a principle A can override a principle B under cer-
tain conditions without being the basis of beliefs that could only be known
by principle B. For instance, my trust in testimony might under certain
7 This does not imply that first principles are infallible. As the next few paragraphs
will show, a source of knowledge can be without a foundation and fallible.
6
M. DAN KEMP
circumstances override my confidence in my vision without contravening the

fact that I only know some things by seeing them.
If there is only one first principle of reason, then a principle being “ul-
timate” will mean that it provides the basis of all other knowledge. To use a
metaphor, if a house gets some of its water from a city lake and some from a
well, it has multiple water sources. If it only gets water from a well, however,
all its water comes from a single source. Similarly, if knowledge has multiple
sources, then knowledge might be obtained by one source (e.g. senses) with-
out making use of another (e.g. testimony).
There are two queries: whether reason must have a single first principle
of knowledge and whether God’s revelation is a source of knowledge. One
view says yes to both. Non-Christians (and perhaps non-traditional Chris-
tians) may answer no to both or no to the second. Traditionally Reformed
Christians may answer yes to the second, and no to the first. The debate
among orthodox Christians, then, is between those who affirm and those
who deny that there is a single principle of reason, since all orthodox Chris-
tians agree that the Scriptures are a source of knowledge.
Justification and Circularity
How do we know if a purported first principle is correct? Consider again the

exchange about my birth city. If the Christian Scriptures are the first principle
of reason, then it will not do for me to end the conversation by asserting that
reliable witnesses, sensory experience, and memory ought to be believed.
Even these principles require rational justification. Gordon Clark says,
Every philosophy must have a first principle; a first principle

laid down dogmatically…Since therefore every philosophy must
have its first indemonstrable axiom, the secularist cannot deny
the right of Christianity to choose its own axiom. Accordingly,
let the Christian axiom be the truth of the Scriptures. This is the
Reformation principle sola scriptura. 8
According to this view, God’s revelation is the only ultimate principle.
This claim has vexed many who hear it. If God’s revelation is the ultimate
basis of all reason and knowledge, arguing with self-proclaimed non-believers
becomes very complicated. On the one hand, the aim is to rationally motivate
8 Gordon Clark, Trinity Lectures, “How Does Man Know God?”, 27:22.
7
belief in the truth of the Christian Scriptures. On the other hand, on this
view, reason presupposes the truth of the Christian Scriptures.
According to many who have espoused this view, the necessity of al-
ways and everywhere presupposing a proposition does not preclude the pos-
sibility of providing evidence for that proposition. 9 Advocates of this view
often emphatically tell us that evidence can be best, and indeed only, given
for the existence of God when those evidences are put forth and interpreted
according to “theistic standards,” which presuppose the existence of God.
For instance, consider the cosmological argument for the existence of God.
The position we are considering claims that this argument only works if we
assume a theistic universe. Consider what John Frame has to say about this
particular argument.
[T]he kalam cosmological argument is a good argument. But it

is good only on the Christian presupposition that the world is a
causal order and therefore a rational order. Deny God, and you
deny the need for a rational structure or for a causal order reach-
ing back to a first cause. 10
Now, as Frame would have it, the cosmological argument for the existence
of God obviously begs the question. The proposition “God exists” is present
in the premises. This circularity is admitted and embraced by advocates of
the view in question. 11 According to them, no other option is available to the
faithful Christian. Frame writes,
9 See Thom Notaro, Van Til and the Use of Evidence (Phillipsburg, PA: Presbyterian
and Reformed, 1980) for a standard defense of this claim.
10 Frame, “A Presuppositionalist’s Response,” 81.
11 John Frame notes in The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presby-
terian and Reformed Publishing Company), 130–31, that “Circularity in a system is

properly justified only at one point: in an argument for the ultimate criterion of the
system ... Allowing circularity at one point in a system, therefore, does not commit
us to allowing circularity at all points.” This point is puzzling, however, since, as we
will see, Frame develops the notion of a “broadly circular” argument that infers (e.g.)
the existence of God from (e.g.) causation understood on a theistic basis. But then,
if we can infer a view of causation from God’s existence, and God’s existence from
our view of causation, circularity is not only a feature of “arguments for the ultimate
criterion of the system.” So, it is not clear, however, how one can stop circularity
from justifiably entering other “points” in a system once it has been let into the sys-
tem at all. Further, the notion that circularity can provide rational justification is op-
posed to the idea of a foundation or “ultimate criterion,” which is motivated by the
fact that circular demonstration is impossible.
8
M. DAN KEMP
Does this circularity entail the death of all reasoning…? No: (1)
All reasoning, Christian, non-Christian, presuppositional, “clas-
sical,” is in this sense circular. There is no alternative. This is not
a challenge to the validity of reason; it is simply the way in which
reason works. (2) There are distinctions to be made between
“narrow circles” (e.g., “The Bible is God’s word because it says
it is God’s word.”) and “broad circles” (e.g., “Evidence inter-
preted according to the Christian criteria demonstrates the di-
vine authority of Scripture. Here it is:...”). Not every circular
argument is equally desirable. Some circular arguments, indeed,
should rightly be dismissed as fallacious. (3) Reasoning on
Christian criteria is persuasive because (a) it is God’s approved
way to reason, (b) it leads to true conclusions, (c) and everyone,
at some level, already knows that such reasoning leads to truth
(Romans 1, again). 12
If the Bible is the first principle of all knowledge, then no argument can be
given for the Bible as revelation of God except arguments that have a prop-
osition like “The Bible is the revelation of God” in their premises. Circularity
is not a problem, it is argued, because no view in competition with Christian-
ity is in a better position. As Greg Bahnsen puts it,
Christianity and its rival philosophies of life represent mutually

exclusive principles of interpretation, criteria of truth, concep-
tions of objectivity, values and ideals, etc. Ultimately, then, the
details of one’s theory of knowledge are “justified” in terms of
their coherence within the distinctive and broad theory of which
they are a part; they will be warranted in light of the fundamental
metaphysical and ethical assumptions that are themselves war-
ranted by those same epistemological assumptions. The argu-
ments on both sides are “circular” in the sense that each
worldview attempts to regiment its presuppositions as a con-
sistent and coordinated perspective on experience. 13
Similarly, John Frame says,
[N]o system can avoid circularity, because all systems…are

based on presuppositions that control their epistemologies, ar-
gumentation, and use of evidence. Thus a rationalist can prove
12Frame, “Van Til and the Ligonier Apologetic,” 288.

13Greg Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presby-
terian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1998), 482–483.
9
the primacy of reason only by using a rational argument. An em-

piricist can prove the primacy of sense-experience only by some
kind of appeal to sense-experience. A Muslim can prove the pri-
macy of the Koran only by appealing to the Koran. But if all
systems are circular in that way, then such circularity can hardly
be urged against Christianity. The critic will inevitably be just as
“guilty” of circularity as the Christian is. 14
Recall the rather traditional picture of first principles I mentioned
above. The thought pushed by Bahnsen and Frame in these passages departs
with this school by insisting that first principles can be “proved” (i.e. demon-
strated), albeit by circular means. On the classical picture, again, first princi-
ples cannot be demonstrated to be true in any sense.
It is not clear what must be assumed according to Van Til or Frame.
The Triune God, the Christian Scriptures, or “Christianity” as a whole are
each presented as the basis of reason. Of course, any one of these positions
is going to argue that these principles are each mutually implicating. Yet I
suspect that there is some disagreement among those who share the view that
something distinctive of the Judeo-Christian outlook is the basis of all reason.
Nevertheless, we can make progress in this debate without distinguishing be-
tween these positions. First, the position seems to be that God and the Bible
are both somehow first principles of natural reason. In an earlier work on the
topic, Van Til states,
It thus appears that we must take the Bible, its conception of sin,
its conception of Christ, and its conception of God and all that
is involved in these concepts together, or take none of them. So
also it makes very little difference whether we begin with the
notion of an absolute God or with the notion of an absolute
Bible. The one is derived from the other. They are together in-
volved in the Christian view of life. Hence we defend all or we
defend none. Only one absolute is possible, and only one abso-
lute can speak to us. Hence it must always be the same voice of
the same absolute, even though he seems to speak to us at dif-
ferent places. The Bible must be true because it alone speaks of
an absolute God. And equally true is it that we must believe in
an absolute God because the Bible tells us of one. 15
14Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, 130.

15Cornelius Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology (Den Dulk Foundation, 1969),
12. Quoted in R. C. Sproul, John Gerstner, and Arthur Lindsley, Classical Apologetics:
10
M. DAN KEMP
Scott Oliphint says something similar about the relationship between the Bi-
ble and God himself in the presumption of reason.
[T]his is all just another way of saying that the only way in which
we can know God—or anything else, initially—is if God gra-
ciously chooses to reveal himself to us. That revelation comes
in and through creation (thus knowledge of creation presup-
poses knowledge of God), and through his spoken (written)
Word. As creatures, therefore, there is an inextricable link—an
inextricable principial link—between God and his revelation.
From the perspective of the creature, we cannot have one with-
out the other. And that is just to say that the principia [first prin-
ciples] of theology entail each other. We know God properly by
his revelation, and we know his revelation by knowing him
properly. 16
Van Til and Oliphint appear to say that God and his revelation are somehow
both supposed to be the single basis of all knowledge.
My argument in this chapter applies to any of these positions. Even if it
is thought that the Triune God and not the Christian Scriptures is the first
principle of reason, the Christian Scriptures are presented as a more funda-
mental principle of knowledge than other epistemological standards such as
natural reason, conscience, authority, and so on.
VERIFICATION OF REVELATION IN THE BIBLE
Several biblical passages suggest that the Bible does not understand itself to
be the only source of all knowledge or the basic principle of all reason. Alt-
hough there are many relevant passages that involve verification of the word
of God, we will only look at two in this section. First, we will look at Moses’
authentication as a prophet from God to the people of Israel enslaved in
Egypt. Then we will look at the prescriptions in Deuteronomy concerning
authentication of claims to prophecy. In the next section, I will consider why
some think that these passages provide evidence against the claim that the
Bible is the basic principle of all reason.
A Rational Defense of the Christian Faith and a Critique of Presuppositional Apologetics (Grand
Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984), 321.
16 K. Scott Oliphint, “Covenant Model,” in Four Views on Christianity and Philosophy,
ed. Paul M. Gould and Brian Davis (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan), 77.
11
The Authentication of Moses in Exodus 4
In the early chapters of Exodus, God commands Moses to bring the Israelites
out of Egypt. Moses is told by God to tell Pharaoh and Israel that he speaks
for God. This is surely an incredible claim without a great deal of evidence.
In order to follow Moses, the people would need some reason to think he is
a proper authority, and Pharaoh would need good reason to think Moses
speaks with an authority higher than himself. Anticipating this problem, Mo-
ses asks God how he can reasonably expect the people to believe him. The
exchange is worth quoting in full.
Then Moses answered, “But behold, they will not believe me or

listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The Lord did not appear to
you.’” 2 The Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He
said, “A staff.” 3 And he said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he
threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses ran
from it. 4 But the Lord said to Moses, “Put out your hand and
catch it by the tail”—so he put out his hand and caught it, and
it became a staff in his hand— 5 ”that they may believe that the
Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” 6 Again,
the Lord said to him, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” And
he put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, be-
hold, his hand was leprous like snow. 7 Then God said, “Put your
hand back inside your cloak.” So he put his hand back inside his
cloak, and when he took it out, behold, it was restored like the
rest of his flesh. 8 ”If they will not believe you,” God said, “or
listen to the first sign, they may believe the latter sign. 9 If they
will not believe even these two signs or listen to your voice, you
shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry
ground, and the water that you shall take from the Nile will be-
come blood on the dry ground.” (Ex. 4:1–9 ESV)
God tells Moses to perform various works, each more dramatic than
the last, in order that the Israelites “may believe that the Lord…has a ap-
peared to [him].” He is later told to perform the miracles for Pharaoh, but
also that Pharaoh’s heart will be hardened (Ex. 4:21). Pharaoh’s hard heart is
both revealed by and the cause of his refusal to acknowledge Moses’ author-
ity. This would not be intelligible unless it were assumed that a reasonable
and non-obstinate witness to the miracles would confess belief after
12
M. DAN KEMP
beholding them. In other words, Moses’ authority as a speaker of God’s word

is verified by miraculous events, and Pharaoh’s hard heart is revealed by his
obstinacy in light of beholding those events. Essentially, it will be reasonable
to believe that Moses speaks for God because Moses will perform actions
that only one with the power of God can do.
Claims to Prophecy in Deuteronomy 18
Moses delivered the law to the people of Israel in the form of the book of
Deuteronomy just prior to their entrance into the promised land. The law
was given to the people at least in part because Moses was not to enter the
land, and so they needed a codification of the law in order to remain faithful
to God. Naturally, Deuteronomy anticipates that some would claim to re-
ceive a prophecy from God, and that such claims will need to be tested.
Again, the text is worth quoting in full.
1“The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me
from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall lis-
ten— 16 just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on
the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again
the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire any more,
lest I die.’ 17 And the Lord said to me, ‘They are right in what
they have spoken. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you
from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his
mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.
19 And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak
in my name, I myself will require it of him. 20 But the prophet

who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not com-
manded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods,
that same prophet shall die.’ 21 And if you say in your heart,
‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’—
22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word
does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord
has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You
need not be afraid of him. (Dt. 18:15–22 ESV)
God mentions that he intends to communicate with Israel through a
prophet in the future. Also, however, there will be pretenders who claim to
speak in the name of God. The stakes here are high. If God speaks to a
prophet who is then ignored by the people, they will be held responsible (v.
19). Alternatively, listening to a false prophet is bound to lead the people
13
away from the will of God. Hearing a Word from God, but ignoring it, and
hearing a word of man as a word from God are both dangerous. As the pas-
sage suggests, in this context, it would not always be clear which message
comes from God and which does not. So God gives the people a test to sort
out the genuine from the counterfeit prophets.
These passages illustrate the natural expectation that someone claiming
to speak for God, and therefore a Word of God, requires a significant amount
of evidence. God does not deliver the Word and then remain silent, expecting
the recipients to take it in a sheer leap of blind faith. God gives them reason
to believe that the Word is trustworthy. Moreover, the verifications displayed
in these two passages are not rare instances in the Bible. The principle is
found at various points in Scripture. The authentication of Jesus as the Mes-
siah and of Paul as an apostle, for instance, reveal the same assumption. Scrip-
ture, it seems, can be authenticated. The question at hand is whether this
authentication itself presumes what it concludes. In other words, the question
at hand is whether the Bible presupposes a single basic principle of
knowledge (i.e. God’s special revelation) or many (e.g. the Bible and natural
reason). It is to that question that I now turn.
INTERPRETING VERIFICATION OF REVELATION IN THE BIBLE
In this section, I will briefly review the main arguments for and against the
position that Scripture, per Exodus 4 and Deuteronomy 18, does not see itself
as the sole basis of all knowledge.
The Argument
Exodus 4 and Deuteronomy 18 are prima facie evidence against the claim that
the Scripture is the sole basis of all knowledge. In response to John Frame’s
claim that the Bible must be presumed by all reason, Gary Habermas says,
Over and over again, with the help of several checks and bal-
ances, we are told to test God’s revelation to us. To be reminded
14
M. DAN KEMP
of just a few of these, potential prophets are to be tested accord-

ing to their own predictions (Deut. 18:21–22). 17
Scripture is the inspired Word of God. And yet it tells us to test it. Mo-
ses’ authority was tested by miracles before Pharaoh and the enslaved Israel-
ites. The legitimacy of genuine prophecies after Moses were tested by
whether the events prophesied came to pass. Neither test is constitutive of
the Word or prophecies themselves. Moses’ statement “Let my people go” is
not the same as turning the Nile to blood; a genuine prophet’s prophecy is
not the same as its coming to pass. Thus, the prophetic claim of Moses and
those of later genuine prophets are (1) inspired revelations from God and
thus carry all the infallibility and authority therein and (2) appeal to something
other than themselves (the warrant generated by miracles or predicted events
coming to pass) in order to be known as Scripture. It follows, the argument
concludes, that authoritative and infallible revelation from God is not just by
itself the basis for all knowledge.
The Reply to the Argument
Some have argued against the thought that verification of Scripture requires
an authority external to Scripture. These objections converge on the point
that allegedly external standards given by Scripture are in fact given by Scrip-
ture, leaving intact the claim that Scripture is not authenticated by any prin-
ciple outside of itself. Frame captures this point in his reply to Habermas,
This procedure [of verifying alleged revelations from God, as is

outlined in, e.g., Ex. 4 and Dt. 18] is what I would call a “broadly
circular argument,” an argument in which Scripture is verified
by Scripture’s own standards. How is it, then, that once we grant
the legitimacy of such tests, “Frame’s entire approach would
have to be seriously amended” (p. 245)? I have never opposed
the process of verifying Scripture by scriptural standards. In-
deed, that is the heart and soul of my apologetic method. 18
17 Gary Habermas, “An Evidentialist’s Response,” in Five Views on Apologetics, ed.
Steven B. Cowan (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000), 245.

18 John Frame, “A Presuppositional Apologist’s Closing Remarks,” in Five Views on
Apologetics, ed. Stanley N. Gundry (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan), 357.
15
Frame employs the distinction between “narrow” and “broad” circular

arguments to explain the arguments in passages like Ex. 4 and Dt. 18. 19 Nar-
row circularity argues thus: P, therefore P. Broad circularity argues something
like thus: P, therefore Q, therefore R, therefore P. Broadly circular arguments
for the existence of God employ evidences from archaeology and history, as
well as commonsense, metaphysics, causation, consciousness, and morality.
The rational inference from the occurrence of Moses’ miracles and a
prophet’s prophecy coming to pass to the belief that they possessed a Word
from God were broadly circular. Scripture is verified by a test prescribed by
Scripture. As such, Frame’s response applies to the biblical passages an often-
repeated principle held by advocates of the view in question: circularity is
unavoidable in an argument for the existence of God or the truth of Christi-
anity.
Recall that the initial argument against Frame’s view is that revelations
were (1) fully authoritative and infallible revelations of God and (2) shown to
be revelations by something other than themselves. Frame objects to the sec-
ond premise. Of course, those passages appealed to “something else” in that
they were not simply restated until accepted. That “something else” that they
appealed to, however, was itself Scripture. So the Bible does not appeal to
something other than itself in order to authenticate itself, and Ex. 4 and Dt.
18 have not been shown to suggest otherwise.
In summary, some argue that Scripture does not see itself as the sole
source of knowledge since it assume that God’s word can be verified, as is
displayed in Ex. 4 and Dt. 18. Others reply that this only shows that Scripture
is verified by Scripture since these tests are themselves biblical standards. In-
deed, this view must understand verification in these passages as “broadly
circular” since it is clearly not narrowly circular. This reply does not succeed,
however, since the account of biblical verification it implies is superfluous.
Before I can show this, however, I need to make an extended point about
circular or question-begging arguments.
QUESTION-BEGGING ARGUMENTS
An argument begs the question when it assumes what it claims to prove. For
instance, if I tell you that my friend is trustworthy because he tells me that he
19 See also Frame’s, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, 130–133, for discussion of the
distinction between broad and narrow circular arguments.
16
M. DAN KEMP
is, I have clearly made a mistake by begging the question. At the end of the
day, I have argued that I should believe what my friend tells me because I
should believe what my friend tells me. Some call this feature of the argument
“circularity,” though I will use the terms interchangeably.
Valid Question-Begging Argument Type 1: Decomposition
An argument is valid when the conclusion follows from the premises. To

take a typical example: All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Soc-
rates is mortal. Clearly the conclusion follows from the premises such that
the premises cannot be true and the conclusion false. An argument does not
have to have true premises in order to be valid. Think of the following, ob-
viously absurd, argument. If I am wearing a pink sweater vest, then I can
jump over the tallest building on earth. I am wearing a pink sweater vest.
Therefore, I can jump over the tallest building on earth. Every proposition
in this argument is false, but the argument is valid. That is, the conclusion
follows from the premises such that if the premises were true, the conclusion
would be true also. When the conclusion follows from the premises, the ar-
gument is valid. When the argument is valid, and all its propositions are true,
the argument is sound.
Here is another valid argument: “P. Therefore, P.” It in fact follows in all
possible worlds that if P is true, then P is true. Or take the following argu-
ment:
(1) P & Q.
(2) Therefore P.
Each of these arguments assumes what it sets out to prove. Yet they are valid
in that their conclusions follow from their premises. But these arguments
clearly beg the question. Therefore, an argument’s being question-begging
does not make it invalid.
It may come as a surprise to many that begging-the-question is a valid
argument form. One need only crack open any elementary logic textbook to
see “begging-the-question” categorized as an informal fallacy and thus fatal
to an argument’s validity. However, there are reasons why an inference like
this can be important and useful. Say that you are a logician or software de-
veloper and you need P without Q, but you only have “P & Q” for some
reason. It is important that we should have rules allowing us to validly deduce
17
a conclusion from a premise that already contains that conclusion. If we were

forbidden from arguing in this way according to the laws of informal logic,
we would arbitrarily cut ourselves off from a perfectly fine inferential rule. It
would be like trying to type without ever being allowed to use the “h” key.
Of course, you may be able to get around the rule in most cases. (I just did
two sentences ago.) But you might not, and in any case, why should you?
Valid Question-Begging Argument Type 2: Independently

Relevant Premises
Imagine that you are planning to meet someone for lunch whom you have
never met in person. You arrive at the agreed upon location at the agreed
upon time but do not yet see your acquaintance. You then see someone who
looks like the person you are supposed to meet walking toward you. You’re
pretty sure, but you aren’t entirely sure. Then you notice that the person has
a distinctly “academic” look, and you know the person you are meeting is a
professor. The person is middle-aged, and you know that the person you are
supposed to meet is middle-aged. In a split second, you formulate the
thoughts in your mind. “That’s the person. It looks like the picture I saw. It
matches the profile I know of this person. The person is also looking at me
and walking toward me. Therefore, because of all these things, it is the per-
son.” Now, in this case, you have made an argument that could be formalized
in the following way.
(1) P (“That is the person I am meeting.”)

(2) Q (“That looks like the person I am meeting.”)
(3) R (“That person is looking at me and walking toward me.”)
(4) S (“That person is middle-aged.”)
(5) Therefore, P. (“That is the person I am meeting.”)
Here, you have not inappropriately begged the question. Clearly the ar-
gument here is valid and sound. The reason is that the premises are inde-
pendently relevant to the conclusion. In this case premise (1) really does add
evidence for the conclusion as opposed to an argument that just contains (2)-
(4), and (2)-(4) adds evidence for the conclusion more than just premise (1).
In other words, this argument is not absurd because (1)-(4) pull real weight
in establishing the truth of (5).
18
M. DAN KEMP
Fallacious Question-Begging Arguments
It is perhaps misleading to say that begging-the-question is a valid form of

argumentation. Yet as I have shown, it clearly follows, and not always trivially
so, that if P is true then P is true. Hence, some instances of begging the ques-
tion are perfectly fine arguments. On the other hand, some kinds of begging-
the-question clearly make bad arguments. So when does this kind of argu-
ment become fallacious? We might learn from the following example.
(6) P
(7) If P, then Q.
(8) If Q, then R.
(9) If R, then P.
(10) Therefore, P.
This argument is technically valid, since each conclusion follows from
the premises. Moreover, let’s say that all its premises are true. The argument
is therefore sound. It is clearly a bad argument, however. Why? It is not be-
cause it begs the question any more or less than the valid arguments noted
before. It seems, rather, that premises (7)-(9) perform no role in establishing
(10). And if they perform no role in establishing (10), there is no point of
their presence in the argument. If someone doesn’t accept (10), then he
doesn’t accept (6), and the rest of the argument isn’t going to help him accept
the conclusion. Premises (7)-(9) become suspiciously disingenuous. They are
a lot of work with no payoff, since they add no credibility to (10) that isn’t
already present in (6).
The first kind question-begging argument is useful for isolating a prop-
osition from a conjunction of propositions. The second kind question-beg-
ging argument is useful for adding credibility to the conclusion because the
other premises independently provide evidence for the conclusion. Question-
begging arguments like (6)-(10) do not add credibility to their conclusions,
nor do they perform the simple role such as conjunction decomposition.
They are thus not useful for showing why the conclusion ought to be believed
or how it can be known. Indeed, they couldn’t be. In order for A to provide
a reason to believe B, A must be better known than B. But if A is better
19
known than B, A and B cannot be the same proposition. 20 However, argu-

ments like (6)-(10) are susceptible of appearing to have premises better
known than their conclusions. Why think this? To see the point, imagine how
bizarre it would be if someone were convinced by this,
P. (premise)
Therefore, P. (conclusion)
but not this,
P. (assertion)
This strikes us as bizarre because there is no rational difference between
asserting “P” and deriving P from the truth of P. Thus, in the case that some-
one is convinced by a question-begging argument for P but not by the mere
assertion of “P,” he or she has been persuaded by some non-rational aspect of
the first argument’s presentation. The argument “P. Therefore, P.” doesn’t
make P more reasonable. Similarly, the argument (6)-(10) above asks us to do
the heavy lifting of considering (7)-(9) when (7)-(9) do not provide evidence
for (10) without (6). Instead, the interlocutor is led to believe that (6)-(9)
makes (10) more plausible in a way that is inaccessible from directly asserting
(10) from (6) or “P” from “P.” It would be better to simply assert (6) or “P”
and be done with it. If that doesn’t rationally persuade them, then inferring
“P” from “P” can’t persuade them (barring insanity). And thus, any persua-
sion reached by adding steps is sheer deception. If asserting “P” does per-
suade them, then circular arguments cannot persuade them more. Circular
arguments play no rational role to show that a conclusion is true unless, as I
showed earlier, other premises independently provide evidence for the conclu-
sion. Barring that condition, circularity is an exercise in superfluity.
Asserting “P” may be useful for one to know it, such as with the case
of self-evident truths. It may be the sort of thing one believes merely upon
understanding, such as the statement that “parts can never be greater than
the whole” or that “those who expend great effort upon another are owed
gratitude by the recipients of that beneficence.” But the inference from P to P,
either immediately or with several steps in between, does not perform any
role in showing that P is true. If it happens to be persuasive to someone, this
20 Again, for discussion of this argument, see Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, II.19, and
Aquinas’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, I.8.
20
M. DAN KEMP
can only be due to features of the argument that have nothing to do with why
the conclusion follows from the premises. Thus, circular arguments, insofar
as they are persuasive, are deceptive.
Again, question-begging arguments can be valid and sound, so it is not
correct to say they are invalid according to the sense of validity most logic
textbooks employ. They do not violate logical norms in that strict sense. And
yet, most of the time, they are argumentative mistakes. There is a certain
amount of deception involved in question-begging arguments that are psy-
chologically persuasive, as we saw before with the person who was persuaded
by “P. Therefore, P.” but not by “P.” Similarly, if someone is persuaded by
“P; Q; R; S; therefore, P.” but not by simply “P,” then something has gone
wrong. The error is not in strict validity, since P follows from P. The problem
is that the dialectic between the person giving the argument for P and the
person who does not accept P has been halted erstwhile the appearance of
progress remains.
To summarize, bad question-begging arguments violate dialectical ra-
tional norms by giving the appearance of increasing the credibility of a prop-
osition without actually doing so. So if an argument’s premises are
dependently relevant to the conclusion, and the argument contains premises
that do not work to prove that the conclusion is true, then the argument is
to no gain. Broadly circular arguments violate dialectical norms of reason by
asking the interlocutor to expend effort to no gain.
BIBLICAL VERIFICATION AND QUESTION-BEGGING

ARGUMENTS: A REPLY TO FRAME
Now that we understand what question-begging arguments are and when

they make an argument bad, we can see why Frame’s objection against Ha-
bermas’s understanding of biblical verification fails. Frame’s reply to Haber-
mas makes biblical verification superfluous such that it is unlikely to be a
correct reading of passages like Ex. 4 and Dt. 18.
Even if Frame’s reply succeeded against Habermas’s appeal to Deuter-
onomy 18, it does not succeed in its current form against the appeal to Exo-
dus 4. When Moses later performs the miracles (Ex. 7:10; 20) those who
witness them do not have a scriptural standard by which to know that the
test legitimately shows that Moses speaks for God. The Bible does not pro-
vide a “scriptural standard” for those whom the signs are meant to persuade
because it does not address them at all. The Israelites are given only the Word
21
and the signs. They are not told, however, that the signs are a standard re-
vealed by God.
This brings us to a fatal problem with Frame’s reply to Habermas. Ac-
cording to that reply, those who hold that Scripture is the sole source of all
knowledge must understand verification in passages like Ex. 4 and Dt. 18 as
broadly circular arguments. In other words, the argument does not immedi-
ately infer “P” from “P” or “This word is a Word of God” from “This word
is a Word of God.” They involve a series of inferences between the conclu-
sion and the identical proposition that shows up as a premise. But, as we saw,
broadly circular arguments are worse than narrowly circular arguments in that
they are more deceptive and fruitless in the way they violate dialectical norms
of reason. If God’s Word is the sole source of all knowledge, it is to no gain
that it provides criteria by which God’s Word can be known. That is because
the inferential steps in between do no work to show that the conclusion is
true apart from what the conclusion can do by itself. It is superfluous to give
a test to verify an item of knowledge that itself constitutes the basis of all
other knowledge. But giving a test or an argument provides the sense that
there is a point to it, that some knowledge will be gained by following it.
It follows that Frame’s view has the unwelcome consequence of making
biblical verification pointless—a whole lot of work with no real payoff. Such
verifications add no credibility to the conclusion that was not already present
before. It would be pointless to do what Scripture tells us to do in these cases
if belief in its truth could not be suspended. If the Word of God were the
sole basis of reason, it would be manifestly absurd for it to provide a means
by which to authenticate itself. It would be like a piece of writing telling you
that it (that very piece of writing) is a piece of writing if it contains the letters
“p” and “q.” It is obvious that it is already a piece of writing and one could
not recognize “p” or “q” unless one already fully granted the document in
question to be a piece of writing.
Recall how I initially presented fallacious question-begging arguments.
My presentation there corresponds to John Frame’s distinction between
“narrowly” and “broadly” circular arguments. Narrowly circular arguments
can be valid, as I have shown. Broadly circular arguments are absurd, how-
ever, because they involve effort with no payoff. So rather than improving
the situation by “broadening the circle,” as it were, this makes the arguments
worse. They are no less question-begging than narrow circular arguments, so
any appearance they have of credibility is specious. They are, in short, worse
22
M. DAN KEMP
arguments because they violate rational norms by doing a better job than
narrow circular arguments of appearing to establish a conclusion without do-
ing so. It turns out, then, that it is a problem for Frame’s understanding of
verification in Ex. 4 and Dt. 18 that sees it as broadly circular.
RESPONDING TO OBJECTIONS
No Religiously Neutral Arguments
One objection to my thesis insists that no argument for the existence of God
is possible unless it presumes the conclusion. It has been proved, the argu-
ment insists, that such “neutrality” is impossible and that every realm of
knowledge makes clear and determinate presumptions about God. In other
words, circularity is permissible because it is unavoidable. This argument will
not do. First, even if it were true that all knowledge presumes religious
knowledge, it wouldn’t follow that circular reasoning is a licit way to argue. It
would just show that all knowledge assumes God, which is compatible with
the claim that religious knowledge is indemonstrable.
More importantly, this argument blatantly commits an is/ought fallacy.
That is, it argues that because something is the case—indeed, couldn’t be
otherwise—it follows that it ought to be the case. But it clearly doesn’t follow
that just because all reasoning that humans actually do is circular, all human
reasoning therefore ought to be. My argument has not been that there are
successful arguments for the existence of God that do not presume the con-
clusion in the premises, although I think there are. My argument has been,
rather, that there is no point in making an argument for the existence of God
or the truth of Christianity that begs the question, because such an argument
serves no rational purpose. If it were true that all human knowledge was cir-
cular, there could be no knowledge at all. But since we clearly do have some
knowledge, and since circularity implies that there couldn’t be knowledge,
demonstrative knowledge isn’t circular, and any theory that implies that it is
circular is false.
Frame’s Objections in The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God
John Frame anticipates in The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God the objection that
broad circularity does not have a proper use and therefore cannot be
23
rationally persuasive. He gives several reasons to think that broadly circular

arguments have a rational role. 21 I will list and respond to them in order.
“A circular argument displays more vividly the meaning of the conclusion.”

This response does not save broadly circular arguments from argumentative
impropriety. Even if the conclusion is self-evident, the inferential steps do
not serve to make the conclusion better known than before. As I noted be-
fore, carefully attending to a self-evident proposition can bring one to know
it over time. This may even occur in a broadly circular argument. Neverthe-
less, the inferential steps are accidental to the process of becoming aware of
the proposition’s veracity. If the inferences were rationally essential to know
the truth of the conclusion, then the proposition wouldn’t be self-evident.
Thus, broadly circular arguments do not “display more vividly the meaning
of the conclusion,” even if they are the occasion for vivid attention to the
conclusion.
“A circular argument sets forth the conclusion together with its true rationale.”
The “true rationale” is “the reasons why it should be accepted.” For Frame,
the true rationale for believing in God’s Word appeals to God’s Word. “That
is all that an argument can do.” This is a simple misunderstanding of the
notion of reasons. Reasons are the sorts of things we articulate in answer to
“why” questions. They explain why it is that we ought to believe something.
Such explanations can be acceptable only if they are better known than the
propositions they demonstrate. My argument in this chapter has been that if
Christianity or the Scriptures are the first principle of all reason, then there is
no rationale for belief in them. Perspicua vera non sunt probanda. Evident truths
are not to be proved.
“Everyone already knows that Christianity is true.”

Frame claims that the unbeliever already knows Christianity is true “at some
level of his consciousness,” and will thus accept the conclusion of the circular
argument. This is a red herring. It may be true that the unbeliever accepts the
conclusion, but it does not follow that premises in circular arguments give the
unbeliever (or anyone, for that matter) reason to accept the conclusion.
21 Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, 131–32.
24
M. DAN KEMP
Universal knowledge of God and his law does not show that circular argu-
ments are proper forms of argumentation.
“The circular argument presents a framework for the interpretation of Christianity.”

Frame says, “[T]he circular argument presents a framework for the interpre-
tation of Christianity—a presuppositional methodology, a conceptual
scheme—and that is always an aid to understanding the cogency of a posi-
tion.” If Christianity or the Scriptures are the first principle of reason, then
the cogency of that first principle cannot be brought out any more than it
already is except by attending to it directly. Again, as I’ve argued, broadly
circular arguments do not make their conclusions more convincing.
Changing the View: Some Parts or No Parts of Scripture are

Fundamental
Someone might try to save the view in question by altering it slightly. One
move would be to say that not all parts of Scripture are basic to all knowledge.
This view has some plausibility, since it appears to be confirmed by a simple
test. Consider the following passage:
Woe to her who is rebellious and defiled,

the oppressing city!
She listens to no voice;
she accepts no correction.
She does not trust in the Lord;
she does not draw near to her God.
She does not trust in the Lord;
she does not draw near to her God.
Now consider this passage:
I have cut off nations;

their battlements are in ruins;
I have laid waste their streets
so that no one walks in them;
their cities have been made desolate,
without a man, without an inhabitant.
Which passage is the inspired word of God and which is apocryphal?
If this experiment was successful, readers suffered an inability to recognize
God’s Word. Some may know the Bible and Apocrypha well enough to know
25
the answer to this question. But even for them, the experience of recognizing
scriptural and non-scriptural passages should alert them to the fact that it is
their memory, rather than the Bible as a principle basic to all knowledge, that
tells them which passage is a part of the 66–book canon. An uncharitable
objector might think that this refutes by counter-example the claim that
Scripture is the sole basis of all knowledge. 22 And certainly, it does refute one
version of that claim, which is that every part of Scripture is a manifest basis
of knowledge, and thus it can be recognized as such. It would be unfair, how-
ever, to saddle advocates like Frame with this view. 23
As I see it, there are two ways to preserve the claim that Scripture is
the basis of all knowledge while avoiding the claim that every part of it is the
basis of all knowledge. First, one may say that the whole of Scripture is such
a basis, but not necessarily the parts. This seems wrong, however, since Scrip-
ture’s whole is determined by a priority of the parts. In particular, some texts
are accepted as God’s Word on the basis of other texts. Take again the pre-
scription concerning claims to prophecy in Deuteronomy 18. A genuine
prophecy received by the people of God must be tested by this passage. This
suggests that the prophecy was not known as a prophecy by its mere presen-
tation. The passage that tests it, however, is Scripture of the basic sort. It is
22 Michael Kruger says, “It is a caricature to argue that a self-attesting canon means
that even the smallest portions of Scripture, down to even a single word, can be
immediately identified by Christians as divine. Such a caricature is built on the pre-
sumption that the Spirit simply tells Christians which words are from God and which
are not. But the Spirit, as noted above, does not deliver private revelations to Chris-
tians as they read a text (or do textual criticism), but simply allows them to see the
divine qualities of Scripture that are already objectively there. Since such qualities are
bound up with the broader meaning, teaching, and doctrine communicated by a
book, they are not as applicable to individual textual variations (which, on the whole,
tend to be quite small and change very little of the overall meaning). As a result, two
different copies of the book of Galatians, though they would differ at minor points,
would both still communicate divine qualities” Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins
and Authority of the New Testament Books (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 101n37. Later
he says, “[T]he biblical teaching that Christ’s sheep hear his voice [i.e. that the biblical
canon is self-authenticating] does not require perfect reception by the church with
no periods of disagreement or confusion, but simply a church that, by the work of
the Holy Spirit, will collectively and corporately respond (Canon Revisited, 107). Kru-
ger here anticipates the objection against the self-attesting view of the canon on the
basis of thought experiments like the one above.
23 The answer to the question is that neither is apocryphal. They are both from the
third chapter of Zephaniah (vv. 1, 2 and v. 6, respectively, ESV).
26
M. DAN KEMP
not authenticated by the passage authenticated by it. So Scriptural confirma-

tion of Scripture does not work in any direction. In other words, Deuteron-
omy 18 is the foundation for knowledge that some prophecy is genuine, but
not the other way around. This, of course, presumes knowledge that Deuter-
onomy 18 is Scripture. We have already seen, however, how the authority of
Moses was authenticated to the people of Israel—not merely by the procla-
mation of the Word, but also by works that suggest that one who speaks does
so with the authority of God. But where is the biblical norm? At the end of
the day, particular texts—ones you can point to and read, identifying them as
such—must be the basis for knowledge. Thus, if there is a biblical standard
for verifying non-basic biblical texts, particular texts must be used to verify
particular texts.
Second, one may suppose that some parts of Scripture are basic to
knowledge but not others, and the basic ones supply the principles of verifi-
cation for the non-basic ones. This option also fails, however. First, it is un-
likely that some particular revelations would be the sole basis of knowledge
just by being revelations while others are not. It is important to distinguish
the claim under review from the claim that Scripture is self-authenticating. It
is perfectly acceptable to think God might make certain revelations with man-
ifest authority and others without it. Alternatively, if a revelation of God is
the sole basis of all knowledge just in virtue of being a revelation of God,
then it seems odd that other revelations are not basic since they share the
same feature that makes revelations basic. Second, the basic texts related to
verification will have an undesirable consequence for the same reason I have
stated before. They involve pointless verifications. Presumably, the basic
texts must at least be the ones that make no appeal, explicitly or tacitly to
other texts, or that are confirmed by other texts. For instance, genuine proph-
ecy was confirmed by Deuteronomy 18, and Deuteronomy 18 was confirmed
by the authority of Moses. But the authority of Moses was confirmed by Ex-
odus 4 and the ensuing narrative, which are the first suggestions that Moses
speaks for God. Again, on this view, the Bible gives a “broadly circular” ar-
gument for itself and is thus absurd. It is more plausible to interpret the au-
thentication Moses achieves, rather than presenting “biblical standards,” as
appealing to standards which those who have not received revelation would
be rationally capable of accepting.
If it could be shown that only non-basic passages are verified by Scrip-
ture, then this view could avoid the problem I am recognizing here. In that
27
case, verification would not be pointless since it would genuinely increase the
credibility of a claim, that this or that text is the genuine Word of God. This
view would still have to explain why some revelations are basic just in virtue
of being revelations while others aren’t. Nevertheless, these verifications
would not be “broadly circular” either, which remains a problematic form of
argument. This seems unlikely, however, not only because Exodus 4 involves
verification of God’s word and would clearly have to be a basic text. Also, as
Habermas notes, the testing of Scripture seems to be a pattern that charac-
terizes the whole.
The Reformed View of the Bible’s Authority
Some might be worried that my thesis constitutes an argument against the

Reformed view of the Bible’s authority. The Westminster Confession of Faith rep-
resents one standard Reformed view of the Bible’s authority. I will repeat
four often cited claims of the Confession here.
4. The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be

believed, and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any
man, or church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the
author thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it is
the Word of God.
5. ... [O]ur full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth
and divine authority thereof [of the Bible], is from the inward
work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word
in our hearts.
9. The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scrip-
ture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true
and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one),
it must be searched and known by other places that speak more
clearly.
10. The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are
to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of an-
cient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be ex-
amined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other
but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.
There is a lot of work to be done about the nature, clarity, and certainty
of knowledge as it is understood in these four articles. I understand these
28
M. DAN KEMP
passages to entail, among other things, that Scripture is self-authenticating

and that it is the sole infallible source of knowledge. It follows from neither
of these propositions that Scripture is the sole source of all knowledge. My
argument does not entail that the Bible is not self-authenticating, nor does it
imply that the Bible requires external evidence in order to be known. On the
contrary, these claims oppose the spirit of my thesis, which is that the argu-
ments that Scripture affirms presume multiple sources of knowledge.
Take an example. Imagine that a man is standing trial for a crime he in
fact committed and knows he committed. The criminal pleads not guilty and
dishonestly denies having done the deed. Now, clearly, he knows what he is
doing. He knows that he committed the crime and that he might get away
with it by manipulating the presumption of innocence in our justice system.
Now, further imagine that, for some reason, camera footage of the defendant
committing the crime has been discovered and introduced into the court. The
footage unambiguously shows him doing the thing he denies having done.
The defendant (and, more importantly, the jury) has been given evidence for
a bit of information that he already knew on the basis of his memory, but
without depending in any way on his memory.
Similarly, the claim that good arguments for belief in God and the
Christian Scriptures do not presume belief in God or the Bible is compatible
with the claim that everyone has sufficient knowledge of God. In other
words, belief in God and the Bible does need not be the basis of all
knowledge to be universal. Knowledge of God and the Bible also need not
be the basis of all knowledge in order to be absolutely overriding. It should
be clear by now that my thesis does not compromise the doctrine of sola
scriptura. Scripture being the sole infallible guide to faith and morals is com-
patible with the claim that there are other (fallible) sources of knowledge. 24
24 John Calvin grants that non-circular arguments can be given for the reverence of
the Scriptures (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.7.3). He suggests, however, that ar-
guments are weak because, if we believe the Scriptures because of reason, then reason
has authority over the Scriptures, and reason can later contradict or oppose the Scrip-
tures. Many have said similarly. Cf. also Kruger in Canon Revisited, (Wheaton, IL:
Crossway, 2012), 80. But “the Bible is not the ultimate authority” does not follow
from “the authority of the Bible can be demonstrated by reason” in any way that
risks undermining Scriptural authority. The Scriptures cannot be known to be true
unless the law of non-contradiction were epistemically prior to it, but it doesn’t fol-
low that reason has authority over the Bible. If the best arguments tell us that Chris-
tianity is true and the Scriptures reliable, then a better argument cannot come along
and show the opposite. Furthermore, reason does not “decide” the truth, but
29
CONCLUSION
First principles are known indemonstrably. They are not known by inference
from some other proposition. No argument can be given for first principles,
but the Bible seems to assume that arguments for divine revelation can be
given. Thus, Frame has not shown us why we should not read Scripture as
prima facie evidence against the view that Scripture is the first principle of all
knowledge. In fact, he makes matters worse by suggesting we “broaden the
circle.” Increasing the distance between, say, “God exists” in the conclusion
and “God exists” in the premises only gives the appearance of demonstrative
knowledge. But in fact, insofar as such arguments are subjectively persuasive,
they present a first principle as if it were something else. This is telling since
it does not necessarily count against a belief to be put forward as self-justify-
ing. But they should be asserted in their naked glory so that they can be
known by themselves (per se) or their lack of self-evidence acknowledged.
This constant inclination to regard Christianity as demonstrable may, I sug-
gest, be the result of the operative but unacknowledged belief that it does not
form the basic principle of all knowledge.
Scripture provides examples of God’s Word being tested. Further,
these instances of verification are not plausibly explained as broadly circular
arguments, that is, circular arguments that incorporate several premises.
Broadly circular arguments include premises and sub-arguments that do not
provide evidence for the conclusion. They do not make the conclusion more
credible than otherwise. Thus, they are not useful as arguments. They are
psychologically useful or persuasive, as my argument notes, but this is the
very problematic thing about them. Their usefulness is not in any rational
discerns it, and therefore submits to it. This is often overlooked; some speak as if
reason could “decide” Scripture isn’t authoritative if it could “decide” that it is. For
example, if reason could establish Scriptural authority, it is thought, then reason’s
testimony that miracles can’t happen could override the Bible’s witness to miracles.
But if reason discerns the Scriptures are authoritative, then it can’t, properly speaking,
“decide” miracles are impossible. Thus, it is possible that one can reasonably demon-
strate that God’s word is the ultimate authority on which it speaks. Muller reminds
us that God and the Scriptures are said to be first principles only loosely (“Principium
Theologiae” in Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, 2nd ed. Grand Rapids,
MI: Baker Academic, 288–89). Even though they are made self-evident by the Spirit,
they can be demonstrated via reason. And what can be demonstrated through reason
is not a first principle strictly speaking.
30
M. DAN KEMP
element in them, and thus they are deceptive as arguments. It is therefore not
flattering to Scripture to understand it as putting forth broadly circular argu-
ments when alternative interpretations are available.
This result prompts us to consider that there may be multiple first
principles of knowledge rather than just one. Knowledge is not a system
neatly worked out from a single indemonstrable axiom. Rather, there are
many sources of knowledge—sensory experience, testimony, memory, con-
science, and divine revelation—working together to inform our judgments. 25
I leave the task of working out these various faculties of knowledge for an-
other day. 26
25 Although I cannot work out this suggestion, it should assuage those who insist the
truth of Christianity or the Christian Scripture is the basis of all knowledge. Frame
contends “allegiance to our Lord demands that we be loyal to Him, even when we
are seeking to justify our assertions about him” (The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God,
130). Reasoning that does not presume Christianity, according to this worry, is “sec-
ular.” Thus, it fails satisfy the demand that everything, including reasoning, be done
to the “glory of God” and therefore under Christ’s lordship (1 Corinthians 10:31).
But if there are multiple principles of knowledge—however fallible—arguments for
the truth of Christianity that do not presume the truth of Christianity (that is, the
arguments do not contain the proposition “Christianity is true” in any premises even
if the Christian interlocutor does not suspend belief in Christianity) do not thereby
fail to be submitted to the lordship of Christ.
26 My thanks to Harrison Lee and David Haines for comments on this paper, and to
the attendees of the 2nd Annual Davenant Institute Regional Carolinas Convivium,
who asked penetrating and insightful questions which forced me to sharpen and clar-
ify this paper.
31
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Without Excuse:

Scripture, Reason, and

Cover design by Rachel Rosales, Orange Peal Design

J. T. Bridges (PhD, Southern Evangelical Seminary) is the Academic Dean

Travis James Campbell (PhD, Westminster Theological Seminary) is a

Winfried Corduan (PhD, Rice University) is Professor Emeritus of

John R. Gilhooly (PhD, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the

Nathan Greeley (PhD, Claremont Graduate University) is currently an

Kurt Jaros (PhD in progress, University of Aberdeen) is the Executive

M. Dan Kemp (PhD in progress, Baylor University) has a BA in Politics,

Joseph Minich (PhD, The University of Texas at Dallas) is a Teaching

Andrew Payne (PhD in progress, Southern Evangelical Seminary) is a

Thomas Schultz (PhD ABD, Saint Louis University) is the Assistant

Manfred Svensson (PhD, University of Munich) is Professor of Philo-sophy

1 The Bible, Verification, and First Principles of Reason 1

2 Faith and the Natural Light of Reason 32

3 The Place of Autonomous Human Reason and Logic in Theology 52

4 The Structure of Knowledge in Classical Reformed Theology: 64

5 Moderate Realism and the Presuppositionalist Confusion 91

6 Presuppositions in Presuppositionalism and Classical Theism 128

7 Presuppositionalism and Philosophy in the Academy 151

8 The Use of Aristotle in Early Protestant Theology 179

9 The Use of Aquinas in Early Protestant Theology 195

10 Classical Theism and Natural Theology in Early Reformed Doctrines 231

11 Van Til’s Transcendental Argument and Its Antecedents 253

12 A Tale of Two Theories: Natural Law in Classical Theism and 274

THIS VOLUME is quite critical of the philosophy of Cornelius Van Til

MANY THANKS are due to Onsi Kamel, editor-in-chief of the Davenant

criteria of verification, even though, on the contrary, the passages present

PRELIMINARY TERMINOLOGY AND MOTIVATION

4 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 317.

we think of knowledge having a ground or basis. Like principles of being or

will show, a source of knowledge can be without a foundation and fallible.

circumstances override my confidence in my vision without contravening the

Justification and Circularity

How do we know if a purported first principle is correct? Consider again the

Every philosophy must have a first principle; a first principle

[T]he kalam cosmological argument is a good argument. But it

terian and Reformed Publishing Company), 130–31, that “Circularity in a system is

Christianity and its rival philosophies of life represent mutually

[N]o system can avoid circularity, because all systems…are

12Frame, “Van Til and the Ligonier Apologetic,” 288.

the primacy of reason only by using a rational argument. An em-

14Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, 130.

VERIFICATION OF REVELATION IN THE BIBLE

The Authentication of Moses in Exodus 4

Then Moses answered, “But behold, they will not believe me or

beholding them. In other words, Moses’ authority as a speaker of God’s word

Claims to Prophecy in Deuteronomy 18

in my name, I myself will require it of him. 20 But the prophet

INTERPRETING VERIFICATION OF REVELATION IN THE BIBLE

of just a few of these, potential prophets are to be tested accord-

The Reply to the Argument

This procedure [of verifying alleged revelations from God, as is

17 Gary Habermas, “An Evidentialist’s Response,” in Five Views on Apologetics, ed.

Steven B. Cowan (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000), 245.

Apologetics, ed. Stanley N. Gundry (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan), 357.

Frame employs the distinction between “narrow” and “broad” circular

distinction between broad and narrow circular arguments.