An Introduction to the Transcendental Premise and Alleged Problems

Every once in a while it is necessary to make plain one’s disagreement with even those closest to oneself in terms of thought for the sake of clarity and development of a topic. This post will briefly focus upon Ronald DiGiacomo’s defense of what is often dubbed the “transcendental premise” in hopes of bringing out what is typically considered a problem with TAG and more specifically the transcendental premise of the argument.  Originally I had intended to transition off of Mr. DiGiacomo’s final comments concerning Don Collett’s formalization of TAG in order to address some aspects of that presentation and what I believe are some faults with the presentation of TAG offered by some of those following Collett, but the post will be better off divided into at least two parts.

The “transcendental premise” of a transcendental argument is “what does the work” as some people have put it. It is therefore the premise of the argument which will often require the most defense as it will also likely be the most controversial premise of the argument. Perhaps it is for these reasons that the transcendental premise is often incorrectly taken to constitute the entirety of a transcendental argument or TAG. Ronald DiGiacomo makes clear the distinction between the transcendental premise and the rest of the argument when he writes, “In other words, the above transcendental argument does not aim to prove that God is the precondition for intelligible experience, though that is a premise used in the argument which is why the argument is transcendental.” Certainly we must support our premise that God is the precondition of intelligible experience, but this is only one step or premise of the argument and not the conclusion of the argument itself. The conclusion of the argument is the existence of God.

If it is true that the transcendental premise of our argument “does the work” and is the most controversial and hence requires the most defense then some exceedingly firm support must be provided on its behalf. DiGiacomo states the transcendental premise of his presentation of TAG as follows:

Step 2 (~A–> B): If God does not exist, then there is no intelligible experience since God is the precondition of intelligibility

It is suggested that we, “can defend the premise of step 2 deductively by appealing to the absolute authority of Scripture.” The apparent assumption behind this claim – one which I would grant – is that a theological case can and should be made as to the exclusivity of the God of Scripture as the precondition of intelligibility. The author goes on to note, “Of course the unbeliever rejects that authority; nonetheless that the unbeliever is dysfunctional does not mean that an appeal to Scripture is fallacious!”

 After all, if a skeptic rejects logic should we then argue apart from logic? Since when does the dullness of an opponent dictate which tools of argumentation may be used?

It is true that the unbeliever rejects the authority of Scripture and it is true that such a rejection does not entail that appealing to Scripture is fallacious anymore than a rejection of logic entails that appealing to logic is fallacious, however it is still possible to fallaciously appeal to Scripture and/or logic in the context of an argument. I suspect that the objection that would be raised against Mr. DiGiacomo’s claim here is not that some find his premise or its support unpersuasive (it is correct that proof and persuasion are two different things) but that the proof provided for the premise in question already assumes that God exists which is – as mentioned already – the conclusion of the argument. The fallacy would not be that Scripture is to be rejected, but that the argument is viciously circular since it must assume what it sets out to prove. Strangely the first premise of the argument is:

Step 1 ~A: (Assume the opposite of what we are trying to prove): The Christian God does not exist.

Step 2 of the argument which we are focusing on now allegedly follows this premise in assuming that God does not exist, “(~A–> B).” However the direct appeal to the authority of Scripture assumes that God exists which is the exact opposite of the assumption of the premise brought in from Step 1 that, “The Christian God does not exist.”

It is not the “dullness of an opponent” which dictates what may or may not be used during the course of an argument then, but the rules of argumentation assumed in the argument which is offered. This is not to say that a direct appeal to Scripture for support of the transcendental premise in question is fallacious, but rather to highlight that the anticipated objection to this move is likely more than the rejection of the authority of Scripture.

There are two other potential problems worth noting with an appeal to Scripture as support for the transcendental premise in question. One is that there appears to be little persuasive force in the aforementioned support provided for the premise. The other is that the entire argument appears to be superfluous since one might simply state that God exists based upon the testimony of Scripture. One might even offer a formal argument with a more direct appeal to the claim of Scripture that God exists without ever bringing up the topic of the precondition of intelligibility.

DiGiacomo continues, “Of course, given the unbeliever’s suppression of the truth the Christian does well to defend step 2 inductively by performing internal critiques of opposing worldviews, which of course can only corroborate the veracity of step 2.” As already noted the unbeliever may be objecting to the argument and/or its transcendental premise upon the basis of the rules of argumentation assumed by the argument in question. Regardless of the reason for the unbeliever’s objection to the transcendental premise the scenario here is that the premise and its deductive support has been rejected by the unbeliever. Now it is recommended that the second premise of the argument – the transcendental premise – be defended inductively. This procedure will allegedly “corroborate the veracity” of the premise in question. Unfortunately it does not appear that an inductive defense of the premise will accomplish even this much as the refutation of any number of worldviews might just as easily be taken to support the contention that some other non-Christian worldview is the precondition of intelligibility. By way of illustration consider the following:

Step 2 (~A–> B): If the Invisible Pink Unicorn does not exist, then there is no intelligible experience since the Invisible Pink Unicorn is the precondition of intelligibility

Now immediately we will want to launch an attack against the Invisible Pink Unicorn and may even be successful in doing so, but this does not necessarily corroborate the claim that, “If God does not exist, then there is no intelligible experience since God is the precondition of intelligibility.” Indeed, it may be taken as evidence which supports the following claim:

Step 2 (~A–> B): If the Flying Spaghetti Monster does not exist, then there is no intelligible experience since the Flying Spaghetti Monster is the precondition of intelligibility

Now immediately we will want to launch an attack against the Flying Spaghetti Monster and may even be successful in doing so, but this does not necessarily corroborate the claim that, “If God does not exist, then there is no intelligible experience since God is the precondition of intelligibility.” The purpose of these illustrations is to highlight problems argumentatively speaking. Obviously these are deliberately absurd and are not claims that most people would take seriously to begin with, but there are other such claims that unbelievers do not consider so absurd. The point again is that there is a problem with the way the argument functions here. There is no reason, argumentatively speaking, to take an inductive defense through the refutation of any given number of worldviews to “corroborate the veracity” of the transcendental premise in question. It easily follows that an inductive defense of the premise in question does not serve to justify it either.

Recall that DiGiacomo never claimed that the premise in question could be justified via inductive inference but rather suggested that we, “can defend the premise of step 2 deductively by appealing to the absolute authority of Scripture.” Again, “the Christian does well to defend step 2 inductively by performing internal critiques of opposing worldviews, which of course can only corroborate the veracity of step 2.”

 It would be fallacious, however, to conclude because of such condescension toward the unbeliever that the conclusion of TAG (God exists) and the justification for its step 2 (God is the precondition of intelligibility) rest upon inductive inference. By the use of induction the Christian is merely acknowledging that the unbeliever refuses to bend the knee to the self-attesting Word from which step 2 can be deduced by sound argumentation. Since unbelievers will not accept the truth claims of the Bible and, therefore, a deductive defense of step 2 the only thing the Christian can do is refute the hypothetical competitors, but that hardly implies that step 2 cannot be proved by deduction.

It is certainly true that the defense of the premise in question through inductive inference does not mean that the premise cannot be justified deductively, but we have seen that there are difficulties with both the deductive attempt to justify the premise in question as well as the inductive attempt to corroborate its veracity. To summarize, the first premise of DiGiacomo’s TAG assumes for the sake of argument that God does not exist only to have its second premise (the transcendental premise)supported by appeal to the authority of Scripture which assumes that God does exist which is the very thing to be proven as stated in the conclusion. Additionally the deductive support offered for the premise lacks persuasive force and the argument as a whole is rendered superfluous since an appeal to the authority of Scripture may in like manner be made to prove the contention that God exists. Finally, the defense of the transcendental premise through inductive inference does not necessarily corroborate the veracity of that premise anymore than it would serve as justification for the bold claim of the transcendental premise.

Tagged as: apologetic method, clbolt, method, presup, Presuppositional Apologetics, presuppositionalism, TAG