What is Presupposition Argumentation?

 

The beautiful thing about presupposition argumentation is first and foremost, you don’t have to be a genius to use this line of argumentation for it to work. If you type in “presupposition meaning” in Google, it might come up with a definition like this: “A thing tacitly assumed beforehand at the beginning of a line of argument or course of action.” In other words, this is the very core of what someone pre-supposes. So when looking at worldviews (that is, the way in which someone observes the events of life through religious or non-religious ways), a presupposition is already present before an argument can begin.

 Let me give you an example, say for instance an Atheist is arguing in the case of cosmic evolution in opposition to creation. Their presupposition begins with chance and not a created order. So let’s look at the Christian presupposition for the created order. You don’t have to go far to see what Christians presuppose; “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1. This verse is the foundation of the Christian worldview and how we understand all knowledge and all understanding. So what does this verse tell us? 1) This verse alone tells us the existence of God, His ability to create AND on top of that, the Christian presupposition starts with certainty and not chance.

 So what does that look like in an argument against an Atheist? Well since our worldview starts with certainty and more importantly, certainty of God, we have confidence of where all knowledge and all understanding comes from. If by starting with a worldview that presupposes chance, than technically there is ultimately no true foundation for morality. In fact I’ve heard one Atheist try telling me that morality is subjective after they posted an image fighting for prochoice rights on Facebook. My reply was simple “If you believe that morality is relative, than does that mean you could be wrong about the image you just posted?” Needless to say, there was no following comment. And this is an example of presupposition argumentation; all we are doing is showing the truth that the Atheistic worldview does not even exist.

As Romans 1:18-20 says; For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth, ¹⁹ since what can be known^[o] about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. ²⁰ For His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse.

According to this verse, nobody needs evidence of God. And in fact by arguing to anyone about evidence of God, that lowers the position of God from judge to the one who is on trial! And by doing so, we allow the unbeliever to judge God and weight in whether they should believe in God or not. That’s not biblical argumentation! But praise God we have a clear and succinct way to engage in apologetics (that is, a defence for what you believe in).

It says in Proverbs 26:4-5; Don’t answer a fool according to his foolishness or you’ll be like him yourself.
Answer a fool according to his foolishness
or he’ll become wise in his own eyes.

 

Now in no way are these verses contradicting themselves. What does the fool ask for, evidence right? But how should we answer them? According to their foolishness, in other words, according to their presupposition and showing them that their worldview doesn’t exist! This is how Christians should engage in argumentation and to do so out of gentleness and humility. Remember this is dangerous stuff, you’re destroying worldviews. You want to see their worldview crash right before their eyes, but if you aren’t motivated by love, they’re not even going to believe a word of the gospel that you mention to them. Presupposition argumentation is just a tool, the main reason anyone should use this is ultimately to share the gospel with the unbeliever and (I can’t stress this enough!) to do so out of love and obedience to our Lord. For more information on presupposition argumentation, I highly recommend watching a DVD called “How to Answer The Fool” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM1AWO92Crc for the trailer link).