The notion of circularity, of circular arguments, of circular reasoning, rather than being fallacious, must be seen as entailed in any Reformed understanding of God and His revelation. There is nothing new in the charge that such arguments are fallacious; nor is there anything new in the affirmation of circularity. As it was during the time of the Reformation, so it is now. Either one is theologically committed to some human instrument — be it reason, or evidence, or church — as one’s basic principium, or one is committed to Scripture as foundational.

Since we completed our discussion of the “Ten Tenets” last month, I thought it might be useful to comment on some of the common objections to a Covenantal approach to apologetics.

One of the most common objections against a “Covenantal” (or presuppositional) approach to apologetics is that it reasons in a circle, and thus provides no real argument for its position. Reasoning in a circle is a fallacious endeavor, so the objection goes; it cannot provide reasons for what it claims. Examples of this objection could be almost endlessly multiplied, but we will be content with just a couple. In a recent exchange between Covenantal and Classical apologists, one of the latter complains:

Presuppositionalists claim that the Word of God is self-authenticating. It needs no proof. It is the basis for all other conclusions, but it has no basis beyond itself. But what they fail to see is that while all of this is true of the Word of God, nonetheless, it is not thereby true of the Bible. For there must be some evidence or good reasons for believing that the Bible is the Word of God… [1]

And furthermore,

…Presuppositionalists argue [that] the Word of God stands on its own, with no need of proof beyond it. …The fact is, that any such truth claim demands evidence and good reason — the kind provided by Classical Apologetics.[2]

The objection here is somewhat understandable, in that it originates from one who is committed to an Arminian theology. One of the hallmarks of Arminianism is its rationalism such that biblical quandaries like God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility are given explanations that nicely comport with our general laws of thinking. Thus, what is reasonable supervenes on biblical truth; reason is the master that biblical truth serves. It is consistent, then, that an Arminian would only accept what reason or evidence can prove. So, the Bible is accepted as the Word of God because there are reasonable, or evidential, grounds for it.

But objections of fallacious circular reasoning do not simply originate from Arminians; some Reformed, as well, remain troubled with what they perceive as the fallacy of circularity. After working through a mock dialogue on circular reasoning between Cornelius Van Til and a “Traditionalist” in apologetics, the authors of Classical Apologetics conclude:

Seriously, Dr. Van Til, you certainly see that you are proving neither the Word of God nor the Spirit of God by such a tactic. You are a reasonable person and you know as well as anyone that making the Bible’s inspiration rest on the Spirit and the Spirit’s testimony rest on the Bible’s inspiration gets you nowhere at all.[3]

There are a number of frustrations associated with these objections to circularity, not the least of which is that the authors are either unaware of, or choose to ignore, the responses that have been given to them. The objections continue to be offered, without any reference to responses given.[4]

Another frustration about this charge of fallacious circularity is that the contention of the Covenantal apologist regarding Scripture as a foundational presupposition is nothing new; it is embedded intractably in the Reformed theological tradition. Though the objections themselves might gain traction simply by mere repetition, scholarship requires both that responses to the objections be answered, and that the Reformed theological tradition be taken into account and acknowledged for what it is. It may just be that the Reformed “traditionalist” is not as traditional as he might think.

When the Reformed theologian Gisbertus Voetius (1589-1676) argued for Scripture as foundational (principium), he received a response from a Romanist theologian, Martin Becanus, entitled, The Calvinistic Circle.[5] In one of his disputations on the relationship of faith and reason, Voetius considers the fact of Scripture’s foundational status in light of the function of reason. He concludes:

No other principle or external means whatsoever that is distinct from Scripture and prior, superior (either in itself or with respect to us), more certain and better known, exists or can be invented that is suitable to certainly and infallibly demonstrate to us the authenticity and trustworthiness of Scripture, or to radiate by a clearer light than Scripture itself radiates.[6]

Voetius goes on to reject the notion that anything else could provide credibility to the Bible as our basic foundation, primarily because anything else would assign ultimate credibility to “the testimony of man.” In other words, to ground the credibility of the Bible on evidence or reason, is to assign ultimate credibility to that evidence or rational law.

In light of his assertion of the foundational status of Scripture, Voetius was accused of arguing in a circle. The Romanist objection to Voetius was this:

The circle of Calvinist theology…consists in first proving the Divine authority of the Bible by referring to the subjective testimony given by the Holy Spirit, and then attempting to prove that this inner acknowledgement comes indeed from the Spirit of God by referring to the Bible…[7]

This objection is exactly the same as that offered by the “traditionalist” authors cited above.

But Voetius was convinced his argument was not, strictly speaking, circular. He made a distinction between the objective principium of Scripture and the subjective principium of the testimony of the Holy Spirit. Whether or not this renders the argument non-circular can be debated, but what cannot be debated is Voetius’ Reformed theological consistency. At no point — neither in the objective nor in the subjective principia — was he willing to allow reason or external evidence to have preeminence over the testimony of Scripture itself. Nothing but Scripture can argue Scripture’s status. In that way, God’s own revelation must be the foundation for anything else that we rightly believe or know.

Notes:

[1] Norman L. Geisler, “Reviews,” Christian Apologetics Journal 11, No. 2, (Fall 2013), p. 173.

[2] Ibid., pp. 173-74.

[3] R.C. Sproul, John H. Gerstner, and Arthur Lindsley, Classical Apologetics, 1984 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1984), p. 238.

[4] See, for example, Cornelius Van Til, Defense of Faith, ed. K. Scott Oliphint, 4th ed. (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R, 2008), pp. 312-44).

[5] See Aza Goudriaan. Reformed Orthodoxy and Philosophy, 1628-1750: Gisbertus Voetius, Petrus Van Mastricht, and Anthonius Driessen, Brill’s Series in Church History, vol 26 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2006), p. 47.

[6] Quoted in ibid., pp. 45-46.

[7] Ibid., p. 46.

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