Against Presuppositionalism

 Whether Autonomy is Warranted

Autonomy == reasoning that does not presuppose the truth of divine revelation.

Presuppositionalists believe that autonomy, as defined, is not warranted.  The Reformed tradition believes that it is warranted.

1. Autonomy is Explicitly Warranted in Scripture.
We are, for instance, to "test the Spirits.”  This warrant does not extend only to the Christian community, for both Paul (1 Cor.15) and Jesus (Jon.10:38) appealed to the mental faculties of unbelieving audiences in order to convince them of the Christian religion. These texts need to be addressed by the presupper.
2. Autonomy is necessary.
(a) A person does not submit to special revelation prior to conversion.  It is necessary for us to assume the reliability of our sense-experience and reasoning faculties before it is even possible for us to come to the Scriptures.  We thus cannot assume the Scriptures prior to our senses and reasoning faculties.
(b) Further, when approaching what may appear as a surface-contradiction in Scripture (perhaps the Trinity, or perhaps an understanding of the nature of Christ), are we to banish reason and accept the contradiction? Or are we to try to get beyond the surface-contradiction and to show that Scripture is in accord with right reason? There should be, as the old Reformers taught, an usus organicus of reason in theology.  We all use our reasoning in interpreting both natural and supernatural revelation.
(c) Even the Presuppositionalist is subject to their own autonomy charge.  A common apologetic argument among Presuppositionalists: “(i) The world should be intelligible, or moral, or whatever (ii) God is the only explanation for the world being intelligible (iii) therefore we should presuppose God.” That first premise is an ‘autonomous’ premise, as it does not assume the truth of divine revelation. The argument is therefore as autonomous as any other traditional proof.
3. Autonomy is not sinful.
(a) Presuppers will often say that reasoning autonomously means that we “are operating independently of God’s order,” and is thus wrong.
It is impossible to operate outside of God’s order -- but this is a metaphysical point, not an epistemological point. Given God’s existence, of course he is first and primary.  Of course we are created in His image and thus have a conscience and the ability to reason. God is first in the order of metaphysics but this does not imply that he is first in the order of epistemology, or the order of knowledge.
(b) Presuppers often say that classical apologetics fails to do what Peter commands us to do in 1 Peter 3:15, which is, in the words of one presupper, to “sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts when we give our apologetic.”
Yet one can assume Christianity is true in their heart yet they need not assume it's true as part of their argument.  Further, arguing in a circle is bad reasoning and is not honoring to the reasoning faculties that God has gifted to us, and is thus sinful.
(c) Presuppers will often say something like the following: “Reasoning autonomously encourages the atheist to judge God’s truth on the grounds of his own autonomous reason rather than telling him to submit himself and his reason to God whose truth is plain to all of us. “
Relying upon our reason and sense-experience is not the same thing as self-legislation. Rather, this autonomy is part of our composition. Whoever made us intended that we operate according to these laws which we find within us. These laws are given to us, not created by us. The concept of moral autonomy (which is sinful) is not analytically contained within the concept of reasoned autonomy. (Sproul)

Explanation:
Autonomy as defined does not imply that reason is “ultimate.” I think reason has limits and that there are things that go beyond reason. Reason is one authority among others: sense-experience, the moral sense, the testimony of the Holy Spirit. Reason is not ultimate among these authorities, but rather it stands alongside them. This multiplicity of starting-points grounds the usus organicus of reason in theology, it stands behind the necessity of the autonomy that I support, and it explains the appeal made to sense-experience by Paul and Jesus.

This differs from the Presuppositional project in which knowledge is a circle, by which each element in the circle is justified by how well it coheres with the other elements.   My view (Reformed Epistemology) instead holds that knowledge is like a tower, in which the basic starting points are self-justifying, and from which we then build up knowledge in a non-circular fashion.  

Quotes:

From a noted presuppositionalist:
"It may no longer be possible to distinguish presuppositional apologetics from traditional apologetics merely by externals--by the form of argument, the explicit claim of certainty or probability, and so forth. Perhaps presuppositionalism is more an attitude of the heart, a spiritual condition, than an easily describable, empirical phenomenon." (Frame)

"Still the human testimonies which go to confirm [special revelation] will not be without effect, if they are used in subordination to that chief and highest proof, as secondary helps to our weakness." (Calvin)