Challenging Unbelief and Exposing Self-Refuting Contradictions 

Challenging Unbelief and Exposing Self-Refuting Contradictions 

Jack Kettler

Abstract 

This article examines the self-referential incoherence of two common unbelieving positions: the assertion of absolute certainty that God does not exist and the assertion of absolute uncertainty about God’s existence. Drawing on the transcendental critique developed by Cornelius Van Til, it argues that both positions presuppose the very theistic framework they deny. Finite human knowers lack the omniscience and omnipresence required to justify universal negative or agnostic claims. Consequently, such claims collapse into self-contradiction. Contemporary slogans of empiricism, relativism, and skepticism are likewise shown to suffer the same fate. The article concludes that coherent predication, including the possibility of denying God, is intelligible only on the presupposition of the Christian theistic worldview.

Keywords 

presuppositional apologetics, transcendental argument, self-refutation, atheism, agnosticism, Cornelius Van Til, epistemology

I. Introduction 

Unbelieving discourse frequently advances claims of either absolute certainty or absolute uncertainty about the existence of God. Both types of assertion prove self-referentially incoherent under elementary epistemological scrutiny. The present study, following Van Til, demonstrates that antitheism and agnosticism each rest on suppressed theistic premises and therefore refute themselves. The analysis first examines the claim of absolute certainty, then the claim of absolute uncertainty, and finally a representative set of related modern slogans.

II. Positions Claiming Absolute Certainty 

Consider the assertion “there is no God.” The finite unbeliever has neither surveyed every possible locus of evidence nor possesses the divine attributes of omniscience and omnipresence required to render such a universal negative credible. Proof of God’s existence may lie in a domain the unbeliever has not examined; hence the assertion cannot be held with absolute certainty. In effect, the unbeliever declares, “You cannot know anything for sure.” Yet that declaration itself claims certainty, thereby contradicting itself. Equivalently, the unbeliever asserts, “You cannot know anything for certain.” The simple rejoinder, “Are you certain of that?” exposes the performative contradiction.

Van Til’s comments on atheism remain instructive:

“Even making the statement “God does not exist” would be impossible if God did not exist. No statement can be made about chaos, abstract plurality. Without any order to the world, words would never have a consistent meaning. “This is x” would be equivalent to “This is not x.” “God does not exist” would be equivalent to “God does exist.” The words “God,” “does,” “not,” and “exist” would suffer the same possibility of becoming their opposites, or anything else; nor would there be any relationship between any of the words. To say that God does not exist is to make a universal negative claim, yet on the basis of a plurality that excludes all unity, universal claims are not possible. On the other hand, on the basis of an abstract unity as ultimate, no words would have any content. Once again, “is” would be equivalent to “is not.” All would be a blank. God, as a concrete universal, must exist in order for the statement “God does not exist” to be intelligible. Antitheism presupposes theism. One must stand upon the solid ground of theism to be an effective antitheist. Finally, agnosticism is morally self-contradictory since it pretends to be very humble in its insistence that it makes no sweeping conclusions, while as a matter of fact it has made a universal negative conclusion in total reliance upon itself. The “natural man” is at enmity against God.” 1

III. Positions Claiming Absolute Uncertainty 

The agnostic formula “We cannot know whether God exists or not” appears, on the surface, modest and neutral. In reality, it constitutes a bold metaphysical claim: that God has not revealed Himself with sufficient clarity to bind every rational creature. The agnostic, however, has not examined every possible source of evidence and cannot do so without possessing divine attributes. The assertion “There is no certainty” cannot itself be held with certainty without contradiction. The position is therefore epistemically invalid.

Van Til analyzes agnosticism as follows:

“[Agnosticism] is, in the first place, psychologically self-contradictory upon its own assumptions. Agnosticism wants to hold that it is reasonable to refrain from thorough epistemological speculations because they cannot lead to anything. Nevertheless, in order to assume this attitude, agnosticism has itself made the most tremendous intellectual assertion that could be made about ultimate things. In the second place, agnosticism is epistemologically self-contradictory on its own assumptions because its claim to make no assertion about ultimate reality rests upon a most comprehensive assertion about ultimate reality. . . . the alternative is not between saying something about ultimate reality or not saying anything about it, but that the alternative is rather between saying one thing about it or another. Every human being, as a matter of fact, says something about ultimate reality.”

“It should be noted, that those who claim to say nothing about ultimate reality not only do say something about it just as well as everybody else, but they have assumed for themselves the responsibility of saying one definite thing about ultimate reality. They have assumed the responsibility of excluding God. We have seen again that a God who is to come in afterward is no God at all [i.e. a God that is not sovereign over all existence – M.W.]. Agnosticism cannot say that it is open-minded on the question of the nature of ultimate reality. It is absolutely closed-minded on the subject. It has one view that it cannot, unless its own assumption be denied, exchange for another. It has started with the assumption of the non-existence of God and must end with it. Its so-called open-minded attitude is therefore a closed-minded attitude. The agnostic must be open-minded and closed-minded at the same time. In addition, this is not only a psychological self-contradiction, but also an epistemological self-contradiction. It amounts to affirmation and denial at the same time. Accordingly, they cancel out one another, if there is cancellation power in them.”

“Incidentally, we may point out that, in addition to being psychologically and epistemologically self-contradictory, the agnostic is morally self-contradictory. His contention was that he is very humble, and for that reason unwilling to pretend to know anything about ultimate matters. Yet he has by implication made a universal statement about reality. He therefore not only claims to know as much as the theist knows, but he claims to know much more. More than that, he not only claims to know much more than the theist, but he claims to know more than the theist’s God. He has boldly set bare possibility above the theist’s God and is quite willing to test the consequences of his action. It is thus that the hubris of which the Greeks spoke so much, and upon which they invoked the wrath of the gods, appears in new and seeming innocent garb.” 2

Both the dogmatic atheist and the professed agnostic therefore generate self-refuting statements. The frequency with which such assertions appear in contemporary discourse is noteworthy.

IV. Representative Self-Refuting Slogans 

A number of widely circulated unbelieving maxims exhibit the same performative contradiction:

·         “Only knowledge that can be empirically verified is true.” Can that statement itself be empirically verified? 

·         “There are no absolute truths.” Is that statement absolutely true? 

·         “All truth is relative.” Is the asserted truth itself relative? 

·         “You should be skeptical of everything.” Should one be skeptical of that very counsel? 

·         “You ought not to judge.” Is that prohibition itself a judgment?

Van Til summarizes the underlying incoherence of modern unbelieving science:

“Modern science boldly asks for a criterion of meaning when one speaks to him of Christ. He assumes that he himself has a criterion, a principle of verification and of falsification, by which he can establish for himself a self-supporting island floating on a shoreless sea. But when he is asked to show his criterion as it functions in experience, every fact is indeterminate, lost in darkness; no one can identify a single fact, and all logic is like a sun that is always behind the clouds.” 3

Further difficulties arise when materialists, whose ontology precludes immaterial absolutes, nevertheless issue moral or omniscient pronouncements. Finite agents lacking biblical authority cannot justifiably make such statements. Moreover, the claim “there is no God” attempts to prove a universal negative—an impossibility. Applying the Socratic question “How do you know that?” immediately reveals the assertion’s unverifiability and thereby undercuts the unbeliever’s demand that the Christian supply empirical verification. Agnostic professions of ignorance likewise constitute no argument against God’s existence; they merely advertise epistemological insolvency.

V. The Theistic Ground of Rational Discourse

Unbelievers reason in ways that are intelligible only within the Christian worldview:

“We cannot do without God any more when we wish to know about physics or psychology than when we wish to know about our soul’s salvation. Not one single fact in this universe can be known truly by man without the existence of God. Even if man will not recognize God’s existence, the fact of God’s existence none the less accounts for whatever measure of knowledge man has about God….Now if every fact of the universe is created by God, and if the mind of man and whatever the mind of man knows is created by God, it goes without saying that the whole fabric of human knowledge would dash to pieces if God did not exist and if all finite existence were not revelational of God.” 4

Van Til states the transcendental point with characteristic clarity:

“It is the firm conviction of every epistemologically self-conscious Christian that no human being can utter a single syllable, whether in negation or affirmation, unless it were for God’s existence. Thus, the transcendental argument seeks to discover what sort of foundations the house of human knowledge must have, in order to be what it is.” 5

He continues:

“We must point out that reasoning itself leads to self-contradiction, not only from a theistic point of view, but from a non-theistic point of view as well… It is this that we ought to mean when we say that we reason from the impossibility of the contrary. The contrary is impossible only if it is self-contradictory when operating on the basis of its own assumptions.” 6

VI. Conclusion 

The self-referential statements of both the atheist who claims total certainty and the agnostic who claims total uncertainty are internally inconsistent. Scripture itself registers the same verdict: “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God…” (Psalm 14:1). Simultaneously, general revelation remains unambiguous: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). Rational predication, including the very act of denying God, is possible only because the world is the creation of the triune God who has spoken.

Notes 

1.      Cornelius Van Til, “A Survey of Christian Epistemology” (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1970), xii. 

2.      Cornelius Van Til, ‘A Survey of Christian Epistemology” (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1970), 213–14. 

3.      Cornelius Van Til, “Christian-Theistic Evidences” (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1976), 147–48. 

4.      Cornelius Van Til, “An Introduction to Systematic Theology” (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1978), 14. 

5.      Cornelius Van Til, “A Survey of Christian Epistemology” (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1970), 11. 

6.      Cornelius Van Til, “A Survey of Christian Epistemology” (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1970), 204.

Declaration

“For transparency, I note that I used Grok, an AI tool developed by xAI, and Grammarly AI for editorial assistance in drafting, organizing, and refining the manuscript’s clarity and grammar, as indicated in the article’s attribution. All theological arguments, exegesis, and interpretations are my own, and I take full responsibility for the content.” –  Jack Kettler

“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5)

An Addendum

This article was generated by Grok 4 (xAI) from prompts written by Jack Kettler. Kettler reviewed the text and edited it for style with Grammarly. The published version should be read as AI-assisted writing under human direction, not as unaided original authorship. Using AI for the glory of God.”

The previous essay is recast below with standard academic citations for every Van Til quotation. Page numbers follow the editions most often used in the secondary literature. As an editorial note, this writer has all the books referenced in this study in his physical library.

Van Til’s Presuppositional Method

Cornelius Van Til (1895–1987) developed presuppositional apologetics as a Reformed account of proof. The method applies the doctrines of God, revelation, sin, and knowledge to the question of how Christian theism is to be defended. Its central claim is that the triune God of Scripture is the necessary precondition for intelligible experience, and that every attempt to deny that God must borrow from the worldview it rejects.

Theological Foundations

The method rests on the Creator–creature distinction. God is self-contained; human knowledge is derivative. Therefore, Van Til describes human knowing as analogical: man is to think God’s thoughts after Him, not as an autonomous co-interpreter of brute facts.

“The system that Christians seek to obtain may, by contrast, be said to be analogical. By this is meant that God is the original and that man is the derivative. God has absolute self-contained system within himself.” ¹

On this view, there are no uninterpreted facts that believer and unbeliever can survey from a shared, religion-free standpoint. Every fact is already related to God’s plan. Communication remains possible because the point of contact is not a stock of neutral beliefs but the knowledge of God that every person possesses and suppresses. Van Til’s illustration of that dependence is the child who can slap her father only because she sits on his lap:

“I saw a little girl one day on a train sitting on the lap of her “daddy” slapping him in the face. If the “daddy” had not held her on his lap she would not have been able to slap him.” ²

“As a child needs to sit on the lap of its father in order to slap the father’s face, so the unbeliever, as a creature, needs God the Creator and providential controller of the universe in order to oppose this God. Without this God, the place on which he stands does not exist.” ³

The God who must be presupposed is not a generic first cause. Van Til insists that the ontological Trinity resolves the one-and-many problem:

“It is only in the Christian doctrine of the triune God, as we are bound to believe, that we really have a concrete universal. In God’s being there are no particulars not related to the universal and there is nothing universal that is not fully expressed in the particulars.” ⁴

“God is our concrete universal; in Him thought and being are coterminous, in Him the problem of knowledge is solved. If we begin thus with the ontological trinity as our concrete universal, we frankly differ from every school of philosophy and from every school of science not merely in our conclusion, but in our starting-point and in our method as well.” ⁵

The Transcendental Form of Argument

Van Til called the procedure transcendental, indirect, a method of implication, or reasoning by presupposition. A transcendental argument does not move from premises accepted as neutral to the conclusion that God exists. Instead, it asks what must already be the case for any fact, law, or argument to be intelligible.

“A truly transcendental argument takes any fact of experience which it wishes to investigate, and tries to determine what the presuppositions of such a fact must be, in order to make it what it is.” ⁶

“Now the only argument for an absolute God that holds water is a transcendental argument. A deductive argument as such leads only from one spot in the universe to another spot in the universe. So also an inductive argument as such can never lead beyond the universe. In either case there is no more than an infinite regression. … But if it be said to such opponents of Christianity that, unless there were an absolute God their own questions and doubts would have no meaning at all, there is no argument in return. There lie the issues. It is the firm conviction of every epistemologically self-conscious Christian that no human being can utter a single syllable, whether in negation or in affirmation, unless it were for God’s existence. Thus the transcendental argument seeks to discover what sort of foundations the house of human knowledge must have, in order to be what it is. It does not seek to find whether the house has a foundation, but it presupposes that it has one.” ⁷

The same claim is stated as an argument from the impossibility of the contrary:

“We must point out to them that univocal reasoning itself leads to self-contradiction, not only from a theistic point of view, but from a non-theistic point of view as well. … It is this that we ought to mean when we say that we reason from the impossibility of the contrary. The contrary is impossible only if it is self-contradictory when operating on the basis of its own assumptions.” ⁸

In “The Defense of the Faith,” the proof is formulated as follows:

“The best, the only, the absolutely certain proof of the truth of Christianity is that unless its truth be presupposed there is no proof of anything. Christianity is proved as being the very foundation of the idea of proof itself.” ⁹

The 1971 statement in “My Credo” is the version most often quoted:

“The only “proof” of the Christian position is that unless its truth is presupposed there is no possibility of “proving” anything at all. The actual state of affairs as preached by Christianity is the necessary foundation of “proof” itself.” ¹⁰

The popular pamphlet “Why I Believe in God” states the same thesis in less technical language:

“I propose to argue that unless God is back of everything, you cannot find meaning in anything.” ¹¹

“I hold that belief in God is not merely as reasonable as other belief, or even a little or infinitely more probably true than other belief; I hold rather that unless you believe in God you can logically believe in nothing else.” ¹²

How the Method Proceeds

The procedure has two coordinated movements. First, an internal critique of the unbelieving worldview for arbitrariness, contradiction, and an inability to justify the preconditions of intelligibility. Second, the presentation of Christian theism as the only framework in which those preconditions can be accounted for. Van Til does not deny the use of facts; he denies that facts are brute.

“We hold that without the presupposition of the triune God we cannot even interpret one fact correctly. Facts without the triune God of Scripture would be brute facts. They would have no intelligible relation to one another.” ¹³

The argument is therefore to be made for Christian theism as a whole, not by a “blockhouse” ascent from generic theism to special revelation.

“A consistently Christian method of apologetic argument, in agreement with its own basic conception of the starting point, must be by presupposition. To argue by presupposition is to indicate what are the epistemological and metaphysical principles that underlie and control one’s method. The Reformed apologist will frankly admit that his own methodology presupposes the truth of Christian theism. Basic to all the doctrines of Christian theism is that of the self-contained God, or, if we wish, that of the ontological trinity.” ¹⁴

Circularity

Van Til grants that the argument is circular at the level of ultimate authority and denies that the circle is vicious:

“And this brings up the point of circular reasoning. … Now if it be called circular reasoning when we hold it necessary to presuppose the existence of God, we are not ashamed of it because we are firmly convinced that all forms of reasoning that leave God out of account will end in ruin.” ¹⁵

“Unless we are larger than God we cannot reason about him any other way, than by a transcendental or circular argument. The refusal to admit the necessity of circular reasoning is itself an evident token of opposition to Christianity.” ¹⁶

Relation to Classical Proofs

Van Til does not reject the theistic proofs; he rejects their autonomous formulation:

“I do not reject “the theistic proofs” but merely insist on formulating them in such a way as not to compromise the doctrines of Scripture.” ¹⁷

“The theistic proofs therefore reduce to one proof, the proof which argues that unless *this* God, the God of the Bible, the ultimate being, the Creator, the controller of the universe, be presupposed as the foundation of human experience, this experience operates in a void. This one proof is absolutely convincing.” ¹⁸

“Thus there is absolutely certain proof for the existence of God and the truth of Christian theism.” ¹⁹

Self-Refutation and Antitheism

The same transcendental point explains why Van Til treats atheism and agnosticism as self-refuting. Antitheism, he argues, must stand on theistic ground in order to speak at all:

“Even making the statement “God does not exist” would be impossible if God did not exist. … God, as a concrete universal, must exist in order for the statement “God does not exist” to be intelligible. Antitheism presupposes theism. One must stand upon the solid ground of theism to be an effective antitheist.” ²⁰

Hence the conclusion that frames the entire method:

“How then, we ask, is the Christian to challenge this non-Christian approach to the interpretation of human experience? He can do so only if he shows that man must presuppose God as the final reference point in predication. Otherwise he would destroy experience itself. He can do so only if he shows the non-Christian that even in his virtual negation of God he is still really presupposing God.” ²¹

Notes

1.      Cornelius Van Til, “A Christian Theory of Knowledge” (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1969), 16; cf. “An Introduction to Systematic Theology”, ed. William Edgar, 2nd ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2007), 62–68. 

2.      Cornelius Van Til, “Response,” in “Jerusalem and Athens: Critical Discussions on the Theology and Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til”, ed. E. R. Geehan (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1971), 98. 

3.      Cornelius Van Til, “Common Grace and the Gospel” (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1972), 215–16; the same illustration appears in *The Triumph of Grace* (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, n.d.), 20. 

4.      Cornelius Van Til, “The Defense of the Faith”, 4th ed., ed. K. Scott Oliphint (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2008), 25–26 (orig. 1955 ed., 25–26). 

5.      Van Til, “Defense of the Faith”, 4th ed., 236; cf. *An Introduction to Systematic Theology*, 2nd ed., 23. 

6.      Cornelius Van Til, “A Survey of Christian Epistemology”, “In Defense of the Faith”, vol. 2 (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1969; orig. syllabus, 1932), 10–11. 

7.      Van Til, “Survey of Christian Epistemology”, 11. 

8.      Van Til, “Survey of Christian Epistemology”, 204–5. 

9.      Van Til, “The Defense of the Faith” (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1955), 396; 4th ed., 363. Closely parallel wording appears in the 1955 ed., 298. 

10.  Cornelius Van Til, “My Credo,” in Geehan, “Jerusalem and Athens”, 21. 

11.  Cornelius Van Til, “Why I Believe in God” (Philadelphia: Committee on Christian Education of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, n.d.), 3. 

12.  Van Til, “Why I Believe in God”, 16–19 (final pages vary slightly by printing). 

13.  Cornelius Van Til, “Christian-Theistic Evidences”, 2nd ed., ed. K. Scott Oliphint (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2016), xxxv; cf. “Defense of the Faith”, 4th ed., 92–95. 

14.  Van Til, “Defense of the Faith”, 4th ed., 122–23. 

15.  Van Til, “Survey of Christian Epistemology”, 12. 

16.  Van Til, “Survey of Christian Epistemology”, 12. 

17.  Van Til, “Defense of the Faith”, 4th ed., 197 (1955 ed., 197). 

18.  Van Til, “Defense of the Faith”, 4th ed., 197 (1955 ed., 192). 

19.  Van Til, “Defense of the Faith”, 4th ed., 126 (1955 ed., 103). 

20.  Van Til, “Survey of Christian Epistemology”, xii. 

21.  Van Til, “A Christian Theory of Knowledge”, 13.

Selected Bibliography

·         Geehan, E. R., ed. “Jerusalem and Athens: Critical Discussions on the Theology and Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til”. Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1971.

·         Van Til, Cornelius. “A Christian Theory of Knowledge”. Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1969.

·         ———. “A Survey of Christian Epistemology”. In Defense of the Faith, vol. 2. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1969.

·         ———. “An Introduction to Systematic Theology”. Edited by William Edgar. 2nd ed. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2007.

·         ———. “Christian-Theistic Evidences”. Edited by K. Scott Oliphint. 2nd ed. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2016.

·         ———. “Common Grace and the Gospel”. Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1972.

·         ———. “The Defense of the Faith”. 4th ed. Edited by K. Scott Oliphint. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2008.

·         ———. “Why I Believe in God”. Philadelphia: Committee on Christian Education of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, n.d.

Where a passage exists in more than one printing, the 1969 “Survey”, the 1955/2008 “Defense of the Faith”, and the 1971 “My Credo” are the editions customarily cited in the scholarly literature. Page numbers in abridged mid-century reprints of “Defense of the Faith” (1963, 1967) often differ and should be checked against the 2008 unabridged text.