The Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God (TAG)

Introduction to the Transcendental Argument

An argument for the existence of God that has recently received attention from the Christian apologetics community is the transcendental argument for the existence of God (TAG). This is mainly because several prominent Christians have effectively used TAG in recent formal debates with atheists. Additionally, TAG leverages off perceived traditional weaknesses in the Christian apologetic and results in an argument that has shown surprising strength for its advocates in their debates with materialists.

To understand the strengths of TAG, it is first necessary to understand the core weakness of the strict materialist's worldview. The materialist worldview is that everything is a combination of chance and the collocation of atoms (matter in motion). Thus, the materialist necessarily denies that immaterial things exist.

The laws of logic and the use of induction are two of the favorite tools in the materialist’s toolkit. The materialist normally presumes that the Christian wants to skirt the issues of logic and induction (the "scientific method"). TAG argues from the existence of universal, abstract, immaterial, invariants such as the laws of logic, morality, and induction that non-material things in fact do exist. By taking hold of the materialist’s strongholds, TAG turns them around on the materialist.

According to it’s proponents, when TAG is used along with a traversal of the world views tree when coupled with an impossibility of the contrary argument, TAG leads inevitably to the Christian worldview. The Christian worldview is described as the only worldview that can make sense out of logic and reason.

Three Applications of TAG

Each of the three applications of TAG can be described roughly in syllogistic form. The laws of logic application is demonstrated as:

The application of TAG based on induction is:

The application of TAG based on morality is:

Many of the advocates of TAG are from the reformed branch of the Protestant Church and are by and large presuppositional apologists. While Cornelius Van Til is viewed as the modern father of TAG, TAG has its roots in the philosopher Kant.

Probably the most prominent advocate in more recent times was Reformed Presbyterian Church pastor Dr. Greg Bahnsen (d. 1995). Dr. Bahnsen had a PhD in Philosophy from USC. Bahnsen demonstrated the strength of TAG in his debates with Gordon Stein (1985 - UC Irvine), Edward Tabash (1993 - UC Davis), and "the debate that never happened" with Michael Martin (Memphis, Rhodes College, 1994).

In the Stein debate, Bahnsen used an application of the argument based on the laws of logic. This was disarming since Stein's (d. 1996) expertise was scientific, rather than philosophical, thus Bahnsen had the home court advantage. Stein came prepared to show that Christians are illogical, and Bahnsen called Stein to account for character of the laws of the laws of logic. The debate took Stein off guard, as he later admitted.

In the Tabash debate, Bahnsen used the application of the argument that is based on induction. (Tabash was a chief council for the ACLU and is liberal). This was an interesting tactic since Tabash's main method of attack on Bahnsen was to argue the problem of evil, since the Nazis in WW II had killed Tabash's grandparents in a German concentration camp. Thus, instead of arguing from the existence of morality, Bahnsen chose to argue from induction as used in the scientific method. If induction is the best method to arrive at truth, how can induction itself be proven? Although Bahnsen was not a scientist, neither was Tabash and Bahnsen again had the upper hand.

Dr. Greg Bahnsen has used TAG in teaching. His posthumous book "Always Ready: Directions for Defending the Faith" argues using this technique. Bahnsen was a strict 5-point Calvinist and presuppositional apologist.

The immediate successor of Dr. Greg Bahnsen’s intellectual heritage is Mike Butler who has taken the debate on since the death of Dr. Bahnsen. The debate has moved on the Internet, in written form.

See also the arguments of John Frame in his on-line debate with Michael Martin.

C. S. Lewis used TAG in dependently of Van Til. Several non-Calvinists attempted to adapt TAG to a non-Calvinistic paradigm with some success.

Noted atheist Michael Martin has developed a counter argument to TAG called Transcendental Argument for the Non-Existence of God (TANG). The most recent excerpts from this debate are on the infidels.org Internet WebSite.

An area of weakness of TAG is that it is not effective against the Idealistic worldview. In fact, the idealist would find TAG quite compelling. That's why the advocates of the TAG combine it with worldviews analysis and specific proofs against other views than materialism.

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