Sunday, December 27, 2009

The Argument from Predication

In his essay “Van Til and Transcendental Argument” (Revelation and Reason: New Essays in Reformed Apologetics, pp. 258-278), apologist Don Collett is at pains to defend the distinctiveness of Van Til’s “transcendental argument for the existence of God” (i.e., “TAG”). Throughout his paper, he refers to Van Til’s argument as an “argument from predication” (cf. pp. 262, 265, 266, 273, etc.). Whenever I read the phrase “argument from predication” in a presuppositionalist context, I’m extremely interested in seeing precisely what this argument looks like. What specifically are its premises, and what conclusion are those premises intended to support?