RT Article
T1 Quasi-fideist Presuppositionalism: Cornelius Van Til, Wittgenstein, and Hinge Epistemology
JF Philosophia reformata
VO 88
IS 1
SP 26
OP 48
A1 Smith, Nicholas
LA English
YR 2023
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1843680378
AB I argue that the epistemology underlying Cornelius Van Til’s presuppositional apologetic methodology is quasi-fideist. According to this view, the rationality of religious belief is dependent on absolutely certain ungrounded grounds, called hinges. I further argue that the quasi-fideist epistemology of presuppositional apologetics explains why Van Til’s method is neither fideist nor problematically circular: hinges are rational in the sense that they are partly constitutive of rationality, and all beliefs (not just religious ones) depend on hinges. In addition, it illuminates something of why it may strike one as a misguided or uncompelling apologetic method: instead of starting by tackling the comparatively minor epistemic commitments of the nonbeliever, it directly approaches their deepest and surest commitments.
K1 quasi-fideism
K1 hinge epistemology
K1 Ludwig Wittgenstein
K1 presuppositional apologetics
K1 Cornelius Van Til
DO 10.1163/23528230-bja10061