PRESUPPOSITIONAL APOLOGETICS AS CULT INDOCTRINATION

This is one of the most important things that can be said about presuppositionalism: it amounts to a form of sophistry which is geared toward dismissing and invalidating objections that challenge its authority. In this way it functions as an indoctrinating ideology, securing absolute allegiance to its premises by demanding that its subjects accept those premises axiomatically. The axiom of all presuppositionalism is that its premises exist beyond all criticism. They alone, in the vast world of propositions, have immunity from refutation. The challenge of the presuppositional apologist is to get the student to affirm the absolute authority of one premise: whatever the Bible says is absolutely true. Once the student affirms this premise, as the sole identity of truth, he will axiomatically reject every premise that challenges it. Noting that it contradicts his axiomatic premise, will be enough to prove to the student that it must be false, merely because it contradicts his axiom. But this rejection is not an exercise in thinking, it is an exercise in avoiding thought; it is a way of dismissing objections without actually considering their content. The effect is that the student is indoctrinated into a system which he cannot escape because the controlling premises have ingrained themselves in such a way that they cannot be challenged. If we likened these controlling premises to a person, this person would occupy such a place in our lives that criticism against him would constitute proof that the criticism was false. The objective of a cult leader is to establish himself in exactly this kind of position in the lives of his followers (infallibly). The point of presuppositional apologetics is to invalidate criticism of the Bible by getting the student to affirm its truth axiomatically. “I know what you say is wrong because it contradicts the Bible,” is a manifestation that the indoctrination process is complete. From now on the student will not think about objections he will merely respond dogmatically and tautologically, manifesting invincible psychological commitment. Such people are the unwitting victims of ideology; they are not free subjects. Any premises to which this technique can be successfully applied would produce the same psychological effects. It is not contingent on any specific ideology. There is nothing special about presuppositionalism in this sense; Islam uses the same axiomatic procedure to secure the devotion of its followers.

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