William Lane Craig's Thinly Veiled Presuppositionalism

To presuppose something--to presuppose anything at all--is to make oneself an enemy of reason to at least some small extent.  All presuppositions are illogical and contrary to sound thinking, but the danger is amplified in accordance with how extensive or foundational a presupposition is.  No one seems to be completely unaware of these facts, yet it is certainly rare to find someone who consistently grasps them.

Even those who do not profess to relying on assumptions often do in an ultimate sense.  Christian apologists (in the professional sense), for example, are very prone to misdirection, putting on a facade of pseudo-rationalism while arguing in favor of selective presuppositions about reality.  William Lane Craig is an excellent example of this.  Though he does not describe himself as a presuppositionalist, and though he does not embrace secondary aspects of Christian presuppositionalism, his worldview is ultimately founded on a handful of mere assumptions.  For instance, he has no issue whatsoever with claiming that the "inner witness of the Holy Spirit" is sufficient confirmation of the truth of Christianity--yet an emotional experience proves nothing except that one is having an emotional experience.

It is hardly a surprise to thorough rationalists that superficiality and fallacies are commonly mistaken to be profound and necessary, and the reputation of William Lane Craig is thus to be expected.  Despite claiming that one can know moral truths through conscience, that the existence of God can be immediately known through personal experience, that nothing can be known with absolute certainty, and a host of other major or minor errors, Craig is regarded as a phenomenal philosopher.  Anyone who endorses his epistemological stances is a presuppositionalist at heart, just as Craig himself is.  While his presuppositionalism is veiled, the veil is thin; it is rather easy to tell that his arguments, many of which are deeply fallacious, are used in an attempt to deflect away criticism of his assumptions.

What makes his popularity even more astounding is that Craig does not even try to hide the fact that his worldview hinges on an unverifiable interpretation of subjective emotional experiences--conscience and the alleged presence of the Holy Spirit, more specifically.  Remove the mask and facade of a philosophically sophisticated thinker from William Lane Craig (or from many other individual Christian apologists), and you will find a closet presuppositionalist of sorts who would rather cling to a set of emotionalistic assumptions than embrace the liberating powers of genuine rationalism.