“But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.” Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand?” (Matthew 12:24-26 ESV)
This passage speaks to the question of the possibility of social or political order outside of Christ. Sometimes Christians speak as if it’s impossible to have any kind of social order without Christ, that Christ is the only bond capable of holding a society together. I have elsewhere referred to this idea, and others related to it, as “political presuppositionalism.” Presuppositionalism, at least in some of its articulations, is the Christian epistemological and apologetical philosophy according to which knowledge is only possible on the condition of a self-conscious presupposition of the existence of God and the truth of his revealed word. One of the problems with presuppositionalism, at least insofar as it represents a distinct theory, is that it confuses the metaphysical conditions for the possibility of knowledge with the epistemological conditions for the possibility of knowledge. God’s existence and role as first cause may be metaphysically necessary for there to be knowledge, but it doesn’t follow from this that God has therefore made it the case that the presupposition of these truths is necessary to have knowledge.
By political presuppositionalism, I mean the application of the above, presuppositionalist thesis now specifically to the realm of politics, and which would say that in order for a political society to be possible, it is necessary for that society to make a self-conscious presupposition of the authority of Christ and the truth of the Christian faith. The problem with political presuppositionalism is similar to the above problem with presuppositionalism more generally: while the metaphysical truth or reality of the Christian faith may be necessary for anything to exist at all, including societies, it does not follow from this that the conscious presupposition of or commitment to the truths of the Christian faith is necessary for societies to exist. Here, as in our salvation, what makes both knowledge and society possible is not our “presuppositional works,” as it were, but God’s common grace, which he bestows generously and often quite regardless of our epistemological or political obedience to him.
The idea that the conscious acknowledgement of Christ is necessary for the possibility of social order is not only false, but it is contradicted by history, for most societies throughout human history, of course, have (sadly) existed apart from Christ. And coming now to our present passage, it is also contradicted by what Christ himself here says about the kingdom of the great Anti-Christ himself, Satan. As Christ implies here, Satan has a kingdom, and what is more, his kingdom possesses a certain order, coherent, and (godless and hence immoral) integrity. Satan intends his kingdom to “stand,” and so takes at least certain precautions to ensure that his kingdom is not “divided against itself,” lest it be “laid waste.” And Jesus says that the same is true for any other city or household. For such institutions to be ultimately or eschatologically lasting and undivided, of course, it is true that they must not remain divided from the ultimate source of unity himself, namely Christ. (Though it should also be noted here that no Christian society has proven to be ultimately lasting either.) But in a proximate, practical, and hence very real political sense, it is nevertheless the case that real political coherence or cohesion is possible for those who not only are ignorant of Christ, but even by those who are expressly opposed to him. This does not mean that the task of Christians is not to labor to see that all societies acknowledge Christ. What it does mean is that clearly it must be possible for a particular society not to acknowledge Christ, otherwise there would be no society capable of being brought to acknowledge him in the first place.
The Natural Law Libertarian 
I engaged you on one point (not your main one). https://anthonygflood.com/2023/06/presuppositionalism-a-reply-to-an-implicit-criticism/
I welcome a reply there or here.
Best, Tony
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Hi Tony, thanks for the comment. You wrote on your post that, contrary to what I had said, “presupposing the worldview is necessary, not to have truth, but in order to give an account of how one has it.” But both the classical theist (which I am now) and the presuppositionalist (which I used to be) would say that God’s existence is necessary to ultimately account for knowledge. Given this fact, maybe you could clarify how you would describe the presuppositionalist’s disagreement with classical theism on this point. Thanks! (Btw, this is Jonathan McIntosh, the author of the Aquinas and libertarianism articles on the LCI website. I just haven’t gotten around to putting my name on the blog.)
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Jonathan, thanks for the irenic (not ironic!) reply. I’m not sure we can thrash this out in a combox appended to an essay on social order. I’d have to know specifically what you mean by the key terms as it relates to accounting for knowledge (which effort would pull you away from your series). I’ll assume arguendo that the classical theist’s (CT’s) position is that God’s existence is necessary to ultimately account for knowledge, that he subscribes to one or another natural theological arguments whose premises are known to be true by “unaided reason.” Unless I know what his argument is, however, I don’t know what the “presuppositionalist’s” disagreement would be. (I prefer “worldview apologist.”) Please cite one CT who argues that God’s existence is necessary to ultimately account for knowledge apart from the metaphysical sense in which God upholds the existence of the one accounting and of what he accounting for. If he says that unless the worldview of the Bible (which includes God existence) is adopted, one cannot even account for the framing of arguments, then he’s not far from me. “We presuppose something ‘in the background’ of our cognitive activity that ensures that our effort to know is not a fool’s errand. We intuit this background. That is, we tacitly sense that we rely on disparate—yet seamlessly networked—features of our experience like, for example, nature’s patterns; our ability to recall them; the objectivity of truth, goodness, and beauty; and the mind-independent reality of numbers and moral absolutes. And they all comport with each other only in the Biblical worldview.” That’s me indulging in the pleasure of self-quotation. If anyone’s interested, I work much of this out in “Philosophy after Christ: Thinking God’s Thoughts after Him” (https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-after-Christ-Thinking-Thoughts/dp/B0B426P7SY) and on AnthonyGFlood.com. Thanks for this space, Jonathan. Tony
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