Circular reasoning and escape into mystery?

1. No thinking begins without a criterion

Anyone demanding justification already presupposes that truth holds, inferences can be binding and our concepts allow knowledge. The dispute therefore does not concern presuppositions versus presuppositionlessness. It concerns which ultimate criterion justifies our thinking. We confess the truthful God as the source of reality and knowledge; we do not first confer his authority through an independent tribunal.^[1]

2. God's authority is not our infallibility

“God's Word does not err” by no means entails “my explanation of this verse does not err.” Anyone confusing the two puts their interpretation in revelation's place. Precisely scripture's authority obliges us to read wording, context and argument closely. A cherished translation can be wrong; supposed evidence can rest on a late reading.

Cleaning up such arguments is no withdrawal from scripture. It is obedience to its actual text. We need not defend the Comma Johanneum, for example, to confess Father, Son and Spirit.

3. An ultimate criterion is no empty circle

“The Trinity is correct because the Trinity is correct” explains nothing. Christian justification, by contrast, unfolds what scripture says about God, which inferences arise and where competing interpretations fail against the text. That God's truthfulness remains foundational does not make these individual argumentative steps superfluous.

An argument against the Trinity can also be examined internally: Does its conclusion really follow from its own premises? For example, does “Jesus is human” actually mean “Jesus is exclusively human”? This missing premise can be named precisely without pretending that we judge from a godless space.

4. A mystery is no contradiction

A mystery designates a reality God reveals that we do not comprehend exhaustively. It permits neither affirming nor denying the same sentence simultaneously in the same sense. Nor does the word replace explaining a specific text. Thomas warns against supposed proofs that do not actually hold.^[2]

Presuppositional certainty therefore demands greater care: Because God is truthful, we must distort neither scripture nor logic for a quick answer.