Stilwell, Phil: No Presuppositions Need Apply: Credence Gradients, Background Commitments, and the Apologetic Inflation of Starting Points

Presuppositional apologetics often claims that everyone begins from presuppositions, so Christian commitment is not uniquely dogmatic but merely one unavoidable starting point among others. This paper argues that the claim depends on a flattening of epistemic categories. Background commitments, defeasible assumptions, methodological starting points, and immune doctrinal presuppositions are not the same thing. Once belief is modeled as graded credence rather than a binary switch, the apologetic m