Thoughts on: Reformed Libertarians Podcast Ep. 24: Why Non-Christian Libertarians Should (And How They Can) Become Christians

by Stephan Kinsella on June 4, 2025

I was tagged in a recent Facebook Post by Reformed Christian and Libertarian Gregory Baus about his recent video arguing that non-Christian libertarians should become Christians (and in a sense, already are “religious”). His site contains various libertarian resources. ¹

His post:

There are a number of Non-Christian fellow libertarians I’ll try tagging in comments, along with some Christian libertarians. Among the Non-Christians, I suspect some of them are more hostile or indifferent to Christianity (or their impression of it) than others.
But here’s how what we say is perhaps unlike what you may have heard before:
We explain that Non-Christian libertarians:
1. are already religious
2. base their libertarianism on religious belief
3. base their religious belief on self-evident experience of something as self-existent
4. can do several things to facilitate discovering Christianity is true.

Below is an edited set of comments I sent him, lightly edited and with some minimal quoting of him:

Instead of saying I’m already religious, why not just simplify and say I’m already Christian? I mean if you are claiming non-christian libertarians are really “already religious” without knowing it, why not just make the bolder claim that we are already Christians without knowing it?

Anyway before listening, I’m guessing at your argument—I bet it’s either (a) we have faith in libertarian principles, so… we are not against “faith” as a source of knowledge; or (b) when we criticize something as wrong or evil, we are presupposing an objective standard of good and evil, something like that. Which of courre I’ve alreayd heard many times before.

Greg’s reply:

Not exactly. It’s an argument based on what is necessarily presupposed by concepts. But you might find it similarly unpersuasive. We cover it more in depth in yet another episode. [episode 19]

Didn’t I imply that–i.e., this idea of necessary presuppositions?

I have a friend who is a hardcore Hoppean who accepts argumentation ethics but thinks similar reasoning can be used to prove there is a God because we cannot deny we know there are absolutely Evil acts (e.g. aggression, child murder) and this implies or presupposes there is a God, and so on. I am familiar with these arguments.

***

FYI, I’m about halfway through that episode. It is very methodical and your definition of libertarian principles is really good. You actually get to the core thing of the four principles I point out which is self ownership (presumptive only), and then original appropriation and contract and rectification. ² You actually get this, something almost no one gets quite right.

My only problem so far is—I figured you were gonna go there—it’s basically a variant of the Thomistic argument, ³ the ontological arguments for God and this idea of necessary existence or self-existence or something like that, which is what I don’t agree with. And also you not having defined what “religious”, or implicitly defining it as believing in self-existence… and the very coherence of this concept of “self-existence”—so that’s my problem with it so far.

… Listening more: Yeah, so you define religious as belief in something that is self-existent… I don’t know why that’s the right definition for religion. I would think religion has something to do with epistemology that is a source of knowledge other than reason and evidence—in other words faith is a legitimate source of knowledge. But put that aside—my main problem is this concept of self-existence: I don’t know what it means for something to “depend” on something else. I think we know that some things exist and some scarcity exists, some material objects exist—and that’s enough political philosophy. Nobody denies this so why do I have to justify it? We don’t have to pronounce on whether they are self-existent or not since we take it for granted there are things that (for some reason; somehow) exist—in particular, scarce means of action exist, as this is implied in human action which is also a phenomenon that no one denies happens and that cannot be coherently denied in any case, as Mises would argue.

It’s the same as the Thomistic argument for ultimate cause, or similar.

His reply:

How belief in something as self-existent is religious belief, we don’t explain in that episode. But touch on more in episode 19. [See also by Roy A. Clouser, The Myth of Religious Neutrality: An Essay on the Hidden Role of Religious Belief in Theories]

We also distinguish our argument about self-existence from Thomistic arguments. I could elaborate.

In any case, per what it means for something to depend on something self-existent, this might be relevant: On the difference between concept and limiting idea

We don’t view faith as something apart from reason or evidence.

Well, for one thing, it seems like just an assertion. For another it seems ill defined. And for yet another it seems counterintuitive and also doesn’t explain anything. It is obvious some things “exist” but what it would mean for it to “depend” on something that is “self-existing”? This seems like pointless mumbo jumbo to me and explains nothing. It all seems to me to be part of a great tendentious argument aimed at justifying theism or worse, Christianity [worse, not in that being Christian is “worse” than being theist (though it might be), but in the sense of a stronger claim and a harder claim to support]—I’ve always felt the same about the ontological argument and related ones. It’s just a strained attempt to make your mystical/supernatural beliefs seem rational.