TAG Is Not a Transcendental Argument

The Transcendental Argument for God (TAG) claims that finite agents cannot have warrant without God as the necessary precondition of intelligibility. This paper argues that TAG fails as a transcendental argument on three independent grounds: its necessity claim is circular rather than demonstrated, its explanatory foundation generates argumentative circularity, and its impossibility claim exceeds what any finite agent can epistemically access. A fourth observation proves more fundamental than all three: TAG relies on the very epistemic structures the PIE Syllogism—Perception-Inquiry-Experimentation, hereafter PIE—identifies as necessary, specifically awareness and coherence, to formulate its own argument. PIE is not merely TAG’s counterexample. PIE is TAG’s epistemological precondition. The paper remains metaphysically neutral throughout and makes no claim about God’s existence.