OP - I felt like this when DS1 was four. He was like this. It was relentless.
He is now 16 and totally lovely. Honestly the teen years have been a complete breeze (so far - touch wood!) I don't know what happened to make it better. I threw lots of parenting at it - some good, some terrible! Maybe some of the good stuff just took longer to work. Maybe he just grew up. I know I spent a lot of time in between age 4 and the teenage years worrying about our relationship and I wish I had had better tools, and known that he wasn't a horrible person and neither was I.
DS2 is very similar and is 6 now. He still argues a lot but we are better at dealing with it although honestly we aren't perfect and do sometimes snap (something like "Stop arguing!")
Both DS1 and DS2 have been diagnosed with ADHD which is probably what makes their behaviour so intense. Of course I'm not saying your DS has ADHD - speak to GP/HV if concerned obv, though 4 might be too young to diagnose, but what I'm saying is that this behaviour is intense, outside the norm, and so you might need parenting techniques which are a bit more "robust" than the usual stuff if that makes sense.
It is unlikely to be your fault.
Most helpful things IME (happy to talk more if you want to):
Diffuse with humour or OTT reaction or even just agree ("NO Mummy the sky is GREEN!!" "Oh really? I didn't know that! I've never seen a green sky!") rather than taking seriously. DO NOT engage in the argument in good faith. They are baiting you for sport, not because they really think they are right. Don't worry. In the moment it feels really important to MAKE them see they are wrong. It's almost never that urgent. Usually when they calm down they have totally forgotten or they are happy to discuss sensibly.
Learning to spot the signs that he's in a low-level wound up mood before they get to the argumentative little toad state. Some children with intense behaviours have difficulty recognising their inner body sensations (hunger, hot/cold, needing toilet etc) and then they will get all uncomfortable but not recognise why. Then they'll get all fidgety, floppy, whiny, deliberately annoy everyone for attention etc. Running through a little checklist to offer them a snack, drink, remind to go to toilet (without it being you telling them to do it because it has to be their idea 🙄), getting everyone outside, or, if I'm feeling patient and regulated enough myself then I will make myself physically closer and/or give some focused attention/play - this almost always helps.
NB "being regulated" does not mean you are a superhuman who just blissfully ignores all infuriating child behaviour. That is not a thing. That is an influencer guilt farm to make you buy an overpriced course which will probably solve neither the behaviour, nor your feelings about it. Actual regulation is much more complex but if you want to learn more about it I would recommend Mona Delahooke, Robyn Gobbel's Big Baffling Behaviours (book not podcast), Dan Siegel's "Upstairs vs Downstairs brain" concept, and a book "When Your Kids Push Your Buttons" (which is only 99p on Kindle) - that last one doesn't really explain regulation but does help you get less triggered.
Side note - underrated parenting hack of the century is to get "try for a poo for 5 mins" into your bedtime routine. I cannot explain how much difference this makes if you have a child who frequently ignores their need to poo for days on end.
If you're going to do reward/punishment stuff then it most likely needs to be decided on in advance and structured so that it can be consistent and predictable. They will still argue that it's not fair the first time you enforce it, but as they get used to it you get less of that. There is a good free course on Coursera called The ABCs of Everyday Parenting which teaches this really well. It's also leaned on heavily in the book "How not to murder your ADHD kid" which is useful if ADHD is suspected (and if the title matches your sense of humour - avoid if not.) We have had some success with essentially dividing time up into different slots and then making some highly prized privilege (generally, screen time kind of thing but you can also do a novel reward like stickers, points leading to a prize, money) contingent on a behaviour or lack of certain behaviours. And yes, it's not an intrinsic or natural consequence but sometimes an extrinsic motivator over a short period of time can really help target specific behaviours. And no your child won't be reliant on it for life if you use it in this way.
We also talked about feelings a lot. That is supposed to help teach emotional regulation. You don't need to do it excessively in the moment (they will only disagree anyway 
). The original book How To Talk is still good for this actually, or you can look at emotion coaching.
Do model apologising when you've calmed down if you feel ready to do that. Don't force out an apology if you don't, but don't stonewall as a punishment - it's OK to let him know you need space. Don't worry about exploding every so often. It's good for children to see that you are also human and you have feelings. You don't have to be perfect all the time.