# Calvinism and presuppositionalism vs. Arminianism and evidentialism. Any correlation



## MMasztal

I just finished watching a debate with my Apologetics class between William Lane Craig and Christopher Hitchens. Early on in the debate it became evident that Craig subscribes more to the evidentalist camp than the presuppositionalist camp. He also admitted he is a Wesleyan 

Overall, in my opinion Craig did only OK in the debate, but it left me wondering is there a strong correlation with those in the Reformed camp subscribing to presuppositionalism and those in the Arminian camp embracing evidentialism.

My thinking would say there would be the above correlation since Reformed doctrine emphasizes the sovereignity of God hence the presupposition of God as the prime and centrality of our existence, versus Arminianism's focus on man's free will. Evidence is, after all, subject to individual interpretation as it points to man's individual capacities for reason, etc., and ultimately the decision/conclusion.


----------



## sastark

MMasztal said:


> is there a strong correlation with those in the Reformed camp subscribing to presuppositionalism and those in the Arminian camp embracing evidentialism.




Although not every Reformed theologian is presuppositional (R. C. Sproul is not, for example), I have yet to meet a presuppositional Arminian.


----------



## MMasztal

sastark said:


> Although not every Reformed theologian is presuppositional (R. C. Sproul is not, for example), I have yet to meet a presuppositional Arminian.


 
Thanks. Yes, I forgot about Sproul's belief. I attended the Ligonier Conference last week and Sproul took a swipe at the pre-supps, albeit a misrepresentation of presuppositionalism.


----------



## Douglas P.

You’re on the right track, in fact Van Til often belabours the point that presuppositionalism flows from the Calvinistic doctrine of God, while evidentialism will flow from the Arminian/Roman Catholic/Greek etc. doctrine of God.

The evidentialist say’s “Here are the facts, they are what they are, now let’s be gods unto ourselves and be judges of God to see whether he is true or not”. The evidentialist places the authority in the individual, pure rationalism. 

So to does the Arminian say “Here is the Gospel, now be a god unto yourself and judge whether God is worthy” making salvation, just like truth above, dependant upon man. The Arminian, by consequence of his theology, must allow for man to be purely autonomous, thus his apologetic, to be consistent with his theology, must be one of pure rationalism.


----------



## MLCOPE2

sastark said:


> I have yet to meet a presuppositional Arminian.



Well... Not a consistent one anyway!


----------



## kodos

It is impossible to be a presuppositional apologist when your theology is Arminian in nature. Presuppositional apologetics only can function within theology that holds to Total Depravity / Total Inability. Otherwise, you cannot believe that the Will is held in Bondage.


----------



## jwithnell

> in fact Van Til often belabours the point that presuppositionalism flows from the Calvinistic doctrine of God


Indeed, Mr. Van Til was self-consciously bringing apologetics into what he believed to be the only system of doctrine consistent with the Bible: reformed theology. And this theology cuts much deeper than the doctrine of God. He was expanding to some degree on other/earlier Dutch theologians including G. Vos and H. Bavinck and giving an expanded and systematic approach.


----------



## jwright82

Your right for saying this. One crucial reason why you are correct is both Dooyeweerd's and Van Til's critiques of autonomous thought. Van Til tended to point out the epistemological idolatry of all non-christian thought and Dooyeweerd, and Vollenhovan, tended to point out the metaphysical idolatry of all non-christian thought. Since Arminianism puts an ultimate, even godly, emphasis on the freedom of the will they have idolized the human will so they cannot consistantly be presuppositionalist because the presuppositionalist does not make anything but God godly, if that makes sense.


----------



## ChristianTrader

Douglas Padgett said:


> You’re on the right track, in fact Van Til often belabours the point that presuppositionalism flows from the Calvinistic doctrine of God, while evidentialism will flow from the Arminian/Roman Catholic/Greek etc. doctrine of God.
> 
> The evidentialist say’s “Here are the facts, they are what they are, now let’s be gods unto ourselves and be judges of God to see whether he is true or not”. The evidentialist places the authority in the individual, pure rationalism.
> 
> So to does the Arminian say “Here is the Gospel, now be a god unto yourself and judge whether God is worthy” making salvation, just like truth above, dependant upon man. The Arminian, by consequence of his theology, must allow for man to be purely autonomous, thus his apologetic, to be consistent with his theology, must be one of pure rationalism.


 
If there is no objective "neutral" zone then on what basis could one reject a muslim argument (you do not get to judge Allah) put forth in a similar way?

CT


----------



## Apologist4Him

Van Til's formulation of the concept of self-deception in the biblical presuppositional approach intertwines with the biblical doctrine of total depravity....which also intertwines with the biblical concept of autonomy (book of judges comes to mind over and over we read "and everyone did as he saw fit"). Thinking God's thoughts after him meshes with the biblical doctrine of the knowledge of God, so that we have a basis for knowing objective truth. It is only in the biblical presuppositional approach that we have the certainty of faith we read about in Scripture, and do not compromise the truths of Scripture pertaining to the non-Christian. We can emphasize the antithesis between the Christian and the non-Christian, the difference between Christ as Lord in every area of life, the sovereignty of God over all, versus a sovereignty of human autonomy....which can only lead to subjectivism, skepticism, and doubt. One of the main problems with the classical and evidential approaches is that they do not prove that the god that exists is the God of Christianity, and whatever they might prove, they do not prove with absolute certainty. We should start with Christ as Lord in our apologetic and end with Christ as Lord, and our basis for Christ as Lord is the inerrant, infallible, inspired Holy Scriptures. So the basis for true knowledge is revelational in nature (The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge..). The impossibility of the contrary is summed up by the notion of Theonomous knowledge (true knowledge based on revealed Holy Scripture and authority of God) versus autonomous knowledge (knowledge based on authority of man's reasoning, sense perception, etc). The whole notion of "neutral ground" is autonomous, it does not assume the authority and knowledge of God in every area of life, and undermines the biblical doctrine of total depravity.


----------



## Philip

MMasztal said:


> Overall, in my opinion Craig did only OK in the debate, but it left me wondering is there a strong correlation with those in the Reformed camp subscribing to presuppositionalism and those in the Arminian camp embracing evidentialism.



What exactly do we mean by presuppositionalism? Where does Old Princeton fit? How about Reidianism? "Reformed" epistemology (Wolterstorff, Plantinga, et al.)? Clarkianism? Schaefferianism? I find this term so widely used and misused that I wonder sometimes whether it has any meaning at all. 

I'm reformed, yet I'm also more of Reidian/"Reformed" epistemologist, and am not entirely sure that the term "presuppositionalist" means much anymore. When was the last time a "presuppositionalist" debated an atheist in public?


----------



## Apologist4Him

P. F. Pugh said:


> What exactly do we mean by presuppositionalism?



Since there are different schools of presupp, the meaning would be in the context. The term is thrown around ambiguously and generically at times, but in the Vantillian/Bahnsen sense of the term it is an approach to defending the faith where the Christian worldview is set over and against all other opposing worldviews. If we were not to view the defense of the faith in terms of "opposing worldviews", then the meaning of presupp might diminish considering everyone has presupp when it comes down to most basic assumptions concerning the big questions of philosophy. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Where does Old Princeton fit?



Apostle Paul--------->Augustine-------->Calvin-------->Kuyper,Warfield,Hodge--------->Van Til, Bahnsen

Van Til stood on the shoulders of those before him, Old Princeton fit in well with him. Both Van Til and Bahnsen thought very highly of Old Princeton. 




P. F. Pugh said:


> How about Reidianism?



Not familar with the term...sorry 



P. F. Pugh said:


> "Reformed" epistemology (Wolterstorff, Plantinga, et al.)?



From Van Til's unpublished manuscript entitled "Reformed epistemology":

"Coming now to discuss that form of Christian epistemology which we consider most satisfactory, we already know from the standard of criticism employed throughout the previous chapters that the Reformed view makes the claim of having alone done greatest justice to the principium speciale. “Calvinism is Theism come to its own.” That, as so many others, was a profound and comprehensive statement of Dr. Warfield. Calvinism alone, with its doctrine of the total dependence of man upon God, a dependence which is absolute and which nevertheless does not violate but brings out the true exercise of the human faculties, Calvinism alone could develop a truly biblical theology and philosophy. Calvinism alone, with its covenant-theology could make God the interpretive category of all reality, and thus afford the necessary universal validity. Calvinism alone could offer such a metaphysics upon which a valid epistemology could be constructed. So also with the principium speciale. Calvinism alone with its doctrine of the nature of man and the image of God in man did justice to the noetic influence of sin. The full and open recognition of the loss of God’s image in the narrower sense through sin, and the retention of that image in the wider sense through common grace could alone open the way for a valuation of the influence of sin upon the consciousness of man that should neither over nor underestimate the same." _Van Til, C., & Sigward, E. H. (1997). The works of Cornelius Van Til, 1895-1987 (electronic ed.). New York: Labels Army Co._

Reformed epistemology is very much a part of Vantillian biblical presupp. I cannot say what Plantinga, etc. might have added or taken away from because I am not all that familar with his works, but I have not seen Reformed epistemology in and of itself presented as an all encompassing exhaustive system for defending the faith. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Clarkianism?



Gordon Clark had a somewhat different approach. From what I understand, his most basic presupp or axiom would be logic, and that it is a property of God. I would agree that logic is a (transcendental) property of (the mind of) God, but I disagree in that it should be our most basic presupp. 




P. F. Pugh said:


> Schaefferianism?



Schaeffer was a student of Van Til, from what I understand Schaeffer's approach to defending the faith was cumulative. Van Til would certainly agree there is a place for evidences within the Christian worldview, the difference is one of approach. 




P. F. Pugh said:


> I find this term so widely used and misused that I wonder sometimes whether it has any meaning at all.



Just depends on the context, like most other terms...



P. F. Pugh said:


> I'm reformed, yet I'm also more of Reidian/"Reformed" epistemologist, and am not entirely sure that the term "presuppositionalist" means much anymore. When was the last time a "presuppositionalist" debated an atheist in public?


 
While I do not think a Scientific method of testing something in a public debate is the be all end all for deciding the truth of a matter, I am inclined to think it hasn't been all that long ago since a presupp debated an atheist. Vantillan Paul Manta engaged atheists in public debate not all that long ago...vs Dan Barker in...2007? Rev James White is quite active in public debates, although he may differ slightly, I do believe he embraces Van Til/Bahnsen presupp. Check out this debate from 2005: North City Presbyterian Church - Does The Christian God Exist? Pawnage!


----------



## Osage Bluestem

Is anyone familiar with Vincent Cheung?


----------



## MMasztal

Osage Bluestem said:


> Is anyone familiar with Vincent Cheung?



I’ve read a lot of Cheung and use some of his stuff for the theology class I teach. I appreciate his direct approach and willingness to confront a lot of the liberalism in the church- much like John MacArthur.

I haven’t been able to find out much about him though. All of his books are free downloads which is uncommon, but I appreciate it.


----------



## Semper Fidelis

P. F. Pugh said:


> When was the last time a "presuppositionalist" debated an atheist in public?



James White was scheduled to debate Hitchens and probably still will. He has also debated a number of other atheists. Doug Wilson debated Hitchens a number of times and there was even a movie made out of one of his debates.

I agree that presuppositionalism is a bit of a broad term. I think that Common Sense Realism is not so far from Van Til. I don't think he was every a systemetizer the way some of his disciples have been with their insistence on certain philosophical forms. I know that's broad brush but I find many points of contact in Van Til and older orthodoxy in the Archetypal/Ectypal distinction that has been central to Reformed thinking.


----------



## Philip

Apologist4Him said:


> Apostle Paul--------->Augustine-------->Calvin-------->Kuyper,Warfield,Hodge--------->Van Til, Bahnsen
> 
> Van Til stood on the shoulders of those before him, Old Princeton fit in well with him. Both Van Til and Bahnsen thought very highly of Old Princeton.



If we include Old Princeton, then we have to include Gerstner/Sproul. These two are very much in the tradition of Old Princeton, whereas Van Til has more of Kuyper about him.



Apologist4Him said:


> Reformed epistemology is very much a part of Vantillian biblical presupp. I cannot say what Plantinga, etc. might have added or taken away from because I am not all that familar with his works, but I have not seen Reformed epistemology in and of itself presented as an all encompassing exhaustive system for defending the faith.



"Reformed" epistemology (I use the term in quotes because many of its proponents are Molinists, not Calvinists) is more in line with common sense realism with the _Sensus Divinitatus_ added as a dimension which, for the regenerate, makes belief in God rational along the same lines as trust in sensory data, testimony, etc.



Semper Fidelis said:


> I agree that presuppositionalism is a bit of a broad term. I think that Common Sense Realism is not so far from Van Til. I don't think he was every a systemetizer the way some of his disciples have been with their insistence on certain philosophical forms.



I think I have to agree here. His use of certain terms ("autonomy" for instance) was often inconsistent and clearly not meant to be as systematic as Bahnsen made them out to be.

Common sense realism is, I think, compatible with some sort of presuppositionalism, but not with straight Bahnsen-Van Tillianism. However, I think we can agree that, when used rightly, it does not have to be autonomous.


----------



## MW

The presuppositional school of Van Til developed from the direction men like McCosh and Orr took common sense realism. We need to see that "Christendom" provided the presuppositional framework within which evidential apologetics had been conducted, especially in a school like Princeton. Presuppositionalism emerges as western thought begins to break away from its basic Christian presuppositions. Philosophers like Plantinga, Nash, etc., have demonstrated that realism is based on foundationalism, which itself stands on the sine qua non conditions of rationality.


----------



## Skyler

My elder (well, former elder at the moment) is a presuppositional Arminian.


----------



## cih1355

> What exactly do we mean by presuppositionalism?



There is no neutral method that can be used to discern which worldview is the correct one. There is no method for finding truth that makes no assumptions about which belief system is true that Christians and non-Christians can use. Christians and non-Christians do not share the same understanding of what is reasonable or what kind of facts are possible. Christians and non-Christians do not share the same approach for finding the truth. 

Presuppositionalists argue that the unbeliever borrows ideas from the Christian worldview. For example, if the unbeliever believes that creationists do not have any integrity when they practice science, the presuppositionalist could argue that the unbeliever assumes that moral values exist and that without the Christian God there would be no moral values. The non-Christian could use the laws of logic to make arguments against Christianity, but if the Christian God did not exist then he could not use the laws of logic in the first place.


----------



## ChristianTrader

cih1355 said:


> What exactly do we mean by presuppositionalism?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There is no neutral method that can be used to discern which worldview is the correct one. There is no method for finding truth that makes no assumptions about which belief system is true that Christians and non-Christians can use. Christians and non-Christians do not share the same understanding of what is reasonable or what kind of facts are possible. Christians and non-Christians do not share the same approach for finding the truth.
Click to expand...


If there is no neutral method then when Paul talked about suppressing the truth in Romans 1, all he was saying is "According to the Christian Worldview, x is suppressing the truth in unrighteousness." As far as a method that does not make any assumptions about truth not existings, are you saying that we all must take a blind leap faith and hope we leap well? Otherwise, there must be some method.

I agree that Christians and non Christians disagree over what is reasonable, however, I believe that Christians can justify their claim due to the contradictory nature of the unbelievers worldviews.



> Presuppositionalists argue that the unbeliever borrows ideas from the Christian worldview. For example, if the unbeliever believes that creationists do not have any integrity when they practice science, the presuppositionalist could argue that the unbeliever assumes that moral values exist and that without the Christian God there would be no moral values. The non-Christian could use the laws of logic to make arguments against Christianity, but if the Christian God did not exist then he could not use the laws of logic in the first place.


 
Why do presupps feel the need to claim that unbelievers borrow from the Christian worldview. Is it not better just to show that the worldview is contradictory and move on?

CT


----------



## Theogenes

Apologist4Him said:


> Gordon Clark had a somewhat different approach. From what I understand, his most basic presupp or axiom would be logic, and that it is a property of God. I would agree that logic is a (transcendental) property of (the mind of) God, but I disagree in that it should be our most basic presupp



Andrew,
Clark's starting point, axiom, presupposition was Scripture, not logic. He says so in his books. To say otherwise is to misunderstand and misrepresent Clark.
Jim


----------



## Apologist4Him

Theogenes said:


> Apologist4Him said:
> 
> 
> 
> Gordon Clark had a somewhat different approach. From what I understand, his most basic presupp or axiom would be logic, and that it is a property of God. I would agree that logic is a (transcendental) property of (the mind of) God, but I disagree in that it should be our most basic presupp
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Andrew,
> Clark's starting point, axiom, presupposition was Scripture, not logic. He says so in his books. To say otherwise is to misunderstand and misrepresent Clark.
> Jim
Click to expand...


Hi Jim, Sorry I guess I misunderstood, I did not intentionally misrepresent. I own a number of Clark's books but have not read any from them in years. Could you shed some light on the differences between Van Til and Clark for me and other readers?


----------



## MW

ChristianTrader said:


> Why do presupps feel the need to claim that unbelievers borrow from the Christian worldview. Is it not better just to show that the worldview is contradictory and move on?


 
It is basic to "Christian presuppositionalism" to show that rationality is only possible on "Christian presuppositions." To stop at showing the unbeliever his worldview is contradictory does nothing in the defence of Christianity as a positive, constructive belief system.


----------



## Apologist4Him

ChristianTrader said:


> If there is no neutral method then when Paul talked about suppressing the truth in Romans 1, all he was saying is "According to the Christian Worldview, x is suppressing the truth in unrighteousness." As far as a method that does not make any assumptions about truth not existings, are you saying that we all must take a blind leap faith and hope we leap well? Otherwise, there must be some method.



Both the "concept of self-deception", and "common grace" have a role in suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. For Christians, it is not a blind leap of faith, we were dead in sins and trespasses, dead men can't leap. For us, the supernatural work of God in regeneration and faith God authored in us caused us to believe. For the non-Christian, yes, it is a leap...autonmous leap inspired by the evil one.



ChristianTrader said:


> I agree that Christians and non Christians disagree over what is reasonable, however, I believe that Christians can justify their claim due to the contradictory nature of the unbelievers worldviews.



Yes, the "impossibility of the contrary" has a way of exposing the contradictory nature of non-Christian worldviews. This may be a bad example, bear with me, imagine a non-Christian sitting in a dark room, a Christian comes along and turns the lights on. The lights were there all along and shine on both of them, the non-Christian acknowledges the lights, he turns them back off, all while denying God is behind the laws of electricity.



ChristianTrader said:


> Why do presupps feel the need to claim that unbelievers borrow from the Christian worldview. Is it not better just to show that the worldview is contradictory and move on? CT


 
Well, it's not just a claim, it's true. The non-Christian on their own worldview cannot give an accurate account for transcendental or conceptual realities such as the laws of logic, morality, etc. the necessary preconditions for the intelligibility of human experience. If indeed God is behind logic, morality, language, mathematics, etc. why should we surrender the God given rational grounds for engaging in discussion? Are we to tell them, "your worldview is ok so far as logic, morality are concerned, you just need to change a few things"? What if their worldview is consistant...within their worldview?


----------



## Theogenes

Apologist4Him said:


> Theogenes said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Apologist4Him said:
> 
> 
> 
> Gordon Clark had a somewhat different approach. From what I understand, his most basic presupp or axiom would be logic, and that it is a property of God. I would agree that logic is a (transcendental) property of (the mind of) God, but I disagree in that it should be our most basic presupp
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Andrew,
> Clark's starting point, axiom, presupposition was Scripture, not logic. He says so in his books. To say otherwise is to misunderstand and misrepresent Clark.
> Jim
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Hi Jim, Sorry I guess I misunderstood, I did not intentionally misrepresent. I own a number of Clark's books but have not read any from them in years. Could you shed some light on the differences between Van Til and Clark for me and other readers?
Click to expand...


Andrew,
It seems to be a common mistake. Your request is a tall order and has been thoroughly discussed on this forum. Just search and you'll see. 
It's good to see that you have read some Clark. Many of his critics never have and yet they criticize what he wrote. I encourage you to reread some of those books such as, if you have them, "An Intro. to Christian Philosophy", "Religion, Reason and Revelation", Three Types of Religious Philosophy" and "Lord God of Truth". 
Jim


----------



## Philip

Apologist4Him said:


> Yes, the "impossibility of the contrary" has a way of exposing the contradictory nature of non-Christian worldviews.



All very nice in theory. Incredibly hard to prove. And very often in discussions I find myself accused of a Russell's teapot argument (ie: I can point my telescope at the asteroid belt and see a teapot. If you can't see it, then it moved).



Apologist4Him said:


> Well, it's not just a claim, it's true. The non-Christian on their own worldview cannot give an accurate account for transcendental or conceptual realities such as the laws of logic, morality, etc. the necessary preconditions for the intelligibility of human experience.



I've discussed this multiple times on other threads and what this comes down to is that the non-Christian just doesn't have as nice a story for explaining it. I've never seen a presuppositionalist actually demonstrate a necessary connection between Christianity and morality, Christiabity and logic, etc.

Necessary, by the way, means that you've demonstrated X->Y, ~Y->~X. It means that you've proved that if, for instance, there are moral values, then Christianity necessarily follows from that proposition. A necessary precondition would be a precondition that flows deductively from the thing that it is a precondition for. One example would be that an effect has a cause, a law has a lawgiver, etc.


----------



## MW

P. F. Pugh said:


> It means that you've proved that if, for instance, there are moral values, then Christianity necessarily follows from that proposition. A necessary precondition would be a precondition that flows deductively from the thing that it is a precondition for. One example would be that an effect has a cause, a law has a lawgiver, etc.


 
To my understanding this sounds contradictory. "Follows" indicates an a posteriori whereas a precondition is a priori. Do you have Ronald Nash's "Life's Ultimate Questions?" Pp. 272-304 might prove helpful for you as you think through the modern application of common sense realism.


----------



## Philip

armourbearer said:


> To my understanding this sounds contradictory. "Follows" indicates an a posteriori whereas a precondition is a priori.



For a necessary precondition, the reasoning would have to work both ways. To claim that God is a necessary precondition for morality, you are claiming P->Q. If morality, then God. However, the claim needs substantiation so that you also have to show ~Q->~P: if there is no God, then there is no transcendent moral standard.


----------



## cih1355

P. F. Pugh said:


> armourbearer said:
> 
> 
> 
> To my understanding this sounds contradictory. "Follows" indicates an a posteriori whereas a precondition is a priori.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> For a necessary precondition, the reasoning would have to work both ways. To claim that God is a necessary precondition for morality, you are claiming P->Q. If morality, then God. However, the claim needs substantiation so that you also have to show ~Q->~P: if there is no God, then there is no transcendent moral standard.
Click to expand...

 
Moral values come to us in the form of commands and commands can only come from a personal being. Commands cannot come from impersonal things. Moreover, moral values apply to all people in all places at all times so this personal being must have authority over all people in all places at all times. 

If there is no God, then the origin of everything is impersonal. Impersonal things cannot give commands. Impersonal things don't have authority over people. They can't obligate people to do something.


----------



## cih1355

ChristianTrader said:


> cih1355 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> What exactly do we mean by presuppositionalism?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There is no neutral method that can be used to discern which worldview is the correct one. There is no method for finding truth that makes no assumptions about which belief system is true that Christians and non-Christians can use. Christians and non-Christians do not share the same understanding of what is reasonable or what kind of facts are possible. Christians and non-Christians do not share the same approach for finding the truth.
> [\quote]
> 
> If there is no neutral method then when Paul talked about suppressing the truth in Romans 1, all he was saying is "According to the Christian Worldview, x is suppressing the truth in unrighteousness." As far as a method that does not make any assumptions about truth not existings, are you saying that we all must take a blind leap faith and hope we leap well? Otherwise, there must be some method.
> 
> I agree that Christians and non Christians disagree over what is reasonable, however, I believe that Christians can justify their claim due to the contradictory nature of the unbelievers worldviews.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Presuppositionalists argue that the unbeliever borrows ideas from the Christian worldview. For example, if the unbeliever believes that creationists do not have any integrity when they practice science, the presuppositionalist could argue that the unbeliever assumes that moral values exist and that without the Christian God there would be no moral values. The non-Christian could use the laws of logic to make arguments against Christianity, but if the Christian God did not exist then he could not use the laws of logic in the first place.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Why do presupps feel the need to claim that unbelievers borrow from the Christian worldview. Is it not better just to show that the worldview is contradictory and move on?
> 
> CT
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> There is objective truth and we can know it. We don't need to take a blind leap of faith. Not being neutral doesn't mean that there is no objective way to find truth.
> 
> Unbelievers use the laws of logic, science, and philosophical inquiry to find truth. The presuppositionalist would say that these things presuppose the Christian worldview.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Why do presupps feel the need to claim that unbelievers borrow from the Christian worldview. Is it not better just to show that the worldview is contradictory and move on? [\quote]
> 
> To show that they actually know God like it says in Romans 1. They may deny God's existence, but when they use the laws of logic and science, they are using something that assumes the Christian worldview. If they believe in objective morality, then they are believing in something that assumes God's existence even though they deny God's existence.
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


----------



## MW

P. F. Pugh said:


> For a necessary precondition, the reasoning would have to work both ways. To claim that God is a necessary precondition for morality, you are claiming P->Q. If morality, then God. However, the claim needs substantiation so that you also have to show ~Q->~P: if there is no God, then there is no transcendent moral standard.


 
This misunderstands the nature of a pre-condition. Consider the law of non-contradiction. It cannot be directly proven; but it is proven indirectly by the fact that every time a person makes a truth claim he is subject to the law.


----------



## Philip

cih1355 said:


> Moral values come to us in the form of commands and commands can only come from a personal being. Commands cannot come from impersonal things. Moreover, moral values apply to all people in all places at all times so this personal being must have authority over all people in all places at all times.



But this is a direct argument, of the form that C.S. Lewis used in _Mere Christianity_. If this is a presuppositional argument, then all arguments for theism are ultimately presuppositional.



armourbearer said:


> This misunderstands the nature of a pre-condition. Consider the law of non-contradiction. It cannot be directly proven; but it is proven indirectly by the fact that every time a person makes a truth claim he is subject to the law.



Nevertheless, you cannot claim just anything to be a necessary or sufficient precondition. There has to be a demonstration that X is _the_ necessary and/or sufficient precondition for Y.

One of my contentions, by the way, has consistently been that if Van Til's conception of worldview is correct, then any consistent argument that one could present for Christianity would be presuppositional in nature. The ontological argument shows that God necessarily exists; the cosmological argument shows that God is the most appropriate explanation for why there is something rather than nothing; the teleological argument shows that God is the best explanation for the apparent design in nature; etc. The classical apologist, therefore, is not wrong, but incomplete in his understanding.


----------



## jwright82

Just to take a step back here. I know of no serious philosopher who has ever really doubted, except Frame, that the Transcendental Argument is different in logical form from a direct *deductive* type argument. So trying to force it into a direct deductive type argument destroys the very logical form that makes it what it is. Many people criticize the validity of a TA but no one really expects, except Van Til's critics, that it must be able to be translated into a direct deductive type of argument to be valid. With that said keep in mind that a true TA is not a small simple task. We can abbreviate it for better understanding it but a real TA for anything would take up an entire book, Kant's TA did just that. 

Now the issue of nuetrality. When you come across a thinker who seems to be talking out of both sides of his or her mouth it may, not always be, be that the picture he or she is painting is a little more complex than we thought. Van Til considered the unbeleiver from three different perspectives, we see where Frame and Poythress get their Perspectivism from. These three different perspectives are metaphysical, psychological, and epistemologically. We can look at one common beleif from these three different perspectives to see where we have common ground and where we do not, lets examine the beleif that "murder is wrong." 

From a metaphysical view we do have common ground because both the beleiver and unbeleiver are made in the image of God. As much as they would like to they cannot escape this fact they are the image bearers of God. So the moral law withen tells them that "murder is wrong" just as it tells us beleivers the same. Psychologically speaking we all experience the same world. We all must think and talk about the same stuff, that is our common ground or experience. Now it is a common enough beleif that "murder is wrong" to safely say that we can agree with the unbeleiver psychologically speaking. But it was the epistemological perspective that Van Til devoted the majority of his time at. This perspective looks at whether or not a person can logically hold the beleif to be true, or what reasons or evidences can they give (outside a mere psychological agreement) that murder is wrong? Just to shed some light on this, this perspective is what the history of western ethics is all about, how do we logically prove that murder is wrong? So each thinker came up some reason or authority upon which to make this claim and someone else came along and criticized them and on and on we go. Another way to state the problem is this, on what objective basis can we know that murder is wrong?

It is in this epistemological perspevtive that Van Til maintained that there is no common ground or nuetrality. This is because the unbeleiver will not base his knowledge on the one true authority of God but on some other authority which now must be greater or more important than God, that is autonomy in the Van Tillian sense. To have a greater authority than God and His revealation as the basis for us being able to justify a beleif in the espistemological sense, not in the psychological sense, is autonoumy and idolatry. To justify a claim in the psychological sense you need only point out that everyone seems to roughly agree on it but that does nothing to satisfy the logical problem here. This is where the idea of antithesis comes in. In the epistemological sense there is absolute antithesis between the beleiver and the unbeleiver because they have two different ultimate authorities. Metaphysically and psychologically there is no antithesis, we are all still made in the image of God and we all still experience the same world.


----------



## ChristianTrader

As far as murder go, I would make a natural law type argument. I see this to be a neutral area to converse in. One does not need to accept the God of the Bible before one can accept the argumentation. Does this mean that one has to accept that natural law is greater than God? No. Therefore I am not sure what the no neutrality mandate gains.

CT


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> Just to take a step back here. I know of no serious philosopher who has ever really doubted, except Frame, that the Transcendental Argument is different in logical form from a direct deductive type argument. So trying to force it into a direct deductive type argument destroys the very logical form that makes it what it is.



James, you know that here, I have to differ. Every application of a transcendental argument ends up being deductive in form, just like any inductive argument can be made deductively valid with the word "probably." If the argument is not made deductive, then it is no longer compelling and lacks persuasive force.



jwright82 said:


> With that said keep in mind that a true TA is not a small simple task. We can abbreviate it for better understanding it but a real TA for anything would take up an entire book, Kant's TA did just that.



In which case, for all practical purposes, it is useless. I'm as completely unconvinced by Kant's transcendental critiques of pure reason as I am of Wittgenstein's linguistic analysis of revealed religion.



jwright82 said:


> To have a greater authority than God and His revealation as the basis for us being able to justify a beleif in the espistemological sense, not in the psychological sense, is autonoumy and idolatry.



Justify before whom? As I've said in other threads, justification presupposes that someone will judge me for not being able to provide some sort of argument for belief X. If you mean by this term "explanation," fine, but call it that. No one is under any sort of obligation to provide this sort of explanation: it's a question mostly interesting to philosophers. The distinction you draw between epistemology and psychology is unhelpful: both are simply the story we tell about our belief-forming processes.


----------



## cih1355

I would like to add that presuppositionalists say that certain things such moral values are not just good evidence for God's existence; they presuppose God's existence.


----------



## jwright82

ChristianTrader said:


> As far as murder go, I would make a natural law type argument. I see this to be a neutral area to converse in. One does not need to accept the God of the Bible before one can accept the argumentation. Does this mean that one has to accept that natural law is greater than God? No. Therefore I am not sure what the no neutrality mandate gains.
> 
> CT


 Well you make a valid point but as I have said elsewhere I don't disagree with the idea of natural law only natural law arguments. They only probably prove their point, if that. You see inductive type arguments, which any natural law argument inevitably becomes, only probably proves it point. This works well with empirical ideas like all "swans are probably black because I have only observed black swans", but abstarct ideas like right and wrong do not work so well. The reason is because many examples of nations that empirically thought that some form of murder was ok can be found and who says that the ones that thought murder was wrong have a monoply in ethics? They don't you have simply privilaged one part history over another based on your prior presupossition that murder is wrong thus creating a circuler argument of sorts.


----------



## ChristianTrader

jwright82 said:


> ChristianTrader said:
> 
> 
> 
> As far as murder go, I would make a natural law type argument. I see this to be a neutral area to converse in. One does not need to accept the God of the Bible before one can accept the argumentation. Does this mean that one has to accept that natural law is greater than God? No. Therefore I am not sure what the no neutrality mandate gains.
> 
> CT
> 
> 
> 
> Well you make a valid point but as I have said elsewhere I don't disagree with the idea of natural law only natural law arguments. They only probably prove their point, if that. You see inductive type arguments, which any natural law argument inevitably becomes, only probably proves it point. This works well with empirical ideas like all "swans are probably black because I have only observed black swans", but abstarct ideas like right and wrong do not work so well. The reason is because many examples of nations that empirically thought that some form of murder was ok can be found and who says that the ones that thought murder was wrong have a monoply in ethics? They don't you have simply privilaged one part history over another based on your prior presupossition that murder is wrong thus creating a circuler argument of sorts.
Click to expand...

 
I think reading this paper should put to rest some of your objections.

Metaphysical Foundations for Natural Law - Owen Anderson.pdf


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> James, you know that here, I have to differ. Every application of a transcendental argument ends up being deductive in form, just like any inductive argument can be made deductively valid with the word "probably." If the argument is not made deductive, then it is no longer compelling and lacks persuasive force.



You are simply historically and logically incorrect here. TA deal with far too complex of ideas to be simply put into neat little deductive arguments. Again you must show that the logical form of a TA logically reduces to some various form of deductive direct argument. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> In which case, for all practical purposes, it is useless. I'm as completely unconvinced by Kant's transcendental critiques of pure reason as I am of Wittgenstein's linguistic analysis of revealed religion.


You seem to put too much weight on a subjective persuasiveness. If the unbeleiver is in rebbellion to God what makes you think they will be fair in their level of persuasivness? They won't, they hate the things of God. Without meaning any offense or being too philosophically personal here I will point out that this makes sense from a Reidien point of view. Reid works well on empirical beleifs not abstract beleifs, like morals, because they are two different types of beleifs and thus have different logical conditions for true. Also Reid is far too subjective for me. A basic beleif is what seems basic to me. Again the unbeleiver can call all the shots in the name of not being convinced, I am just happy to show that he or she can't make sense out of anything whether they are convinced or not. So it makes sense that you seem to put too much weight on subjective persuasion.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Justify before whom? As I've said in other threads, justification presupposes that someone will judge me for not being able to provide some sort of argument for belief X. If you mean by this term "explanation," fine, but call it that. No one is under any sort of obligation to provide this sort of explanation: it's a question mostly interesting to philosophers. The distinction you draw between epistemology and psychology is unhelpful: both are simply the story we tell about our belief-forming processes.



Again justified simply means that you have met the logical requirments set forth for your transcendental, not scientific, explination of the experience in question, like moral experience. They are if philosophy has any weight at all. If you deny this point than you may well be denying the very validity of philosophy itself. If it is the case that no one is under any logical obligation to answer these questions than all philosophical questions are simply psuedo-problems. I think that we can both agree that that conclusion is nonsense. Of course it is perfectly logically valid to ask someone how do you know that? But if it is valid to ask that that it points to a logical problem that must be answered in some way by all. 

Why is the psychological/epistemological distinction "unhelpful"? It also seems that you are too tied up with an Enlightenment/Modernist philosophy, by that I mean the culimination of autonomous thought. You fight so hard for the unbeleivers "right" to make all sorts of moral claims because your own foundation for making such claims is the same. But again if you both can make these claims without answering the logical problems of ethics than you must "both" show why these questions are all mere psuedo-problems in an unproblimatic fashion, by that I mean that they don't raise more problems than they solve. Your fighting someone elses battle, let the autonomous dying philosophies of unbeleivers, in this case foundationalism, fight for themselves they are no friends of us christians.


----------



## MW

P. F. Pugh said:


> Nevertheless, you cannot claim just anything to be a necessary or sufficient precondition. There has to be a demonstration that X is _the_ necessary and/or sufficient precondition for Y.
> 
> One of my contentions, by the way, has consistently been that if Van Til's conception of worldview is correct, then any consistent argument that one could present for Christianity would be presuppositional in nature. The ontological argument shows that God necessarily exists; the cosmological argument shows that God is the most appropriate explanation for why there is something rather than nothing; the teleological argument shows that God is the best explanation for the apparent design in nature; etc. The classical apologist, therefore, is not wrong, but incomplete in his understanding.


 
The ontological argument is in fact the ultimate in presuppositional design. It basically argues that God is necessary for logic. It is interesting to observe that classical apologists shy away from the ontological argument. So yes, incomplete in understanding is probably a good way of describing them, but it should also be clear that an incomplete understanding has led to an inadequate defence of the faith.


----------



## MW

ChristianTrader said:


> As far as murder go, I would make a natural law type argument. I see this to be a neutral area to converse in. One does not need to accept the God of the Bible before one can accept the argumentation. Does this mean that one has to accept that natural law is greater than God? No. Therefore I am not sure what the no neutrality mandate gains.


 
One cannot really argue that murder is "immoral" when people do not believe (1) in morality because (2) they deny the imago Dei teaching. How does one go about establishing either (1) or (2) in an environment where materialistic evolution is the norm?


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> TA deal with far too complex of ideas to be simply put into neat little deductive arguments. Again you must show that the logical form of a TA logically reduces to some various form of deductive direct argument.



Certainly:

X presupposes Y.
X
Therefore Y.



jwright82 said:


> You seem to put too much weight on a subjective persuasiveness. If the unbeleiver is in rebbellion to God what makes you think they will be fair in their level of persuasivness?



This is simply about logical persuasiveness. TAs don't even work in theory---they provide nice stories but have no logical force. There is nothing in the nature of Kant's TA that requires me to refute it: I can simply ignore it because it doesn't touch my position.



jwright82 said:


> A basic beleif is what seems basic to me.



Not at all---a basic belief is a belief that comes by means of a properly-functioning cognitive power. It's not subjective at all. It may not be objective, but then again, objectivity is just as much of a myth as neutrality. We all have personal commitments that entail certain beliefs.



jwright82 said:


> Again justified simply means that you have met the logical requirments set forth for your transcendental, not scientific, explination of the experience in question, like moral experience.



But why should I be required to provide one? Again it's a question that's only interesting to a small subset of philosophers.



jwright82 said:


> I think that we can both agree that that conclusion is nonsense. Of course it is perfectly logically valid to ask someone how do you know that? But if it is valid to ask that that it points to a logical problem that must be answered in some way by all.



It is a valid question. And once we've answered it we may critique the answers ("my senses," "someone told me," etc) but all that we're really doing here is to clear up conceptual confusion. If we tell metaphysical stories, certainly we may compare and critique them, but only a small subset of philosophers feel compelled to do this.



jwright82 said:


> Why is the psychological/epistemological distinction "unhelpful"?



Because I think it's a false distinction. 



jwright82 said:


> You fight so hard for the unbeleivers "right" to make all sorts of moral claims because your own foundation for making such claims is the same.



Not quite. When it comes to morality, we will end up comparing metaethical theories and I think that a theistic one is most likely. However, the problem here is that we end up turning God into a convenient explanation. To the unbeliever it looks like a "God of the gaps" type of explanation, whereas a direct moral argument (such as the Lewis argument) is just as presuppositional, has more persuasive force, and shows that X (morality) entails Y (a lawgiver). 



jwright82 said:


> let the autonomous dying philosophies of unbeleivers, in this case foundationalism, fight for themselves



Make no mistake, Christian philosophy is foundationalist. It's just that God and His revelation are the foundation.



armourbearer said:


> The ontological argument is in fact the ultimate in presuppositional design. It basically argues that God is necessary for logic.



I've been arguing this for a while: the ontological argument is a transcendental argument used in reverse.


----------



## ChristianTrader

armourbearer said:


> ChristianTrader said:
> 
> 
> 
> As far as murder go, I would make a natural law type argument. I see this to be a neutral area to converse in. One does not need to accept the God of the Bible before one can accept the argumentation. Does this mean that one has to accept that natural law is greater than God? No. Therefore I am not sure what the no neutrality mandate gains.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> One cannot really argue that murder is "immoral" when people do not believe (1) in morality because (2) they deny the imago Dei teaching. How does one go about establishing either (1) or (2) in an environment where materialistic evolution is the norm?
Click to expand...

 
One cannot. But since materialistic evolution is false, you can argue against it, and then move forward concerning murder etc. You take care of the more basic then address the less basic.

CT


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> Certainly:
> 
> X presupposes Y.
> X
> Therefore Y.



That is not the logical form that I gave you in our previous discussions. The correct one is this:
Y presupposes X
If X is true than Y is either true or false
If X is false than Y is neither true nor false



P. F. Pugh said:


> This is simply about logical persuasiveness. TAs don't even work in theory---they provide nice stories but have no logical force. There is nothing in the nature of Kant's TA that requires me to refute it: I can simply ignore it because it doesn't touch my position.



A TA in theory would function roughly like this.
1. Analyze the given experience to determine what the logical problems are that must be solved
2. Analyze the problem to see what the logical conditions are that must be adequitly satisfied
3. Demonmstrate why the TA satisfies these conditions in an unproblimatic fashion
4. Criticize other aproechs for not satisfying those conditions
Bahnsens doctoral thesis is an excellant example of this. That is why it does carry force, it can be criticized sure but it cannot be said to not work in theory. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Not at all---a basic belief is a belief that comes by means of a properly-functioning cognitive power. It's not subjective at all. It may not be objective, but then again, objectivity is just as much of a myth as neutrality. We all have personal commitments that entail certain beliefs.



Well I agree with the last part for sure. But I regect all forms of foundationalism of this sort where you find "self-evident" or "common-sense" basic beleifs to then build your entire epistemology from. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> But why should I be required to provide one? Again it's a question that's only interesting to a small subset of philosophers.



Keep in mind that we are discussing philosophical or apologetical situations only not everyday, psychological, situations. I can agree with any unbeleiver all day long unless they enter one of these two areas. Than I am entitled to call into question, just as they are entitled to, any argument or premise that I want with good reason. For them to simply start treating the logical problems I have pointed out for them as "silly" or "useless" questions to answer only digs their logical hole deeper because that itself is one more logical fallacy. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> It is a valid question. And once we've answered it we may critique the answers ("my senses," "someone told me," etc) but all that we're really doing here is to clear up conceptual confusion. If we tell metaphysical stories, certainly we may compare and critique them, but only a small subset of philosophers feel compelled to do this.



Yes but you act like there is a complete and absolute disconnect between these "stories" and real people. If the connection is a logical one, which it is, than there is no disconnect like you suggest. If all your saying is that everyday people don't care about these things than granted. But that is not the same as saying that these logical connections and problems simply go away as a result of this. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Because I think it's a false distinction.



Well we can argue that but in one sense you are correct. In the everyday person these two distinctions mix together so that we can only sperate them in theory. But again epistemological problems are still there whether or not the person in question thinks of them or not. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Not quite. When it comes to morality, we will end up comparing metaethical theories and I think that a theistic one is most likely. However, the problem here is that we end up turning God into a convenient explanation. To the unbeliever it looks like a "God of the gaps" type of explanation, whereas a direct moral argument (such as the Lewis argument) is just as presuppositional, has more persuasive force, and shows that X (morality) entails Y (a lawgiver).



I don't think so. This is a complicated issue, as you know because I think we debated this one issue many times, because the word "good" has two different sorts of meanings for the beleiver and the unbeleiver. We agree that it means "what we should morally do", but they treat it metaphysically as an independent, almost godlike, metaphysical status. But for us the word takes on a much more "submissive" place because God defines what is right or wrong. This simply avoids all the common logical problems that western ethics as been arguing over for centuries because we assighn no independent metaphysical status to the word.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Make no mistake, Christian philosophy is foundationalist. It's just that God and His revelation are the foundation.


 
Yes but this form of foundationalism is much different than the basic beleif type classical forms take.


----------



## Peairtach

Two questions for further threads:

(a) Did the apostles, prophets, other biblical writers and our Lord use evidentialism, presuppositionalism or a combination thereof?

(b) Since presuppositionalism presents arguments to the unbelieving mind - albeit maybe better arguments e.g. transcendental arguments or evidential arguments augmented by transcendental argumentation - isn't this a concession to the reasoning validity of the fallen mind noetically affected by sin?


----------



## MW

ChristianTrader said:


> One cannot. But since materialistic evolution is false, you can argue against it, and then move forward concerning murder etc. You take care of the more basic then address the less basic.


 
Isn't your doctrine of creation one that is received by faith? Hebrews 11:3. If so, the unbelieving mind has no evidence for a creatio ex nihilo or creatio imago Dei.


----------



## ChristianTrader

armourbearer said:


> ChristianTrader said:
> 
> 
> 
> One cannot. But since materialistic evolution is false, you can argue against it, and then move forward concerning murder etc. You take care of the more basic then address the less basic.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Isn't your doctrine of creation one that is received by faith? Hebrews 11:3. If so, the unbelieving mind has no evidence for a creatio ex nihilo or creatio imago Dei.
Click to expand...

 
Faith is opposed to sight not opposed to reason/understanding. Is the unbelieving mind different from the believing mind due to simply making a different unsupported leap of faith? If instead it is due to a rejection of what is revealed by General Revelation, we should be able to point out where their reasoning goes awry and move from there.

CT

---------- Post added at 09:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:15 PM ----------




Richard Tallach said:


> Two questions for further threads:
> 
> (a) Did the apostles, prophets, other biblical writers and our Lord use evidentialism, presuppositionalism or a combination thereof?
> 
> (b) Since presuppositionalism presents arguments to the unbelieving mind - albeit maybe better arguments e.g. transcendental arguments or evidential arguments augmented by transcendental argumentation - isn't this a concession to the reasoning validity of the fallen mind noetically affected by sin?


 
a)Depends on how broadly you are defining your terms. Can a presup appeal to evidence without becoming a evidentialist etc.?
b)Here you hit on a big point. If the presups goal is to shut the mouth of the unbeliever, then at the very least, the unbeliever must be able to understand when their arguments have been beaten and they have no response.

CT


----------



## MW

ChristianTrader said:


> Faith is opposed to sight not opposed to reason/understanding. Is the unbelieving mind different from the believing mind due to simply making a different unsupported leap of faith? If instead it is due to a rejection of what is revealed by General Revelation, we should be able to point out where their reasoning goes awry and move from there.


 
There is no leap of faith here. Facts of divine revelation, as they pertain to supernatural, miraculous events, are "beyond reason," though not contrary to reason. Creation is a supernatural, miraculous event. Faith rests upon the testimony of divine revelation in order to understand it. Without that acceptance, there is no "rationality" for creatio ex nihilo or creatio imago Dei.


----------



## ChristianTrader

armourbearer said:


> ChristianTrader said:
> 
> 
> 
> Faith is opposed to sight not opposed to reason/understanding. Is the unbelieving mind different from the believing mind due to simply making a different unsupported leap of faith? If instead it is due to a rejection of what is revealed by General Revelation, we should be able to point out where their reasoning goes awry and move from there.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There is no leap of faith here. Facts of divine revelation, as they pertain to supernatural, miraculous events, are "beyond reason," though not contrary to reason. Creation is a supernatural, miraculous event. Faith rests upon the testimony of divine revelation in order to understand it. Without that acceptance, there is no "rationality" for creatio ex nihilo or creatio imago Dei.
Click to expand...

 
Is it your contention that according to general revelation, Biblical creation ex nihilo and materialism are equally well supported?

CT


----------



## MW

ChristianTrader said:


> Is it your contention that according to general revelation, Biblical creation ex nihilo and materialism are equally well supported?


 
"General revelation" is divine revelation. If you are going to *presuppose* it at the beginning of a conversation about natural law then you have already decided the case against materialism. If, however, you were to start with the "bare facts" in *evidence*, it is difficult to know how one could prove an ex nihilo creation since "out of nothing nothing comes."


----------



## ChristianTrader

armourbearer said:


> ChristianTrader said:
> 
> 
> 
> Is it your contention that according to general revelation, Biblical creation ex nihilo and materialism are equally well supported?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "General revelation" is divine revelation. If you are going to *presuppose* it at the beginning of a conversation about natural law then you have already decided the case against materialism. If, however, you were to start with the "bare facts" in *evidence*, it is difficult to know how one could prove an ex nihilo creation since "out of nothing nothing comes."
Click to expand...

 
General revelation means what can be known about God outside of special revelation. Depending on ones worldview one could say nothing, because God doesn't exist, God could exist but doesn't seem to care if we know this etc. I was not attempting to bias anything.

All ex nihilo means is out of nothing, not caused/created by nothing. To rule God out of bounds, one would have to apriori rule out non materialistic causes. I have no idea what kind of reasoning one could use to back that play.

Since something exists, something must have always existed. So the contest is over what fits the bill of being eternal.

CT


----------



## Semper Fidelis

ChristianTrader said:


> General revelation means what can be known about God outside of special revelation.



I would like to modify this statement. General Revelation is not what can be _known_ about God outside of special revelation but what God _reveals_ outside the Scriptures. As Matthew noted it is _revelation_ and is not the discursive analysis of facts by an autonomous mind arranging material into what a person may know about God.

I agree with Matthew that even General Revelation is perspicuous only to the Christian. That is not to say that I disagree with you that an unbeliever can be shown to be a fool in his folly but that is different than getting him to accept God's Covenantal relationship to all things and the supernatural act of Creation. He may conclude (even this would be rebellion) that *a* god accounts for all things but that would still be a suppression of General Revelation because the true God does not reveal that just *any* God created the heavens and the earth.

This is not a "leap of faith" but recognizes what Romans 1 states about the ethical fallenness of man. It is not that man has lost the image of God and the ability to reason but he is ethically hostile to God and will not bow the knee to accede to Creation as God has revealed Himself in nature. He may not suppress propositions and could even agree to the logic of a syllogism that a Christian could agree to but that is different than the knowledge that God reveals of Himself in nature that does not merely result in the acceptance of facts but the worship of the creature in the light and gratitude of Divine revelation.


----------



## ChristianTrader

Semper Fidelis said:


> ChristianTrader said:
> 
> 
> 
> General revelation means what can be known about God outside of special revelation.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I would like to modify this statement. General Revelation is not what can be _known_ about God outside of special revelation but what God _reveals_ outside the Scriptures. As Matthew noted it is _revelation_ and is not the discursive analysis of facts by an autonomous mind arranging material into what a person may know about God.
Click to expand...


I am not sure how this modifies my statement, unless you think I am implying that we can know something about God that God does not want us to know?



> I agree with Matthew that even General Revelation is perspicuous only to the Christian. That is not to say that I disagree with you that an unbeliever can be shown to be a fool in his folly but that is different than getting him to accept God's Covenantal relationship to all things and the supernatural act of Creation. He may conclude (even this would be rebellion) that *a* god accounts for all things but that would still be a suppression of General Revelation because the true God does not reveal that just *any* God created the heavens and the earth.



One must remember that this tangent started when I asserted that one could use natural law as a neutral zone, and that being a materialist is no defense. I am in shock that this is even controversial. I made no argument against the view that unbelievers suppress the truth. I simply made the normative claim that a person "should" act a certain way.



> This is not a "leap of faith" but recognizes what Romans 1 states about the ethical fallenness of man. It is not that man has lost the image of God and the ability to reason but he is ethically hostile to God and will not bow the knee to accede to Creation as God has revealed Himself in nature. He may not suppress propositions and could even agree to the logic of a syllogism that a Christian could agree to but that is different than the knowledge that God reveals of Himself in nature that does not merely result in the acceptance of facts but the worship of the creature in the light and gratitude of Divine revelation.


 
Okay if it is not a leap of faith, then why the opposition to natural law?

CT


----------



## Reformed Thomist

It should be noted that R.C. Sproul (like his mentor, John Gerstner) is not an evidentialist, but a _classical_ apologist. This is an important difference generally, one which strangely tends to be overlooked by presuppositionists, who like to set up 'Presuppositionalism vs. Evidentialism' debates as if evidentialism _included_ classical apologetics. There are similarities between the two schools, but they are distinct and in opposition toward one another.


----------



## Semper Fidelis

ChristianTrader said:


> I am not sure how this modifies my statement, unless you think I am implying that we can know something about God that God does not want us to know?


It's the same distinction as to whether the Scriptures are "breathed out" or whether they are "inspired". I did not think you were implying that we can know something that God does not want us to know. When I said I would modify the statement it was not to accuse you of anything but to suggest that there is a better way of stating something because most people today think of knowledge as something that the mind does by organizing bare facts. If we maintain that General Revelation is _revelation_ it tends to reinforce the idea that knowledge remains grounded in revelation. It also keeps us from making the mistake in thinking we're only going to be resistant to the Bible and not to all revelation.



ChristianTrader said:


> Okay if it is not a leap of faith, then why the opposition to natural law?



I'm not opposed to the concept of natural law. The point of contact that we have with all men is that we're all created in God's image. 

I was simply agreeing with Matthew that agreement on "creation" is not merely an exercise in the faculties of reason but involves faith as well.


----------



## ChristianTrader

Semper Fidelis said:


> ChristianTrader said:
> 
> 
> 
> Okay if it is not a leap of faith, then why the opposition to natural law?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not opposed to the concept of natural law. The point of contact that we have with all men is that we're all created in God's image.
> 
> I was simply agreeing with Matthew that agreement on "creation" is not merely an exercise in the faculties of reason but involves faith as well.
Click to expand...

 
If we reject the "leap" of faith, then faith is simply believing in what is left after reason/understanding has wiped out the nonsense.

That may sound a bit weird but I think it is similar to John 6:67-68 
67Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?
68Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.

Peter exercised faith, but there was no other game in town.

CT


----------



## Semper Fidelis

ChristianTrader said:


> Semper Fidelis said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ChristianTrader said:
> 
> 
> 
> Okay if it is not a leap of faith, then why the opposition to natural law?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not opposed to the concept of natural law. The point of contact that we have with all men is that we're all created in God's image.
> 
> I was simply agreeing with Matthew that agreement on "creation" is not merely an exercise in the faculties of reason but involves faith as well.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> If we reject the "leap" of faith, then faith is simply believing in what is left after reason/understanding has wiped out the nonsense.
> 
> That may sound a bit weird but I think it is similar to John 6:67-68
> 67Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?
> 68Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.
> 
> Peter exercised faith, but there was no other game in town.
> 
> CT
Click to expand...

 
I think we're in agreement. "Leap of faith" is typically a way of describing what men are called to have to do to accept religious truth given the neumonal/phenomenal divide of post-Kantian philosophy. We both reject this division in reason.

I find Kuyper's analogy on the faculties of man to be helpful where he compares the fallenness of man to the Admiral of a fleet of ships who betrays his Sovereign and goes into the service of another. He does not sink his ships but keeps the armada of ships in perfect working order and then turns his weapons against the King.

When I spoke of reason I guess I ought to have noted that man is going to use that reason against God. His mind will function "properly" in one sense but it will be used (ethically) against God. Faith redirects the affections of the soul and, consequently, it is not that he will learn new logical rules but will no longer be hostile to God. In this sense, Creation is spiritually apprehended revelation because the fallen man will have no true fruition in what knowledge he has of Creation unless his heart is created anew and he is not using his faculties as a weapon against the Creator.

Linking back to the OP, then, Arminianism posits that man's nature in the Fall is not so affected. I think too often the argument tends to blur the issue as if Calvinism sees men using the minds created in the image of God in some new supernatural way when the issue has to do with a change of allegiance or affection where enmity once existed. Only the Gospel can eliminate this enmity but this does not mean that we are incapable of reasoning with our neighbors altogether.

Thus, in Peter's case, he's not using some new reason but recognizing and embracing the words of eternal life that unregenerate men would refuse on ethical grounds.


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> Y presupposes X
> If X is true than Y is either true or false
> If X is false than Y is neither true nor false



The problem here is that the conclusion is the first premise. Y presupposes X if and only if X is a necessary condition of Y's being meaningful. Yet this is precisely what is being debated.



jwright82 said:


> A TA in theory would function roughly like this.
> 1. Analyze the given experience to determine what the logical problems are that must be solved
> 2. Analyze the problem to see what the logical conditions are that must be adequitly satisfied
> 3. Demonmstrate why the TA satisfies these conditions in an unproblimatic fashion
> 4. Criticize other aproechs for not satisfying those conditions



The problem is that this is inconclusive: you're presenting Christianity as a theory: a convenient explanation for particular phenomena. It's the kind of "God-of-the-gaps" thinking that most serious philosophers, whether Christian or not, agree is not an appropriate reason for theism. The unbeliever is asking whether there is a God, not whether positing God would be a convenient explanation.



jwright82 said:


> Well I agree with the last part for sure. But I regect all forms of foundationalism of this sort where you find "self-evident" or "common-sense" basic beleifs to then build your entire epistemology from.



In some ways my thought is developing on this point (thanks to Wittgenstein, in part, though not wholly). In many ways, these personal commitments also define what sorts of statements are capable of having truth-value.



jwright82 said:


> Keep in mind that we are discussing philosophical or apologetical situations only not everyday, psychological, situations.



The everyday is the key to the philosophical. By creating this disconnect, you are creating conceptual confusion---part of the point of philosophy is to disentangle this confusion.



jwright82 said:


> For them to simply start treating the logical problems I have pointed out for them as "silly" or "useless" questions to answer only digs their logical hole deeper because that itself is one more logical fallacy.



What logical problems? Where does the contradiction lie?



jwright82 said:


> In the everyday person these two distinctions mix together so that we can only sperate them in theory. But again epistemological problems are still there whether or not the person in question thinks of them or not.



I think the distinction is just creating unnecessary confusion. Epistemology is concerned with how we know what we know, not with what sorts of propositions are knowable or intelligible---that's linguistics. The best epistemologists are teachers.



jwright82 said:


> Yes but you act like there is a complete and absolute disconnect between these "stories" and real people. If the connection is a logical one, which it is, than there is no disconnect like you suggest.



I'm curious as to what exactly you mean by this. The grand metaphysical schemes suggested by many are indeed the product of particular commitments, but for those who haven't produced such schemes, the method of exposing these commitments by this means is pointless. If you want to expose autonomy, metaphysics can be useful, but only for a very small subset of people.



jwright82 said:


> But for us the word takes on a much more "submissive" place because God defines what is right or wrong.



I wouldn't say this, actually, because it makes God sound arbitrary. I would say that God is the definition of what goodness is.



jwright82 said:


> This simply avoids all the common logical problems that western ethics as been arguing over for centuries because we assighn no independent metaphysical status to the word.



On the contrary: the question of Euthyphro still remains. Even my own solution has fallen prey to certain criticisms.



jwright82 said:


> Yes but this form of foundationalism is much different than the basic beleif type classical forms take.



I'm not a classical foundationalist, just a common-sense realist. I do have properly basic beliefs, but that doesn't mean that metaphysical explanation is impossible, merely unnecessary for real knowledge.

---------- Post added at 02:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:18 PM ----------




armourbearer said:


> There is no leap of faith here. Facts of divine revelation, as they pertain to supernatural, miraculous events, are "beyond reason," though not contrary to reason. Creation is a supernatural, miraculous event. Faith rests upon the testimony of divine revelation in order to understand it. Without that acceptance, there is no "rationality" for creatio ex nihilo or creatio imago Dei.



Indeed. This, I think, is what Kierkegaard, for all his faults, got right: we have to see revelation as a word from the outside and until a person, through Divine Grace, is able to recognize it as such, it's going to be a stumbling block (the "leap of faith," that SK talks about is actually unrelated to this point---it's about ethics, not epistemology).


----------



## MW

ChristianTrader said:


> All ex nihilo means is out of nothing, not caused/created by nothing.


 
Either creation is a miracle which is beyond reason to discover or it is not.


----------



## ChristianTrader

armourbearer said:


> ChristianTrader said:
> 
> 
> 
> All ex nihilo means is out of nothing, not caused/created by nothing.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Either creation is a miracle which is beyond reason to discover or it is not.
Click to expand...

 
Creation is a miracle that is not beyond reason to discover.

CT


----------



## MW

ChristianTrader said:


> Creation is a miracle that is not beyond reason to discover.


 
How do you prove there was nothing before there was something? Are you going to subject all miracles to the test of reason, or just this beginning of miracles?


----------



## ChristianTrader

armourbearer said:


> ChristianTrader said:
> 
> 
> 
> Creation is a miracle that is not beyond reason to discover.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> How do you prove there was nothing before there was something? Are you going to subject all miracles to the test of reason, or just this beginning of miracles?
Click to expand...


There are many arguments against matter/the universe being eternal (if it is not eternal, then there was a point when it did not exist). One is basically the 2nd law of thermodynamics/entropy. The universe is highly differentiated (Some places hot, some cold; other wet while some are dry etc.) Over time, the universe is reaching sameness. If it was eternal, it would have already reached that point and stayed at that point. Since it has not reached that point, there is no reason to maintain that it is eternal.

Also creation out of nothing, is a bigger deal than any other miracle I can think of. So as of now, I would say that if one can reason to creation out of nothing, then one should have no problem with other miracles.

CT


----------



## MW

ChristianTrader said:


> Over time, the universe is reaching sameness. If it was eternal, it would have already reached that point and stayed at that point.


 
You have assumed a lineal development where there might be a regular cycle. Kind of like global warming, you cannot tell if your present observations are part of a movement towards a fixed goal or just an upsurge in a regular pattern. I would suggest that you are importing (1) a concept of "eternal" into the discussion, and (2) an assumption of development which cannot be accounted for. So it would appear that you are still dependent on preconceptions for your "mere rationality."


----------



## DMcFadden

Theogenes said:


> Apologist4Him said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Theogenes said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Apologist4Him said:
> 
> 
> 
> Gordon Clark had a somewhat different approach. From what I understand, his most basic presupp or axiom would be logic, and that it is a property of God. I would agree that logic is a (transcendental) property of (the mind of) God, but I disagree in that it should be our most basic presupp
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Andrew,
> Clark's starting point, axiom, presupposition was Scripture, not logic. He says so in his books. To say otherwise is to misunderstand and misrepresent Clark.
> Jim
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Hi Jim, Sorry I guess I misunderstood, I did not intentionally misrepresent. I own a number of Clark's books but have not read any from them in years. Could you shed some light on the differences between Van Til and Clark for me and other readers?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Andrew,
> It seems to be a common mistake. Your request is a tall order and has been thoroughly discussed on this forum. Just search and you'll see.
> It's good to see that you have read some Clark. Many of his critics never have and yet they criticize what he wrote. I encourage you to reread some of those books such as, if you have them, "An Intro. to Christian Philosophy", "Religion, Reason and Revelation", Three Types of Religious Philosophy" and "Lord God of Truth".
> Jim
Click to expand...

 
Clark argues against both Rationalism and Empiricism (as well as Irrationalism) in favor of what he calls "Dogmatism." In the Clark lexicon, Dogmatism refers to that view which begins with the "axiom of revelation" and so highly values logic that he even substitutes "logic" for logos in his translation of John 1:1.

Since Clark argues strongly that Empiricism is a failure, he naturally opposes evidentialism which depends upon Empiricism. For while Clark classifies Democritus, Aristotle, Aquinas, Hume, and the majority of philosophers today as empirical, he openly asks why anybody would become an empirical philosopher. In its strictest form, Empiricism “bases all knowledge on sensation alone” (_TTRP_, 29). Among the variations, Kant combined logic with sensation, logical positivism takes a different path. Clark cites the most famous application of Empiricism to religion as Aquinas’ proof for the existence of God which began: “It is certain and evident to our senses that in the world some things are in motion” (_TTRP_, 30). 

While the argument that classical apologetics is distinguishable from Empiricism, Clark classes Gerstner among the Empiricist evangelicals, along with Buswell, Carnell, Holmes, Mavrodes, and J.W. Montgomery.

Empiricism cannot support universal judgments and since the withering critiques of Hume (who restricted our knowledge of the past and denied all knowledge of the future), Clark judges Empiricism (along with secular Rationalism and Irrationalism) as abject failure. Clark observes wryly that “Empiricism, in addition to its failure to prove God’s existence, also fails to prove the existence of external bodies and internal selves” (_TTRP_, 62). He is unstinting in his ridicule: “Why then are there any empirical philosophers? Or, at least, why, in the face of these annihilating objections, does anyone try to base religion on experience and ignore, or refuse to answer, the arguments of their opponents?” (_TTRP_, 64).

Answering the question about evidences, Clark would answer that the Dogmatist can speak of evidences such as archaeology, but with a twist. Clark references the example of archaeology and the objection that if you are a Dogmatist, then you cannot speak of archaeology. Nonsense, says Clark. You simply opt for an ad hominem argument to convince the liberal of contradicting himself. “And covered with contradiction, the Liberal and the Empiricist, not the Dogmatist, have been reduced to silence. Once this is done, there remain no empirical objections against the truth of Scripture. The apologetic task is completed” (_TTRP_, 103).

I'm no Clarkian, let alone an expert on Clark. But, since the question came up, this represents my simple take on it.


----------



## ChristianTrader

armourbearer said:


> ChristianTrader said:
> 
> 
> 
> Over time, the universe is reaching sameness. If it was eternal, it would have already reached that point and stayed at that point.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You have assumed a lineal development where there might be a regular cycle. Kind of like global warming, you cannot tell if your present observations are part of a movement towards a fixed goal or just an upsurge in a regular pattern. I would suggest that you are importing (1) a concept of "eternal" into the discussion, and (2) an assumption of development which cannot be accounted for. So it would appear that you are still dependent on preconceptions for your "mere rationality."
Click to expand...


One thing to note, I said there were many arguments against the universe being eternal/materialism. I have only given part of one of those arguments.

Now, the second law of thermo is called a scientific law because there are no objections to it anywhere. For your global warming objection to have any teeth, there would need to be some instance of the amount of entropy reducing or even staying constant. However every energy transfer loses some amount of usable energy. In global warming, we have all sorts of examples of warming and cooling etc. This is why the term is now "Climate Change" instead of Global Warming.

CT


----------



## Philip

Dennis, of course you know that the problem with such argumentation is that it destroys the very arguments of Scripture. How did Christ demonstrate His Divinity? By performing miracles---empirical signs of who He was. Clark thinks that the argument and manner of argumentation is the matter, but he only addresses the surface. To use an overworn cliche, the heart of the matter is a matter of the heart.

To reject empirical knowledge, as Clark does, is patently ridiculous: who made your senses? Who gave you the ability to use them? So why should you systematically distrust them?


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> The problem here is that the conclusion is the first premise. Y presupposes X if and only if X is a necessary condition of Y's being meaningful. Yet this is precisely what is being debated.



You can debate it all you want too. This logical form only demonstrates logically the relationship between the two. Take the example I gave you before two people are arguing over whether or not abortion is wrong, wrong in the normal sense I know we use this word in many other ways but I am narrowing it down to this sense. Their very discussion assumes that there is such a thing as right and wrong. If morality does not exist in an absolute sense than abortion is neither right nor wrong because absolute values do not exist.



P. F. Pugh said:


> The problem is that this is inconclusive: you're presenting Christianity as a theory: a convenient explanation for particular phenomena. It's the kind of "God-of-the-gaps" thinking that most serious philosophers, whether Christian or not, agree is not an appropriate reason for theism. The unbeliever is asking whether there is a God, not whether positing God would be a convenient explanation.



I would disagree. The type of explination you are rightly criticizing is a mystery type scientific explination. A logical explination is different because you logically analyze the phenomina in question as I've laid out. Yes you are pointing to difficulties in the nature of a TA, issues that we defenders need to work out. It is more than a theory because you are framing it in a scientific type scheme, it is a logical type scheme so that particuler criticism fails on that ground, in my opinion. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> In some ways my thought is developing on this point (thanks to Wittgenstein, in part, though not wholly). In many ways, these personal commitments also define what sorts of statements are capable of having truth-value.



I would agree here, I love the later Wittgenstien. I just don't follow all the whacko disciples of his into the extreme sort of skepticism that some of them employ, rightly or wrongly in his name.




P. F. Pugh said:


> The everyday is the key to the philosophical. By creating this disconnect, you are creating conceptual confusion---part of the point of philosophy is to disentangle this confusion.



Of course you are correct here so I'm not positing a complete disconnect only saying that most people wrongly ignore this level of themselves. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> What logical problems? Where does the contradiction lie?



Well we have been speaking in generalities here but lets get specific. Say an atheist appeals to most people agreeing on a specific act being right or wrong. I point out that that as an argument for his beleif, being a fundamentalist is wrong, is the logical fallacy of mass appeal. Just because a large group of people believe that something is the case doesn't neccessaraly make it so. I love to point out that the Nazi's all agreed that what they did was right. At this point they usually assert that no what they did was wrong because murder was wrong. Ok now they have appealled to trans-cultural, trans-human values without realizing it. Ok where are these abstarct rules that prove that murder is wrong and they still haven't answered the original objection to their original argument.

Now lets say they are a philosopher and they at this point enter some ethical theory in to try to destroy my criticisms. They say they are a Kantian, Utilitarianist, etc.., so at that point I would simply criticize whatever theory they are putting forward to that theory is ultimatly arbritrary and cannot acomplish what they want it to acomplish. So you see in entering the debate they have just stacked up all sorts of problems that need to be answered for their original assertion to be now be proven true. Lets say they argue that my whole line of questioning are all stupid. Without demonstarting why they have simply stepped into the fallacy of abbsurdity. There is nowhere for them to turn too.




P. F. Pugh said:


> I think the distinction is just creating unnecessary confusion. Epistemology is concerned with how we know what we know, not with what sorts of propositions are knowable or intelligible---that's linguistics. The best epistemologists are teachers.
> 
> 
> 
> Well it is "awkrered" to articulate but it does seem to be a neccessary distinction to me. Epistemology also deals with the justifications of something being "known". If I accedently guess the outcome of a coin toss I didn't really "know" how it was going turn out. But if I say I "know" the winning lotery numbers from last night and I can recite them to you it is safe to say that I "knew" that peice of information.
> 
> 
> 
> P. F. Pugh said:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm curious as to what exactly you mean by this. The grand metaphysical schemes suggested by many are indeed the product of particular commitments, but for those who haven't produced such schemes, the method of exposing these commitments by this means is pointless. If you want to expose autonomy, metaphysics can be useful, but only for a very small subset of people.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Philosophy deals with logical problems. The problem of induction, the various paradoxs of analytical philosophy, the problems of ethics and metaphysics, these are all logical problems. You can say that these problems only arise withen philosophical conceptions of things true but the basic problems are fundemental our existance. We are logical therefore we cannot avoid these.
> 
> Also you are forgetting logical commitments of a sort. Take for instance a person saying that abortion is the most practical way to solve overpopulation. Now have they worked out a grand ethical theory name and all? No but their statments assumes something, that whatever is the most practical thing to do is the right thing to do. If you do not place this statment as the presupossition of their other statement than is is irrelevant to the discussion. Again this creates a logical commitment on their part that they are not even aware of.
> 
> Y= abortion is the most practical way to end overpopulation, therefore it is the right thing to do
> x= whatever is the most practical thing to do is the right thing to do
> Y presuposses X
> If X is true than either Y is is not true, that is to say that abortion either is or is not the most practical thing to do
> If X is false than Y is neither true nor false, that is that if X is false than the practicality of the thing is irrelivent to the discussion
> 
> 
> 
> P. F. Pugh said:
> 
> 
> 
> I wouldn't say this, actually, because it makes God sound arbitrary. I would say that God is the definition of what goodness is.
> 
> 
> 
> You are right if and only if "goodness" is that independent self-existant thing that I mentioned autonomous thought is dedicated to. Again if God appeals to some "goodness" outside of himself than he is not God, but unless God has a good "reason", to whom does He owe a good reason to?, which again would assume some standered of morality to abritirate over whether or not He has a "good" reason than He is simply abritrary. But if we regect this wierd Platonic notion of "goodness" than we avoid the trap because what God decides is right or wrong, based on His eternal charector of course, is therefore right or wrong. It is only after God has ruled on a particuler action can it be ruled to be right or wrong.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> jwright82 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yes but this form of foundationalism is much different than the basic beleif type classical forms take.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> P. F. Pugh said:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not a classical foundationalist, just a common-sense realist. I do have properly basic beliefs, but that doesn't mean that metaphysical explanation is impossible, merely unnecessary for real knowledge.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Knowledge is real, I never said that but how to account for that knowledge is where Van Til chose to pursue the argument.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> Their very discussion assumes that there is such a thing as right and wrong. If morality does not exist in an absolute sense than abortion is neither right nor wrong because absolute values do not exist.



Not necessarily---there is nihilism, which says that moral statements are capable of being correct or incorrect, but that as a matter of fact, all of them are incorrect.



jwright82 said:


> A logical explination is different because you logically analyze the phenomina in question as I've laid out.



And all that you can get from this is the particular set of necessary and sufficient conditions for the phenomena. What do will never get is the particular theory that is correct.



jwright82 said:


> I would agree here, I love the later Wittgenstien. I just don't follow all the whacko disciples of his into the extreme sort of skepticism that some of them employ, rightly or wrongly in his name.



For that matter, I don't follow Wittgenstein's conception of language fully. I just finished writing an essay on the implications of his thought in theology and it's scary what it does. I also sat in on a series of lectures on Wittgenstein by Peter Hacker---really cool stuff.



jwright82 said:


> I point out that that as an argument for his beleif, being a fundamentalist is wrong, is the logical fallacy of mass appeal. Just because a large group of people believe that something is the case doesn't neccessaraly make it so.



No, but if enough people start to agree on something, it becomes fairly likely that the belief is produced by some properly-functioning part of our faculties.



jwright82 said:


> So you see in entering the debate they have just stacked up all sorts of problems that need to be answered for their original assertion to be now be proven true.



The end result, though, is that you simply have a good discussion regarding _their_ viewpoint. Where is the point of contact for a discussion of whether or not Christianity is the case?



jwright82 said:


> Epistemology also deals with the justifications of something being "known". If I accedently guess the outcome of a coin toss I didn't really "know" how it was going turn out. But if I say I "know" the winning lotery numbers from last night and I can recite them to you it is safe to say that I "knew" that peice of information.



I would argue that in the former case, you most likely didn't form a belief concerning the outcome of a coin toss. Epistemology, as I said, deals with how beliefs are warranted, and how we make knowledge claims.



jwright82 said:


> The problem of induction, the various paradoxs of analytical philosophy, the problems of ethics and metaphysics, these are all logical problems.



They are puzzles, not problems---conceptual confusions, in many cases. The few places where we do have a real problem are places where we simply have to come up with some way to live with the ambiguity.

And how is induction a problem?



jwright82 said:


> Take for instance a person saying that abortion is the most practical way to solve overpopulation. Now have they worked out a grand ethical theory name and all? No but their statments assumes something



Indeed it does: that overpopulation is a problem, and enough of a problem that a measure like abortion is an appropriate countermeasure.



jwright82 said:


> You are right if and only if "goodness" is that independent self-existant thing that I mentioned autonomous thought is dedicated to.



But it is. For do we not say that God is Good? And if God's nature is simple, then that would mean that whatever God is said to be must be essential to Him. Therefore, since God's nature is unchanging, self-existent, and autonomous, goodness is the same way, since God is good, or goodness. The paradox of Euthyphro is answered with a resounding "yes."


----------



## steadfast7

not sure if this question was asked yet, but how does Van Tillian/Bahsenian presuppositionalism point to the _Christian God specifically_, other than that of Judaism or Islam?


----------



## Semper Fidelis

steadfast7 said:


> not sure if this question was asked yet, but how does Van Tillian/Bahsenian presuppositionalism point to the _Christian God specifically_, other than that of Judaism or Islam?


 
I would prefer Van Til to be distinguished from Bahnsen as I think the latter took Van Til's ideas in a more strictly philosophical direction than I believe Van Til intended.

Having read some things of Van Til, I believe Van Til was expressing the idea that knowledge of God is by means of revelation rather than the human philosophical notion that men come to know God by the organizing of facts and using the organ of the mind to come to an autonomous conclusion that man exists.

In one sense, what other God could Romans 1 be speaking of? That sort of answers your question.


----------



## steadfast7

I think you're right about Bahnsen taking it a little far. I'm reading his famous debate with Gordon Stein and he keeps insisting that only the Christian worldview can allow for universal laws of logic and morality. I was wondering if there is anything inherent in Trinitarian thought that permits and serves as a basis for things like logic. What I appreciate about both of them is that they demonstrate that Reformed theology calls for a Reformed apologetic - even to the point that accepting neutrality with the unbeliever _undermines_ our basic beliefs.


----------



## Semper Fidelis

steadfast7 said:


> I think you're right about Bahnsen taking it a little far. I'm reading his famous debate with Gordon Stein and he keeps insisting that only the Christian worldview can allow for universal laws of logic and morality. I was wondering if there is anything inherent in Trinitarian thought that permits and serves as a basis for things like logic. What I appreciate about both of them is that they demonstrate that Reformed theology calls for a Reformed apologetic - even to the point that accepting neutrality with the unbeliever _undermines_ our basic beliefs.


 
Well I certainly agree that thought and logic flow out of the "Christian worldview" but my own view is that this is not philosophically derived. I know I'll probably have people dispute with me on this point but my views on these things are more basic.

I find it interesting that all the major presuppositionalists I've followed give a history of philosophy (Bahnsen, Clark, Frame, etc) and all the systems that try to provide a comprehensive philosophical framework are shown to be failures. Yet, it seems to me, that the same apologists pretty much stick fundamentally to the boundaries of human knowledge within a philosophical framework to define metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. There is an effort to comrehend reality, within the realm of human thinking.

The question you ask is loaded. It sort of asks: How can you prove philosophically that we need God for morality and logic My answer would sort of make me seem to some like some hayseed: "Well, how would man even _think_ if he didn't even have a mind?" In other words, of course people have to borrow from the "Christian worldview" because every man is using the mind He was given as a gift from God as a weapon against His creator! God is basic to all human thought as Creator and Knower and Revealer.

I had to answer some questions for a course I took as a type of book report for The Infallible Word. The following is based upon Chapter 2 of the Book, which was written by Van Til and encapsulates things well in my view:


> *Nature and Scripture*
> 
> *How is natural theology necessary?*
> 
> Scripture does not claim to speak to man in any other way than in conjunction with nature. God's revelation of Himself in nature combined with His revelation of Himself in Scripture form God's one grand schem of covenant relationship of Himself with man. The two forms presuppose and complement one another.
> 
> It was necessary in the garden as the lower act of obedience learned from avoiding the tree of knowledge of good and evil man might learn the higher things of obedience to God. The natural appeared in the regularity of nature.
> 
> After the fall, the natural appears under to curse of God and not merely regular. God's curse on nature is revealed along with regularity. The natural reveals an unalleviated picture of folly and ruin and speaks to the need for a Redeemer.
> 
> To the believer the natural or regular with all its complexity always appears as the playground for the process of differentiation which leads ever onward to the fullness of the glory of God.
> 
> *What is the authority of natural revelation?*
> 
> The same God who reveals Himself in Scripture is the God who reveals Himself in nature. They are of the same authority even if the former is superior in clarity than the latter. We are analogues to God and our respect for revelation in both spheres must be maintained and it is only when we refuse to act as creatures that we contrast authority between natural and special revelation. What comes to man by his rational and moral nature (created in God's image) is no less objective than what comes to him through the created order as all is in Covenant relationship to God. All created activity is inherently revelational of the nature and will of God.
> 
> *What is the sufficiency of natural revelation?*
> 
> It is sufficient to leave men without excuse for their sin and denying the God they know they are created to worship but insufficient at revealing the grace of God in salvation. Natural revelation was never meant to function by itself (as above) but it was historically sufficient as it renders without excuse. God's revelation in nature is sufficient in history to differentiate between those who who would and who would not serve God.
> 
> *What is meant by the perspicuity of natural revelation?*
> 
> God's revelation in nature was always meant to serve alongside His special revelation. God is a revealing God and the perspicuity of nature is bound up in the fact that He voluntarily reveals. Both natural and special revelation would be impossible if God remained incomprehensible as He is in Himself (archetypal theology). Man cannot penetrate God as He is Himself - he cannot comprehend God. But created man may see clearly what is revealed clearly even if he does not see exhaustively. Man need not have exhaustive knowledge in order to know truly and certainly.
> 
> God's thoughts about Himself are self-contained but man is an analogue who thinks in covenant relation to the One who created him. Thus man's interpretation of nature follows what is fully interpreted by God. Man thinks God's thoughts after him - not comprehensively but analogically.
> 
> The Psalmist doesn't declare that the heavens possibly or probably declare the glory of God. Paul does not say that the wrath of God is probably revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Scripture takes the clarity of God's revelation for granted at every stage of human history. The God who speaks in Scripture cannot refer to anything that is not already authoratively revelational of Himself for the evidence of His own existence. Everything exists that is His creation.
> 
> It is no easier for sinners to accept God in nature than it is for them to accept Him in Scripture. The two are inseparable in their clarity. We need the Holy Spirit to understand both. Man must be a Christian to study nature in a proper frame of mind.
> 
> *How does Greek natural theology and the natural theology of Kant result in denying any rationality higher than itself?*
> 
> Neither allow analogical reasoning to understand the world. They start from nature and try to argue for a god who must be finite in nature. It starts with a "mute" universe that has no revelation and makes it revelational only with respect to the autonomous mind of man. No distinction is made between Creator and creature.
> 
> Kant's great contribution to philosophy consisted in stressing the activity of the experiencing subject. It is this point to which the idea of a Copernican revolution is usually applied. Kant argued that since it is the thinking subject that itself contributes the categories of universality and necessity, we must not think of these as covering any reality that exists or may exist wholly independent of the human mind. The validity of universals is to be taken as frankly due to a motion and a vote; it is conventional and nothing more.
> 
> Plato and Aristotle, as well as Kant, assumed the autonomy of man. On such a basis man may reason univocally (have the same mind as God) and reach a God who is just an extension of the creature or he may reason equivocally and reach a God who has no contact with him at all. Man is left with either God being part of nature (pantheism) or being so transcendent that He cannot get into nature (deism).
> 
> We're now left with a world where the scientist supposedly interacts with the physical world and can learn about the world apart from any reference to God and "ministers" who speak about God's revelation that has no reference to history and interaction with the world. Man is fractured intellectually where reason deals with things of the world and faith deals with things that cannot affect reason or the world.
> 
> The very idea of Kant's Copernican revolution was that the autonomous mind itself must assume the responsibility for making all factual differentiation and logical validation. To such a mind the God of Christianity cannot speak. Such a mind will hear no voice but its own.


----------



## ChristianTrader

Van Til says natural revelation was never meant to function by itself, what does such a phrase mean?

CT


----------



## cih1355

Presuppositionalists believe that the Bible is self-authenticating and that only God can authenticate the Bible. Since the Bible is God-breathed, only God can authenticate the Bible. If something else besides God were to authenticate the Bible, then something would have more authority than God. This is what Calvinists believe. Evidentialists would disagree with the idea that if something else besides God were to authenticate the Bible, then something would have more authority than God. Would Arminians agree or disagree with this?


----------



## Semper Fidelis

ChristianTrader said:


> Van Til says natural revelation was never meant to function by itself, what does such a phrase mean?
> 
> CT


 
Van Til first notes what natural revelation reveals:
1. Before the fall, "...the natural appeared in the regularity of nature." God _told_ Adam and Eve not to eat of the Tree (special revelation) but they also learned about God through the regularity of things created. God did not merely create Adam and then allow Adam to learn everything from natural revelation even prior to the Fall. Natural revelation was not sufficient to reveal to Adam and Eve that the eating of the Tree would bring the Curse of God nor, specifically, what God intended for them as His viceregent of Creation.

2. After the fall, "...the natural appears under to curse of God and not merely regular. God's curse on nature is revealed along with regularity. The natural reveals an unalleviated picture of folly and ruin and speaks to the need for a Redeemer...." In other words, after the Fall, natural revelation is sufficient to reveal to man that he is fallen but it cannot reveal to him how he is to be redeemed from guilt.

In both cases, natural revelation is not meant to function by itself as if special revelation is only needed for some. I think, in one sense, he's dealing with the idea of some that one can derive a natural theology from natural revelation that does not need special revelation. Special revelation was always meant to work together with natural revelation.


----------



## Philip

cih1355 said:


> Presuppositionalists believe that the Bible is self-authenticating and that only God can authenticate the Bible. Since the Bible is God-breathed, only God can authenticate the Bible. If something else besides God were to authenticate the Bible, then something would have more authority than God. This is what Calvinists believe.



Correction: this is half of what Calvinists believe. We also believe that God has made Himself known through general revelation and that general revelation is sufficient to condemn and to proclaim the truth about God. In this sense, one can use material from outside Scripture to defend Scripture, for God has revealed Himself in the created order.


----------



## MW

Semper Fidelis said:


> In both cases, natural revelation is not meant to function by itself as if special revelation is only needed for some. I think, in one sense, he's dealing with the idea of some that one can derive a natural theology from natural revelation that does not need special revelation. Special revelation was always meant to work together with natural revelation.


 
Very well presented, Rich. Another way of looking at it is in terms of eschatology. Natural revelation might enable the innocent man to say much about God, man, and the world, but it could not inform him of the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.


----------



## steadfast7

So to ensure I understand the discussion so far: general revelation is still divine revelation, which requires a miracle on God's part to enlighten to the mind whether believer or not. Romans teaches that all receive this grace to perceive natural revelation. In the case of the reprobate, God withholds performing the further miracle of enlightening the mind with special revelation. But doesn't this separate natural from special revelation?


----------



## Semper Fidelis

steadfast7 said:


> So to ensure I understand the discussion so far: general revelation is still divine revelation, which requires a miracle on God's part to enlighten to the mind whether believer or not. Romans teaches that all receive this grace to perceive natural revelation. In the case of the reprobate, God withholds performing the further miracle of enlightening the mind with special revelation. But doesn't this separate natural from special revelation?


Where are you inferring from Romans that all receive "grace" to perceive natural revelation?

First, natural revelation is God's revelation so it is true.

Secondly, it is perceived by all men. Men are naturally able to apprehend it.

Thirdly, although naturally able to apprehend it, men are morally in rebellion to God and suppress that truth in unrighteousness. That is to say, that men have the ability to perceive natural revelation but they twist the content in rebellion. If I were a botanist, I might accurately describe some content of natural revelation about a tree but, even as I leave out its relation to the Creator, I am doing so out of enmity with God. It's not that I had a natural inability to apprehend something about the tree as a creature but that I hate the Creator and suppress knowledge of Him in every endeavor.

Van Til's point about the Christian being the only people who can see clearly is that, ethically speaking, the scales fall of the eyes of a believer that he may not only perceive what we might call "brute facts" but also can now perceive that God is the author and sustainer of all and give glory to Him. It's not that some of the facts take on a sort of spiritual character that are ideas inexpressible to pagans. In other words, a person who is fallen is still an image bearer of God and regeneration does not consist in a change in the basic nature of a man but a removal of the hostility that man has toward his Creator. As Van Til notes, fallen man can hear no voice but his own because that's the only voice he _desires_ to hear.


----------



## steadfast7

I'm piecing some things together ...
From post #52


> General Revelation is not what can be known about God outside of special revelation but what God _reveals_ outside the Scriptures.


This implies, to me, that revelation, because it comes from God, is miraculous and gracious.

Romans 1:19ff reads, "


> For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.



So, God is active in showing general revelation to man; it is plain and clear, such that they are without excuse.

Perhaps "grace" is not a good word to use ...?

As to what fallen man does with that knowledge, we are in agreement that he suppresses and fights against the divine aspect of creation in unrighteousness.


----------



## Semper Fidelis

steadfast7 said:


> I'm piecing some things together ...
> From post #52
> 
> 
> 
> General Revelation is not what can be known about God outside of special revelation but what God _reveals_ outside the Scriptures.
> 
> 
> 
> This implies, to me, that revelation, because it comes from God, is miraculous and gracious.
Click to expand...

I think the problem stems from the idea that you think of other knowledge as something man can attain apart from revelation. You're thinking of these things called "facts" (like a rock on the ground) and we can use our mind like an organ to organize and make sense of those facts apart from God. Then there's this other thing called "general revelation." General revelation, as I'm using it, includes that rock on the ground. It was created by God and is in covenant relationship with Him. I know about that rock not because I stand as an autonomous being that is able to take in disconnected data around me but because I'm created by God and stand in relationship with Him and everything else He has created in the universe.

In fact, isn't it the height of what angers God in Romans 1 that men refuse to retain God in their thinking. I don't need God to learn about a rock or about my "discovery" of a new planet or fish but I only need revelation for certain things.



> Romans 1:19ff reads, "
> 
> 
> 
> For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So, God is active in showing general revelation to man; it is plain and clear, such that they are without excuse.
Click to expand...

Shown, revealed = knowledge. There is no other species of knowledge. All knowledge is by revelation from God. Full stop.

I know that flies in the face of modernity (read Van Til's insightful critique of Kant again). We moderns think of our senses and this physical existence as operating in a way independent of God and He's sort of on the other side of this unknowable chasm. We think of ourselves as doing well on this side of the chasm. We've got our senses and our brains to make sense of it all but we can't sense the other side so we need "faith" and "revelation" to understand the other side. That's a modern view of knowledge but the kind of revelation being spoken of in Roman 1:19ff denies the Kantian division of man.


----------



## steadfast7

Thanks for that clarification, Rich. 
some further questions I have: if God has revealed the knowledge of a rock to the unbeliever, and all the properties of that rock (even the divine origin of it) are clear to him, then would you say that the believer knows the rock _more_ clearly, because he has the light of special revelation? Or, are they both on the same plane of knowledge of that rock?


----------



## Semper Fidelis

steadfast7 said:


> Thanks for that clarification, Rich.
> some further questions I have: if God has revealed the knowledge of a rock to the unbeliever, and all the properties of that rock (even the divine origin of it) are clear to him, then would you say that the believer knows the rock _more_ clearly, because he has the light of special revelation? Or, are they both on the same plane of knowledge of that rock?


Hmmm....I guess if you're just speaking about the rock's characteristics then a Christian geologist isn't a better geologist just because he's a Christian but the same Christian ought to give glory to God for the knowledge he has through the things created and give God glory for it. In order to do the latter he requires special revelation because it's the only thing that reveals how man may be reconciled to God.


----------



## Philip

The difference between the believer and the unbeliever is not in knowledge of things like rocks and trees, or even (necessarily) in terms of moral knowledge and intuition. The difference is in terms of attitude---one reasons in unbelief toward God, and the other reasons in a spirit of faithful dependence upon God. The reason that the unbeliever is capable of reason at all is because of actual dependence on God, but he refuses to acknowledge this dependence.


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> Not necessarily---there is nihilism, which says that moral statements are capable of being correct or incorrect, but that as a matter of fact, all of them are incorrect.



Since nihilism is basically self-refuting I think that hardly settles things because you have only substituted "correct" and "incorrect" for "right" and "wrong". Your use of those words is infusing them with the same value meanings of "right" and "wrong" but values of anykind are the very entities that the theory says doesn't exist, so self-refutation. I think a pure nihilism is just a myth. I prefer Nietzche's more poetical use of it.



P. F. Pugh said:


> And all that you can get from this is the particular set of necessary and sufficient conditions for the phenomena. What do will never get is the particular theory that is correct.



I don't know, why is satisfying the conditions not correct?



P. F. Pugh said:


> For that matter, I don't follow Wittgenstein's conception of language fully. I just finished writing an essay on the implications of his thought in theology and it's scary what it does. I also sat in on a series of lectures on Wittgenstein by Peter Hacker---really cool stuff.



Is Peter Hacker's stuff on the web? On the theological stuff have you read Goerge Lindbeck? I haven't but I know he takes an extreme Wittgenstienian view towards doctirne. Yeah I think Wittgenstien would be unhappy with some of the developments on his thought. I would be interested in reading that paper though, if you wouldn't mind.



P. F. Pugh said:


> No, but if enough people start to agree on something, it becomes fairly likely that the belief is produced by some properly-functioning part of our faculties.



That is fine as evidence or showing that the minority view has the burden of proof. The problem comes when you try to foster it up as proof of something because then the whole "what about the Nazi's?" question is a legitamate problem because it was propt up as proof. The very reason it can't be proof only "proves" that the questions of morality are logical in nature.



P. F. Pugh said:


> The end result, though, is that you simply have a good discussion regarding _their_ viewpoint. Where is the point of contact for a discussion of whether or not Christianity is the case?



I wouldn't say that it is just a "good discussion" but a "good" critique of their viewpoint. It is not to say that they no longer can believe that murder is wrong but only that they cannot accuse God of murder because they have no logical basis for doing so, that means the critique has not answered. The point of contact only comes if I am out to defend the faith. If I am just critiquing than I don't have to make a point of contact but if they ask me to, which they usually do, than I develop a less complex version of a TA to show that we christians don't have the problems they do. Ireadily admit that this isn't the absolute proof of anything but I see no need in talking over someone's head. 




P. F. Pugh said:


> I would argue that in the former case, you most likely didn't form a belief concerning the outcome of a coin toss. Epistemology, as I said, deals with how beliefs are warranted, and how we make knowledge claims.



I would agree, so he may think he "knew it" but he really didn't. I also agree that warrant is very important aspect of epistemology but it is not the only question that epistemology deals with. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> They are puzzles, not problems---conceptual confusions, in many cases. The few places where we do have a real problem are places where we simply have to come up with some way to live with the ambiguity.
> 
> And how is induction a problem?



I agree, I divide philosophy into 2 distinct sections. First the questions that naturally arise from our logical analysis of reality and the various conceptual schemes worked out to answer these questions. Induction is a problem for the unbeleiver because they cannot account for their presupposition of the uniformity of nature. Sure they can do science just fine without defending it but as soon as they enter the apologetical domain by claiming "that we don't need God anymore because we have science" or posit a metaphysical theory that results in the laws of science being logically impossible.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Indeed it does: that overpopulation is a problem, and enough of a problem that a measure like abortion is an appropriate countermeasure.



Only if morality doesn't exist but that is the myth of pure nihilism. But never the less my point still stands that that is how a TA logically functions.



P. F. Pugh said:


> But it is. For do we not say that God is Good? And if God's nature is simple, then that would mean that whatever God is said to be must be essential to Him. Therefore, since God's nature is unchanging, self-existent, and autonomous, goodness is the same way, since God is good, or goodness. The paradox of Euthyphro is answered with a resounding "yes."


 
Yes but this revealation is analogical in nature. But never the less the problem I was alluding to was the idea that "goodness" is self-existant apart from any gods at all. But we agree that it is meaningless unless it is rooted in the one true God's nature.

---------- Post added at 02:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:36 PM ----------




Semper Fidelis said:


> Well I certainly agree that thought and logic flow out of the "Christian worldview" but my own view is that this is not philosophically derived. I know I'll probably have people dispute with me on this point but my views on these things are more basic.
> 
> I find it interesting that all the major presuppositionalists I've followed give a history of philosophy (Bahnsen, Clark, Frame, etc) and all the systems that try to provide a comprehensive philosophical framework are shown to be failures. Yet, it seems to me, that the same apologists pretty much stick fundamentally to the boundaries of human knowledge within a philosophical framework to define metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. There is an effort to comrehend reality, within the realm of human thinking.
> 
> The question you ask is loaded. It sort of asks: How can you prove philosophically that we need God for morality and logic My answer would sort of make me seem to some like some hayseed: "Well, how would man even think if he didn't even have a mind?" In other words, of course people have to borrow from the "Christian worldview" because every man is using the mind He was given as a gift from God as a weapon against His creator! God is basic to all human thought as Creator and Knower and Revealer.
> 
> I had to answer some questions for a course I took as a type of book report for The Infallible Word. The following is based upon Chapter 2 of the Book, which was written by Van Til and encapsulates things well in my view:



I wouldn't completly disagree with you here. Presuppositionalist's have not developed this aspect of Van Til's thought as much as we should have. I mean isn't it a little hypocritical to condemn western thinking and use western thinking at the same time. This is why for me I seperate what is creational in someone's thought and what is autonomous.


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> Since nihilism is basically self-refuting I think that hardly settles things because you have only substituted "correct" and "incorrect" for "right" and "wrong".



No, actually---I'm talking about truth-value. Nihilism basically states that all moral judgments have negative truth-value.



jwright82 said:


> I don't know, why is satisfying the conditions not correct?



Because there may be multiple conceptions that do so.



jwright82 said:


> I would agree, so he may think he "knew it" but he really didn't.



On the contrary, he wouldn't claim to know it---he just made "a lucky guess." If he were rational he wouldn't make a knowledge-claim on that basis.



jwright82 said:


> Induction is a problem for the unbeleiver because they cannot account for their presupposition of the uniformity of nature.



How is that not a warranted basic assumption?



jwright82 said:


> Is Peter Hacker's stuff on the web? On the theological stuff have you read Goerge Lindbeck? I haven't but I know he takes an extreme Wittgenstienian view towards doctirne.



Not to my knowledge. I haven't read Lindbeck, but might I wager a guess that he's operating on the "regulative theory" of doctrine where doctrinal statements are seen as defining limits of God-talk rather than being factual statements about an actual being?

PM me on the paper.



jwright82 said:


> The problem comes when you try to foster it up as proof of something because then the whole "what about the Nazi's?" question is a legitamate problem because it was propt up as proof.



But what counts as proving something? We all generally agree that the Nazis were generally not very nice and that their actions were probably not very ethical. Why is this a problem?



jwright82 said:


> It is not to say that they no longer can believe that murder is wrong but only that they cannot accuse God of murder because they have no logical basis for doing so



But you haven't shown this. All you've shown is that their current theory leaves something to be desired. You have not shown that their intuition regarding the morality of God's action is wrong.



jwright82 said:


> If I am just critiquing than I don't have to make a point of contact but if they ask me to, which they usually do, than I develop a less complex version of a TA to show that we christians don't have the problems they do.



But all that this means is that Christianity is capable of accounting for it, not that it is _the_ solution. Again, this is my critique of TAs in general: they demonstrate only that you have a nice theory, not that this theory is in fact the case.



jwright82 said:


> Only if morality doesn't exist



Not necessarily---to say that overpopulation is a problem implies some sort of value system.



jwright82 said:


> Yes but this revealation is analogical in nature.



Well, naturally---at our best we can be good in a creaturely way. This is the difference between Clarkianism and Van Tillianism, and also between the Thomist and Scotist view of universals.


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> No, actually---I'm talking about truth-value. Nihilism basically states that all moral judgments have negative truth-value.



Here is a link to the definition of nihilism, which clearley states that there are no values. Nihilism*[Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy].
Although your definition is not incorrect, it is lacking in scope. It is a nice logical look at the point of view. But is not this statement itself a moral judgment? I mean what place does it occupy, the weird world of a meta-moral-judgment? This option is overthrown by a TC because if there are no such things as values than moral judgements are meaningless, beyond just false. Stateing that moral judgements are false implies some valu system to compare them too, and this system is the very thing the nihilist is denying even exists.




P. F. Pugh said:


> Because there may be multiple conceptions that do so.



This argument is legetimate if and only if a TA is a basically scientific type of explination. It is a good question to raise, don't get me wrong, but it confuses the two types of explinations. Saying that morality must exist for any moral talk to be either true or false is a logically neccessary connection between two statements. That is different than coming up with some theory to possibly explain moral talk. A scientific explination offers no neccessary connection of anykind. You are going to ask for proof so here goes.

This neccessary connection would be disproved if and only if a purely negative ethics could be conceivable, which is nihilism. But this idea of "pure" is what is another problimatic thing for nihilism. A "pure" thing is a perfect thing and a perfect thing is perfect in comparison to some standered. But what standered other than a moral one could nihilism be compared to to establish its purety? Also it is not a scientific explination because all moral arguments attempt to carry logical force as to why you shoul or shouldn't do something. An evolutionary explination of ethics attempts to account for why human beings are concerned with ethics but cannot tell you why you should behave in certain way. So you account of what type of explination a TA is is wrong due to the this fact, you are quite right about an evolutionary understanding of ethics but it is a different type of explination. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> On the contrary, he wouldn't claim to know it---he just made "a lucky guess." If he were rational he wouldn't make a knowledge-claim on that basis.



I agree that he is not being rational but ordinary people make these sorts of claims all the time, I see it happen at least once a day. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> How is that not a warranted basic assumption?



It is if and only if warrant is the beggining and end of epistemology, which it isn't. This again requires you and Plantinga to demonstrate that all the tougher questions of epistemology are in fact pseudo-problems. Now I can see where you and I assume him would call these tougher questions extreme skepticism but I think that critique fails when you analyze the sorts of deeper beleifs, like moral ones, because they are legitimate questions, hence the existance of western philosopy



P. F. Pugh said:


> Not to my knowledge. I haven't read Lindbeck, but might I wager a guess that he's operating on the "regulative theory" of doctrine where doctrinal statements are seen as defining limits of God-talk rather than being factual statements about an actual being?



You are correct about Lindbeck, he stresses the social element of doctrines too. He sees them as being merely social distinctives of a particuler group of people. They regulate who is or isn't in the group. But your'e right he is wrong for the very reasons you claim. Thanks I will PM you my email adress.



P. F. Pugh said:


> But what counts as proving something? We all generally agree that the Nazis were generally not very nice and that their actions were probably not very ethical. Why is this a problem?



And the Nazi's generally agree that they were doing the right thing, so who is correct us or them? Thats the problem.



P. F. Pugh said:


> But you haven't shown this. All you've shown is that their current theory leaves something to be desired. You have not shown that their intuition regarding the morality of God's action is wrong.



I wouldn't say "intuition" but feeling, regardless this is more of a psychological thing anyway. To say that "God committed murder and is therefore morally wrong" stands upon two presupositions:
1. That the statment "murder is wrong" is true
and 
2. That there is some standered of ethics apart from God that even He, or the idea of He, must be judged by

If the unbeleiver cannot prove both those statements than his or her original statment is unproven. Do you think they can hypothetically or actually prove both those?



P. F. Pugh said:


> But all that this means is that Christianity is capable of accounting for it, not that it is _the_ solution. Again, this is my critique of TAs in general: they demonstrate only that you have a nice theory, not that this theory is in fact the case.



But what some things can be settled only transcendnetally? Also if no other worldview can account for it than how is this not "proof"? Again we are not giving a sociological explination for why morals exist in society but a logical explination for it, so this is more than just a theory.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Not necessarily---to say that overpopulation is a problem implies some sort of value system.



It does and we generaly call this value system a moral one. To that overpopulation is a problem tells you nothing about why a particuler action is the right response to it, or why we should follow this course of action.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Well, naturally---at our best we can be good in a creaturely way. This is the difference between Clarkianism and Van Tillianism, and also between the Thomist and Scotist view of universals.


 
I agree, I have that against Clark myself. If good means the same to both the Creator and the creature than it must be an independent standered that exists outside both God and man and they are both "moraly" accountable to it.

---------- Post added at 04:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:06 PM ----------




steadfast7 said:


> I think you're right about Bahnsen taking it a little far. I'm reading his famous debate with Gordon Stein and he keeps insisting that only the Christian worldview can allow for universal laws of logic and morality. I was wondering if there is anything inherent in Trinitarian thought that permits and serves as a basis for things like logic. What I appreciate about both of them is that they demonstrate that Reformed theology calls for a Reformed apologetic - even to the point that accepting neutrality with the unbeliever _undermines_ our basic beliefs.


 
Are all things ultimatly one (unity) or all all things ultimatly individuals, so that all of our general concepts like tree are meaningless? This is the problem of the one and the many. For us humans it is obvious that all things are united, or one, in some ways and individual, or many, in other ways. Western and eastern philosophy have both sought to locate an explination for this unity and diversity withen creation some how, thus making some aspect of creation ultimate and therefore god-like. What Van Til pointed out is that it is only in the christian God that both unity and diversity are ultimate in the idea of the Trinity. Now this doesn't explain how unity and diversity work out within creation but it locates the ultimate basis for unity and diversity in the self-contained ontological Trinity. This avoids the problems that philosophers have ran into when they tried to place the ultimate explination for unity and diversity withen creation somehow, Dooyeweerd called them immanitistic philosophies because he showed how the autonomous philosophers took atributes that belong properly to God only and ascribed them to some part of creation. That is how the specific christian God is indirectly proven and how the Trinity fits into our apologetic.


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> Here is a link to the definition of nihilism, which clearley states that there are no values.



Possibly the term means something different in different contexts---I heard it defined this way at Oxford, but it's possible that some who claim to be nihilists are actually positivists.



jwright82 said:


> But is not this statement itself a moral judgment?



No, simply a statement of linguistics.



jwright82 said:


> It is a good question to raise, don't get me wrong, but it confuses the two types of explinations. Saying that morality must exist for any moral talk to be either true or false is a logically neccessary connection between two statements.



Granted---but Christianity is a theory of accounting. It may be the most likely theory, it may be the simplest theory, but it is a theory. It is not a set of possible preconditions.



jwright82 said:


> A "pure" thing is a perfect thing



Not necessarily---pure gold is not perfect gold, but undiluted gold.



jwright82 said:


> Also it is not a scientific explination because all moral arguments attempt to carry logical force as to why you shoul or shouldn't do something.



The problem, James, is that the Christian conception fares little better on this count: you may say "because the Lord saith" but the unbeliever will ask why he should do anything the Lord saith.



jwright82 said:


> I agree that he is not being rational but ordinary people make these sorts of claims all the time



I don't see them saying that: I see them saying "it was a lucky guess."



jwright82 said:


> It is if and only if warrant is the beggining and end of epistemology



But inductive reasoning is a basic operation of our cognitive powers---it is a basis for knowledge. Forcing a man into skepticism is a useful rhetorical tool for showing that his position is absurd. What it does not do is to show that he had no basis for induction in the first place---it shows that he had been taken captive by wild speculation.



jwright82 said:


> Now I can see where you and I assume him would call these tougher questions extreme skepticism but I think that critique fails when you analyze the sorts of deeper beleifs, like moral ones, because they are legitimate questions, hence the existance of western philosopy



Western philosophy lost its way when it started thinking that every assertion needed some sort of argument to support it in order to count as knowledge. When the burden of proof came to be placed on the knower and not on the skeptic. How is morality not a basic intuition? What we are disagreeing on is how moral judgments work---those who claim that moral judgments are meaningless are ignoring the fact that we make meaningful statements about morality.



jwright82 said:


> And the Nazi's generally agree that they were doing the right thing, so who is correct us or them? Thats the problem.



They happen to be wrong. All that this proves is that there is a disagreement---moral relativism is not even a warranted conclusion from this. To say that Adolf Hitler believes contrarily to myself may just be proof that he is a sociopath.



jwright82 said:


> If the unbeleiver cannot prove both those statements than his or her original statment is unproven. Do you think they can hypothetically or actually prove both those?



No---I think that they believe these to be basic assumptions of all right-thinking people. They are wrong, but that's the idea: James, they don't recognize your question.



jwright82 said:


> Also if no other worldview can account for it than how is this not "proof"?



Because all that this does is to make Christianity the most likely of the theories thus far put forward.



jwright82 said:


> Again we are not giving a sociological explination for why morals exist in society but a logical explination for it, so this is more than just a theory.



But it is just a theory: that's the problem. Unless you can prove that necessary connection, where is the force of the argument? When you say that God is necessary for morality, you are asserting that God is a necessary precondition, which means that you must prove that if X (morality) then Y (God): if morality then God. If you fail to do this, then you're left with Christianity as the only adequate theory thus far put forward. In any logical form, the premises must be shown or assumed true in order for the conclusion to follow.



jwright82 said:


> If good means the same to both the Creator and the creature than it must be an independent standered that exists outside both God and man and they are both "moraly" accountable to it.



Not necessarily---according to Clark, it means that God has infused us with Divine goodness.


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> Possibly the term means something different in different contexts---I heard it defined this way at Oxford, but it's possible that some who claim to be nihilists are actually positivists.



Well the way you defined it implied basically a Russell type analysis of the problem. When Strawson analyzed similer statments he came up with the relationship of presuposition that I showed you before. The strength of it was becaue for Russell if nihilism is true than as you said all moral statments are in fact false. But this begs the question of false compared to what? Are they all analytically false? No, so some standered or other truth must be posited to establish that this is in fact true and all moral statments are false. They say "because morality doesn't exist", but what do they mean by that? Well to avoid the pitfalls that I mentioned they would go back in a circle and claim "what that means is that all moral judgements are false". But that is circuler reasoning of the worst kind. The problem is in the analysis of the viewpoint. This is where Strawson is stronger because he would point out, he never analyzied nihilism to my knowledge so this is as hypothetical as Russell doing the same, that what they are actually stating is a presuposition that makes moral judgements not false but meaningless. This is no different than Logical Positivism's critique of metaphysics, for them metaphysical statments couldn't be true or false because they were all nonsense or meaningless.



P. F. Pugh said:


> No, simply a statement of linguistics.



Perhaps but you still havn't produced nihilism as such a viable option that it is unproblimatic enough to be a viable TA, thus disproving the method itself. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Granted---but Christianity is a theory of accounting. It may be the most likely theory, it may be the simplest theory, but it is a theory. It is not a set of possible preconditions.



But if a TA is not trying to directly prove the existance of God than your point here is merely a methodological preference, and good luck with those direct classical proofs.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Not necessarily---pure gold is not perfect gold, but undiluted gold.



Well perfect is more analogical here than anything, what perfect means from case to case is different. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> The problem, James, is that the Christian conception fares little better on this count: you may say "because the Lord saith" but the unbeliever will ask why he should do anything the Lord saith.



This assumes that the Lord must a have a good reason, whatever that means, to make moral demsnds. But what in the very idea of a Craetor demands that we must approve of those demands? Also they will be punished regardless of whether or not they agree with the law so that is a good reason to abey. It seems to me to be an uneccessary question on their part because it is far too problimatic to say otherwise. If at this point they say "well your just saying that He is a tyrant", well but again that assumes a moral law that exists apart from Him that even He must adhere to.



P. F. Pugh said:


> I don't see them saying that: I see them saying "it was a lucky guess."



Well than maybe it is just a southern "thang" than.



P. F. Pugh said:


> But inductive reasoning is a basic operation of our cognitive powers---it is a basis for knowledge. Forcing a man into skepticism is a useful rhetorical tool for showing that his position is absurd. What it does not do is to show that he had no basis for induction in the first place---it shows that he had been taken captive by wild speculation.



Well he has warrant for sure but what does that prove? Not much, the question is what logical reason does he have? None, so he may go one using inductive reasoning buit taking it for granted to level an apologetical critique of the existance of God is now out of the question, and that is the point. I'm not saying he can't do science, what I'm saying is that he can't now use science to dismiss beleif in God because he cannot rationally account for his faith in science. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Western philosophy lost its way when it started thinking that every assertion needed some sort of argument to support it in order to count as knowledge. When the burden of proof came to be placed on the knower and not on the skeptic. How is morality not a basic intuition? What we are disagreeing on is how moral judgments work---those who claim that moral judgments are meaningless are ignoring the fact that we make meaningful statements about morality.



Which morality is the properly basic one? Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Seculer, etc? Which one? What is one moral where there is no disagreement over? Murder maybe? Ah but to some abortion is not murder, so this reveals not a disfunctioning moral sense but it is nothing less than a disagreement over presupsositions about murder and what counts as human, Van Til is correct after all. That is the basic critique of foundationalism, in this case moral foundationalism, there is not complete agreement over every entailment of morality so there is no agreement at all. Disagreements over what is included in a "basic beleif" have pointed too them not being so basic after all. That is the classic charge against any form of classic foundationalism. I know Plantinga says he not advocating a classic foundationalist position but it is all the same. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> They happen to be wrong. All that this proves is that there is a disagreement---moral relativism is not even a warranted conclusion from this. To say that Adolf Hitler believes contrarily to myself may just be proof that he is a sociopath.



And there it is, you are refering to a moral law outside of mere social agreement to judge him, that contradicts your earlier position that agreement is a sufficient foundation for morality. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> No---I think that they believe these to be basic assumptions of all right-thinking people. They are wrong, but that's the idea: James, they don't recognize your question.



If I were to say try to build a rocket to go the speed of light and you were to say that according to relativity theory that is impossible, would it make any difference at all for me to say that I don't recognize your critique as valid? Would the laws of physics magically change because I don't recognize some of them? Well no obviously that is an extreme example but it illustrates my point that violations of logical laws carry the same force as violations of physical ones. So they recognize whatever they want that is irrelivent. Now you may be right as far as practice goes, if they practically don't recognize such questions how can they be expected to answer them? Well I have sufficient practice in handling that so I'm not worried but this whole discussion has been about theory and not practice.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Because all that this does is to make Christianity the most likely of the theories thus far put forward.



Yes but unless the unbeleiver can counter my "theory" with a better one than they are in worse shape than before. If they cannot critique my "theory" but insist on using morality anyway than that only "proves" my theory until they can critique my theory and/or posit a better one.



P. F. Pugh said:


> But it is just a theory: that's the problem. Unless you can prove that necessary connection, where is the force of the argument? When you say that God is necessary for morality, you are asserting that God is a necessary precondition, which means that you must prove that if X (morality) then Y (God): if morality then God. If you fail to do this, then you're left with Christianity as the only adequate theory thus far put forward. In any logical form, the premises must be shown or assumed true in order for the conclusion to follow.



The force is that if they cannot disprove the TA than any use of say morality or science after that is only "proving" the very thing they are trying to disprove, the impossibilty of the contrary.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Not necessarily---according to Clark, it means that God has infused us with Divine goodness.


 
Well Clark's whole univocal understanding of language was problimatic enough for him, never the less unless "good" is defined as God defines it than you are wrapped up in problimatic acounts that presupose the weird metaphysical situations of the Euythripro problem, I don't think I spelled that right but you get the gist of it.


----------

