# Derrida and Van Til compared and contrasted.



## jwright82

Here is an excellant article comparing Van Til's thought to the Postmodern thinker Derrida.
Derrida, Van Til and the Metaphysics of Postmodernism.


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## Philip

Van Til's "critique" of postmodernism doesn't go far enough because all it does is to provide an alternative. If we read the later Wittgenstein rather than Derrida as the prophet of postmodernism, the Van Tillian critique fails because the question goes beyond the question of grounding to the question of whether that question is even legitimate.


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## Loopie

Philip,

I am trying to understand what you mean by "whether that question is even legitimate." How would you even determine 'legitimacy'?


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## Philip

Loopie said:


> I am trying to understand what you mean by "whether that question is even legitimate." How would you even determine 'legitimacy'?



Whether it arises from conceptual confusions. Wittgenstein would argue that the question of grounding is confused, given that meaning is determined by context.


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## Loopie

And how has Van Til ignored the context? What if it is not just context that gives something meaning, but God? All knowledge is known first by God isn't it, so doesn't he grant things meaning?


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## Peairtach

*Philip*


> given that meaning is determined by context.



Van Til called God the "All-Conditioner". Sounds a bit strange, but presumably he meant that God was the context for everything.

What did Wittgenstein believe was the context for everything, or did he side-step that?


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## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> Van Til's "critique" of postmodernism doesn't go far enough because all it does is to provide an alternative.



But he does. Reformed theology is the alternative. Van Til's critique is of autonomous reasoning and its rational/irational dichotomy. 




P. F. Pugh said:


> If we read the later Wittgenstein rather than Derrida as the prophet of postmodernism, the Van Tillian critique fails because the question goes beyond the question of grounding to the question of whether that question is even legitimate.



And yet twice he thought he ended philosophy itself only to be proven wrong in his lifetime. Twice his thought was developed into further philosophical analisys.


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## Hilasmos

I understood the use of "All-Conditioner" not to mean that God was the context for everything (though that is true), but God "contexed" every context from which any belief is formed.


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## Philip

Peairtach said:


> What did Wittgenstein believe was the context for everything, or did he side-step that?



Wittgenstein would have said that human activity provides necessary context.



jwright82 said:


> And yet twice he thought he ended philosophy itself only to be proven wrong in his lifetime.



First, the historical error: the _Investigations_ were published posthumously. No one in Wittgenstein's lifetime knew the full extent of his critique except for those who knew him personally.



jwright82 said:


> Twice his thought was developed into further philosophical analisys.



a) This development was inconsistent with the _Tractatus_. The Vienna Circle and Logical Positivism never understood the _Tractatus_. If they had, they would have become existentialists (Wittgenstein didn't think that existentialism was philosophy---he thought it much more important).

b) The _Investigations_ do not claim to be the end of philosophy, but the transformation of philosophy. The later Wittgenstein believed philosophy to be about the clarification of language and the untangling of conceptual confusion---it was to be a kind of grammatical therapy. Thus further developments are not necessarily inconsistent.


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## Loopie

Philip,

I would argue that God is the context of all things AND that he determines the context of all things. In other words, any piece of information that we have is not complete unless it be understood in reference to God (creator, sustainer of all things). At the same time, God in his eternal foreknowledge and decree ORDAINED the context of all things. I know things in their context because God has created the context (environment, society, location, culture, etc.), and because God created me with the ability to understand and communicate things to others. For this reason we can say that the ultimate context includes God, and is determined by him. I hope this helps clarify what I was trying to say.


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## Philip

Eric, that's perfectly proper for you to say (and I would agree). But all you've provided is a nice theory, so far at Wittgenstein is concerned (and Wittgenstein would dispute whether its a theory at all).


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## Loopie

Philip, I was not sure if you were advocating Wittgenstein's philosophy, or if you were critical of his philosophy (but were simply trying to describe how HE would view things). After reading a bit about Wittgenstein's personality, I do not doubt that he would dispute whether its a theory at all. I mean, he was an unbeliever, and so to submit himself to the one true God is not something that he would be willing to do. Ultimately, no amount of rational thinking or logical discussions will lead an unbeliever to repent and change his or her mind. Salvation is not simply in the mind or the heart, but is spiritual first and foremost. 

I mean, there have been so many times where I thought that if I just said the 'right' words in the 'right' order at the 'right' time, that I could cause an unbeliever to repent and become a Christian. But this is completely wrong. If an unbeliever is unwilling to see the truth of God, then no amount of words will convince them. Only God, in replacing their heart of stone with a heart of flesh can open their eyes. My job is to simply share the gospel. And even though I believe presuppositional apologetics (and the transcendental argument) is the 'best' or 'most biblical' method of apologetics, in the end it is not guaranteed to convince the unwilling unbeliever. That is in God's hands, and he is free to use whatever means (such as our method of apologetics) to call an unbeliever to repentance.


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## Philip

Eric, what I'm trying to suggest is that transcendental argumentation doesn't necessarily work, even on a logical level, with someone unless they accept your terms---and I'm not sure how you would convince them to do so. With a philosopher like Wittgenstein (followed through consistently) it doesn't work because the way he defines things defangs any sort of argumentation along those lines. You suggest that he's trapped us in Plato's Cave again, and he asks why you think it's a cave.

As I've said here and in previous discussions, the key to unravelling Wittgenstein is to find ordinary use that is clearly metaphysical. You have to appeal to something outside the system because an internal presuppositional critique is ruled out by definition.


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## Loopie

Well, the only thing to appeal to 'oustide the system' is God. Yet this is what the transcendental argument does. If our theology is based upon scripture, so should our apologetic method. In studying many different apologetic methods, the transcendental argument seems to be the most biblical. Why not let scripture define our apologetic, just like it defines our theology?

I still don't quite see how Wittgenstein's method is so strong as to be logically consistent. Regardless of how he 'defines' things, based on those definitions his system would be inconsistent, because his system cannot account for anything (existence, knowledge, morality). He must appeal to God for those things.

If he asks me why I think its a cave, I would say that we choose the term 'cave' because it represents the situation that his philosophical system is presenting. It is simply an analogy, or figure of speech. I would let him define it however he wants, and then show him how his definition is inconsistent. The only way to avoid inconsistency on his part would be to CHANGE definitions of things mid-stream. Yet to redefine something like that would be a sign of inconsistency, and ultimately, a failed argument.


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## Alan D. Strange

Philip:

I am not a student of Wittgenstein in the way that you evidently are. Yet, I would challenge your contention that the transcendental proof fails with him. I think that it proves precisely what it aims to prove. Wittgenstein remains unpersuaded, however. The task of apologetics, we all recall, is not persuasion but proof. 

Wittgenstein, as I read him, does indeed deconstruct our approach to him. But he deconstructs his own project. It seems to me that he commits metaphysical suicide with his linguistic approach, particularly luring us along in the _Tractatus_ and then laughingly taking it all away. There certainly are proximate insights in him. I think you're right that he perhaps more than Derrida is to be wrestled with in terms of our engagement of post-modernism. Ultimately, though, all seems reduced, potentially, to sound and fury signifying nothing. Except that that sentiment itself must mean something. I see Wittgenstein as unable to get out of his own way as is so with all unbelieving philosophers, though done with apparent considerable sophistication. It all reduces to nonsense, though, and it is not intelligible. 

Peace,
Alan


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## Philip

Loopie said:


> because his system cannot account for anything (existence, knowledge, morality). He must appeal to God for those things.



Eric, this is what I've been trying to get at: Wittgenstein would claim that all you are asking is a grammatical question---and a confused one at that.



Loopie said:


> I would let him define it however he wants, and then show him how his definition is inconsistent.



Inconsistent with what?



Alan D. Strange said:


> It all reduces to nonsense, though, and it is not intelligible.



I wouldn't say that, given that the philosophy is perfectly capable of being understood (_intelligare_---to understand).



Alan D. Strange said:


> I think that it proves precisely what it aims to prove.



This is one of those things (and James and I have had this discussion before) that I'm not sure of, which is how a transcendental argument proves anything. If I deconstruct worldview A and prove that it fails to account for phenomenon X (whatever that would entail---accounting for stuff is a tricky business) and then present my own system, what exactly have I proved? I have proved, at best, that they are operating under a flawed system, and that I have a system that does the job better. What I have not given, though, is a compelling reason why they ought to believe my system---all I've proven is that I have a nice theory. Gottfried Leibniz has a wonderfully complex and logically-tight system, which is probably more logically consistent than my own and can account for just about anything you throw at it: it also happens to be incredibly silly and there's no good reason why I ought to accept it.


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## Alan D. Strange

Philip:

I agree that it's capable of being understood. But not in terms of Wittgenstein's worldview, which cannot account for intelligibility and, consistent with itself, is meaningless. We can all understand it when we borrow, without telling or realizing, a view of the world that enjoys internal consistency and coherency and can make sense of things: the Christian worldview. If Wittgenstein's view of the world were true, his system would not be intelligible. Because our view of the world is true, it is, but not on its own terms.

And what does the transcendental proof demonstrate? The impossibility of the contrary--that Wittgenstein's approach reduces, on its own terms, to nonsense and that all that it problemizes, or rejects, from revelation, is rendered intelligible in and only in a Christian worldview. Thanks for the Leibniz, though. He's always fun to ponder!

Peace,
Alan


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## Philip

Alan D. Strange said:


> But not in terms of Wittgenstein's worldview, which cannot account for intelligibility and, consistent with itself, is meaningless.



Actually, no. Meaning, in most cases, for Wittgenstein, is use. So a word with no use would be meaningless. Again, his question would be whether language and meaning need accounting for beyond this and what kind of confusions led us to think that it did.

With Wittgenstein, it's not going to reduce to anything except your assertion that he is wrong unless you end up giving external counterexamples from ordinary use. The later Wittgenstein's system is consistent with itself (the _Tractatus_, of course, is self-conscious of the fact that it is senseless but necessary, but the _Investigations_ don't have this problem).



Alan D. Strange said:


> And what does the transcendental proof demonstrate? The impossibility of the contrary



How? I've never quite understood how it does this. I've seen it asserted quite a lot, but never actually demonstrated. Maybe I just don't have the conceptual tools to see how it works, but all I see it doing with a given worldview is:

a) deconstruction
b) presentation of a Christian treatment

What I haven't see is a conclusive demonstration that Christianity is the necessary condition for a given phenomenon (like rationality). Ontologically, of course, I believe that it is sufficient and necessary, but logically I'm not sure a strict proof is possible without recourse to the kind of deductive arguments that Van Til disliked (though if Van Til is right in his metaphysics, then such proofs ought to be possible).



Alan D. Strange said:


> Thanks for the Leibniz, though. He's always fun to ponder!



He, Bishop Berkeley, and the young Edwards are always lots of fun.


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## Alan D. Strange

The impossibility of the contrary means, as you say, that every other world view can be deconstructed and shown to be internally inconsistent and incoherent, requiring Christian presuppositions, like the one and many of the ontological Trinity, for those world views to enjoy intelligibility. The Christian worldview can account for everything that the other world views cannot. It's the only one left standing. I don't concede, btw, that Wittgenstein's language games render anything intelligible, just clever, and I reject his own sort of utilitarian definition of intelligible. Nonetheless, I have not studied his posthumous work carefully. That all came out quite after all my formal philosophical studies!

Now I know what you mean and see something of the problem in terms of what you call "logically ...a strict proof." Why is Christianity necessary for rationality, e.g.? Because the laws of logic, causality, induction, etc. cannot account for themselves and are necessary preconditions for rationality. Christianity can account for them. That makes it sufficient but does it make it necessary?

David Reiter, in the 2011 (v. 7) _Confessional Presbyterian_ argues that "a transcendental argumment intended to establish the necessity of God's existence must be _purely_ transcendental--i.e., it must be composed _exclusively_ of necessary truths" (250). Reiter interacted with Collett and Choi in particular (the former of whom has defended CVT's approach in the _WTJ_ and in the Frame _festschrift_) , arguing that a modal not merely a generic form of the TAG is needed. You and other interested readers can check that out in the appropriate places. 

Peace,
Alan


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## Philip

Alan D. Strange said:


> Now I know what you mean and see something of the problem in terms of what you call "logically ...a strict proof." Why is Christianity necessary for rationality, e.g.? Because the laws of logic, causality, induction, etc. cannot account for themselves and are necessary preconditions for rationality.



This is starting to sound like a version of the teleological argument (using the principle of sufficient reason).



Alan D. Strange said:


> David Reiter, in the 2011 (v. 7) Confessional Presbyterian argues that "a transcendental argumment intended to establish the necessity of God's existence must be purely transcendental--i.e., it must be composed exclusively of necessary truths" (250).



So would Anselm's ontological argument be a form of TAG (albeit, in reverse)? Did CVT ever interact with Anselm's argument in his work (I recall him mentioning Anselm approvingly as an aside between Augustine and Thomas in _A Survey of Christian Epistemology_, but I haven't found any other references).

When we talk about necessity, are we referring to logical necessity (true in all possible worlds) or ontological necessity (contingently necessary in the way that this world operates)?



Alan D. Strange said:


> I don't concede, btw, that Wittgenstein's language games render anything intelligible, just clever, and I reject his own sort of utilitarian definition of intelligible.



And I don't think he'd concede yours either. Intelligibility is one of those tricky concepts where I'm personally more likely to go with ordinary use for my definition (but then again, I generally agree with Thomas Reid on philosophy of language).

At any rate, my approach, in my analysis of Wittgenstein on religion, is proceeding on the basis that his attempt (and the attempts of his followers) to defang Christianity's claims fails and thus Christian belief (regardless of truth-value) serves as a counter-example to his deconstruction of metaphysics.


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## Semper Fidelis

I know my analysis of this issue is always limited by the limitations of my study of Philosophy but I'm not convinced that the solution to a worldview constructed by men is a redeemed worldview that will be understood by men. I see in Van Til a point of contact in the Reformed Tradition to the Archetypal/Ectypal distinction in theology where the former represents God's comprehensive knowledge of Himself and the latter represents all revelation that is condescended to creaturely understanding.

TAG, as I see it, is the result of Van Til's writing being wrest from the historic Reformed understanding of revelation and re-cast into human philsophical forms by his disciples. He didn't attempt to form a Metaphysic, Epistemology, and Ethic that could be compared to other worldviews to show "...see this is the most logically coherent and so choose this...."

As I said, I lack the terminological precision to fully critique the problem but I think any attempt to fill human philosophical categories with the ideas of "knowledge as revelation to the creature" does justice to what it is that we have when Christ praises His Father for revealing to us "...the wisdom of the age to come." Men who abandon a crreaturely dependence upon the Creator for knowledge can hear no voice but their own and it simply will not do to try to place the totality of Natural and Special revelation into a system where they can examine it independently and come to a conclusion that they accept or reject it.

I think men like systems because they think that if they have a system they can comprehend reality and then categorize all experience by the system. The truth is that we were never created to live apart from dependence upon God for our knowledge or thinking. We never come to a point where we have understood revelation and it doesn't cut and divide our thoughts and intentions. The hope I have when I'm counseling someone is not my profound understanding of the Word that I can then paste onto a problem. In fact, I'm taught by God that I don't even understand my own heart and that He alone understands and instructs me by the things He reveals to me. Likewise, at best I can be an instrument in the Lord's hands to bring any individual to God's revelation and let the Great Physician do the unique work in every person's life that He alone is capable of performing.


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## Alan D. Strange

Philip:

As you know there have been reconstructions of Anselm's argument (Plantinga, e.g.) and I have heard in lecture Bahnsen and Frame say positive things (as well as critical things about his effort) that might suggest something along the lines of your suppositions. I do not believe that CVT ever addressed it in the way that more recent scholars have. Anselm's argument is quite intriguing and not as easily dismissed as Kant and company have. 

I thought that you might raise a question about necessity, and I think it has to be ontological necessity personally. If you're a Reidian, and that's interesting to me as a Hodge researcher, I'd have to think that Ludwig would be after you with that red-hot poker just like he was Karl Popper!  

Have you published anything on your analysis of Wittgenstein on religion? I'd be interested to see that. 

Peace,
Alan


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## Philip

Alan D. Strange said:


> If you're a Reidian, and that's interesting to me as a Hodge researcher, I'd have to think that Ludwig would be after you with that red-hot poker just like he was Karl Popper!



No question he might brandish something at me (then again, maybe this time he'd remember the poker principle). On the other hand, I think Reid anticipates and pre-empts a good deal of what Wittgenstein is doing. He's essentially doing ordinary language analysis in his critique of Hume.



Alan D. Strange said:


> Have you published anything on your analysis of Wittgenstein on religion?



I haven't published anything period. I'm just an undergraduate and became interested in the subject after attending a series of lectures by P.M.S. Hacker on Wittgenstein last spring. I ended up writing a brief critique of Wittgenstein on religion afterward, but it was rather weak and hasty (though some of the research is still proving useful). I'm currently working on a senior thesis deconstructing Wittgenstein and D.Z. Phillips on Christianity and providing a starting point for further development of a theory of religious language.


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## Alan D. Strange

All the best with the thesis; it sounds fascinating. Are you doing this with Professor Davis? Pardon me, I should not get so personal: simply enjoy and learn all you possibly can and keep Bach's motto _ad maiorem Dei gloriam_ (also the Jesuit's, but never mind) before you.

Peace,
Alan


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## Loopie

I know I am not knowledgeable enough to deeply discuss Wittgenstein's philosophy. What I do believe though is that we cannot separate philosophy from theology (our apologetic should be derived from scripture, just like our theology is). Today I found a quote from Bahnsen on the AOMin.org blog, and I wanted to go ahead and post that for everyone's enjoyment:

"Both disciplines [theology and philosophy] answer similar questions (about reality, knowledge, and conduct), even if in somewhat different terms and settings. However, some would argue that the way in which philosophy attempts to answer those questions is different from the way in which theology does so. But such a view incorporates two objectionable assumptions. First, it assumes (perhaps from the long tradition of men doing philosophy with an autonomous attitude) that philosophy is in its very nature something that does not stand under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who work in submission to the Lord, accordingly, are automatically disqualified from doing ‘philosophy.’ – despite the fact that the critics of this mentality have their own lords and ultimate commitments. Second, it assumes that man’s reasoning and interpretation of experience can be made intelligible outside of the worldview provided by divine revelation – thus begging from the outset the very question pursued by the Christian philosopher.” Greg Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic, 52.


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## MW

Semper Fidelis said:


> Men who abandon a crreaturely dependence upon the Creator for knowledge can hear no voice but their own



Well observed and stated, Rich. If all this discussion on Witt. demonstrates anything it must surely be that language is meaningless without the meaning that the revelation and reconciliation of God in Christ gives to us.


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## Philip

Alan D. Strange said:


> Are you doing this with Professor Davis?



Yes, as a matter of fact.


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## Semper Fidelis

Loopie said:


> I know I am not knowledgeable enough to deeply discuss Wittgenstein's philosophy. What I do believe though is that we cannot separate philosophy from theology (our apologetic should be derived from scripture, just like our theology is). Today I found a quote from Bahnsen on the AOMin.org blog, and I wanted to go ahead and post that for everyone's enjoyment:
> 
> "Both disciplines [theology and philosophy] answer similar questions (about reality, knowledge, and conduct), even if in somewhat different terms and settings. However, some would argue that the way in which philosophy attempts to answer those questions is different from the way in which theology does so. But such a view incorporates two objectionable assumptions. First, it assumes (perhaps from the long tradition of men doing philosophy with an autonomous attitude) that philosophy is in its very nature something that does not stand under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who work in submission to the Lord, accordingly, are automatically disqualified from doing ‘philosophy.’ – despite the fact that the critics of this mentality have their own lords and ultimate commitments. Second, it assumes that man’s reasoning and interpretation of experience can be made intelligible outside of the worldview provided by divine revelation – thus begging from the outset the very question pursued by the Christian philosopher.” Greg Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic, 52.



I'm not criticizing the use of philosophy as a tool to understand theology but philosophy as a paradigm by which all knowledge must fit. There are insights into understanding thinking and logic that philosophy affords us but some seek to make all knowledge of revelation to be fit within a descriptive schema that men have constructed. I view philosophical systems as a way of providing an analogy of knowledge but it falls short. Philosophy may attempt to describe love but the Psalmist declares there are some things too wonderful to describe like a man with his wife. I may be able to logically describe the power of a thunderstorm but there are some things that are revealed by the Lord through His created order that defy our ability to systematize.

What I'm concerned about are those who see philosophy as the full way of apprehending divine things. Some are so enamored by the complexity of the tools of philsophy that they forget that there is knowledge beyond which we can grasp and have to depend upon God. Some have recast whole Reformed faith into a systematic theology that comports with analytical philosophy and do not have the humility to stop short of where God's revelation has ceased and believe philosophy gives them license to speculate into hidden things.

In the end, I'm indebted to many disciplines that keep me from making sloppy mistakes about God's revelation. As an example, hermeneutics is a science with rules that can be clearly followed to prevent one from making simple-minded mistakes on how to understand the Scriptures. That said, once I have apprehended what a Scripture verse may be telling me, there is a knowledge that I must depend upon that escapes me. There is power and help from the Spirit that I cannot comprehend or call down simply because I think I understand what it says. There are things beyond understanding that I must cry out in desperation. I am united to Christ by faith and the way He works and wills in me to do His good pleasure is something that only the Divine can understand.


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## Philip

Theology is the queen of the sciences and philosophy is but the handmaid.

Rich, would you say that there's a difference between accepting the limits of our understanding and sloppiness? Too often I do see folks just playing the "mystery" card right off the bat without asking the hard questions. I hear what you're saying and you're right that it's a problem that too many reformed folks have succumbed to, but I'm not sure that it's the problem we're facing right now. I don't want Christianity to be just another philosophical system, but neither do I want to believe naively or fall into mysticism. It seems that there is a place for mystery where God reveals Himself and we shut up, but I also want to avoid not thinking deeply enough.

Also, as one who will (Lord willing) be going into the field of philosophy, there's a certain sense in which I'd like to be able to communicate my belief in the terms of my discipline.


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## Alan D. Strange

Good discussion, men. I appreciate it.

I assign Scott Oliphint's excellent book, _Reasons for Faith_, whose subtitle is _Philosophy in the Service of Theology_ and that's how it should be, philosophy as servant to theology. Wittgenstein, as brilliant as he was, is a fool because he denies God, rendering his philosophy nonsense. This is what I was getting at before Phil and I got into a few particulars with respect to him, CVT and so forth. 

I certainly agree with Rich, Eric, and Matthew that faith is foundational, as I am sure Phil does as well. _Fides quaerens intellectum_ is surely the motto of us all. Let me pick up on one point of Phil's, however, that has to do with both philosophy and theology. He has a good point, I think, about folk adducing mystery too readily. Sometimes , when I am attempting to work through with students the great theological and Christological challenges of the fourth and fifth centuries and hold their feet to the fire to have them understand what was going on, they sometimes despair of, say, Leo's Tome as being too exacting and demanding in its thought. In other words, they don't want to think through all the issues involving the blessed Holy undivided Trinity or the hypostatic union with respect to our Lord Jesus Christ. It's only when one has got all the issues on the table and thought through them, seeing the implications, for e.g., of perichoresis, that one can marvel at the mystery and see the true incomprehensibility of our God. We have no right to invoke mystery or incomprehensibililty before we've even learned and worked through the implications of our theology and Christology. Particularly theological students, would-be ministers, need to work through these things so that they can minister to God's people and know how to engage their theological questions and not quickly dismiss all their questions as "mystery." If Phil was getting at something along those lines, I think that's a valid consideration. 

Peace,
Alan


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## Philip

Alan D. Strange said:


> If Phil was getting at something along those lines, I think that's a valid consideration.



That's exactly what I had in mind, actually.


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## MW

Does the following clarify at all?

We use mystery in two different contexts. (a) That which is known only to God. (b) That which God has revealed but is beyond reason to verify. The former is "the secret things" of Deut. 29:29, while the latter is "the mystery of godliness" of 1 Tim. 3:16. Most of what we are discussing revolves around the latter. That which may be known is known by revelation, not reason, but sanctified reason is used ministerially to understand and apply it. Insofar as reason cannot verify the facts of revelation, godliness will bow before the "mystery." Insofar as reason is necessary to understand and apply the facts of revelation, godliness demands the full exertion of our mental powers to the glory of God.


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## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> First, the historical error: the Investigations were published posthumously. No one in Wittgenstein's lifetime knew the full extent of his critique except for those who knew him personally.



Anscombe, who as far as I know, had no allergies to metaphysics compiled at least one version.




P. F. Pugh said:


> a) This development was inconsistent with the Tractatus. The Vienna Circle and Logical Positivism never understood the Tractatus. If they had, they would have become existentialists (Wittgenstein didn't think that existentialism was philosophy---he thought it much more important).



Yes but you speak of him as if his thought is a. true and b. totally consistant. Although he admited that the _Tractatus_ was inconsistant with itself, it was speaking about those things which It claimed could not be spoken of.




P. F. Pugh said:


> b) The Investigations do not claim to be the end of philosophy, but the transformation of philosophy. The later Wittgenstein believed philosophy to be about the clarification of language and the untangling of conceptual confusion---it was to be a kind of grammatical therapy. Thus further developments are not necessarily inconsistent.



This is quite close to Derrida's critique of western metaphysics. But it is irrellivant, you assume that Wittgenstien had no internal inconsistancies that could be developed in the sort of directions that Strawson and others have. He assumed that there could be no such thing as metaphysics because predefined it in a way that made no such language game possible. But if we simply ask why such a definition of metaphysics is the only one he could only say "just because it makes my system work".

---------- Post added at 10:18 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:08 AM ----------




P. F. Pugh said:


> Actually, no. Meaning, in most cases, for Wittgenstein, is use. So a word with no use would be meaningless. Again, his question would be whether language and meaning need accounting for beyond this and what kind of confusions led us to think that it did.
> 
> With Wittgenstein, it's not going to reduce to anything except your assertion that he is wrong unless you end up giving external counterexamples from ordinary use. The later Wittgenstein's system is consistent with itself (the Tractatus, of course, is self-conscious of the fact that it is senseless but necessary, but the Investigations don't have this problem).



And I would say that this is exactly what Starwson does in his transcendental argument for particulers. He shows from ordinary use that we cannot develop a language game that does not involve particulers. Like Van Til who used Idealism as a springboard for apologetics I am doing the same. I am using his insights to not because he is totally correct but it is a nice avenue to develop a transcendental argument in a liguisticlly minded philosophical culture. I do the same thing for moral issues working the critiques of postmodern society through the work of Levinas and Derrida. I than turn around and show how hopelessly inconsistant they were and how how Chrietian Theism can get what they wanted to get.


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## Semper Fidelis

armourbearer said:


> We use mystery in two different contexts. (a) That which is known only to God. (b) That which God has revealed but is beyond reason to verify. The former is "the secret things" of Deut. 29:29, while the latter is "the mystery of godliness" of 1 Tim. 3:16.



I like this.

Just to clarify, I do agree, Philip, that we are not supposed to leave our brains at the door in theology and chalk it up to mystery. I also believe that there are dangers in saying "...we're holding these two things in tension..." when an obvious logical contradiction exists. Lutheran theology, in my estimation, can be shown to be incoherent on the issue of monergistic grace and baptismal regeneration. Scripture has revealed the former and not the latter and appealing to mystery does not eliminate the reader of Scripture from the proper use of hermeneutics.

I didn't weigh in in order to start an aside. My answer was to the OP. As I said, I don't think Van Til's agenda was to create a replacement analytical philosophy. It's interesting that his disciples say they're systematizing what he left undone but I'm not convinced that was his aim. I see him as contrasting human systems with a reliance on the Creator for revelation. Where he shows that each of those systems fall under their own weight and show men to be fools he does not offer to erect an edifice in its place that is a philosophy for reality organized around Reformed principles. I think many of the things he said that can better be understood in the archetypal/ectypal paradigm are unnaturally fit within a human philosophical framework because some are only comfortable as viewing reality according to philosophical systems.


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## jwright82

Semper Fidelis said:


> What I'm concerned about are those who see philosophy as the full way of apprehending divine things. Some are so enamored by the complexity of the tools of philsophy that they forget that there is knowledge beyond which we can grasp and have to depend upon God. Some have recast whole Reformed faith into a systematic theology that comports with analytical philosophy and do not have the humility to stop short of where God's revelation has ceased and believe philosophy gives them license to speculate into hidden things.



Which is why I prefer the way Van Til handles these issues in particulerly in _Christian Apologetics_ and _The Defense of The Faith_. He lays out Reformed Theology first, than works out some basic philosophical consequences of it. Lastly he develops his apologetic from there. I think all in all you are right. If it doesn't pass the great judgment it doesn't count, that is a just an unbiblical idea (one that I don't see anyone here espousing). But I agree with you that it is dangerous to let philosophy dictate how we do theology. It is theology that dictates how do philosophy. 

In the book _Revelation and Reason_ there are some notable essays on this subject. Lane Tipton's essay "Paul's Christological Inerpretation of Creation and Presuppositional Apologetics" in he gives an excellent exccegetical framework for a philosophy that is "according to Christ". Also to see a good paradighm of how to navigate responsebly through the murky waters of philosophical discussions see in this book the essay by Michael W. Payne. It is entitles "The Fate of Apologetics in an Age of Normal Nihilism". Also a good use of the development of logic for the purposes of Van Til's method is seen in Don Collet's essay in this book called "Van Til and Transcendental Argument".

All of these, and the others in the book, show a good way to deal with and interact with philosophy.


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## jwright82

Alan D. Strange said:


> I'd have to think that Ludwig would be after you with that red-hot poker just like he was Karl Popper!



I read that Popper came to Cambridge prepared to argue with the earlier Wittgenstein but encountered the later Wittgenstein, philosophically speaking. That is one reason their discussion got to "heated". Amazon.com: Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers (9780066212449): David Edmonds, John Eidinow: Books. Excellent book on that encounter.


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## Philip

jwright82 said:


> But it is irrellivant, you assume that Wittgenstien had no internal inconsistancies that could be developed in the sort of directions that Strawson and others have. He assumed that there could be no such thing as metaphysics because predefined it in a way that made no such language game possible.



Not quite. His charge was that metaphysics was a confusion. Strawson disagrees, but in that case he's not being consistent with Wittgenstein. I have no objections to departure from Wittgenstein, given that I'm a Christian, not a Wittgensteinian, but it's important to recognize that when Strawson does this, he is indeed departing from Wittgenstein rather than being consistent with him.

He is not redefining metaphysics, merely allegating its former questions to epistemology and language.



jwright82 said:


> He shows from ordinary use that we cannot develop a language game that does not involve particulers.



Again, Wittgenstein wouldn't agree to the form of the argument. Transcendental argumentation depends on an internal critique that simply doesn't work with Wittgenstein because his method is to launch a _de jure_ attack on your critique.

As you know, I'm critical of transcendental argumentation in general because it depends either on an inductive argument or else it reverses itself and reduces to a deductive argument. It is one thing to have a metaphysic to ground phenomena in, but the argument for that metaphysic depends on a number of philosophical and linguistic assumptions which, when called into question, prove hard to demonstrate.



jwright82 said:


> All of these, and the others in the book, show a good way to deal with and interact with philosophy.



I'd just suggest reading Anselm's _Proslogion_ chapter 1.


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## MW

jwright82 said:


> Which is why I prefer the way Van Til handles these issues in particulerly in _Christian Apologetics_ and _The Defense of The Faith_. He lays out Reformed Theology first, than works out some basic philosophical consequences of it. Lastly he develops his apologetic from there.



Scholasticism as a whole developed its prolegomena in retrospect of its dogmatics. If I recall correctly Richard Muller has a section on this in PRRD.


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## Loopie

Philip, I must disagree with your statement that the transcendental argument depends on induction or deduction. I would say that the TA solves the problem of induction (or deduction) that David Hume presented. In my discussions with atheists concerning morality, presupposing God is the only way to determine a system of objective morality while being consistent. It is the atheistic worldview that ends up running into the problem of induction/deduction based on its presuppositions.


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## Philip

Loopie said:


> I would say that the TA solves the problem of induction (or deduction) that David Hume presented.



What problem? The problem is only present if you are an empiricist. I am wonderfully free of any urge to be an empiricist, so I simply end up saying "nuts" to Hume. Transcendental reasoning depends on connections that have to be established by appeal to necessary principles, which have to be established by means of logic.


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## Loopie

You believe that TA depends on connections that you don't think exist? Could you please elaborate your statement? I honestly am trying to understand where you are coming from. For starters, what do you believe to be the 'starting point' or foundation, for knowledge, morality, and existence?


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## Philip

Loopie said:


> You believe that TA depends on connections that you don't think exist?



I didn't say that. I said that for the argument to work, these connections have to be proven, not simply asserted.



Loopie said:


> For starters, what do you believe to be the 'starting point' or foundation, for knowledge, morality, and existence?



Depends on whether we are talking about the order of being, in which case it is God, or whether we are talking about the order of knowing, in which case it is the self (Calvin begins the institutes with this distinction). I realize that the latter is considered autonomous by certain Van Tillians (Greg Bahnsen, for instance) but that depends on how you define autonomy.

Is autonomy the principle of starting an argument from a basis other than God? If so, then very few Christians have ever produced an argument that was not autonomous (in fact, the ontological argument is the only one I can think of that isn't). Bahnsen, by the way, uses this definition as a hammer to try and smash Schaeffer and Gordon Clark as examples of autonomous reasoning (whether one buys Clark's philosophy is another matter, but autonomous reasoning should not be in the list of accusations). 

On the other hand, autonomy more likely means an attitude of independence of God---an attempt to use reason to break free from creation as created. In this sense, I think that one could maintain a distinction between order of being and order of knowing without the charge of autonomy being levelled.


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## jwright82

armourbearer said:


> jwright82 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Which is why I prefer the way Van Til handles these issues in particulerly in _Christian Apologetics_ and _The Defense of The Faith_. He lays out Reformed Theology first, than works out some basic philosophical consequences of it. Lastly he develops his apologetic from there.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Scholasticism as a whole developed its prolegomena in retrospect of its dogmatics. If I recall correctly Richard Muller has a section on this in PRRD.
Click to expand...


You know I had the pleasure of reading that book so long ago, back when I couldn't appreciate do to lack of knowledge. I want it very badly but alas I can't afford it right now. I agree as far as I understand. In _Revelation and Reason_ two essays, Horton and Jue, deal exactly with Van Til's actual relation to Reformed Scholasticism and they say the same thing as you do. You would know about Scholasticism more than I would so I can only agree with you. On the other hand I do feel that Van Til did interact with philosophy in a very helpful way as illustrated by those works I mentioned. I mean just the tables of contents show what he thought about the relationship. I also feel that without understanding both his method of interacting with philosophy and the philosophical climate he was unquestionably dealing with will lead to a misunderstanding of him.

I all in all feel that you and Rich are right on and probably wouldn't disagree with me. 






Loopie said:


> Philip, I must disagree with your statement that the transcendental argument depends on induction or deduction. I would say that the TA solves the problem of induction (or deduction) that David Hume presented. In my discussions with atheists concerning morality, presupposing God is the only way to determine a system of objective morality while being consistent. It is the atheistic worldview that ends up running into the problem of induction/deduction based on its presuppositions.



I agree that it is a problem. But I would stress that it is a problem in theory more than practice. Atheists can live very moral lives without any theory of ethics. But you are right in the apologetical argument to push them at these points. Van Til's main thrust was to say make more sense out things than me. My brother is an atheist and the other night I ended my conversation with like this. I said "can you make more sense out of things than me?" He said "no he couldn't", I said "well I'm telling you to think about it, when your'e doing whatever think about it", I think that such practical methods can be drawn from Van Til and used very effectivly. I know that such statements lack philosophical precision but they can be persuasive to the unbeleiver. So I guess what I am saying is keep up the good work.




P. F. Pugh said:


> Not quite. His charge was that metaphysics was a confusion. Strawson disagrees, but in that case he's not being consistent with Wittgenstein. I have no objections to departure from Wittgenstein, given that I'm a Christian, not a Wittgensteinian, but it's important to recognize that when Strawson does this, he is indeed departing from Wittgenstein rather than being consistent with him.
> 
> He is not redefining metaphysics, merely allegating its former questions to epistemology and language.



Oh I agree with all that. Yeah Strawson is departing from him for sure. My point is that you can depart and develop his ideas in areas that he would not aprove. By the way I would be very intersted in reading your thesis on Wittgenstein if you don't mind sending it to me, I think you have my email already. 




P. F. Pugh said:


> Again, Wittgenstein wouldn't agree to the form of the argument. Transcendental argumentation depends on an internal critique that simply doesn't work with Wittgenstein because his method is to launch a de jure attack on your critique.
> 
> As you know, I'm critical of transcendental argumentation in general because it depends either on an inductive argument or else it reverses itself and reduces to a deductive argument. It is one thing to have a metaphysic to ground phenomena in, but the argument for that metaphysic depends on a number of philosophical and linguistic assumptions which, when called into question, prove hard to demonstrate.



I can see your point. Have you gotten the book _Revelation and Reason_ yet? If not you should there is an essay on the logical developments of TA by Don Collet. Although in all of our discussions I have basicaly pulled from that essay along with Bahnsen's work so it may not be worth your while. I do recomend it anyway. 




P. F. Pugh said:


> I'd just suggest reading Anselm's Proslogion chapter 1.



You know I have not read that yet but the more you talk about it I want to read it. So I'll let you know what I think.


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## Loopie

P. F. Pugh said:


> Depends on whether we are talking about the order of being, in which case it is God, or whether we are talking about the order of knowing, in which case it is the self (Calvin begins the institutes with this distinction). I realize that the latter is considered autonomous by certain Van Tillians (Greg Bahnsen, for instance) but that depends on how you define autonomy.



Philip,

Just curious, but wouldn't the order of knowing still begin with God? I mean, EVERYTHING that we humans know was known by God first and foremost. Our knowledge is simply a derivative knowledge from him, since it is by his will and decree that we are able to know anything. We know what God chooses to reveal to us. I believe that Van Til argued this point (someone please correct me if I am wrong). So I do not think that we as humans (in our knowledge) are autonomous. We depend on God just as much for our knowledge as we do for our existence and our morality.


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## jwright82

Loopie said:


> P. F. Pugh said:
> 
> 
> 
> Depends on whether we are talking about the order of being, in which case it is God, or whether we are talking about the order of knowing, in which case it is the self (Calvin begins the institutes with this distinction). I realize that the latter is considered autonomous by certain Van Tillians (Greg Bahnsen, for instance) but that depends on how you define autonomy.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Philip,
> 
> Just curious, but wouldn't the order of knowing still begin with God? I mean, EVERYTHING that we humans know was known by God first and foremost. Our knowledge is simply a derivative knowledge from him, since it is by his will and decree that we are able to know anything. We know what God chooses to reveal to us. I believe that Van Til argued this point (someone please correct me if I am wrong). So I do not think that we as humans (in our knowledge) are autonomous. We depend on God just as much for our knowledge as we do for our existence and our morality.
Click to expand...


Van Til called it "thinking God's thoughts after Him".


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## Philip

Loopie said:


> Just curious, but wouldn't the order of knowing still begin with God?



Of course not. Did you start with God when you learned to speak? Did you construct theological arguments when you learned to read? 



Loopie said:


> We know what God chooses to reveal to us.



Careful, we're approaching epistemic occasionalism (Gordon Clark) here.



Loopie said:


> So I do not think that we as humans (in our knowledge) are autonomous.



Define autonomy. Autonomy is an attitude not a set of attributes or a metaphysical state.



Loopie said:


> We depend on God just as much for our knowledge as we do for our existence and our morality.



Yes, but that's not what we're talking about in the order of knowing. In the order of knowing, we're not talking about truth-makers or the ontological grounding for knowledge: we're talking about the subjective process of acquiring knowledge. I look in front of me and form the belief that there is a desk in front of me. What I don't do is formulate an argument for the existence of the desk metaphysically---because that's just silly. This goes back to Moore's argument for how I know that I have hands: there it is.


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## Loopie

P. F. Pugh said:


> Loopie said:
> 
> 
> 
> Just curious, but wouldn't the order of knowing still begin with God?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Of course not. Did you start with God when you learned to speak? Did you construct theological arguments when you learned to read?
> 
> 
> 
> Loopie said:
> 
> 
> 
> We know what God chooses to reveal to us.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Careful, we're approaching epistemic occasionalism (Gordon Clark) here.
> 
> 
> 
> Loopie said:
> 
> 
> 
> So I do not think that we as humans (in our knowledge) are autonomous.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Define autonomy. Autonomy is an attitude not a set of attributes or a metaphysical state.
> 
> 
> 
> Loopie said:
> 
> 
> 
> We depend on God just as much for our knowledge as we do for our existence and our morality.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Yes, but that's not what we're talking about in the order of knowing. In the order of knowing, we're not talking about truth-makers or the ontological grounding for knowledge: we're talking about the subjective process of acquiring knowledge. I look in front of me and form the belief that there is a desk in front of me. What I don't do is formulate an argument for the existence of the desk metaphysically---because that's just silly. This goes back to Moore's argument for how I know that I have hands: there it is.
Click to expand...


Philip,

Actually, I would argue that we DID start with God when we learned to speak. This may not have been conscious, but consider the argument in Romans chapter 1 that ALL have knowledge of the truth (but suppress it). God has made things VERY clear so that man is without excuse. 

Romans 1:18-20 (NASB) 
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 
19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. 
20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 

Also consider this example from Luke's gospel:

Luke 1:39-45 (NASB) 
39 Now at this time Mary arose and went in a hurry to the hill country, to a city of Judah, 
40 and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. 
41 When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 
42 And she cried out with a loud voice and said, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 
43 "And how has it happened to me, that the mother of my Lord would come to me? 
44 "For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy. 
45 "And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord." 

We see here that even in the womb, John the Baptist lept for joy at the presence of the Lord. 

So again, I would say that ALL knowledge does indeed begin with God. That is why the natural man is guilty of suppressing the truth. How could he suppress something if he did not somehow know it? He knows the truth, but is unwilling to acknowledge it as truth (and instead calls it falsehood).

In the end I feel I am leaning more towards Van Til than Gordon Clark in this matter. As for autonomy, I agree that no human is autonomous in a metaphysical state. But I also do not believe that a human is autonomous in the epistemological state. A man does not autonomously know things. All of his knowledge begins with God, yet he suppresses the truth in unrighteouness.

Yes you look in front of you and you believe that there is a desk in front of you. But again, you also subconsciously believe MANY other things concerning that desk (how it got there, what its made of, who made it, why is it there, etc.). Many of these things you assume, but others you have to seek out more information. Yet I would argue biblically that you (as the natural man) DO have knowledge of God as the creator of all things (including the desk), yet you suppress that knowledge. 

Would you say that the fact that the desk exists is a brute fact? Or would you agree with me when I say that there are no 'brute' facts? As an example I would like to refer to the story of Jesus and the blind man:

John 9:1-12 (NASB) 
1 As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. 
2 And His disciples asked Him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?" 
3 Jesus answered, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him. 
4 "We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work. 
5 "While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world." 
6 When He had said this, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and applied the clay to his eyes, 
7 and said to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which is translated, Sent). So he went away and washed, and came back seeing. 
8 Therefore the neighbors, and those who previously saw him as a beggar, were saying, "Is not this the one who used to sit and beg?" 
9 Others were saying, "This is he," still others were saying, "No, but he is like him." He kept saying, "I am the one." 
10 So they were saying to him, "How then were your eyes opened?" 
11 He answered, "The man who is called Jesus made clay, and anointed my eyes, and said to me, 'Go to Siloam and wash'; so I went away and washed, and I received sight." 
12 They said to him, "Where is He?" He *said, "I do not know." 

In this story we see that multiple different people are looking at this blind man. Do they all KNOW that the man is blind? Sure, but all facts are interpreted facts. The disciples IMMEDIATELY assume that SOMEONE sinned, either him or his parents, and that is WHY he was born blind. If an atheist were to walk by the blind man, he might also agree with the fact that the man is blind, but that isn't the end of it. The atheist would ASSUME that it was through natural means, perhaps a genetic defect, and that there really is no rhyme or reason for it (just survival of the fittest). Yet in the end BOTH the atheist and the disciples would be wrong. Their knowledge of the fact was wrong. They KNEW that the man was blind, but they were all wrong regarding the How and Why. In the end it is Jesus who declares the true reason WHY he was born blind, in order that God might be glorified.

Bringing this back to the discussion of the desk, I would say that the statement: "there is a desk in front of me" does not exist in a vacuum. Also included are the basic questions (Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How). The knowledge of the atheist who looks at the desk is an incomplete and ultimately false knowledge. He suppresses the truth of God, and so therefore is left with falsehood. The desk cannot be TRULY known outside of its relationship to the creator, to God. Anyone who looks at that desk and acknowledges the existence of the desk also acknowledges the existence of God, for the desk cannot be known apart from its reference to God. Yet the natural man seeks to separate the desk from God, to KNOW the desk apart from God. This is just a suppression of the truth, and so what the natural man has instead is falsehood.

For this reason it is very important that our apologetic be derived from scripture, just like our theology. I think this was the goal of Van Til.


----------



## Philip

Loopie said:


> Actually, I would argue that we DID start with God when we learned to speak. This may not have been conscious, but consider the argument in Romans chapter 1 that ALL have knowledge of the truth (but suppress it). God has made things VERY clear so that man is without excuse.



Yes, all have knowledge of the truth and suppress it, but if you take this line of reasoning to be about epistemology you will eventually conclude that there is no such thing as autonomous reasoning and that accusing anyone of such is mere meaningless invective.



Loopie said:


> We see here that even in the womb, John the Baptist lept for joy at the presence of the Lord.



All that this shows is that infants are capable of being regenerate.



Loopie said:


> Would you say that the fact that the desk exists is a brute fact?



Depends on how we're defining brute facts.



Loopie said:


> But again, you also subconsciously believe MANY other things concerning that desk (how it got there, what its made of, who made it, why is it there, etc.).



Sure---that's the way I'm constituted. There's all kinds of epistemic practices that kick in automatically that lead to my believing that there is a desk---no question. But here's the thing: the metaphysical story I tell about the desk isn't going to change my belief that there is, in fact, a desk. And you still haven't shown how I can reason from the existence of God to the existence of the desk.



Loopie said:


> The desk cannot be TRULY known outside of its relationship to the creator, to God.



What kind of a statement is this exactly? I don't know desks: I know that there _is_ a desk. I know persons, groups of persons, and places, but I don't know objects. I know things about objects, how to use them, etc.---but I don't know _objects_ (German has two different words here for knowledge, by the way, which distinguish what I mean).



Loopie said:


> Their knowledge of the fact was wrong. They KNEW that the man was blind, but they were all wrong regarding the How and Why.



This is a non-sequitor. People knew that the world was round before they knew that the earth revolved around the sun and they knew that the earth revolved around the sun before they understood the laws of physics that make this possible. Just because you don't actually know the answer to all five questions doesn't mean that you don't know it. The disciples knew that the man was blind.

Again, how did you learn to speak: epistemology is about getting to know the particulars, not about organizing them correctly or coming up with a nice metaphysical story. An atheist plumber who can fix my pipes knows more about them than a Christian plumber who can't. The best theology in the world won't get the pipes fixed.



Loopie said:


> As for autonomy



Which definition are you using? Bahnsen's or Frame's? Also, give me a definition of "knowledge" while you're at it. The way you're using the word seems to be out of accord with the way we ordinarily use it.

Autonomy is not a state, but an attitude. No one begins with God---not in the ordinary sense of beginning. You begin with the self, and you discover that you are created in His image. The fallen self rejects this, but this does not invalidate the real knowledge of self or of particulars. Again, if my atheist plumber can fix the pipes, then I assume that he has actual knowledge of plumbing. Not pseudo-knowledge, actual knowledge.


----------



## Loopie

Philip,

Allow me to better explain my position. I do believe that Romans 1 is a very important statement concerning the state of man, and his knowledge. You agreed with me that we all have knowledge of the truth concerning God. Yet look carefully at what the verse says:

Romans 1:20 (NASB) 
20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 

So we see that God's eternal power, divine nature, and invisible attributes have been CLEARLY seen, through WHAT HAS BEEN MADE (all of creation) so that they are without excuse. I would argue, based on this passage, that if a person sees a desk (or any object for that matter) he is seeing CLEARLY the evidence of God's handiwork. He has knowledge of the truth of God based on even the simplest object that he sees (a tree, a leaf, a baby, a star). Since he is born of a sinful nature, he suppresses that knowledge. If we both agree that the natural man 'suppresses the truth', then it MUST mean that he already has (in some sense) knowledge of what is true (in this case, God's nature and attributes). One cannot suppress something that one does not have in some sense. I would say that in this case it is in a spiritual sense.

The point is that when you do look at a desk, you immediately have already answered one of the six questions (Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How). I mean, as soon as the light reflects back from the object and is processed into your brain, the VERY FIRST thing you do (subconsciously) is answer the WHAT question. What is it that I am looking at? I know that you don't actually ask yourself this question slowly, word for word, in your mind, but it is the very first thing you answer. So again, to simply STOP there and say that you now have knowledge of the truth is to separate the 'what' question from ALL the other questions. You essentially have tried to take this desk OUT of context (the context being that it is God's creation).

Ultimately it comes down to what scripture declares (and scripture needs to be the foundation for philosophy, not just our theology and apologetic method). If you agree with me that men suppress the truth, and that this truth is evident in ALL of God's creation (even the smallest object), then we must agree that EVERY man, if he has knowledge of ANYTHING, has that knowledge BASED on an innate knowledge of God (that he suppresses inside himself). Thoughts?

By the way, I would like you to explain how your philosophy is derived from scripture. Would you agree that we must allow God's word to be the foundation and source of our philosophy, theology, and apologetic? (Please understand that I am not trying to be mean or anything like that, but am trying to better understand your position, and where you are coming from)


----------



## Philip

Loopie said:


> One cannot suppress something that one does not have in some sense. I would say that in this case it is in a spiritual sense.



Let me explain here what I think is in view: the knowledge of God that man has is what is known as "tacit knowledge." This is knowledge that comes subconsciously and is only ever acknowledged when it becomes an issue. For example, I'm learning German, and I'm starting to realize that there's a logic behind which words are masculine, which are feminine, and which are neuter, but it's not something where I could ever tell you why. Any linguist can tell you that there's no conscious rationale behind it---yet somehow it makes sense that _Land_ is neuter and _Madchen_ is masculine.

The natural knowledge of God is like this: the natural man sees the world around him and ought to understand the logic behind it. He ought to see creation as creation, but he doesn't because of sin. He suppresses the truth in unrighteousness such that it's right in front of him and he can't see it. 



Loopie said:


> I mean, as soon as the light reflects back from the object and is processed into your brain, the VERY FIRST thing you do (subconsciously) is answer the WHAT question.



No, I don't. I find myself thinking "desk." It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to talk about subconscious questions. Unless I'm thinking about something consciously (in language) then I can't very well ask myself questions.



Loopie said:


> So again, to simply STOP there and say that you now have knowledge of the truth is to separate the 'what' question from ALL the other questions. You essentially have tried to take this desk OUT of context (the context being that it is God's creation).



This is sounding awfully Leibnizian. Taking something out of context does not entail lack of knowledge. Again, just because I'm misled about Newtonian Physics and quantum does not mean that I can't know that the earth goes around the sun.



Loopie said:


> If you agree with me that men suppress the truth, and that this truth is evident in ALL of God's creation (even the smallest object), then we must agree that EVERY man, if he has knowledge of ANYTHING, has that knowledge BASED on an innate knowledge of God (that he suppresses inside himself).



You have it backward. Romans says that God's attributes are clearly shown _from creation_, not the other way around. Paul doesn't say that our knowledge of creation is logically derived from our knowledge of God's invisible attributes. Paul is saying that since God has made Himself known through creation (general revelation) man is without excuse because he suppresses the truth in unrighteousness. Man knows because he ought to know.

Again, we're talking kinds of knowledge here and they are important to distinguish, given that we use the word in so many ways.


----------



## Loopie

Philip,

I honestly do not see how I have it backwards. I agree that Paul does not say explicitly that ALL of our knowledge comes from God. Yet I think that this is a conclusion that we could rightfully make. I mean, if God's attributes are made evident from ALL of creation, doesn't this mean that when you look at ANYTHING, it is pointing back to God? God's mark of ownership and authorship is seen on ALL of creation. Consider that since we are made in the image of God, then to even KNOW ourselves means that we KNOW God (yet we willfully suppress that knowledge).

Furthermore, if man is suppressing this EVERY time he looks at ANY part of creation (including himself) than it must means that he in some way KNOWS it (in order to suppress it). 

So in the end, I honestly do think Romans 1 leads to the conclusions I mentioned above. I have yet to see how you would use scripture to support your philosophy, and how exactly you come to hold the philosophy that you have. Do you believe that men naturally can KNOW things apart from any knowledge of God? If they can TRULY KNOW something without having ANY knowledge of God, then how has God made his attributes evident, and how are they without excuse? Again, I am simply trying to better understand YOUR position and philosophy, and how it relates to what scripture reveals.

Also, consider your example of knowing that the earth revolves around the sun (or that the sun will rise tomorrow). Hume of course would show you that you cannot TRULY know that the sun will rise (based on his presuppositions), but that is a different topic. If a man KNOWS that the earth revolves around the sun, then doesn't this knowledge somehow reveal (or point to) God's attributes? If the sunrise reveals God's attributes, then it must be true that in some way the man who sees the sunrise KNOWS that God has created the earth and the sun to act the way that they do (but he suppresses that knowledge). So again, he cannot KNOW anything apart from his innate knowledge of his creator (which he is held accountable for suppressing).


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## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> If we read the later Wittgenstein rather than Derrida as the prophet of postmodernism



I missed this before, I would argue that there are many prophets of postmodernism. For me the premier one would be Richard Rorty, he synthesized all the prophets into one view (adding a little bit of origenality). Anyone wanting to read his most developed thought should read the essays in this book:
Amazon.com: Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers (Philosophical Papers (Cambridge)) (Volume 3) (9780521556866): Richard Rorty: Books.


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## Philip

Loopie said:


> I agree that Paul does not say explicitly that ALL of our knowledge comes from God.



Eric, it's mediate knowledge. Again, you're going Clarkian here. It's not immediate knowledge of God, but evidence of the work of God in creation which is plain to all, yet sinful man suppresses. God is revealed in creation---that's what Paul is saying. In order to suppress the truth in unrighteousness, though, sinful man has to know and be aware of creation. You're right: we ought to know God---but in this case, it doesn't matter where you start. If you start with the self, you will end up getting to God. If this view of creation is correct, then all argumentation is transcendental.



Loopie said:


> Do you believe that men naturally can KNOW things apart from any knowledge of God?



Depends on what we mean by knowledge of God. If we mean knowledge-that-is-suppressed-and-ought-to-be-known, then no. If we mean personal knowledge of God given by revelation and the illumination of the Spirit, then yes---the non-regenerate know things.



Loopie said:


> If they can TRULY KNOW something without having ANY knowledge of God, then how has God made his attributes evident, and how are they without excuse?



Because they are there for all to see. Fallen man is like one who goes looking for a colossus while refusing to note that he is standing on its nose. 



Loopie said:


> If the sunrise reveals God's attributes, then it must be true that in some way the man who sees the sunrise KNOWS that God has created the earth and the sun to act the way that they do (but he suppresses that knowledge).



But that doesn't mean that he doesn't know that the sun rose. You're moving from suppressing knowledge of God to denying that unbelievers have knowledge of particulars but haven't shown a necessary connection between the two. Further, you're still not defining "knowledge" here and your argument may be based on an equivocation.

As for my Scriptural basis, this is simply how I read Romans 1.


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## Loopie

Philip,

I must respectfully disagree with you when you say that it is not immediate knowledge of God. You say that it is "evidence of the work of God in creation which is plain to all", yet you seem to then want to say that it is not a type of knowledge of God. If God is made evident by creation, then when we perceive creation we cannot avoid knowing God in some sense. It is a knowledge of God that we suppress and are held accountable for. I mean, when you consider ANY small part of creation, it has God's handiwork written all over it. When you look at another person, you are looking at a creature made in the image of God whether you like it or not, whether you even believe it or not. The moment you 'know' that there is a person in front of you, you also 'know' that the person is made in the image of God. Naturally we suppress this innate 'knowledge' but we still have it, and cannot avoid having it no matter what. Even the person who 'knows' less than you about the world is held accountable for suppressing the knowledge of the truth. I mean, by simply existing we have enough of a 'knowledge' of our creator that we are held accountable for suppressing it. Do you deny this?

I must disagree with you that the non-regenerate truly KNOW things. I mean, you are essentially saying (or suggesting) that the unregenerate are capable of having a correct knowledge of something WITHOUT having ANY knowledge of God. Let me ask you this, can the unregenerate correctly KNOW themselves while having absolutely no knowledge of God? How would that make sense in light of Romans 1? If a person truly KNOWS something, while at the same time has absolutely NO knowledge of God in any sense of the term, then what exactly are they suppressing, and how are they held accountable for it?

You said that "Fallen man is like one who goes looking for a colossus while refusing to note that he is standing on its nose." This proves the very point that I am trying to make. He can only REFUSE to note something if he is aware of it in some innate way (people don't refuse things that they are absolutely and completely ignorant of). In this statement you make it seem like he SHOULD easily see that he is standing on the nose of the colossus (and I would agree that he SHOULD). Let me ask you this: Why SHOULD he clearly acknowledge this? I would answer that he SHOULD acknowledge it because deep down he already knows it is true but is suppressing that knowledge. It has been made clear to him, but in his mind it is not clear at all. In his mind there is NO evidence that he is standing on the nose of the colossus. So I would say that he does indeed have knowledge of that colossus, but he still wants to find a different one. 

This reminds me of what Dr. James White said in one of his broadcasts concerning Christopher Hitchens. White simply suggested two facts concerning Hitchens: 1) Hitchens KNOWS that God does not exist, 2) Hitchens HATES God. This is exactly in line with what Romans 1 teaches. The atheist is so convinced that God does not exist that he actually might make the claim that he KNOWS God does not exist. Yet at the same time he hates God. This simply reveals that in some way the atheists innately 'know' that God exists, but they suppress it to the extreme. They hate God with every breath they take, while at the same time asserting that there is no evidence that he exists. You don't see them hating Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny (or other imaginary creatures) this way, but boy do they hate the God that they assert is just as imaginary.

In the end I really do hope that you will present me with your system of philosophy, and how you would go about apologetics. I honestly am trying to understand where you are coming from, and I am curious as to how much you have read from Van Til, Oliphint, and Bahnsen. Where do you begin in YOUR understanding of philosophy? What is your starting point for apologetics, and how do you build the philosophical system that you hold to? I am very curious about this and would love to hear more when you get the chance.


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## CharlieJ

Hey, gents. Good discussion. I won't jump in this late to take it off course, but I'll simply add a few comments that might lead to conversations in other threads. 

1) Philip, I pretty much agree with what you're saying here, but I'd love to talk more some time about the value of transcendental argumentation. 

2) James, man, you read a lot of philosophy. I'll probably be coming to you with questions sometime. Do you see yourself more as a philosopher or as someone who uses philosophy for more theological and apologetical interests?

3) To all, I find Van Til, or more accurately Van Tillianism, to be extremely problematic. It's interesting to me that almost every philosophical discussion on PB, even ones that don't have his name in the thread title, winds up coming back to him. My problem is not so much with the content of the philosophy as with the attitude of many who employ it. They think that because they read Van Til, they know philosophy, and they don't need to know other philosophers. Their approach to philosophy is aggressive and subversive; they read other philosophers in order to do transcendental deconstructions (not Derrida's kind) on their work. It seems to me that many Van Tillians, when they bother to engage philosophers, do so in order NOT to learn from the experience. I'm afraid this attitude, which probably does stem from Van Til's conclusions (but not his own method, which was quite porous and eclectic), is ultimately harmful because of its isolationism.


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## jwright82

CharlieJ said:


> 2) James, man, you read a lot of philosophy. I'll probably be coming to you with questions sometime. Do you see yourself more as a philosopher or as someone who uses philosophy for more theological and apologetical interests?



Well I am flattered that you say that, yes I will attempt to answer your questions as best I can (but I make no promises that I can answer them). Just for the record Philip has a much greater understanding of analytical philosophy than I do so I may refer you or anyone to him for those specific philosophical questions, but there are many that I can answer. 

I see myself as doing more apologetical work, I love philosophy itself. So I would in a perfect world do apologetics and philosophy at the same time, I do have a deep passion for theology. In fact any truly christian philosophy will be apologetical on some level. I have enjoyed the fact that so many people have helped me in my theological learning on this site. My most comfortable area is philosophy though. 




CharlieJ said:


> 3) To all, I find Van Til, or more accurately Van Tillianism, to be extremely problematic. It's interesting to me that almost every philosophical discussion on PB, even ones that don't have his name in the thread title, winds up coming back to him. My problem is not so much with the content of the philosophy as with the attitude of many who employ it. They think that because they read Van Til, they know philosophy, and they don't need to know other philosophers. Their approach to philosophy is aggressive and subversive; they read other philosophers in order to do transcendental deconstructions (not Derrida's kind) on their work. It seems to me that many Van Tillians, when they bother to engage philosophers, do so in order NOT to learn from the experience. I'm afraid this attitude, which probably does stem from Van Til's conclusions (but not his own method, which was quite porous and eclectic), is ultimately harmful because of its isolationism.



I kind of agree with you here. You know Dr. Oliphint somewhere, I can't recall off the top of my head, that VanTillians at times could project an apathy towards philosophy but that we need VanTillian philosophers out there. I think the test for good christian philosophy is Van Til's interactions with Dooyeweerd. He criticized where he deserved it and praised him where he deserved that. In the end you get a view of christian philosophy that is truly biblical.


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## Loopie

Charlie,

I completely agree with you that many people who employ Van Tilliasm do so in a very aggressive way, and perhaps with a condescending attitude. In my own experience I always make it my effort not to do this, but always just go back to scripture (which needs to be the foundation). Reading multiple philosophers/theologians definitely helps to grow one's experience and understanding of the situation. It also helps (at least in my case) to develop a greater appreciation for Van Til's work. I too would love to discuss any philosophical questions with you, and honestly would love to know how exactly Van Tilliasm is problematic (you alluded to a problem with those who employ it, not with the system itself).


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## Philip

Loopie said:


> I must respectfully disagree with you when you say that it is not immediate knowledge of God.



Oh? So when I look at anything, it bears witness to God in the sense that God uses it as an occasion to impose knowledge on the mind? The knowledge of God in general revelation is a mediate knowledge, not an immediate one. It is a conclusion that ought to follow and which we ought to see, but refuse to see through. Immediate knowledge of God, though, is found when God illumines our hearts and regenerates us by the Spirit. Immediate knowledge is when God reveals Himself directly rather than simply through creation.



Loopie said:


> Why SHOULD he clearly acknowledge this?



Because it's what he's looking for and it's right there.



Loopie said:


> In the end I really do hope that you will present me with your system of philosophy



That's part of the problem: I'm not interested in coming up with a system of philosophy. I'm interested in finding solutions to problems. 



Loopie said:


> Where do you begin in YOUR understanding of philosophy?



With what I have. As a Christian, I look to Scripture as a starting point and a deciding consideration in answering many questions. But I'm also interested in the why: how do the Scriptural considerations play out in reality? I also begin from the kinds of claims that we make in everyday life. I look at how words are used ordinarily and try to figure out what kinds of practical assumptions we are making. Consider these four claims:

"I know that Jesus rose from the dead"

"I know that I was raised in Virginia"

"I know that Lee lost the Battle of Gettysburg."

"I know my friend Jed."

"Chattanooga? I know that town."

"I know how to tie a bow tie."

"I know God."

In all of these cases the word "know" is being used very differently, and in my philosophy, I am interested in exploring these differences.



CharlieJ said:


> To all, I find Van Til, or more accurately Van Tillianism, to be extremely problematic. It's interesting to me that almost every philosophical discussion on PB, even ones that don't have his name in the thread title, winds up coming back to him.



I'll go ahead and say that whatever my beliefs, I'm never going to be a Van Tillian for the simple reason that I'd rather not identify with a single figure (other than Jesus), however useful. I'll also say that I find Van Til rather useful in many ways for a big-picture view, but I think it needs more nuance, certainly, than some have given. Van Til was not trying to be systematic. 

There's also, I think, a lack of emphasis on the fact that knowing God personally is paramount. In preaching the Gospel, we are, in a sense, making formal introductions, asking "Mr. Smith, I'd like to introduce you to a very dear friend of mine. He's our creator, our sustainer and our Lord." There's a real sense in which the unbeliever doesn't know God: he is afraid of God and doesn't understand that God is good.


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## Loopie

Philip,

You asked me the following question: "So when I look at anything, it bears witness to God in the sense that God uses it as an occasion to impose knowledge on the mind?"

I would honestly say that when you look at anything you cannot avoid having a knowledge of God at the same time. When you look at another human being, the moment you say 'I know that there is a person in front of me' you also 'know' in an innate sense that the person was created by God. God is making his divine attributes clear when you look at the person in front of you. Whether you call it mediate or immediate knowledge, these things occur simultaneously. The moment that you look at a person and fail to acknowledge the handiwork of God, you have sinned by suppressing the truth. I do not think that there is a moment in time when an unbeliever claims to 'know' that there is another human being in front of them without at the same time suppressing the truth of God. It is because of our sinful nature that the way we naturally see the world is broken.

I mean, consider the atheists. Has God failed to provide enough evidence for them? Not at all. The only other option then is that something is wrong with them, and their entire perspective. And that is exactly the case. So as long as they remain slaves to sin, their perspective will never be correct on anything. 

Consider the following example. Did Pontius Pilate 'know' that Jesus was standing in front of him? At first glance we would say, 'Yes'. But let me ask you this. In this sentence how do we define 'Jesus'? Did Pontius Pilate 'know' that the eternally begotten Son of God, the God-Man, was standing in front of him? I would say that innately he did know this, but suppressed it. Yet in Pilate's opinion the Jesus standing in front of him was just another Jewish man, and no more than a popular teacher. So if Pilate were to claim that he 'knew' that Jesus was standing in front of him, would he be correct? No, because his understanding of who Jesus was (his definition of Jesus) was NOT correct.

How many people today claim to 'know' Jesus? Yet it is important to ask them what Jesus they are talking about (they might be only referring to a prophet, or a great teacher). Unless they are referring to the eternal Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, then their claim to knowledge is false. 

For this reason I would say that a person cannot truly 'know' anything without knowing God. Any unbelieving person who claims to know anything is making a false claim unless they 'know' the Lord. Of course, people still claim to 'know' things, but they are simply referring to a false knowledge that is based on a broken perspective of the world (a perspective where they attempt to 'know' and 'interpret' the universe apart from God). At the same time, there is an innate knowledge of God that is suppressed AT ALL TIMES by the natural man. There is not a moment on earth where the natural man is not suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. When referring to the natural man one cannot separate a perception of the world (and a so-called 'knowledge' of things) from the suppression of the truth (the two are hand-in-hand, and simultaneous).

That is why I would conclude that when an unbeliever claims to 'know' anything, what he is really doing is trying to interpret the universe while suppressing his innate knowledge of his Creator. His knowledge is therefore false and incorrect. Only the regenerate man can truly 'know' things, since his perspective is no longer broken and he is know longer trying to interpret the universe apart from God.

Let us consider the statements that you used as examples:

"I know that Jesus rose from the dead" (The unbeliever would have a false knowledge of Jesus, because he would not recognize him as the Jesus of scripture)

"I know that I was raised in Virginia" (The unbeliever has a false knowledge of Virginia because he does not recognize the people of Virginia as created in the image of God, nor does he recognize the land of Virginia as being part of God's creation)

"I know that Lee lost the Battle of Gettysburg." (The unbeliever has a false knowledge of Lee because he does not recognize Lee as a creature in the image of God)

"I know my friend Jed." (The unbeliever has a false knowledge of Jed because he does not view Jed as created in the image of God)

"Chattanooga? I know that town." (The unbeliever has a false knowledge of Chattanooga because he does not view it of a town inhabited by God's creatures)

"I know how to tie a bow tie." (The unbeliever has a false knowledge of himself because he does not recognize himself as created in the image of God)

"I know God." (The unbeliever has a false knowledge of God because he does not acknowledge the attributes of God that are described in scripture)

Now if a believer made these statements he would be making these statements from a perspective of someone who 'knows' the Lord (he no longer suppresses his innate knowledge of God, but now in fact embraces it). He would not be interpretting the universe apart from his knowledge of God. The unbeliever attempts to 'know' things apart from 'knowing' God, and all that results is that he has false knowledge. 

I would agree with you that the use of the term 'know' is different in each of the statements above. Yet the unbeliever is always WRONG when he uses that term, because his perspective of the world around him is always wrong (because he constantly suppresses the truth of God).

I also agree completely that we need to use scripture as the basis for our apologetic. It just seems like you are so against the transcendental argument and presuppositional apologetics. I honestly am trying to understand why you think the TA is wrong, and why you disagree with it (if my understanding of your perspective is wrong, please correct me). I don't consider myself tied to Van Til in such a way that I ignore scripture. It is like calling ourselves Calvinists. We call ourselves Calvinists because we believe that what Calvin championed was biblical. Many people say that instead of following Calvin we should be following Jesus. Yet they do not realize that we consider Calvin to be following biblical principles, and to be correctly adhering to Jesus' teachings. Perhaps that is why it is better to use the term 'Reformed', which I try to do now so as to not cause people to immediately close their ears because I am a Calvinist.


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## CharlieJ

I lied. I'm jumping in. Forgive me.

Eric, I'll bite on this idea that the unbeliever does not know anything unless he knows God. I think it's based on an equivocation of the word "know." Simply, you're importing weight to it that you would not in an ordinary use context, as I think Philip would put it.

In all of your responses to Philip's statements, you claim that an unbeliever does not really know the person/place/skill/statement because he is lacking some OTHER piece of information that serves to place it in context. On a general level, you seem to be saying that in order to know X, I have to know every possible piece of information that would contextualize X. However, this is clearly an unusable criterion of knowledge. Imagine the following conversation, between two believers, just to simplify things:

"Hey, do you know Samantha Green?"
"Sure, I went to high school with her."
"Do you know her social security number, current dating status, weight, and favorite animal?
"Uhh... no."
"Then you don't really know Samantha Green."

You see my point, I'm sure. Just how much information do I need to know somebody/something? Given such a criterion, I think it would be possible to argue that nobody knows anything.

But perhaps you could make a more nuanced argument: One does not have to know all contextualizing information about a thing, person, etc. However, God is the most important reality (Reality?) and thus is the most important contextualizing factor for any given thing/object. So, lacking a correct knowledge of God in relation to subject X is such a significant lack of contextualizing knowledge that it disqualifies claims to know X. 

Now, if that is the argument being made, I find it better than the first, and theologically provocative in some ways, but still lacking. It still doesn't give a coherent account of our ordinary use of the term "know." If I can't get my bow tie tied, and I ask my unbelieving friend to help me, and he does, can I really turn around and tell him that he does not know how to tie a bow tie because he does not correctly perceive himself as created in the image of God? That's absurd. 

Furthermore, we need to work by a process of elimination. The sentence "I know Chattanooga" can either be true, false, or further qualified. You have denied that the unbeliever can say, "I know Chattanooga." So, you must be committed to the premise, "You (the unbeliever) do not know Chattanooga." If you opt for the third, that the unbeliever has a qualified knowledge of Chattanooga, then you concede the premise that the unbeliever does have some knowledge. Any response other than a flat denial of knowledge leads to that conclusion. However, if you stick to the premise that the unbeliever does not know anything in any sense, then he does not know God either, a clear violation of your position. Thus, some qualification seems inevitable. 

Thus, I think you're left with the attenuated position, "The unbeliever lacks a significant contextualizing fact about any given subject such that claims to knowing subjects must be understood in a qualified manner." That's a defensible position, I think, but hardly remarkable.


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## Philip

Loopie said:


> I would honestly say that when you look at anything you cannot avoid having a knowledge of God at the same time. When you look at another human being, the moment you say 'I know that there is a person in front of me' you also 'know' in an innate sense that the person was created by God.



But this would have to be unconscious to the point that it would only ever be acknowledged (even for a believer) when pointed out. I don't look at my friend and go "Oh, a human being created in the image of God" and start thinking deep theological thoughts. Instead I say, "Oh, it's Luke." You don't do metaphysics when you greet someone. Metaphysics is what happens when we realize that there is a problem between two different ways of acting ordinarily.



Loopie said:


> So as long as they remain slaves to sin, their perspective will never be correct on anything.



Not true. Atheists know all kinds of stuff. Are you suggesting that an atheist plumber doesn't know how to fix the pipes. For someone who doesn't know anything, he sure fixed them well.



Loopie said:


> false knowledge



Ok, this is a contradiction in terms. No one can have false knowledge, given that knowledge is warranted _true_ belief.



Loopie said:


> The unbeliever attempts to 'know' things apart from 'knowing' God, and all that results is that he has false knowledge.



Again, this is a contradiction in terms. You either know that X or you don't. There's no middle ground here. Again, you're equivocating on the word "knowledge" and it's resulting in all kinds of confusion. Please define what you mean exactly by "knowledge" here. 

Knowledge has nothing to do with having a coherent system of belief and everything to do with how you ended up believing something.



Loopie said:


> It just seems like you are so against the transcendental argument and presuppositional apologetics.



a) They aren't in Scripture.

b) The TA is so cumbersome as to be practically useless.

c) Very often they ignore ordinary usage and common sense in favour of logical coherence. Frankly, when you start going around saying ridiculous things like "unbelievers don't actually know anything," it's hard to take you seriously (Charlie has given a fuller analysis of this, so I won't go into it further).


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## jwright82

CharlieJ said:


> In all of your responses to Philip's statements, you claim that an unbeliever does not really know the person/place/skill/statement because he is lacking some OTHER piece of information that serves to place it in context. On a general level, you seem to be saying that in order to know X, I have to know every possible piece of information that would contextualize X. However, this is clearly an unusable criterion of knowledge. Imagine the following conversation, between two believers, just to simplify things:



What Loopie and I are saying, if I understand him right (I don't want to suppose I know what he is saying), is not that we need some cognitive presupposition in order to than in some logical fashion deduce other and all truths from there. That is Clark's view and we are not advocating that. We are simply saying that in order for a person to completly make sense out of reality they must first bow there their knee, through the Holy Spirit of course, to Jesus and then in that light can they correctly see creation for what it truly is.


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## Philip

jwright82 said:


> We are simply saying that in order for a person to completly make sense out of reality they must first bow there their knee, through the Holy Spirit of course, to Jesus and then in that light can they correctly see creation for what it truly is.



Granted. Absolutely. But that doesn't mean that unbelievers don't have real knowledge in many areas.


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## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> Granted. Absolutely. But that doesn't mean that unbelievers don't have real knowledge in many areas.



We don't disagree with that only that these "common notions" cannot be an adequite basis for apologetical engagment.


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## Philip

jwright82 said:


> We don't disagree with that only that these "common notions" cannot be an adequite basis for apologetical engagment.



Why not? All truth is God's truth wherever it may be found.


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## Loopie

To Charlie and Philip,

I am not as eloquent as I could be in making my arguments, so please bear with me. Obviously we have different opinions on how we use terms, whether ordinarily or in a logical system.

Consider the fact that as humans, we have a tendency (quite naturally of course) to view the world from our limited perspective. We have a tendency to interpret the world from a man-centered position. We all have experience in talking with Arminians (I am assuming), and so we all have experienced the differences in perspectives. The arminian begins from his own position, and then makes statements about God, foreknowledge, evil, etc. He enhances man's responsibility so much that he takes away from God's sovereignty. Many arminians that I talk to have a difficult time grasping God's eternal decree, and how that has played out in history. They have a hard time understanding that ALL of their actions are not only foreknown by God, but eternally decreed by Him. 

Yet in common conversation we don't usually talk in such a way as to always highlight God's eternal decree. This is particularly true with the term 'free'. This term is used quite often (particularly in the case of 'free will') even though people don't generally take the time to come up with a careful definition of the term. 

Perhaps a better example is when we witness to people and call them to repentance. Do all of us believe that it is God who freely chooses to bestow saving grace upon his creatures? Of course. Do we use these terms in common conversation with unbelievers? Not usually. We call them to repentance and faith (as God commands us to do). Are we assuming that they are able (on their own will) to actually come to repentance and faith? No. We know that theologically it is God who must replace their heart of stone with a heart of flesh. Yet we rarely dive into deep theology when we witness to the unbeliever. Is the theology wrong? No. Do we generally tell the unbeliever that even though he is commanded to repent he will only repent if God bestows saving grace upon him? That is not generally how we word things when we talk to unbelievers.

In the same way, the argument that I am making is obviously NOT how we generally talk about 'knowledge' in common conversation. But I would also argue that it is important that when we are discussing philosophy/theology that we are VERY CONCISE and consistent with the terms that we use. In a sense, common conversation is sloppy conversation, since many different words can have many different meanings. And unless people are willing to sit down and hash out the details and specifics of what they are exactly talking about, they will just end up talking circles around each other. 

One perfect example I can think of is when Jonathan Edwards discusses 'author of sin' in his book Freedom of the Will. He spends several paragraphs CAREFULLY defining the phrase 'author of sin'. He essentially concludes that if the phrase 'God is the author of sin' refers to a particular concept, he would have no problem accepting it (so long as it is defined clearly and concisely). Yet he also says that if the phrase refers to a different concept, he would consider it completely unbiblical. Ultimately he says the term should be avoided as it tends to cause confusion (due to the multiple meanings of the term 'author'). This is just one example where we need to be concise about our terms, and we can't just ignore everything that isn't used in common conversation (there are a LOT of theological concepts that are not discussed deeply in common conversation).

With that said, I am simply trying to show that God, being the author/fountain/source of truth, is a necessary being for truth to even exist. The transcendental argument declares that WITHOUT the Triune God of scripture, nothing would make sense in this universe (in fact, the universe wouldn't exist anyways). Any attempt to consistently and completely understand something such as morality is impossible without a law-giver, a being who is the source of morality. 

For this reason I declare that when we talk about knowledge, we certainly do use the 'common' term to denote what a person claims to know. There are MANY people who say that they 'know' something while at the same time they are wrong. So obviously in these situations the person who is making a claim to knowledge is making a wrong claim. He believes it, but he is wrong. An example could be those who say that they 'know' the Holocaust was a hoax. Or how about Christopher Hitchens who declared that he 'knew' that God did not exist?

So when we get down to the nitty-gritty, what exactly is knowledge, and how do we know if it is true knowledge (correct)? I mean, who is the final authority on whether something is true or false? I would say that God is the final authority, since it is he who created all things and knows all things.

Now I would say that to truly know something means that your interpretation of it is CORRECT. Charlie brought up a good point when he said that I was suggesting that a person needed ALL knowledge of something to know it. Yet this is not my position. Remember, I said that to truly know something a person's interpretation (however limited it is) needs to be correct. This DOES NOT mean that it needs to be exhaustive.

Consider this example. I would say that I 'know' the Lord and he 'knows' me (the Lord knows his sheep and his sheep know him). Do the sheep have EXHAUSTIVE knowledge of the Lord? No. Does the Lord have EXHAUSTIVE knowledge of his sheep? Yes. Are the sheep wrong in their knowledge of the Lord? No, they are not wrong, even though they do not have exhaustive knowledge. Is the Lord wrong in his knowledge of his sheep? Not at all.

So we see that to have CORRECT knowledge of something DOES NOT mean that you must have EXHAUSTIVE knowledge of something. 

Ok, so this brings me to the next point I want to make. Do unbelievers have knowledge? Well, I would say that they definitely claim to have knowledge (but we have already seen above that just because someone claims to have knowledge of something does not make it true). To better answer this question I think we can refer to two different types of knowledge: 1) innate, or natural knowledge and 2) conscious or gained knowledge.

Now I do not know if you agree with me on this, but I will try to make my argument clear. Romans chapter 1 says that men suppress the truth of God. Furthermore, it says "because that which is known about God is evident within them." I think this is important, since it shows that there is a knowledge about God that is evident WITHIN the unbeliever (it is a knowledge he possesses). I believe that this is an innate, natural knowledge that ALL humans have (because they are made in the image of God). In fact, I think the next verse makes it PERFECTLY CLEAR when it says the following:

Romans 1:21 (NASB) 
21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 

So here Paul is saying that these unbelievers KNEW God, but refused to honor him or give thanks. How could they possibly know God if they are not believers? This is because there is different types of knowledge (I believe two types). Innately, naturally (as creatures of God) they KNEW God. Yet due to their depravity they suppressed this knowledge of God within them. For this reason when believers say that they 'know' the Lord, they are referring not only to the fact that they are no longer suppressing their innate knowledge of God, but that they also have gained a conscious knowledge of God (that increases as they study scripture and grow in the faith). When Romans declares that unbelievers 'KNEW' God, this is referring to a knowledge that is innate and suppressed.

With that said, the next question is: do unbelievers KNOW anything correctly? I would say no. The reason I would say this is because before they have even gained any knowledge about the world around them they have already suppressed the knowledge of God that is within them. ANYTHING and EVERYTHING that the unbeliever interprets about the world is passed through a filter that is depraved. Certainly the unbeliever, when he says: "the sun exists" is referring to something (an object) that does indeed exist. But I would immediately make two statements about this claim:

1) The unbeliever, before he even 'perceived' the existence of the sun, was already suppressing the knowledge of God within him. The moment he existed he suppressed this knowledge because of his depraved nature. Therefore, his knowledge of God EXISTED PRIOR to ANY and ALL other knowledge (or claims to knowledge). We could say then that EVEN IF the unbelieve CAN truly know something, it is ONLY because he 'knew' God first, and suppressed this knowledge.

2) The unbeliever, even when he says "the sun exists" is perceiving the object in an incorrect way. Sure he uses the same words that a believer would use, but he means different things. This is similar to the example of people who say they 'know' Jesus. Both believers and unbelievers make these statements, but both people mean completely different things. The unbeliever, when he says "the sun exists", has already perceived the sun from the perspective of a man who is suppressing the knowledge of God. He is technically NOT correct because he is viewing the object AS IF IT WERE NOT PART OF GOD'S CREATION. The believer, when he says "the sun exists" is making reference to an object that he considers to be part of God's creation. Even though BOTH people DO NOT have exhaustive knowledge of the sun, only the believer is correct in the knowledge that he does have. Remember, one does not have to have exhaustive knowledge of something to have correct knowledge.

In the end, I hope that this perhaps better clarifies my position. Again, I honestly do not know how one could read Romans 1 and NOT conclude that unbelievers have a knowledge of God within them that they suppress. In light of this I think it would be impossible to say that unbelievers can have TRUE and CORRECT knowledge of God's creation without acknowledging God as creator. Even when they say a simple statement such as "I exist", one has to ask the question: "what do they mean by 'I'?" Who is 'I'? And even though we have an idea of what they are talking about, OUR understanding of the word 'I' is VERY different than theirs. They view themselves as a being autonomous from God, and that they are the final authority on matters of truth and morality. We view them as creatures of God, and that God ALONE is the final authority on matters of truth and morality.


----------



## Philip

Loopie said:


> In a sense, common conversation is sloppy conversation, since many different words can have many different meanings.



But this is the way the Bible talks, Eric. They talk in ordinary language, as should we. The definition of "knowledge" that you come up with has to cover all of the range of meanings that the Bible gives to the word, from "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge" to "knowledge puffs up."

I'm talking knowledge here---not knowledge-claims. There's a difference between knowing something and claiming to know it.



Loopie said:


> With that said, I am simply trying to show that God, being the author/fountain/source of truth, is a necessary being for truth to even exist. The transcendental argument declares that WITHOUT the Triune God of scripture, nothing would make sense in this universe (in fact, the universe wouldn't exist anyways). Any attempt to consistently and completely understand something such as morality is impossible without a law-giver, a being who is the source of morality.



Granted, it does. It just can't demonstrate it conclusively because of the limitations of the presenter. On the other hand, if the Christian account of creation is correct (and it is) then all argumentation would be ultimately transcendental---even the classical proofs---because they reason from creation back to creator.



Loopie said:


> Remember, I said that the truly know something a person's interpretation (however limited it is) needs to be correct.



So no one knew that the sun came up in the morning before Copernicus? He was the first one to interpret correctly that this was the earth turning, not the sun moving.

It doesn't make sense to talk about correct or incorrect knowledge because to know something is to be correct about it.

I think the word you're looking for here is _understanding_. The unbeliever knows things but has an improper understanding of them. The predicament of the unbeliever is similar to that of a person who sees the wrong connections between things. He has all the facts and ought to see that they fit but doesn't. However, this doesn't mean that he doesn't have knowledge of the facts---the failure is deeper than simple knowledge. You're right that the failure is to see the context, but one can know things out of context. Many is the time that I learned something and later learned more and realized that this other thing fit and that there was a larger context.

Let's suppose that you read Calvin's _Institutes_ backwards and forwards without ever studying the reformation or the life of John Calvin. Would you have knowledge of the _Institutes_? Absolutely you would. However, there would be much that didn't make sense to you which you would have to work through. I think this is the kind of thing you're trying to get at, but knowledge and understanding are two different things.


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## Loopie

Philip,

I do see the points that you are trying to make, and like I said I am not as eloquent as I would like to be. I also don't have any of my books with me (they are in storage), or else I would definitely be quoting Jonathan Edwards, Van Til, and others. 

Even if it were true that somehow an unbeliever can KNOW something (perceive it correctly) apart from any knowlege of God. I think you cannot avoid the conclusion from Romans 1 that the unbeliever HAD a knowledge of God FIRST before all other knowledge. Either the unbeliever suppresses the truth from the moment he is created (prior to all other knowledge) or he does not. Which do you believe to be the case?

As for the difference between understanding and knowledge, I agree with you. I misspoke when I used the phrase true knowledge. Yes, if a person has knowledge of something, then it would be true. If he claimed to 'know' something, but was wrong, he would not have knowledge of that something.

It was never my intention to argue that unbelievers cannot KNOW anything at all. I should have done a better job of making this clear, but my goal was to show that unbelievers cannot KNOW anything UNLESS they already knew God. I honestly believe that as soon as a person is created they suppress the knowledge of God within them. This takes place before any other knowledge is gained. ALL MEN have a knowledge of God that they suppress until they are made regenerate. 

In this way (and again, I should have tied this into my previous post), I would argue that IF the unbeliever KNOWS anything, he KNEW God first. IF the unbeliever DID NOT KNOW God first, he could not actually KNOW anything. Again, his knowledge is a suppressed knowledge (and certainly not exhaustive).


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## CharlieJ

Loopie said:


> In this way (and again, I should have tied this into my previous post), I would argue that IF the unbeliever KNOWS anything, he KNEW God first. IF the unbeliever DID NOT KNOW God first, he could not actually KNOW anything. Again, his knowledge is a suppressed knowledge (and certainly not exhaustive).



I fail to see either the logic or the usefulness of these assertions, especially in concert. Why would an unbeliever need to know God first in order to know anything? What is the causal relation? The only way I can make sense of it is to think that you're saying that this suppressed knowledge somehow still communicates the missing necessary ... whatever ... that makes knowledge possible. What would it communicate? Why do I have to posit a suppressed knowledge of God to make sense of the way a carpenter makes cabinets? How does it make any sense to tell my math professor that if he weren't right now in possession of a knowledge that HE DOES NOT KNOW HE HAS, he couldn't do math? 

And Van Tillians wonder why the world finds them irrelevant.


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## Philip

Loopie said:


> I think you cannot avoid the conclusion from Romans 1 that the unbeliever HAD a knowledge of God FIRST before all other knowledge.



It says that God is known from creation---it doesn't say that knowledge of God has logical priority in the order of knowing. You're arguing from silence here.



Loopie said:


> I should have done a better job of making this clear, but my goal was to show that unbelievers cannot KNOW anything UNLESS they already knew God. I honestly believe that as soon as a person is created they suppress the knowledge of God within them. This takes place before any other knowledge is gained. ALL MEN have a knowledge of God that they suppress until they are made regenerate.



I would simply say that men suppress the knowledge of God that is evident from creation, as Paul does.


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## Loopie

Charlie,

I am simply going off of what scripture declares. I mean, we all agree that man in sinful from the moment his is created in the womb, right? If this is the case, then this sin means that somehow the creature is rebelling against the creator due to its sinful nature. In what way is it rebelling? How does a natural man rebel against God?

There is no doubt that most unbelievers do not get up in the morning thinking about how to sin against God today. This does not mean that they are not still in rebellion against him (and fully accountable for their actions). There can be no doubt then that there is SOME KIND of innate knowledge (call it seed of religion) that is in all man. It is in ALL men because ALL men are created in the image of God.

So when we talk about how a person can know things, I do not think we can avoid the fact that the natural man is suppressing SOMETHING from the moment he is created. I have labeled this something as a kind/type of knowledge that is spiritual in nature (it is not a head knowledge).

Yet, if someone were to ask me if a person COULD know anything if they did not have this previous innate knowledge of God, I would simply say that it is impossible to conclude either way. There is no way that I can imagine myself as NOT being made in the image of God. I mean, there is NO EXAMPLE of a human who was NOT made in the image of God. So there is no way for me to speculate on how a person, without the seed of religion, and without being made in the image of God, could come to actually 'know' things. 

That is why I think that it is best to conclude that there IS some type of innate knowledge of God (seed of religion) that is suppressed by man from the moment he existed. I would certainly agree that unbelievers and believers both know things, but there is no way to conclude that they could still know these things if they were not made in the image of God, and if they did not have this seed of religion within them.

---------- Post added at 09:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:09 PM ----------




P. F. Pugh said:


> Loopie said:
> 
> 
> 
> I think you cannot avoid the conclusion from Romans 1 that the unbeliever HAD a knowledge of God FIRST before all other knowledge.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It says that God is known from creation---it doesn't say that knowledge of God has logical priority in the order of knowing. You're arguing from silence here.
> 
> 
> 
> Loopie said:
> 
> 
> 
> I should have done a better job of making this clear, but my goal was to show that unbelievers cannot KNOW anything UNLESS they already knew God. I honestly believe that as soon as a person is created they suppress the knowledge of God within them. This takes place before any other knowledge is gained. ALL MEN have a knowledge of God that they suppress until they are made regenerate.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I would simply say that men suppress the knowledge of God that is evident from creation, as Paul does.
Click to expand...


Philip,

But man is part of creation, is he not? So the moment that a man is created, he is part of creation, and he has a knowledge of God within him. This fits perfectly in the understanding of original sin, and the fact that man is sinful even in the womb. 

You make it seem like man is created without any knowledge of God, and then at some point, when he perceives some other part of creation (but not himself), he is held accountable for suppressing the truth. I do not see how that makes sense in light of original sin, and the depravity of man from the womb.


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## Philip

Loopie said:


> That is why I think that it is best to conclude that there IS some type of innate knowledge of God (seed of religion)



Do you mean the _Sensus Divinitatus_?



Loopie said:


> You make it seem like man is created without any knowledge of God, and then at some point, when he perceives some other part of creation (but not himself), he is held accountable for suppressing the truth.



I said he sees creation---self-knowledge would be included. Again, I would point you to Calvin's discussion of this topic in the beginning of the _Institutes_.



Loopie said:


> I do not see how that makes sense in light of original sin, and the depravity of man from the womb.



Original sin is simply the natural inclination to sin as well as the imputed guilt of Adam. These things are a matter of innate tendencies and inclinations---predispositions.


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## MW

CharlieJ said:


> And Van Tillians wonder why the world finds them irrelevant.



I must confess that I haven't recognised Van Tillianism in anything you have represented as "Van Tillian" thus far.


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## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> Why not? All truth is God's truth wherever it may be found.



Exactly it is *God's truth* not man's truth. Thinking "God's" thoughts after Him.


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## Hilasmos

CharlieJ said:


> Why would an unbeliever need to know God first in order to know anything?



Because knowlege, to be knowledge, requires an adequate justification. If I were to affirm the point above as true, I would do so on the grounds that only God can provide an ultimately valid justification. If I were to deny its truth, I would say man is an adequate justification of knowledge. If man is not an ultimately valid justification, then man has unjustified knowledge -- and by my definition of knowledge, unjustified knowledge is not knowledge.


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## jwright82

CharlieJ said:


> I fail to see either the logic or the usefulness of these assertions, especially in concert. Why would an unbeliever need to know God first in order to know anything? What is the causal relation? The only way I can make sense of it is to think that you're saying that this suppressed knowledge somehow still communicates the missing necessary ... whatever ... that makes knowledge possible. What would it communicate? Why do I have to posit a suppressed knowledge of God to make sense of the way a carpenter makes cabinets? How does it make any sense to tell my math professor that if he weren't right now in possession of a knowledge that HE DOES NOT KNOW HE HAS, he couldn't do math?
> 
> And Van Tillians wonder why the world finds them irrelevant.



You seem to be confusing the formal sense of presupposition with the actual sense of presupposition. Formaly speaking a presupposition functions in the way you describe but that is not the only meaning of the word. A presupposition means something similer to what Calvin says about scripture being "the spectacles through which we view the world", or something like that. So I can go through the day never thinking about the fact that I have spectacles on.

My daughter is the measure of beauty to me (I posted some recent pictures of her in the famely portrait section). So formaly speaking we could sit down and work out my presuppositions on what is beautiful or not and see why my daughter has those qualities. But I do not logicaly work through those presuppositions when I see her, I am just struck by how beautiful she is. I love new york style pizza. There is a place in town that serves the best pizza that I have ever had. Again we could sit down and formaly work out my presuppositions of what makes good pizza but I am not thinking about that when I take a bite of that slice of pizza. So remember that there is a noncognative side to what a presupposition is that cannot be ignored.

I will admit upfront that I am drawing from Dooyeweerd and especially the work of James K. A. Smith here but I would argue that is fully inline with Van Til's thought.


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## Philip

Hilasmos said:


> Because knowlege, to be knowledge, requires an adequate justification



Before whom? If all beliefs stand in need of justification, then there are no basic beliefs. Please show me how this assertion is justified.

For a knowledge-claim, all one needs is warrant---that is, the belief has to arise from a properly-functioning belief-oriented feature of one's cognitive powers.

What is never needed for knowledge is a metaphysical story about it. One does not have to do epistemology in order to make knowledge-claims any more than one has to do theoretical physics to turn on the light.


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## Hilasmos

P. F. Pugh said:


> Before whom? If all beliefs stand in need of justification, then there are no basic beliefs. Please show me how this assertion is justified.



Do beliefs = knowledge?



P. F. Pugh said:


> For a knowledge-claim, all one needs is warrant---that is, the belief has to arise from a properly-functioning belief-oriented feature of one's cognitive powers.



Does a knowledge-claim = knowledge? Secondly, how is one to provide warrant that they have properly-functioning cognitive faculties?


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## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> Hilasmos said:
> 
> 
> 
> Because knowlege, to be knowledge, requires an adequate justification
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Before whom? If all beliefs stand in need of justification, then there are no basic beliefs. Please show me how this assertion is justified.
> 
> For a knowledge-claim, all one needs is warrant---that is, the belief has to arise from a properly-functioning belief-oriented feature of one's cognitive powers.
> 
> What is never needed for knowledge is a metaphysical story about it. One does not have to do epistemology in order to make knowledge-claims any more than one has to do theoretical physics to turn on the light.
Click to expand...


The problem with basic beleifs is that no one has ever been able to give a satisfactory criterion for basic beleifs. Plantinga's criterion works great for immediate beleifs but those common or immediate beleifs can never be broad enough or sure eneough to base an entire web of beleifs on. Philosophical foundationalisms have always failed for that reason alone.


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## Philip

Hilasmos said:


> Do beliefs = knowledge?



No, just ones that are warranted and true.



Hilasmos said:


> Does a knowledge-claim = knowledge?



Obviously not.



Hilasmos said:


> Secondly, how is one to provide warrant that they have properly-functioning cognitive faculties?



That question is backward. The burden of proof is on the skeptic who wants to deny the obvious.



jwright82 said:


> The problem with basic beleifs is that no one has ever been able to give a satisfactory criterion for basic beleifs. Plantinga's criterion works great for immediate beleifs but those common or immediate beleifs can never be broad enough or sure eneough to base an entire web of beleifs on. Philosophical foundationalisms have always failed for that reason alone.



Was there a problem in there somewhere? Basic beliefs may turn out to be a family resemblance concept---I have no problem with not having a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for what counts as knowledge. What you are going to admit as a basic belief depends on your model of rationality.


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## Hilasmos

P. F. Pugh said:


> Originally Posted by Hilasmos
> Do beliefs = knowledge?
> No, just ones that are warranted and true.
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by Hilasmos
> Does a knowledge-claim = knowledge?
> Obviously not.



Then why did you protest my statement that knowledge requires adequate justification? It appears that the issue is over what can provide an adequate justification, which was the purpose of my paragraph in total. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> That question is backward. The burden of proof is on the skeptic who wants to deny the obvious.



It is only obvious because you know and presuppose God. It becomes less obvious, consicouly, when you don't -- following Plantinga's _EAAN_. At least in my understanding.


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## Philip

Hilasmos said:


> Then why did you protest my statement that knowledge requires adequate justification?



I didn't say justification, I said warrant. Justification means a philosophical account, whereas warrant is unconscious and arises from properly-functioning faculties. A five-year-old child with no philosophical education is capable of knowledge, therefore knowledge does not require justification.



Hilasmos said:


> It is only obvious because you know and presuppose God.



But it's obvious to many who don't. For example, G.E. Moore's proof for the existence of his hands.


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## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> Was there a problem in there somewhere? Basic beliefs may turn out to be a family resemblance concept---I have no problem with not having a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for what counts as knowledge. What you are going to admit as a basic belief depends on your model of rationality.



Basic beleifs are irrellivant to non-foundationalist like myself, I mean foundationalism in the phislosophical sense. But to anyone who even uses the term basic beleif, in the philosophical sense, has a problem with establishing what makes a basic beleif basic. I think the whole thing is absurd but there are some interesting work coming out of people trying to defend these ideas I am reading a good book now on this subject that you would like, or anyone else interested in this subject. Here it is:
Amazon.com: Acceptable Premises: An Epistemic Approach to an Informal Logic Problem (9780521833011): James B. Freeman: Books.


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## Hilasmos

P. F. Pugh said:


> I didn't say justification, I said warrant. Justification means a philosophical account, whereas warrant is unconscious and arises from properly-functioning faculties. A five-year-old child with no philosophical education is capable of knowledge, therefore knowledge does not require justification.



That is why I said "as I define knowledge," in the sense of justified-true-belief. I am not sure how helpful it is to define knowledge as a belief that is warranted and true when the knower could not differentiate between truth and fasilty because both could be warranted and believed.


----------



## Loopie

P. F. Pugh said:


> Loopie said:
> 
> 
> 
> That is why I think that it is best to conclude that there IS some type of innate knowledge of God (seed of religion)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Do you mean the _Sensus Divinitatus_?
> 
> 
> 
> Loopie said:
> 
> 
> 
> You make it seem like man is created without any knowledge of God, and then at some point, when he perceives some other part of creation (but not himself), he is held accountable for suppressing the truth.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I said he sees creation---self-knowledge would be included. Again, I would point you to Calvin's discussion of this topic in the beginning of the _Institutes_.
> 
> 
> 
> Loopie said:
> 
> 
> 
> I do not see how that makes sense in light of original sin, and the depravity of man from the womb.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Original sin is simply the natural inclination to sin as well as the imputed guilt of Adam. These things are a matter of innate tendencies and inclinations---predispositions.
Click to expand...


Philip,

I mean the seed of religion, the spiritual innate knowledge of God that man has. You and I would both agree that man is born with original sin. From the moment of being created man is in rebellion against God. I would argue, based on Romans 1, that this 'knowledge' is a spiritual type of knowledge. It is not a 'head knowledge'. Yet, in order to rebel against his creator, man must in some way 'know' his creator. This is not a gained knowledge, but an innate knowledge (again, not head knowledge). Man suppresses this truth from the beginning of his existence. 

Certainly the man sees creation (including himself) and suppresses the evidence for God in it. But again, I want you to answer my question: do you believe that man only starts suppressing the truth at some point after he is created (let's say, when he is 2 years old)? If not, then do you believe that man has ALWAYS suppressed the truth of God (out of rebellion) from the moment he was created? If so, then in SOME SENSE of the term, man has a 'knowledge' (spiritual) of God prior to any other type of knowledge (including learned, or gained knowledge).

Now perhaps you consider this Sensus Divinitatis NOT to be some form or type of innate knowledge. Here are Calvin's words on the subject:

"That there exists in the human mind and indeed by natural instinct, some sense of Deity [sensus Divinitatis], we hold to be beyond dispute, since God himself, to prevent any man from pretending ignorance, has endued all men with some idea of his Godhead…. …this is not a doctrine which is first learned at school, but one as to which every man is, from the womb, his own master; one which nature herself allows no individual to forget."

So even Calvin uses terminology that refers to this as a TYPE or FORM of knowledge. It is not gained in school, but no individual 'forgets' this knowledge. 

Yet even if you were to argue that this is not REALLY knowledge at all, then it makes me wonder how you can say that God has knowledge. NONE of God's knowledge is learned, or gained knowledge. His knowledge is natural, innate to his very being (as an omniscient being). With that said, how can we deny that the sensus divinitatis that man has, this seed of religion, is not really knowledge? 

For this reason I must conclude that man HAS this sense of the divine PRIOR to ALL other knowledge that he might come to gain. ALL men have this. So even though unbelievers CAN KNOW things, they did not know anything prior to knowing God via the sense of the divine. It precedes everything else that they might come to know. 

Now I know that you asked the question about man's autonomy. Certainly we could go into great detail about this, but I would like to make one argument about this. I would summarize my position by saying that I believe man is JUST as autonomous regarding knowledge as he is regarding his actions.

All of us, I think, would agree that God has decreed all things that take place in this universe. As humans, our actions have causes, and we are always being influenced in some way when we act. No man is autonomous in the sense that his actions are uncaused or uninfluenced. No man is autonomous in the sense that his actions have not been eternally decreed by God. Yet we would still conclude that when man acts, HE is the one doing the action, and is responsible for his actions. Even though man's sins are included in God's eternal decree, God is not the author of sin (it is man who sins).

In this same way I think we could consider knowledge. Knowledge is not separated from action, for we see that God's eternal foreknowledge is tied to his eternal decree. Whatever can be known by man was first known by God, and man cannot know something that God does not know. If God did not know it first, it would not have existed. For this reason I would say that no man is autonomous in the sense that his knowledge is uncaused. God has decreed what every man shall know and how every man shall come to know it. No man is autonomous in the sense that his knowledge has not already been eternally known by God. Yet I would agree that when man KNOWS anything, it is HE who knows it. He is responsible for what he chooses to do based on the knowledge he has. And so man is held accountable from the moment he is created, because he rebels against the creator that he knows via the sensus divinitatis, and suppresses the truth within him.

That is my entire position in a nutshell, and I am honestly curious as to where you would disagree with me. If you do disagree, then I would like you to please explain to me what it is you are trying to prove concerning man's knowledge. What is your final goal in this discussion?


----------



## Philip

Hilasmos said:


> That is why I said "as I define knowledge," in the sense of justified-true-belief. I am not sure how helpful it is to define knowledge as a belief that is warranted and true when the knower could not differentiate between truth and fasilty because both could be warranted and believed.



Same could be said for justified beliefs. If someone has never heard of mirages and sees what looks like water on a desert road, he is justified in believing that there is water on the road.



Loopie said:


> I mean the seed of religion, the spiritual innate knowledge of God that man has.



Alright, since this is innate and not conscious, let's talk about it the way Calvin does as the _Sensus Divinitatus_, the ability to see God's world for what it is, which has been broken by original sin. It is not functioning properly because man is in rebellion and therefore suppressing it. It's knowledge in the way that the ability to use one's reasoning capabilities or one's senses is knowledge: it's knowledge of skills, of ways of doing things. 



Loopie said:


> That is my entire position in a nutshell, and I am honestly curious as to where you would disagree with me. If you do disagree, then I would like you to please explain to me what it is you are trying to prove concerning man's knowledge.



I'm concerned here that you are ignoring secondary causes and the actual ways in which human beings learn stuff. We're not talking about ultimate cuasation or foreknowledge here, but about the relation between knowing something and one's attitude toward that something as well as toward ordinary epistemic functions, like sense perception, reasoning skills, and the like. God's knowledge is not the truth-maker for human actions or for the way things are for the simple reason that there are secondary causes. In doing apologetics, further, it makes more sense to speak practically about this than to wax theoretical as Van Tillians are wont to do. We've been talking epistemology here, but that's mostly a philosophical subject, not an apologetic one, unless we're answering attacks on our own warrant for belief in Jesus.


----------



## Loopie

Philip,

It was never my intention to ignore secondary causes. I freely admit that there are secondary causes in both man's choice to action and man's knowledge. I am not sure I would feel comfortable with the terms you used in the phrase: "God's knowledge is not the truth-maker for human actions". I mean, humans can only grasp a truth that was created and decreed by God. Had he chosen not to reveal it them, they would not know it. He has decreed what humans will come to know, and how exactly they will come to know it. I agree that God has given them the tools (such as the five senses) to know things, just like God has given them the tools (emotions, reason, and will) to make decisions. Obviously as sinners they use these tools for sinful purposes, out of rebellion against God. So I wholeheartedly agree with you that there are secondary causes, and I believe in all cases that humans are morally responsible while God is completely sovereign. 

By the way, I think epistemology, like anything else, falls under apologetics. As a Christian one's apologetic will cover a multitude of areas including history, philosophy, science, epistemoloy, etc. The tool that you use (the means by which you form an apologetic) is going to depend on who you are talking to. ALL of my discussions with atheists go down the road of epistemology, morality, and philosophy, but I simply consider these things to be a part of apologetics.


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## Hilasmos

P. F. Pugh said:


> Same could be said for justified beliefs. If someone has never heard of mirages and sees what looks like water on a desert road, he is justified in believing that there is water on the road.



Agreed. The difference being that his justification is justified.


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## Philip

Hilasmos said:


> P. F. Pugh said:
> 
> 
> 
> Same could be said for justified beliefs. If someone has never heard of mirages and sees what looks like water on a desert road, he is justified in believing that there is water on the road.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Agreed. The difference being that his justification is justified.
Click to expand...


So you have to be justified that you're justified? Please justify this statement and justify your justification.



Loopie said:


> "God's knowledge is not the truth-maker for human actions".



If I claim that there is a desk in front of me, what makes it true? The fact that there is, in fact, a desk in front of me. In an ultimate sense this is because God decreed this, but in the most immediate sense, the truth-maker is the fact itself. 

I also don't mind saying that certain facts are human constructs: for example, I am currently in the State of Georgia. However, the borders that define the State of Georgia are a human construct and depend on there being a government which all acknowledge has authority over this state. When we talk about truth-makers, we are simply talking about why X is X in an immediate sense.



Loopie said:


> Had he chosen not to reveal it them, they would not know it.



Again, we're skirting Divine occasionalism here. The logical conclusion of this is that there is no causal relationship between my seeing the desk and my having knowledge that the desk is there---instead, my seeing the desk is an occasion for God to impose knowledge upon my mind. If we go further with this, when I read Scripture, my knowledge of God is occasioned by my reading of the Word, but is, in fact, imposed on me by God on that occasion. Sound familiar? (this is the view of Karl Barth, by the way)

I don't think I need to explain why this is absurd. Further, when we talk about revelation, we are talking about God revealing Himself. When we talk about general revelation, we are talking about the way that God reveals Himself in creation. We are not talking about God showing me that there is a desk---we are talking about God showing me something of Himself in the created order through the medium of the desk. Revelation is a medium.

When we talk about God's sovereignty in knowledge, we are talking about attitudes toward it and the way that we recognize our dependence upon God and thank Him for our belief-oriented capabilities. I suppose that it's true that there is sovereign decree involved here, but that's not the reason for it.

Consider this:

If God has decreed X, X is true
If God has not decreed X, X is not true
Therefore, if X is true, God has decreed it

This establishes only that God wills whatsoever comes to pass. It does not follow, though, that God is the direct cuase of everything, nor does it make Him the truth-maker. It merely means that nothing comes to pass without God allowing it.



Loopie said:


> ALL of my discussions with atheists go down the road of epistemology, morality, and philosophy, but I simply consider these things to be a part of apologetics.



Then here's my advice to you: get to know these disciplines as disciplines so that you avoid making mistakes. If you're going to talk about epistemology, start reading up on it, get to know its methods and in particular, find out the issues that Christian epistemologists are addressing. _Warranted Christian Belief_ by Plantinga is a good start.


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## Hilasmos

P. F. Pugh said:


> So you have to be justified that you're justified? Please justify this statement and justify your justification.



Yes. I am only suggesting a two tier justification. In terms of concluding that a mirage is water you would need justification by means of your cognitive faculties (it preceives and interprets the mirage as water), and a reason, or justification, as to why you should trust your cognitive faculties (God created them).

The alternative seems to be that the man is warranted in believing that the mirage is water because he believes its water. He is not justified in his belief beyond the fact that he believes it; and, point being, that seems to be a weak view of knowledge that requires the property of truth.


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## Philip

Hilasmos said:


> Yes. I am only suggesting a two tier justification.



Why only two? That seems an arbitrary place to stop. Further, putting God in as a justification seems to make God into a convenient explanation.



Hilasmos said:


> The alternative seems to be that the man is warranted in believing that the mirage is water because he believes its water.



He's warranted in believing it because he sees it and has no good reason to distrust the input of his senses (yet).


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## Hilasmos

Oh, and my justification for this justification is that God exists.


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## Loopie

P. F. Pugh said:


> If I claim that there is a desk in front of me, what makes it true? The fact that there is, in fact, a desk in front of me. In an ultimate sense this is because God decreed this, but in the most immediate sense, the truth-maker is the fact itself.



I will happily agree with you here. Yes, there are secondary causes, as well as mediums.



P. F. Pugh said:


> I also don't mind saying that certain facts are human constructs: for example, I am currently in the State of Georgia. However, the borders that define the State of Georgia are a human construct and depend on there being a government which all acknowledge has authority over this state. When we talk about truth-makers, we are simply talking about why X is X in an immediate sense.



I agree with you here as well, and I am glad that you clarified your position that X is X in an 'immediate' or apparent sense. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Again, we're skirting Divine occasionalism here. The logical conclusion of this is that there is no causal relationship between my seeing the desk and my having knowledge that the desk is there---instead, my seeing the desk is an occasion for God to impose knowledge upon my mind. If we go further with this, when I read Scripture, my knowledge of God is occasioned by my reading of the Word, but is, in fact, imposed on me by God on that occasion. Sound familiar? (this is the view of Karl Barth, by the way)



I have never held to this view, and if my arguments have made it seem like I do, that was not my intention. It would be similar to discussing human action with a hard-determinist (just as Vincent Cheung. He argues that when man acts sinfully, it is God who is DIRECTLY causing the man not only to have a sinful desire but to also have a sinful act. He would actually argue that God IS the author of sin. I myself hold to a compatibilist view, and I think that this would be true concerning our understanding of knowledge. Yes, I would never deny that man can actually know things. I was only trying to show that man has ALWAYS 'known' God first. It would be impossible for a man to know something without knowing God in his sense of the divine. This is not to be confused as me saying that God 'knows' something FOR you, or anything similar to what Barth would say.



P. F. Pugh said:


> I don't think I need to explain why this is absurd. Further, when we talk about revelation, we are talking about God revealing Himself. When we talk about general revelation, we are talking about the way that God reveals Himself in creation. We are not talking about God showing me that there is a desk---we are talking about God showing me something of Himself in the created order through the medium of the desk. Revelation is a medium.



Wholeheartedly agree.



P. F. Pugh said:


> When we talk about God's sovereignty in knowledge, we are talking about attitudes toward it and the way that we recognize our dependence upon God and thank Him for our belief-oriented capabilities. I suppose that it's true that there is sovereign decree involved here, but that's not the reason for it.



I am not sure what you mean when you say: "that's not the reason for it." I mean, it like saying: what is the reason why Jesus died on the cross? Well, the 'immediate' reason is that the Romans and Jewish leaders put him there because they wanted him dead. The ultimate reason is that God had preordained that this would happen as part of his redemptive plan. In the same way, I agree that you YOURSELF know things in an immediate sense, but in an ultimate sense the REASON you know anything is that God decreed and ordained that you would. What I mean by God 'revealing' things is not the way Barth means the term. What I mean is that if God has decreed for me not to know something, then I will not know it. If God decrees that I will be born blind, never knowing things in a visual sense, than I will not know them. I think we should indeed draw a parallel between God's relationship between us and our choices as well as us and our knowledge.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Consider this:
> 
> If God has decreed X, X is true
> If God has not decreed X, X is not true
> Therefore, if X is true, God has decreed it
> 
> This establishes only that God wills whatsoever comes to pass. It does not follow, though, that God is the direct cuase of everything, nor does it make Him the truth-maker. It merely means that nothing comes to pass without God allowing it.



Completely agree. Again, I never said he was the DIRECT cause of everything. I have always believed in secondary causes (which are also believed by Edwards, Van Til, and others).



P. F. Pugh said:


> Then here's my advice to you: get to know these disciplines as disciplines so that you avoid making mistakes. If you're going to talk about epistemology, start reading up on it, get to know its methods and in particular, find out the issues that Christian epistemologists are addressing. _Warranted Christian Belief_ by Plantinga is a good start.



Believe me Philip, I have read a good amount of information and plan to read much more. You make it sound as if I never even cracked open a book about epistemology. Please do not jump to conclusions, and I ask that you show at least some respect in the same way that I have shown you respect. I mean, we ALL could use a little more learning, and I doubt that any of us have read ALL the writings on a particular topic to no longer need to read anymore. Have you read them all? Have you read ALL of Oliphint, Van Til, or Bahnsen? Whether you did or not, I won't patronize you by suggesting that you need to 'start reading up on it', as if this is something you have never done before.


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## Hilasmos

P. F. Pugh said:


> Why only two? That seems an arbitrary place to stop. Further, putting God in as a justification seems to make God into a convenient explanation.



Because all knowledge and wisdom are hid in God, ultimate justification, and to those to whom it is revealed through revelational means, the second. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> He's warranted in believing it because he sees it and has no good reason to distrust the input of his senses (yet).



When you function like human beings normally function you are warranted to think how humans normally think given the data that is normally availabe within the normally functioning world. Again, that just doesn't seem to be a profound way to view truth. Knowledge, in that light, becomes no more meaningful than the knowledge of Apes. 

Why doesn't he have a good reason to distrust his senses beyond the fact that he doesn't distrust his senses?


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## Philip

Loopie said:


> I agree that you YOURSELF know things in an immediate sense, but in an ultimate sense the REASON you know anything is that God decreed and ordained that you would.



Why is this a helpful point, though? God's decree is not the reason---it is simply a necessary factor. Yes, God created the world such that I know certain things and not others, but that's not the reason.



Loopie said:


> Have you read ALL of Oliphint, Van Til, or Bahnsen?



I've read a fair amount in Van Til and Bahnsen, as well as much of Frame's commentary on Van Til.

The reason why I suggested reading more mainstream epistemology is this: throughout this discussion you've been throwing around terms like "knowledge" without bothering to consider the ordinary use and the result has been confusion all around. This is a problem that I've found in my study of Van Til---he also takes words out of their ordinary context and redefines them, and I'd like to suggest that if you're going to be presenting Van Til, you have to do so without using words in this special Van Tillian sense that no one else uses. Otherwise equivocation is going to get the best of you.



Hilasmos said:


> Because all knowledge and wisdom are hid in God, ultimate justification, and to those to whom it is revealed through revelational means, the second.



Which means are revelational though? And who will judge you epistemically if you fail to provide this justification?



Hilasmos said:


> Again, that just doesn't seem to be a profound way to view truth.



So? I'm not interested in sounding profound. I'm interested in figuring out how it works. This argument is purely aesthetic in nature and while that can be a good thing, aesthetic qualities of an explanation have nothing to do with their validity.



Hilasmos said:


> Knowledge, in that light, becomes no more meaningful than the knowledge of Apes.



I don't think that. Why should I?



Hilasmos said:


> Why doesn't he have a good reason to distrust his senses beyond the fact that he doesn't distrust his senses?



What reason does he have? The question here boils down to where the burden of proof lies. I would suggest that the burden of proof lies on the skeptic. Who made the skeptic king? Why should I have to submit all beliefs before his judgment? My contention is that warranted beliefs should be counted as rational knowledge-claims until proven otherwise. That is, the only way to show our subject that his belief is false is to actually take him to the place where he thought he saw water and explain the optical illusion that he saw.


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## Loopie

Philip,

I certainly will continue reading more mainstream epistemology (both Christian and non-Christian). I have read Kant, Hume, Aristotle, Plato, Ayn Rand, John Stuart Mill, and William James (on the non-Christian side), and Van Til, Clark, Bahnsen, Lewis, and William Lane Craig (on the Christian side). I understand your concern about terms such as 'knowledge' being used in different ways. But then again, this is true for other discussions as well. Terms such as 'will', 'choice', 'good', 'evil', 'freedom', 'author' have common usage and deeper usage. The Bible contains this as well, and the same word for knowledge can be used in reference to human knowledge that is gained, or God's knowledge that is eternal. It can also refer to that sensus divinitatis as well. Certainly it is important to be concise in every discussion, and I think we are all guilty of equivocation in some degree.


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## Philip

Loopie said:


> I certainly will continue reading more mainstream epistemology (both Christian and non-Christian). I have read Kant, Hume, Aristotle, Plato, Ayn Rand, John Stuart Mill, and William James (on the non-Christian side), and Van Til, Clark, Bahnsen, Lewis, and William Lane Craig (on the Christian side).



That's fine so far as historical philosophy is concerned (though I don't know of any philosophers who actually take Ayn Rand seriously). I would add W.V.O. Quine and G.E. Moore to the list (I'm actually revisiting Quine for part of my thesis).



Loopie said:


> Certainly it is important to be concise in every discussion, and I think we are all guilty of equivocation in some degree.



True, I think we just need to be on guard about it and define things distinguish between varieties when we come to those points.


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## Loopie

Believe me, I have had a difficult time taking Ayn Rand seriously. The problem is she is becoming more popular in the mainstream (particularly with the movie Atlas Shrugged). Essentially she is the sworn enemy of Kant. If Kant believes that the right thing to do is pure altruism, she would say that the right thing to do is pure selfishness. I suppose her argument is very similar to extreme Libertarians, or anarcho-Capitalists, who believe that capitalism should be left completely unrestrained, so that each person's selfishness will 'compete' with everyone else, and you will have a perfect balance (or something similar). In fact, I have three atheist friends who constantly try to defend her worldview, and remind me to read more of her books (which I grudgingly do so that I can show them her errors and inconsistencies).


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## Philip

Loopie said:


> In fact, I have three atheist friends who constantly try to defend her worldview, and remind me to read more of her books (which I grudgingly do so that I can show them her errors and inconsistencies).



In my experience, to mount an adequate critique of someone's position, you have to understand it, and you won't understand it until you understand the real appeal and find yourself in the place where the critique a position mounts of yours starts to sound plausible.


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## Hilasmos

P. F. Pugh said:


> So? I'm not interested in sounding profound. I'm interested in figuring out how it works. This argument is purely aesthetic in nature and while that can be a good thing, aesthetic qualities of an explanation have nothing to do with their validity.



The word profound may not be the best choice. Perhaps a better way to say it is that it trivializes the biblical notion of truth and knowledge. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Originally Posted by Hilasmos
> Knowledge, in that light, becomes no more meaningful than the knowledge of Apes.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't think that. Why should I?
Click to expand...


Because Prov. 1:7 is in your Bible and it does not say the beginning of knowledge is beliefs formed from (undefined) properly functioning cognitive faculties.


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## Philip

Hilasmos said:


> Because Prov. 1:7 is in your Bible and it does not say the beginning of knowledge is beliefs formed from (undefined) properly functioning cognitive faculties.



In what sense, though, is this verse using the word knowledge. I would suggest that it's not talking about knowledge of facts. It says:

"The fear of the Lord is the beginnging of knowledge
But fools despise wisdom and instruction"

In other words, this is talking about wisdom. When I do epistemology, I'm talking about the ordinary ways in which we use the word "knowledge," and we have to make these distinctions. The verse is not saying the fools don't know anything, it means that they don't understand it because they despise wisdom. True understanding starts with the fear of the Lord. It's not talking about all the range of meanings in the ordinary uses of the word "knowledge."


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## Hilasmos

P. F. Pugh said:


> It's not talking about all the range of meanings in the ordinary uses of the word "knowledge."



Agreed, that is why I said "as I define knowledge" from the start. Why call warranted beliefs knowledge? Why not just call them warranted beliefs that are believed to be true until they are believed not to be true. That type of circle doesn't deserve to be equated with "knowledge," in my opinion. It doesn't get outside of the subjective box that truth needs -- again, just how I am viewing and understanding it, which of course doesn't mean anything. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> That is, the only way to show our subject that his belief is false is to actually take him to the place where he thought he saw water and explain the optical illusion that he saw.



Or rather, this would introduce the concept that he has reason to distrust his cognitive faculties and therefore has reason to distrust the new set of stimulai represented by the person explaining what mirages are. Of course, once this is admitted he has reason to distrust all that was said above and is stuck in a circle of irrationalism. I play the skeptic card, you play the opposite, and my reason for doing so is no less arbitrary than yours, so how do we escape arbitrariness? If non-skepticism is more intutitive it is only because we are in God's world with a knowledge of God -- again, just how I am viewing it currently.


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## Philip

Hilasmos said:


> Why call warranted beliefs knowledge?



I didn't say warranted beliefs, I said warranted true beliefs. I said warrant is all that is needed for an agent to be rational in making a knowledge-claim. One can be rational and still end up believing something false. I don't think people before Copernicus were any less rational than we are, even though they believed that the sun goes around the earth.



Hilasmos said:


> Or rather, this would introduce the concept that he has reason to distrust his cognitive faculties and therefore has reason to distrust the new set of stimulai represented by the person explaining what mirages are. Of course, once this is admitted he has reason to distrust all that was said above and is stuck in a circle of irrationalism.



No he doesn't---he is just made aware that in this instance he did not have all relevant information. Showing him the optical illusion still involves his senses: he has to use his senses in order to understand that his senses were deceived. This is the rational skepticism of the lawyer or the detective---it is not the irrational skepticism of the professional skeptic. This isn't arbitrary: it's practical.


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## Hilasmos

P. F. Pugh said:


> No he doesn't---he is just made aware that in this instance he did not have all relevant information.



I fail to see how your restating it makes the situation any different. How would he determine that he now has all the relevant information; just moments ago, what appeard to be common sense was a pure illusion. Lawyer/detective skepticism has prebuilt rules, or presuppositions, and I have no reason to believe this man has these. He may, but if he does, they are arbitrary. The term "practical" is no less laiden with presuppositions.


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## Hilasmos

P. F. Pugh said:


> I didn't say warranted beliefs, I said warranted true beliefs.



I was thinking in regards to the perspective of the knower.


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## Philip

Hilasmos said:


> How would he determine that he now has all the relevant information



As a methodological assumption, you should proceed on the basis that your faculties are working correctly until there is good reason to think otherwise. Anything else is just silly.



Hilasmos said:


> The term "practical" is no less laiden with presuppositions.



Your point?



Hilasmos said:


> I was thinking in regards to the perspective of the knower.



If one has no reason to think that one's faculties are not functioning properly, I see no real problem with proceeding on the assumption that they are, in fact, functioning properly until there's good reason to think otherwise. This is the way we ordinarily operate until we start listening to skeptics.


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## Hilasmos

P. F. Pugh said:


> As a methodological assumption, you should proceed on the basis that your faculties are working correctly until there is good reason to think otherwise.



In other words, continue operating in accordance with your subconcious knowledge of God? 

Anyways, I have side tracked the issue enough into the abyss. Thanks.


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