# If atheism were disproven, but without proving God...



## heymike

Would this be a bridge between presuppositional and classical apologists?

I am very unfamiliar with the presuppositional method, and am not sure of whether the disagreement lies with the workability of the ontological and cosmological arguments, or the appropriateness of using them in defense of the faith.

But it seems there could be a harmonizing of the two positions, given that the 'God' arguments do not go far enough in proving God apart from oneself. That ultimately, philosophical speaking, there would remain a choice between theism and solipsism. Not that it is much of a choice.


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## Matthew Tringali

I commend this article to you as a brief introduction on presuppositional apologetics by John Frame.


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## Philip

> If atheism were disproven, but without proving God...



To disprove a negative is to prove a positive. Presuppositional apologetics tends to see the concept of direct arguments for the existence of God as wrong-headed because it's an attempt to argue on autonomous presuppositions.

However, most presuppositionalists have ignored or misunderstood the ontological argument, as have most atheists.


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## Rufus

> To disprove a negative is to prove a positive.



Or you could disprove atheism and throw the person into agnosticism, pantheism, or polytheism.


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## Skyler

P. F. Pugh said:


> To disprove a negative is to prove a positive. Presuppositional apologetics tends to see the concept of direct arguments for the existence of God as wrong-headed because it's an attempt to argue on autonomous presuppositions.



That is true, but disproving a universal negative (No God exists) only proves a universal positive (A God exists). It doesn't pinpoint a particular positive, i.e., the Christian God.


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## Philip

Skyler said:


> That is true, but disproving a universal negative (No God exists) only proves a universal positive (A God exists). It doesn't pinpoint a particular positive, i.e., the Christian God.



Is there any other God who answers to the description "greatest of all possible beings"?


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## heymike

Thanks for the link to the John Frame article, I'll be sure to take a look at it.

Just wanted to add a couple things to what's being said. The atheists I've dealt with, usually hold out for the possibility of an infinite regress or something from nothing, and believe that science will one day answer the question. What they almost entirely fail to realize is that those along with an uncaused cause are by nature empirically unverifiable. They are however within the scope of a little intuition with arguments like the ontological and cosmological. 

Concerning an uncaused cause, I once ran into a fellow in a philosophy group who was initially willing to consider an uncaused cause that is not aware of its action, but he didn't follow through for whatever reason. Whether it is an object of reason or faith I am not sure, but I maintain that it is aware of its action. And as a triune being, God would not experience loneliness by nature.


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## heymike

Matthew Tringali said:


> I commend this article to you as a brief introduction on presuppositional apologetics by John Frame.



Thanks again for the link. While reading it, I remembered my philosophy of religion professor saying in class once that not everything in the Bible is false. He was an a real agnostic about the existence of God, and I thought whatever sliver of truth he was willing to accept in the Bible would eventually point towards God. 

One way that I've looked at apologetics or any debate is to begin with that which you agree on. And in dealing with atheism, I believe the point you inevitably begin with or come back to is that reality does not contradict itself.


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## Philip

> What they almost entirely fail to realize is that those along with an uncaused cause are by nature empirically unverifiable. They are however within the scope of a little intuition with arguments like the ontological and cosmological.



The trouble comes with the assumption of scientism---the idea that all knowledge is within the realm of empirical science. I think you will find (late) Wittgenstein and Michael Polanyi helpful here.


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## heymike

Hi Philip, I've found that the 'scientists' are usually forced to backtrack when you say that science doesn't even give us the three 'possibilities' to begin with. Sproul's Defending the Faith is a good resource on this also. I haven't read Polanyi, but Mars Hill Audio had a great introduction to him. Wittgenstein is still a mystery to me. 

Just as an aside, in one of the great ironies of my philosophical studies, I had Paul Draper as my philosophy of religion professor at FIU. He is now at Perdue alongside William Rowe. In Draper's class I wrote a paper on the cosmological argumemt, and while looking at Rowe's book on the Cosmological argument, I discovered a critical fault when Rowe completely misunderstood Aquinas' dinstinction between the possibility of a set proceeding to infinity and the impossibility of it becoming actually infinite. That is the basic intuition which the argument rests upon.


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## Philip

heymike said:


> Wittgenstein is still a mystery to me.



You're in good company. He's a strange bird, for sure. He's no friend to the church, but at the same time, he doesn't really deal with Christianity, mostly because he doesn't understand it. He attempts to make room for religion in his philosophy, but the claims of Christianity pretty much undermine his foundation.


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## jwright82

heymike said:


> Would this be a bridge between presuppositional and classical apologists?
> 
> I am very unfamiliar with the presuppositional method, and am not sure of whether the disagreement lies with the workability of the ontological and cosmological arguments, or the appropriateness of using them in defense of the faith.
> 
> But it seems there could be a harmonizing of the two positions, given that the 'God' arguments do not go far enough in proving God apart from oneself. That ultimately, philosophical speaking, there would remain a choice between theism and solipsism. Not that it is much of a choice.



The differences are many and probably beyond the scope of one thread. But limiting ourselves to the arguments you mention we can say this, of course God is the first cause of the universe that is not a problem. The problem is in trying to directly prove this in an argument. There are some things that cannot be proven so nicley in a syllogism. If I fall in love with a girl I am not going to prove that to her by showing a nice neat syllogism, I bring her flowers etc. So I can "prove" it to her but the proof would be a different kind than syllogistic. In this case you face problem because causality is the crux of the argument. But how would answer Hume's criticisms of causality? Or what if Kant is right and causality is just one of the different categories that I use to form knowledge of the appearence of things. So it isn't really outside my mind but inside my mind. Sure every effect has a cause but why should I assume that the universe is an effect?

Its these questions point to the fundemental flaw in this argument, you must prove causality first. Van Til proposed that we seek to logically explain what we all already experience causality. Who's presupositions make the most sense out of explaining causality? Does it make sense to assume causality in a purely random universe? Van Til sought to reform, no pun intended, the classical arguments in a presupositional way to avoid these problems. As far as solipsism goes I read something that Bertrand Russell said, he said that some lady wrote him a letter claiming that it is obvious that solipsism (this is the beleif that only oneself exists everything else is just a product of your mind) is the only rational point of view to have, and then she complained that there were not more preople like her.


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## Philip

> But how would answer Hume's criticisms of causality?



By saying "nuts" to Hume: by questioning systematic doubt of our God-given faculties. Causality is a given.


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## Douglas P.

heymike said:


> Would this be a bridge between presuppositional and classical apologists?



As long as the classical apologist argues that there are truths that can be accessible by reason alone without first presupposing our necessity on revelation from God, then no, there can be no bridge.


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## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> But how would answer Hume's criticisms of causality?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> By saying "nuts" to Hume: by questioning systematic doubt of our God-given faculties. Causality is a given.
Click to expand...


Of course it is a common-sense given but that hardly answers the historical problems with explaining causality. We know there is cause and effect what we don't know is why. We know there is such a thing as morality or science what we don't know is why.


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## Philip

> Of course it is a common-sense given but that hardly answers the historical problems with explaining causality. We know there is cause and effect what we don't know is why.



It's a necessary truth---effects have causes by definition.


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## heymike

Yes, but does everything that begins have a cause...



jwright82 said:


> But limiting ourselves to the arguments you mention we can say this, of course God is the first cause of the universe that is not a problem. The problem is in trying to directly prove this in an argument. There are some things that cannot be proven so nicley in a syllogism.



First of all, thank you for the engaging response and of course God is the first cause. Now proving it is another matter even if one is unwilling to question causality. For causality may be granted, and the question of an infinite regress remains. Aquinas' distinction between the possibility of a set proceeding to infinity and the impossibility of it becoming actually infinite is key. I am unfamiliar with a syllogism that proves the distinction. It is just a basic intuition of the mind. Like understanding that a contradiction cannot be true.



> But how would answer Hume's criticisms of causality? Or what if Kant is right and causality is just one of the different categories that I use to form knowledge of the appearence of things. So it isn't really outside my mind but inside my mind. Sure every effect has a cause but why should I assume that the universe is an effect?



If I am not mistaken space and time were also of the mind for Kant. Objective nonetheless. Hume's criticism or skepticism was different. There comes a point where Hume's eloquence is stripped and the foolishness is obvious. An epistemology professor in a very severe tone asked the class whether the white wall was really red, to which a student replied, "then what color is the fire extinguisher?" To which the professor mumbled under his breath, "I know what he is doing," and then changed the subject. 



> Its these questions point to the fundemental flaw in this argument, you must prove causality first. Van Til proposed that we seek to logically explain what we all already experience causality. Who's presupositions make the most sense out of explaining causality? Does it make sense to assume causality in a purely random universe? Van Til sought to reform, no pun intended, the classical arguments in a presupositional way to avoid these problems.



I do not believe causality has to be explained or defended unless someone is questioning it. But it seems the questioning of causality is more supported today because of what is being observed in quantum physics. There are different ways to approach this skepticism. I like to ask why these supposedly random events do not otherwise affect the universe, or my computer, or my dog's behavior. If they were truly random, then there should be more interaction. Hearing this, an atheist with an undergrad in physics asked why these quantum events couldn't explain the beginning of the universe or the origin of life... no kidding. I'm fairly certain that causality does not become an issue until it is seen how it connects with disproving atheism. Similarly no one would question the impossibility of forming an infinite set through successive addition, and yet a PhD in mathematics actually did that.



> As far as solipsism goes I read something that Bertrand Russell said, he said that some lady wrote him a letter claiming that it is obvious that solipsism (this is the beleif that only oneself exists everything else is just a product of your mind) is the only rational point of view to have, and then she complained that there were not more preople like her.



While Bertrand Russell was making fun of it, I wonder if he was also was haunted by the fear that no one is out there. As brilliant as he was I imagine that he could often see through people. Augustine once pondered the question in a treatise on the trinity, and elsewhere he said that there were times when he was preaching he was overwhelmed by the faces looking back at him, as deep calling unto to deep, or something like that.


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## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> It's a necessary truth---effects have causes by definition.



Sorry it has taken me so long to answer you and heymike, my new job has me working long hours outside in the Florida heat. Of course formaly speaking it is a necessary truth. The question is are there causes and effects out there in the real world, back to Hume and Kant.


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## jwright82

heymike said:


> Yes, but does everything that begins have a cause...
> First of all, thank you for the engaging response and of course God is the first cause. Now proving it is another matter even if one is unwilling to question causality. For causality may be granted, and the question of an infinite regress remains. Aquinas' distinction between the possibility of a set proceeding to infinity and the impossibility of it becoming actually infinite is key. I am unfamiliar with a syllogism that proves the distinction. It is just a basic intuition of the mind. Like understanding that a contradiction cannot be true.



You are correct about an infinite regress question, I normaly turn to science to dispel that idea, especialy the second law of thermodynamics. But you stated that "causality may be granted", that is one problem that Van Til had with classical apologetics, it allows the unbeleiver to take too much for granted. Sure it is common sense that causality is there but why is it there? That is where Van Til would push the argument, with your unbeleiving presupossitions about reality explain why there is such a thing as causality? About Aquinas' distinction, I am unfamiliar with it myself. But it does seem to be an interesting line of thought. Could you perhaps lay out his argument if space permits it?



heymike said:


> If I am not mistaken space and time were also of the mind for Kant. Objective nonetheless. Hume's criticism or skepticism was different. There comes a point where Hume's eloquence is stripped and the foolishness is obvious. An epistemology professor in a very severe tone asked the class whether the white wall was really red, to which a student replied, "then what color is the fire extinguisher?" To which the professor mumbled under his breath, "I know what he is doing," and then changed the subject.



For Kant the categories are subjective only. We use them to form knowledge, there is nothing really objective about them. For Hume I think that he was only pointing out a flaw in autonomous thinking itself. We can very well believe in causality but proving it on autonomous rational grounds was impossible. He of course never used the term autonomous but he unknowingly was pointing that out. He showed how if we accept Western philosophical presupossitions about epistemology, basically that reason can answer every question and solve every riddle, than we are hopless in reaching our goals in Epsitemology. Those goals are a complete foundation for knowledge that is located withen the individual, no wonder Kant came along. Hume pointed out that we then are incapable of reaching our goal, through his I believe it is called "Hume's fork", because of inherent problems with deductive and inductive reasoning by itself. 



heymike said:


> I do not believe causality has to be explained or defended unless someone is questioning it. But it seems the questioning of causality is more supported today because of what is being observed in quantum physics. There are different ways to approach this skepticism. I like to ask why these supposedly random events do not otherwise affect the universe, or my computer, or my dog's behavior. If they were truly random, then there should be more interaction. Hearing this, an atheist with an undergrad in physics asked why these quantum events couldn't explain the beginning of the universe or the origin of life... no kidding. I'm fairly certain that causality does not become an issue until it is seen how it connects with disproving atheism. Similarly no one would question the impossibility of forming an infinite set through successive addition, and yet a PhD in mathematics actually did that.



The question of causality is not what but why? Why is there causal relationships in this universe? If quantum mechanics is completly correct and everything is random, which is a gross oversimplification QM I admit, than why is there any sort of orderly causal relationships at all? We christians can readly say that we believe in a God who keeps the cosmos in order and that is a perfectly rational beleif. I think that QM is a perfect example of autonomy because they say they have made a perfect vacuum and observed particles forming and disapeering in and out of "nothing". Really we sinful humans are that pridful to think that we are observing everything involved in that proccess? How do we know we are really observing nothingness? They also abandon reason to speculate, reasonably of course, about all sorts of weird counterintuitive ideas to explain how something came from nothing or parralell dimensions, yet they seek to rationaly explain this to you, how odd. These questions I have asked are ironically not physics questions but metaphysical questions, which implies that contemporary physics in need of metaphysicians to ground them logically again. They have tried to make science autonomous to basically avoid these sorts of questions and are forced to adopt a double truth theory, what is true in logic can contradict what is true in science and both are true.



heymike said:


> While Bertrand Russell was making fun of it, I wonder if he was also was haunted by the fear that no one is out there. As brilliant as he was I imagine that he could often see through people. Augustine once pondered the question in a treatise on the trinity, and elsewhere he said that there were times when he was preaching he was overwhelmed by the faces looking back at him, as deep calling unto to deep, or something like that.



Solipsism is probalimatic because to even debate is disprove it. Plus it implies a complete control over everything we experience because of course we are creating it, but none of us seem to posses this Matrix type ability. Also it makes us God. We must be self-existent because if something else created us it disproves solipsism. We also have no paradigm cases to compare what solipsism and non-solipsism experience is like. All of our experiences are of other people and things so we have cases to compare our experiences to, that is called I believe a Paradigm case argument.


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## Philip

> The question is are there causes and effects out there in the real world, back to Hume and Kant.



It's pretty blasted obvious that there are---this was Reid's point. Hume and Kant are still stuck in the delusion that once you go down the skeptical path, there might still be a way to reason your way out of solipsism. Going down the path of skepticism is a conscious choice, not a given of reasoning.



> We can very well believe in causality but proving it on autonomous rational grounds was impossible.



And where is the need to do so? Why prove causality at all? Why question it in the first place?



> If quantum mechanics is completly correct and everything is random, which is a gross oversimplification QM I admit



Let's remember that "random" in science really means "I don't know what's causing it." The problem is when scientism arises and pretends that science is supreme.


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## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> It's pretty blasted obvious that there are---this was Reid's point. Hume and Kant are still stuck in the delusion that once you go down the skeptical path, there might still be a way to reason your way out of solipsism. Going down the path of skepticism is a conscious choice, not a given of reasoning.



Which line of argument is that? I hear atheists and such use it all the time, abortion is obviously the right thing to do, and my senses morality is working just fine. Well if the question of causality is just a psuedo-problem, like when we were debating morality, than you have a point but if it isn't than Reid is just sticking his head in the sand to avoid the hard logical problems of philosophy. Again if a person's other beleifs have absolutly no logical bearing on these beleifs than that is fine too but they do. If metaphysics has absolutly no bearing on my other beleifs whatsoever than metaphysics seems about as useful as a science about unicorns.




P. F. Pugh said:


> And where is the need to do so? Why prove causality at all? Why question it in the first place?



Who said anything about proving causality? My contention is that how we view the nature of things will affect the possible variaty of things we could hope to see in that "universe", is causality one of them? Again Reid is great in showing that skepticism is untenable but once you move from what to why than you have problem, a great series of psuedo-problems we call philosophy. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Let's remember that "random" in science really means "I don't know what's causing it." The problem is when scientism arises and pretends that science is supreme.



Well they seem to want to believe that the only possible things that might be "guiding" or "ordering" the quantum realm might be nothingness, othe dimensions, or alternate timelines. The good scientist are kind of like practical atheists, they may believe in God, religion, or philosophy but they live as if there is none of those things. I agree with you about scientism but they all seem to practicaly favor a materialistic metaphysics. They can deny it all day long but if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and swims like a duck than it just might be a duck.


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## Philip

> Well if the question of causality is just a psuedo-problem, like when we were debating morality, than you have a point but if it isn't than Reid is just sticking his head in the sand to avoid the hard logical problems of philosophy.



I don't see how it's a hard problem---inferring cause from effect is a basic function of our doxastic design plan. It's only when philosophers attempt to impose their preconceived notions on the world that problems arise. Instead, they should impose the world on their preconceived notions.



> Again if a person's other beleifs have absolutly no logical bearing on these beleifs than that is fine too but they do.



If you can show how these beliefs directly contradict causality, then show it and we can reject them. Otherwise carry on.



> My contention is that how we view the nature of things will affect the possible variaty of things we could hope to see in that "universe", is causality one of them?



Why not simply construct our great cosmic in such a way that it actually reflects the cosmos? Why not reason from effect to cause in this way?



> Well they seem to want to believe that the only possible things that might be "guiding" or "ordering" the quantum realm might be nothingness, othe dimensions, or alternate timelines. The good scientist are kind of like practical atheists, they may believe in God, religion, or philosophy but they live as if there is none of those things.



Let's be fair---when we're studying the created order, we are studying that which is observable. It's simply bad science to insert God---yes, God is the ultimate cause, but we're doing empirical science. Since God is not empirically observable in laboratories, positing Him as a cause isn't helpful in conducting a scientific experiment. We can't observe God with an electron microscope. That's not to say that He's not in the creation, just that empirical observation won't reveal Him directly.



> They can deny it all day long but if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and swims like a duck than it just might be a duck.



The question is what "it" is, exactly. To simply say "God did it" is scientific laziness---yes He did it, the question is what mechanism He's using.


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## heymike

James, I'm having a hard time following the discussion you're having with Philip, but I think this may be relevant to an earlier point about explaining causality. I think the idea that things do not begin or happen without cause is pretty basic once you strip the fancy language off of what says otherwise. Which would be similar to explaining why contradictions are necesarily false or infinite sets are not brought about through successive addition. As R.C. Sproul said, there are things that can be said even if they are unthinkable.

About Aquinas' argument for the possibilty of a set proceeding to infinity without ever becoming actually infinite, if I'm not mistaken, I remember the statement went without explanation. But it has been awhile.


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## jwright82

I think to save space I will try to answer both Philip and Mike. I have been very busy at work but things seem to be slowing down so I may have lots of time to engage in a more prompt fashion these threads. 

Philip: I think that we have a confusion that I am saying that at no times can an unbeleiver refer to science or morality in any situation. No, I am saying that in the apologetical situation, which may not always come up, I can legitimatly ask them to account for certian essential beleifs, as Reid showed there are, like science to help me in the apologetical task of showing that they have no rational foundation for their point of view and they cannot account for something like causality if they try to account for it on any unbeleiving philosophies basic presupositions about the world. In a purely random universe causility cannot rationaly exist. Its not that order can randomly happen. 

Mike: I am not saying that causality doesn't exist but how one logicaly explains why causality is there to begin with. It is near impossible to reason backwards from an abstract law, that being completly seperate from concrete examples, as cause and effect to causality being actually in the world. We all know of course that causality is there but it is a matter of accounting for why it is there in the first place. It is here where Van Til pressed the unbeleiver to answer that question, in which they can't. So they end up assuming the validity of causality in actual experience without being able to say why.


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## heymike

Hey James, I just saw your reply, I too have been busy elsewhere. Hope you are well. 

I'm not sure if I'm following you:

"It is here where Van Til pressed the unbeliever to answer that question, in which they can't. So they end up assuming the validity of causality in actual experience without being able to say why."

Where is here? The point at which a person does not deny causality and cannot explain it, or the point where a person questions causality?


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## jwright82

heymike said:


> Hey James, I just saw your reply, I too have been busy elsewhere. Hope you are well.
> 
> I'm not sure if I'm following you:
> 
> "It is here where Van Til pressed the unbeliever to answer that question, in which they can't. So they end up assuming the validity of causality in actual experience without being able to say why."
> 
> Where is here? The point at which a person does not deny causality and cannot explain it, or the point where a person questions causality?



Any transcendental argument starts with some piece of experience, like causality, and asks for the logical asumptions that must be true for that piece of experience to make sense or be accounted for in one's worldview. The unbeleiver knows that causality is there but they cannot explain why it is there, could there be causality as we experience it in a totaly random universe?


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## Philip

> I think that we have a confusion that I am saying that at no times can an unbeleiver refer to science or morality in any situation. No, I am saying that in the apologetical situation, which may not always come up, I can legitimatly ask them to account for certian essential beleifs



What is special about the apologetic situation that all beliefs need an argument for them? Metaphysics is the question of why something happens, not whether it happens.



> the apologetical task of showing that they have no rational foundation for their point of view



This is a category mistake. A point of view doesn't have a rational foundation as a point of view determines what is to be considered rational.



> In a purely random universe causility cannot rationaly exist. Its not that order can randomly happen.



Which is why multiverse theory is the flavour of the day.


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## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> What is special about the apologetic situation that all beliefs need an argument for them? Metaphysics is the question of why something happens, not whether it happens.



The apologetical task is when we are put a position to offer a "reason for the hope that is withen us", that is to say when we must remind the unbeleiver that they are in God's creation and it cannot be otherwise. We also remind them that they are made in God's image and cannot be anything other than God's image bearer. I say that to illustrate one of Van Til's most important ideas, Christianity is true no matter what. He reminded us that we start as creatures, all of us, in God's creation as his image bearers. That is why in his book _The Defense of the Faith_ he says that "there is no such thing as atheists", because we know that there is a God, the atheist is just deluding his or herself into thinking otherwise. That really is the essence of the transcendental argument as Presupositionalists use it, simply pointing out what is obvious to everyone that we are God's creatures in his creation and so no other alternative point of view can possibly makesense out of creation than the truth, that is Christianity. We can all use creation all we want for whatever end but we cannot make sense out of creation except as viewing it as creation. And I agree with you about metaphysics and I would poingt out that the question of why is still logically valid.



P. F. Pugh said:


> This is a category mistake. A point of view doesn't have a rational foundation as a point of view determines what is to be considered rational.



Actually every point of view predetermines in some way what is rational or not. To avoid pure relativism here I would follow Van Til in reminding us that we are all God's creatures and image bearers and therefore must, this is my view that I think is fully inline with his, use the tools (reason, senses, etc...) to think and talk about the same stuff (creation). Logic as a tool does inform us as to what is rational or not, even if we don't consistantly use that tool correctly. That is how we can we decide what is a rational foundation, not in the foundationalist sense, or what isn't.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Which is why multiverse theory is the flavour of the day.



True but even this multiverse begs the question of where did it all come from. Remember that they kepp needing to posit another universe to explain this universe to explain that universe so on and so forth into an infinite number of dependent universes. But an infinite number of dependent universe still results in a big infinite dependent thing.


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## Philip

jwright82 said:


> The apologetical task is when we are put a position to offer a "reason for the hope that is withen us"



But in that case, our response is to present the Biblical narrative of creation-fall-redemption-consummation. 



jwright82 said:


> so no other alternative point of view can possibly makesense



Making sense is subjective. The metanarrative of Scripture makes sense to me, but to Bertrand Russell, it did not. Making sense is a function of one's paradigm.



jwright82 said:


> And I agree with you about metaphysics and I would poingt out that the question of why is still logically valid.



But it's only interesting to a select group of people.



jwright82 said:


> Logic as a tool does inform us as to what is rational or not, even if we don't consistantly use that tool correctly.



But it's a tool that only works correctly from correct premises. Without a correct starting premise, the syllogism is flawed.



jwright82 said:


> True but even this multiverse begs the question of where did it all come from.



To which the multiverse theorist will inevitably reply that the question is unanswerable---remember also that multiverse theorists are largely scientistic in their paradigm and as such, there is no room for God, at least not the God of Christian theism.

All this is to say, without a word from the outside, no atheist is going to buy your argument, even if you deconstruct his. He still has warrant for using reason, even if he can't explain it metaphysically---most atheists haven't studied metaphysics extensively anyway.


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## heymike

jwright82 said:


> Any transcendental argument starts with some piece of experience, like causality, and asks for the logical asumptions that must be true for that piece of experience to make sense or be accounted for in one's worldview. The unbeleiver knows that causality is there but they cannot explain why it is there, could there be causality as we experience it in a totaly random universe?


 
I said earlier that explaining causality was like explaining the principle of non-contradiction or why an infinite set cannot be made through successive addition. And by causality, I mean specifically that things do not begin or occur by nothing. 

Atheists generally accept that things do not come into existence uncaused, but they suppose that this can happen at the quantum level. I think your point may be that they accept principles of causality in everyday life, even though they cannot explain why they do. 

Or it may be that they are the kind of atheist who strongly maintains the principle of causality, but nevertheless holds to an infinite regressive universe or multiverse (same idea if multiverse is causally connected). But then he cannot explain why the principle of causality is such. _BUT_ neither can he explain why contradictions are necessarily false. They just are. 

_BUT_ then again, if he is a committed rationalist, he would also see that a first cause is necessary, even if he will not admit it.


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## jwright82

heymike said:


> I said earlier that explaining causality was like explaining the principle of non-contradiction or why an infinite set cannot be made through successive addition. And by causality, I mean specifically that things do not begin or occur by nothing.



You must remeber that simply using logic or an idea like causality never explains why there is such things to begin with. The materialist cannot explain what logic is in an unproblimatic way. So they use logic but they cannot account for why logic exists in the first place. They believe that all logic is electrical impulses in our brain but how can account fo rthe universal use of logic by human beings? What if my impulses are different from yours, that means different logics? These are all problems with contemporary theories of mind from a materalistic point of view. 



heymike said:


> Atheists generally accept that things do not come into existence uncaused, but they suppose that this can happen at the quantum level. I think your point may be that they accept principles of causality in everyday life, even though they cannot explain why they do.



That is correct to a degree but I would add that they cannot explain why we believe in causality at all, not if causality exists only the why question. 



heymike said:


> Or it may be that they are the kind of atheist who strongly maintains the principle of causality, but nevertheless holds to an infinite regressive universe or multiverse (same idea if multiverse is causally connected). But then he cannot explain why the principle of causality is such. _BUT_ neither can he explain why contradictions are necessarily false. They just are.



Yeah his or her problem would be explaining why an infinite series of dependent things doesn't require an explinaition. Most scientific atheists simply ignore questions of metaphysics but they can give no reason to do so except a very circuler arguement that if science can't answer it no one can. 

Again though you must give an account of why there is logical or scientific laws to begin with. That is interpreting the reality we all experience. So there are no givens, like logic or causality, in this sense that we cannot ask questions about them at all. That does not mean that the unbeleiver cannot do science or reason only that they cannot explain why such things exsist in a meaningful way to begin with. 



heymike said:


> _BUT_ then again, if he is a committed rationalist, he would also see that a first cause is necessary, even if he will not admit it.



I am not a rationalist, or anyother western or eastern epistomology, so I can't say. I agree with Van Til's Revealational Epistomology. No revealation from, natural or special, God no knowledge. The unbeleiver will never admit to the christian God, they will use their God given image to atempt to undermine what they know to be true.

---------- Post added at 07:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:41 PM ----------




P. F. Pugh said:


> But in that case, our response is to present the Biblical narrative of creation-fall-redemption-consummation.



I don't quite get you here? 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Making sense is subjective. The metanarrative of Scripture makes sense to me, but to Bertrand Russell, it did not. Making sense is a function of one's paradigm.



I think you are getting hungup on thinking that there is no connection between worldviews or paradigms and reality. Van Til and all other thinkers who have or will use the TA maintain that there is. We must think and talk about the same reality we experience so a given worldview either will or will not be able to explain the reality that they are trying to. This is not a worldview verses worldview argument it is a worldview verses reality argument.



P. F. Pugh said:


> But it's only interesting to a select group of people.



So, how does that get them off the logical hook here? Why are they immune from such questions?



P. F. Pugh said:


> But it's a tool that only works correctly from correct premises. Without a correct starting premise, the syllogism is flawed.



I agree but that has nothing to do with the unbeleiver being able to say why logic exists as we experience it?



P. F. Pugh said:


> To which the multiverse theorist will inevitably reply that the question is unanswerable---remember also that multiverse theorists are largely scientistic in their paradigm and as such, there is no room for God, at least not the God of Christian theism.



So how can a scientist scientifically prove that any question that science can't answer cannot be answered, that is circuler reasoning?



P. F. Pugh said:


> All this is to say, without a word from the outside, no atheist is going to buy your argument, even if you deconstruct his. He still has warrant for using reason, even if he can't explain it metaphysically---most atheists haven't studied metaphysics extensively anyway.



If by word from the outside you mean the Holy Spirit regenerating them than fine your are right but if you mean something else than I would point out that my goal is not to convince rebellious covenant breakers of what they know to be true but only to silience the mouth of naysayers and strengthen the faith of the beleiver.


----------



## MarieP

P. F. Pugh said:


> To disprove a negative is to prove a positive.



Exactly! I am re-reading Bahnsen's Always Ready, and he begins by gloriously debunking the myth of neutrality. I would heartily recommend this book- it is easily accessible, intellectually engaging, and Chroistocentrically devotional!


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> The materialist cannot explain what logic is in an unproblimatic way.



How is the word "logic" used? (I'm finding Wittgenstein an interesting study)




jwright82 said:


> So they use logic but they cannot account for why logic exists in the first place.



So if I don't know who Alexander Graham Bell was, I have no warrant for using a telephone?




jwright82 said:


> Most scientific atheists simply ignore questions of metaphysics but they can give no reason to do so except a very circuler arguement that if science can't answer it no one can.



And some simply think the questions irrelevant.




jwright82 said:


> Van Til and all other thinkers who have or will use the TA maintain that there is. We must think and talk about the same reality we experience so a given worldview either will or will not be able to explain the reality that they are trying to. This is not a worldview verses worldview argument it is a worldview verses reality argument.



So then what's wrong with classical apologetics? My whole beef with Van Til is that if his macro picture is correct, then classical-vs-presuppositional apologetics is just a question of expediency in a given situation. Yet Van Til acts as if presuppositional apologetics is the only valid way.




jwright82 said:


> So, how does that get them off the logical hook here? Why are they immune from such questions?



Because the questions are irrelevant. Logic can't answer boredom.




jwright82 said:


> I agree but that has nothing to do with the unbeleiver being able to say why logic exists as we experience it



Does logic exist? What sort of entity is it? Is it a function of language?




jwright82 said:


> I would point out that my goal is not to convince rebellious covenant breakers of what they know to be true but only to silience the mouth of naysayers



Good luck. The naysayers will never be silent: hence why the apologetic project continues.


----------



## jwright82

MarieP said:


> P. F. Pugh said:
> 
> 
> 
> To disprove a negative is to prove a positive.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Exactly! I am re-reading Bahnsen's Always Ready, and he begins by gloriously debunking the myth of neutrality. I would heartily recommend this book- it is easily accessible, intellectually engaging, and Chroistocentrically devotional!
Click to expand...


I will have to check that book out. I only have his book Van Til reader and his Theonomy book. But you inspired me to put that on books to get list. Thank you!


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> How is the word "logic" used? (I'm finding Wittgenstein an interesting study)



Well you know I am pleased that someone else enjoys studying him. It used in the sense of both our general reasoning skills as well as complex logical laws and principles. 




P. F. Pugh said:


> So if I don't know who Alexander Graham Bell was, I have no warrant for using a telephone?



You are talking about something different than a metaphysical explinaition. I have been reading a lot about Plantinga and some critics point out that in his earlier writings he uses the very strong epistemological term justification, which I take to mean truth or a true beleif, to the softer epistemologolical term of warrant. I say strong and soft because the demands of a true beleif are much higher than those of warrant. I can have plenty of warrant to believe something that turns out to be false. But arguing for warrant is like saying so what? O.K. they have warrant for their beleif, what I want to know is they justify or prove that their beleif is true? They believe in morality now prove their beleif.



P. F. Pugh said:


> And some simply think the questions irrelevant.



Agreed but how does that make the question irrelevant? If we agree that there is a world outside of our minds than we are at least implicitly commited to an idea that some of our opinions about things, especially things we don't understand, are irelevant to how things are. You may have had this problem like me, have you ever had to answer to family or friends on why you are majoring in philosophy (I believe that is it, if not than you should)? I have had so many people ask me that who though that it is stupid. My late father got into a debate with me over this and from his perspective he had made lots of money and become a successfull home builder here in Florida. He thought that that gave great perspective on everything.

What said to me was this "Why philosophy? Isn't that like belly buttons and everyone has got one?" Well I responded that that was not the kind of philosophy I was refering to. So he had plenty of warrant for his beleif given his experience of philosophy, or lack there of, but that was completly irelevant to whether or not his opinions about Philosophy were true or justified beleifs. So I guess that is my question for you and for Plantinga, so what (I know that sounds harsh, it just accured to me, please know that I mean no offense and have nothing but respect for you)



P. F. Pugh said:


> So then what's wrong with classical apologetics? My whole beef with Van Til is that if his macro picture is correct, then classical-vs-presuppositional apologetics is just a question of expediency in a given situation. Yet Van Til acts as if presuppositional apologetics is the only valid way.



He would say the only consistantly Reformed way and he would point out the that classical apologetics fails to what it philosophicaly claims it can do.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Because the questions are irrelevant. Logic can't answer boredom.



How are epistemological questions irelevant given the weakness of the whole warrant system of epistemology that I pointed out?



P. F. Pugh said:


> Does logic exist? What sort of entity is it? Is it a function of language?



These sorts of questions are relevant to christian philosophers to be sure but the apologist isn't neccessaraly intrested in them because he or she is interested in logic or reasoning as we experience it. So the problems are somewhat transcendentaly proving something or explaining it, it never answers every question about it. 





P. F. Pugh said:


> Good luck. The naysayers will never be silent: hence why the apologetic project continues.



Agreed, VanTillians san sometimes talk like he is the end all of apologetics. He and his more mellow followers probably won't say it. The apologetical task will never be finished because we are finite creatures and cannot know everything so the unbeleiver will be silienced in the sense that they will never be able to answer these questions, but they will always try. Again he felt that he was more faithful to reformed theology and better philosophicaly speaking but I don't think he viewed himself as the end of apologetics. You need to study K. Scott Oliphant and William Edgar at WTS in Philidelphia, much more balanced view than like Bahnsen (but Bahnsen is very good in his own right). You can go to WTS website here to listen to lectures by speakers, you have to sighn up but it is free, Westminster Theological Seminary - Media Center.


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> It used in the sense of both our general reasoning skills as well as complex logical laws and principles.



What do we mean by a logical law? Is this merely a rule that governs how I reason? Or do you mean something more than this?




jwright82 said:


> justification, which I take to mean truth or a true beleif



You're confusing your terms here. Justification is usually taken to be that which separates knowledge from mere true belief. Warrant is simply a softer version of the same thing.



jwright82 said:


> Agreed but how does that make the question irrelevant?



"Because it makes my head hurt and interferes with my lunch."



jwright82 said:


> You may have had this problem like me, have you ever had to answer to family or friends on why you are majoring in philosophy (I believe that is it, if not than you should)?



Yes. Generally I defuse the question with my ready answer involving transferrable analytical and communication skills.



jwright82 said:


> O.K. they have warrant for their beleif, what I want to know is they justify or prove that their beleif is true? They believe in morality now prove their beleif.



Moral sense---conscience, naturally. Again, it's a metaphysical story that one can tell (and Plantinga tells it eloquently) about how warrant functions.

Why does one have to have an argument for every belief? We've gone back to Descartes and the way of doubt, it seems.



jwright82 said:


> So the problems are somewhat transcendentaly proving something or explaining it, it never answers every question about it.



I'm still unconvinced, though, that it is necessary to have a transcendental explanation to have knowledge. All that one needs for a knowledge-claim is warrant.



jwright82 said:


> The apologetical task will never be finished because we are finite creatures and cannot know everything so the unbeleiver will be silienced in the sense that they will never be able to answer these questions



Answering your objections is irrelevant. The apologetic task is to answer his objections and show him Christ.


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> What do we mean by a logical law? Is this merely a rule that governs how I reason? Or do you mean something more than this?



Following more of Dooyeweerd here I would say that it is the logical aspect of creation, one might argue its supporiority to other aspects or not. That is to say its the study of logic itself that discovers logical laws. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> You're confusing your terms here. Justification is usually taken to be that which separates knowledge from mere true belief. Warrant is simply a softer version of the same thing.



Well I always read that knowledge is a justified true beleif but whatever as long as you understand that I am asking harder questions than just warrant, which is a much softer version. I can have all kinds of warrant for many untrue beleifs so it cannot be the same as knowledge. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> "Because it makes my head hurt and interferes with my lunch."



I will say that this seems dangerously close to the fallacy of absurdity (simply claiming that a question, opinion, beleif, or whatever is absurd without showing why from a logical point of view). It also is another thought experiement of the difference and defincencies of placing all the emphasis on warrant. They may be warranted to say that but they don't know what their talking about. Plus practically speaking I never get that deep with someone who can't understand it. I always adjust my depth of argumentation for the audiance. What good would it do me to argue about precondistions with someone who knows nothing about TA. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Yes. Generally I defuse the question with my ready answer involving transferrable analytical and communication skills.



Me too, which only proves that a discussion can be adjusted for the level of sophistication of the participants, or onlookers



P. F. Pugh said:


> Moral sense---conscience, naturally. Again, it's a metaphysical story that one can tell (and Plantinga tells it eloquently) about how warrant functions.



Ah moral sense, you asked what was wrong with classical apologetics (CA), or I would feel more comfortable saying in traditonal forms of CA since I don't rule out that a truly reformed CA is possible, and that is one of them. CA (as it has been traditionaly formulated) is committed to autonomy because it must make things like conscience or reason ultimate in their own right. Conscience or reason cannot be questioned because that underminds what CA is trying to do or its method. Even though different people disagree on what is moral or reasonable, the CA is committed to defending the autonomy of the individual because their method falls apart if they don't.

The problem is they cannot be an ultimate referance point for morality or reason, which is why we have been going round and round over these issues. Conscience and reason are derivitave and not ultimate. Theologically the doctrine of total depravity and the Creator/creature distinction guarantee that they cannot be ultimate (only God is ultimate). The philosophical questions and problems that I have been raising only point to this theological truth. 

In a sense this is Van Til's point, our theology must determine how we use philosophy to defend the faith. Now I hold it, with Frame, that there can be other methods besides the TA but they cannot change our theology. I am not acussing you of that only citing a potential problem, I prefer renaming Van Til's criticisms of CA with citing them as problems that the classical apologist must be aware of. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Why does one have to have an argument for every belief? We've gone back to Descartes and the way of doubt, it seems.



Not neccessarly, although you have a valid concern. We are discuccing only those beleifs that produce an apologetical situation. Or beleifs of a more philosophical nature. In the apologetical situation Van Til is only saying that the TA, or TC, is the best method for "reminding" the unbeleiver of:
1. The fact that they know they are made in God's image
2. Are living in God's creation 
3. They cannot interpret that creation truthfully as anything other than God's creation



P. F. Pugh said:


> I'm still unconvinced, though, that it is necessary to have a transcendental explanation to have knowledge. All that one needs for a knowledge-claim is warrant.



Sure and I would say that the only ground for warrant is the three points I mentioned above. If you believe other than this than you are assuming a neutral realm of facts that are not creational, that is they cannot be interpreted as only created but interpreted truthfully from any point of view. But than the apologest must deny one or more of the three points I mentioned above. At that point in theory your philosophy dictates your theology which is backwards. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Answering your objections is irrelevant. The apologetic task is to answer his objections and show him Christ.



Well I would argue that apologetics is both offensive and defensive. Of course we must answer their objections. If I have lead you to believe that Van Til advocated doing apologetics by never answering objections by saying "you cannot even explain the reason you are using to criticize me so I don't need to answer your objection", than I am sorry. No that is not what he or I meant. I hope that clarifies.


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> Following more of Dooyeweerd here I would say that it is the logical aspect of creation, one might argue its supporiority to other aspects or not. That is to say its the study of logic itself that discovers logical laws.



So logical laws are not a function of propositions and therefore of language, right?




jwright82 said:


> I can have all kinds of warrant for many untrue beleifs so it cannot be the same as knowledge.



You can also be justified in untrue beliefs.

Suppose that I walk into a room where a light fixture has been cleverly made to look like a skylight. So, I look up and say "oh, it must be sunny outside" even though (unbeknownst to me) it is, in fact, raining. Was I justified in my belief, despite the fact that the belief was untrue? Justification has nothing to do with truth-value. That's why knowledge is never defined as "justified belief."




jwright82 said:


> Conscience and reason are derivitave and not ultimate.



Epistemologically or metaphysically? Order of being or order of knowing?



jwright82 said:


> We are discuccing only those beleifs that produce an apologetical situation.



But in calling their warrant into question, we end up calling every belief into question. The content of these beliefs is what is at issue.



jwright82 said:


> Sure and I would say that the only ground for warrant is the three points I mentioned above.



What exactly do you mean by "ground for warrant"? The ground for arguing a lack of warrant (the _de jure_ argument) is that one or more faculties are not functioning properly.


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> So logical laws are not a function of propositions and therefore of language, right?



It is ironic that you bring up Wittgenstein because I actually read the later Wittgenstein through the lens of Dooyeweerd, and I read Dooyeweerd through the lens of the later Wittgenstein. So I would side with Wittgenstein here and say "sure it is a function of language" but we think in a language. That is the reason why the question of what is the relationship between language and reality for the later Wittgenstein is a moot one. I agree with Hilary Putnam at this point who said something like "what we call reality and language are so closely united that there is no point in seperating them." 

Which I interpret as saying that we all must think (in a language) and talk about the same stuff. So logic in its specialized language game is about propositions, hence metaphysically Dooyeweerd's logical aspect of creation. But for Dooyeweerd we go through through the day experiencing, and with Wittgenstein talking about (overlapping language games), all the aspects of creation rolled into one like different threads on a rope, I believe Wittgenstein uses the same metaphor for all the language games.



P. F. Pugh said:


> You can also be justified in untrue beliefs.
> 
> Suppose that I walk into a room where a light fixture has been cleverly made to look like a skylight. So, I look up and say "oh, it must be sunny outside" even though (unbeknownst to me) it is, in fact, raining. Was I justified in my belief, despite the fact that the belief was untrue? Justification has nothing to do with truth-value. That's why knowledge is never defined as "justified belief."



Point taken and maybe my use of the word has been cause for confusion, would you prefer I use true and false, or knowledge verse no knowledge? And I know my grammer and spelling are horrible, I need to get back into college. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Epistemologically or metaphysically? Order of being or order of knowing?



This for Van Til, and me, is more an issue of authority and autonomy. That is to say is our conscience an ultimate authority, not does it give us moral knowledge, in all matters of ethics? If it is than that is autonomy, this is why the unbeleiver needs a "good reason" to except any evil, or what they find as evil, in the world being allowed by God, as if God owed them a moral explination because "it doesn't makes sense to them". Also for Van Til he would argue that epistemology and metaphysics can be distinct in theory only. Actually they are one in the grand scheme of things, this is why he would argue that what is true in one affects what is true in the other. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> But in calling their warrant into question, we end up calling every belief into question. The content of these beliefs is what is at issue.



Can't I call into question the truth-value of these beleifs by attacking their epistemological foundation? Does this call into question their warrant for any beleif, sure but that is the consequence of having a bad foundation to start with. I would say that they still have warrant by virtue of being created in the image of God, even though they deny this in theory. You see the issue is not why they have warrant and true beleifs but how they can have waraant and true beleifs without?

Proper function theories explain only so far back but they do not answer questions of authority and they don't take into considerstion, properly that is, total depravity (which is a theological fact). K. Scott Oliphant studyed under Plantinga and has a lot of respect for him. In an essay he wrote he said in a footnote that Plantinga's model might work with some modifications, these being theological modifications and the insuing philosophical implications. 

Sighn up for the WTS philidelphia media center, only if you want to of course, and go here to Dr. Oliphant's talks and find the one near the bottom entitled _Plantinga and the Problem of Beleiving in God_, Westminster Theological Seminary - Media Center. You can hear what his criticisms are of him. I heard him say affectionatly that "if Plantinga would have gotten a theology degree first (or something like this) he would have revolutionized the philosophical world". By that he tounge and cheek meant that we must move from good theology to then good philosophy and Plantinga is amazing in philosophy just not in theology. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> What exactly do you mean by "ground for warrant"? The ground for arguing a lack of warrant (the _de jure_ argument) is that one or more faculties are not functioning properly.



Exactly what I said above, it is only by virtue of the fact that we live in God's creation and are made in his image that any of us can have warrant or truth. Proper functioning theories don't give the ultimate reason why we can have warrant, so I mean that it is these two truths (plus common grace, I forgot that one) that we, beleiver and unbeleiver, can have any warrant at all. Your theories are nice explinations in the short term so to speak but in the long term they don't answer all the questions, if that makes sense?


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> Point taken and maybe my use of the word has been cause for confusion, would you prefer I use true and false, or knowledge verse no knowledge? And I know my grammer and spelling are horrible, I need to get back into college.



Your use of the word has been simply wrong. The difference between warrant and justification is this: justification presumes that the burden of proof is on the knower, while warrant presumes that it is on the skeptic.



jwright82 said:


> This for Van Til, and me, is more an issue of authority and autonomy. That is to say is our conscience an ultimate authority, not does it give us moral knowledge, in all matters of ethics?



This whole question, though, assumes that there is a shared view of authority.



jwright82 said:


> Can't I call into question the truth-value of these beleifs by attacking their epistemological foundation?



I'd say that resorting to the tactics of Freudians, Marxists, and Nietzchians is rather low. To attack warrant is not to attack truth-value, but simply to attack whether their beliefs are in the realm of legitimate discourse.



jwright82 said:


> Proper function theories explain only so far back but they do not answer questions of authority



James, my point is that these questions beg the question in favor of Christian theism. A savvy atheist is going to see right through it.


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> Your use of the word has been simply wrong. The difference between warrant and justification is this: justification presumes that the burden of proof is on the knower, while warrant presumes that it is on the skeptic.


 
But you never answered my question. What word would you prefer I use to convey what I'm saying? Their beleifs are false, does that work? I used those words the way that Bahnsen and Van Til did, if they don't use those words the same way that Plantinga does than O.K., but I have have read other philosophers use those words in the same way. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> This whole question, though, assumes that there is a shared view of authority.



Actually it assumes two different views of authority the beleiver and the unbeleiver.



P. F. Pugh said:


> I'd say that resorting to the tactics of Freudians, Marxists, and Nietzchians is rather low.



How I am I resorting to their tactics? Though I do like all of these thinkers at times, Nietzche the most.



P. F. Pugh said:


> To attack warrant is not to attack truth-value, but simply to attack whether their beliefs are in the realm of legitimate discourse.



I agree, but lets be concerned with truth-value than. You cannot argue that an unbeleiver has true beleifs about reality in an ultimate sense?



P. F. Pugh said:


> James, my point is that these questions beg the question in favor of Christian theism. A savvy atheist is going to see right through it.



In a way your right, how could creation not beg the question in favor of Christian theism, since we know in advance the impossibility of the contrary? That is really in a way what Van Til's major goal was, to force us to aknowlaedge upfront (in our apologetics and philosophy) what we know to be true in theology, we cannot set it aside and act like creation is something other than creation. I know it may seem unfair to pit you with these questions which put in a place where you are seemingly put between a rock and a hard place theologically but that is Van Til's point, if you try to ride the razor's edge you will fall (philosophically and theologically speaking) on one side or the other.


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> What word would you prefer I use to convey what I'm saying?



Justification is traditionally understood as that which separates mere true belief from knowledge---this is the consistent historical usage, going back to Plato. Warrant is a version of the same quality that places the burden of proof on the skeptic rather than the knower.

Frankly, the only term I can think of that conveys what I understand you to mean is "sound argument" (a valid argument in which all premises are true), however this would disqualify nearly all beliefs.



jwright82 said:


> Actually it assumes two different views of authority the beleiver and the unbeleiver.



Explain, please.



jwright82 said:


> How I am I resorting to their tactics?



You are attempting to disqualify a certain set of beliefs from the realm of the discourse by assuming from the outset that they don't belong there. It's similar to the way that Freud dismisses Christian belief by claiming that it is misplaced sexual lust; Marx does the same thing, except for him it's misplaced social discontent; for Nietzche, Christianity is an attempt by the weak to tie the hands of the strong---i.e. it's about power. To a savvy atheist, that's what the _de jure_ question will sound like: just another form of the same fallacious argument---assume that the opponent's position is wrong and come up with a story about a malfunctioning cognitive faculty or attempt to gain power.



jwright82 said:


> In a way your right, how could creation not beg the question in favor of Christian theism, since we know in advance the impossibility of the contrary?



I'm not talking about creation: I'm talking about the question that you ask about creation. The question assumes that there must be some authority. The atheist sees it as you trying to grab power.


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> Justification is traditionally understood as that which separates mere true belief from knowledge---this is the consistent historical usage, going back to Plato.



That is how I have always used it. My point is I know that they already have no justification for their beleifs. The TA and TC point out that they have no warrant or justification unless Christian theism is true. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Explain, please.



Certianly, the unbeleiver assumes they are the ultimate authority in all matters. Their conscience and reason are ultimate in every sense and they believe that appealing to those are sufficient enough answer every objection to that authority. The beleiver assumes that their conscience and reason are derivitave in the sense that they derive their authority from God. Murder is wrong not because reason or our conscience says so but because God says so. It can be no other way. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> You are attempting to disqualify a certain set of beliefs from the realm of the discourse by assuming from the outset that they don't belong there. It's similar to the way that Freud dismisses Christian belief by claiming that it is misplaced sexual lust; Marx does the same thing, except for him it's misplaced social discontent; for Nietzche, Christianity is an attempt by the weak to tie the hands of the strong---i.e. it's about power. To a savvy atheist, that's what the _de jure_ question will sound like: just another form of the same fallacious argument---assume that the opponent's position is wrong and come up with a story about a malfunctioning cognitive faculty or attempt to gain power.



No what I'm saying is that the unbeleiving worldview cannot be true no matter what. They can offer their ideas in the realm of discourse all they want, but it is of no value they are wrong. That is a theological truth that we know is true. The TA and TC is only a working out of how one argues philosophically from these theological truths. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> I'm not talking about creation: I'm talking about the question that you ask about creation. The question assumes that there must be some authority.



But you are talking creation, anytime you talk about what is you are talking about creation. That is the point. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> The atheist sees it as you trying to grab power.



They can argue that all they want to, I am much more versed in postmodern philosophy than analytic philosophy so I can handle it. To argue for a "grab of power" is almost impossible to argue, and in my 3-4 years of defending the faith from a presupositional point of view I have never met an atheist who could survive the presupositional challange.


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> Murder is wrong not because reason or our conscience says so but because God says so.



So God could make murder not wrong? Or might it be better to say that murder is an offense to God's nature?



jwright82 said:


> My point is I know that they already have no justification for their beleifs. The TA and TC point out that they have no warrant or justification unless Christian theism is true.



How would the falsity of Christian theism disprove proper function?



jwright82 said:


> Certianly, the unbeleiver assumes they are the ultimate authority in all matters.



In which case any appeal to God's authority is moot. Further, given this assumption, no TA on your part is possible. On this assumption, a TC must make sense _to them subjectively_ for it to work.



jwright82 said:


> They can argue that all they want to



That's the trouble, James: you don't have to argue it. It's an assertion.



jwright82 said:


> in my 3-4 years of defending the faith from a presupositional point of view I have never met an atheist who could survive the presupositional challange.



Most likely because they were unfamiliar with the method. Most atheists I have met are analytic/scientistic and wouldn't understand the TC if it were presented. The most likely claim would be that there is a fallacy involved.


----------



## heymike

jwright82 said:


> You must remeber that simply using logic or an idea like causality never explains why there is such things to begin with... Again though you must give an account of why there is logical or scientific laws to begin with.



Hi James, you and Philip have had a lot to say since I last checked in. I want to focus on this one point you responded with. 

Explaining why contradictions are false is quite different from explaining something that could have been different in another world like the color of the sky. Contradictions are necessarily false in this world and in any that is to come. How the law of non-contradiction relates to the character of God is something which I do not feel I can explain. It seems somehow like one of those paradoxes that asks if God is all powerful then he could create a stone he couldn't lift. Anyways, even if I cannot explain the exact relationship between logic and the logos, it is plainly true that a contradiction is false, things don't happen without a cause, and an infinite set is not made through sucessive addition. Now if the atheist must deny one or all three of these in order to remain an atheist, then so be it, "for the fool has said in his heart there is no God."

Going back to the first post in the thread, neither am I a rationalist, but neither do I fail to see how pure reason shows that atheism is absolutely false.


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> So God could make murder not wrong? Or might it be better to say that murder is an offense to God's nature?



The question is could God do anything he wants to do as the Creator? Now he has covenantly bound himself to act in certian ways but we must careful when we start talking about God being "bound" by logic or an appeal to his abstarct nature, that is more than likely idoltry. This implies that he must neccessaraly act in certian ways. Are you correct in appealing to his nature, yes. But what we know of his nature is analogically revealed to us in anthropomorphic language, we don't actually know him as he really is. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> How would the falsity of Christian theism disprove proper function?



Can creation, which includes modules to properly function, be anything other than creation? Van Til wanted to drive this point home that we must start with our theology, work out the philosophical implications of it, and than develop an apologetic from that. I recently came to this conclusion after looking at his presentation of material in both his _Christian Apologetics_ and _The Defense of the Faith_. He lays out his chapters in basicaly this form. 

Proper function wouldn't exist unless chritian theism is true, which we know it is. Showing this logically is a different matter, one that I will devote myself to developing in our subsequent posts, but not impossible. This is why Van Til chose the TA as his preferred method of argument because he knew, as we all should know, that the unbeleiver cannot possibly make sense out of creation without contradicting their own presupossitions and borrowing ideas, or capital, from the christian faith unconciesly or not not. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> In which case any appeal to God's authority is moot. Further, given this assumption, no TA on your part is possible. On this assumption, a TC must make sense _to them subjectively_ for it to work.



Not exactly. When you put reason in perspective as not autonomous than appealing to God's authority in certian instances, like the problem of evil, makes sense even if they don't want to admit it. Is Kant right and the human mind is the source of all order in the universe, which in effect makes us gods? Or is Van Til right in pointing out that human reason is not that great and is more a tool for us to use in making sense of creation? Now this could be a false dichotomy but remeber that there is no definant contradiction in what you and Plantiga are trying to do and what Van Til and I are trying to do. I see no no real reason why I cannot agree with you and Van Til at the same time because you and he are talking about 2 different levels of epistemology. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> That's the trouble, James: you don't have to argue it. It's an assertion.



That is fine, don't confuse a practical application of the method with a fault in the method. And arguing by assertion is wrong for both the beleiver and the unbeleiver.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Most likely because they were unfamiliar with the method. Most atheists I have met are analytic/scientistic and wouldn't understand the TC if it were presented. The most likely claim would be that there is a fallacy involved.



I would refer them to work done by analytical philosophers like Strawson and Van Fraassen in this area. Just because most analytical philosophers are unfamilar with this type of argument has no bearing on its worth or validity. Even Frame in an article, that I will post when I can find it again, admits that he was wrong in assuming that the TA was no different than any other direct argument but he felt that direct arguments could produce the same same results. 

And which fallacy would I be guilty of? If they pointed it out to me than I would adress it. Being a VanTillian doesn't get you off the hook to answering objections to the christian faith or presenting positive arguments in favor of its truth.

---------- Post added at 10:57 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:49 AM ----------




heymike said:


> Hi James, you and Philip have had a lot to say since I last checked in. I want to focus on this one point you responded with.
> 
> Explaining why contradictions are false is quite different from explaining something that could have been different in another world like the color of the sky. Contradictions are necessarily false in this world and in any that is to come. How the law of non-contradiction relates to the character of God is something which I do not feel I can explain. It seems somehow like one of those paradoxes that asks if God is all powerful then he could create a stone he couldn't lift. Anyways, even if I cannot explain the exact relationship between logic and the logos, it is plainly true that a contradiction is false, things don't happen without a cause, and an infinite set is not made through sucessive addition. Now if the atheist must deny one or all three of these in order to remain an atheist, then so be it, "for the fool has said in his heart there is no God."
> 
> Going back to the first post in the thread, neither am I a rationalist, but neither do I fail to see how pure reason shows that atheism is absolutely false.



I agree with what you say here but remeber that I am defending the TA that Van Til used here. What a TA does not do is remove the warrant for an unbeleiver to use say science or morality in their everyday life. It only shows that they cannot ultimatly explain why these things are here. The problem with causality is not not is there no such a thing as causality but why is there such a thing? Is Hume right and it is a mere convention we have, or assumption that is unproven? Or is there some reason, outside of creation (the creator), why we can rationaly explain why causality is here? 

The problem with the cosmological argument is not that it corecctly assumes that God is the first cause of the universe but that it assumes causality to be true upfront. Hume is all that is required to dismantle that assumption. Unbeleiving philosophies will never be able to explain why there is such a thing as causality, or anything else, because they base their arguments on a different foundation than christian theism, which we know to be true prior to any arguments.


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> But what we know of his nature is analogically revealed to us in anthropomorphic language, we don't actually know him as he really is.



But we know Him as He is revealed. We must be careful that we don't treat analogical language as if it were equivocal (and let us not forget the Divine origin of language itself). We know in a creaturely way, yet we do know. God's decrees are not arbitrary (Islam): they flow from the Divine reason, which is part of the Divine nature.



jwright82 said:


> Can creation, which includes modules to properly function, be anything other than creation?



Again, the possibility of this question presupposes Christian theism. Joe Atheist reverses the question---the fact that his theory has less explanatory power is not an argument against it.



jwright82 said:


> I see no no real reason why I cannot agree with you and Van Til at the same time because you and he are talking about 2 different levels of epistemology.



I think my point is that the TA and TCs are only capable of making sense to a Christian.



jwright82 said:


> When you put reason in perspective as not autonomous than appealing to God's authority in certian instances, like the problem of evil, makes sense even if they don't want to admit it.



But they never will, which is my point. When your first premise is the autonomy of your own reason, anything that contradicts it will be rejected out of hand---it's not in the realm of rational discourse.



jwright82 said:


> And which fallacy would I be guilty of?



I know many philosophers who would most likely accuse you of equivocation on multiple points.


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> But we know Him as He is revealed. We must be careful that we don't treat analogical language as if it were equivocal (and let us not forget the Divine origin of language itself). We know in a creaturely way, yet we do know. God's decrees are not arbitrary (Islam): they flow from the Divine reason, which is part of the Divine nature.



Yes but that revealation is always anthropomorphic. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Again, the possibility of this question presupposes Christian theism. Joe Atheist reverses the question---the fact that his theory has less explanatory power is not an argument against it.



Can the atheist ever correctly interpret creation as anything other than creation? If not than we christian have the upper hand logicaly. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> I think my point is that the TA and TCs are only capable of making sense to a Christian.



No the theological truths lead to using philosophy in a way that leads to the TA or TC and that is a correct and valid logical form. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> But they never will, which is my point. When your first premise is the autonomy of your own reason, anything that contradicts it will be rejected out of hand---it's not in the realm of rational discourse.



Can autonomous reason do what it is trying to do? If it can't than they have a challange to their own objections.



P. F. Pugh said:


> I know many philosophers who would most likely accuse you of equivocation on multiple points.



Well I do not see where I changed the meaning of a term halfway through an argument. I do not keep up with the whole debate on foundationalism and anti-foundationalism, which I should repent of and are doing thanks to you, and yall's use of certian terms but that doesn't make me guilty of the fallacy of equivocation.


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> Yes but that revealation is always anthropomorphic.



Yet at the same time accurate---one must never mistake it for equivocation (which seems to be the direction you're going).



jwright82 said:


> Can the atheist ever correctly interpret creation as anything other than creation?



Explain exactly what you mean by this. Certainly he will never understand the ultimate _telos_ of creation. But then again, he thinks the question senseless.



jwright82 said:


> No the theological truths lead to using philosophy in a way that leads to the TA or TC and that is a correct and valid logical form.



Thank you for making my point.



jwright82 said:


> Can autonomous reason do what it is trying to do?



Unfortunately, yes. It attempts to suppress the truth in unrighteousness and does so quite successfully.



jwright82 said:


> Well I do not see where I changed the meaning of a term halfway through an argument.



They do it with the (deductively valid) ontological argument---they will do it even further with a transcendental argument.


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> Yet at the same time accurate---one must never mistake it for equivocation (which seems to be the direction you're going).



Analogical knowledge does not equal equivocal knowledge. There is no absolute choice between univocal or equivical knowlegde, the later Wittgenstein would agree. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Explain exactly what you mean by this. Certainly he will never understand the ultimate _telos_ of creation. But then again, he thinks the question senseless.



What I mean is this, can a human make sense out of creation without ever appealing to creation as creation? That is to say is the world so nuetral that it can accommodate a multitude of interpretaions? Does his thinkng that the question is senseless make it senseless?



P. F. Pugh said:


> Thank you for making my point.



What point is that?



P. F. Pugh said:


> Unfortunately, yes. It attempts to suppress the truth in unrighteousness and does so quite successfully.



How can it? It is subject to what Van Til called the rational/irrational distinction in aoutonomous thought. It cannot "successfully" do anything at all.



P. F. Pugh said:


> They do it with the (deductively valid) ontological argument---they will do it even further with a transcendental argument.



I must say that I do not see that.


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> Analogical knowledge does not equal equivocal knowledge.



Indeed not. However, your exaggeration of it seems to lead in that direction.



jwright82 said:


> can a human make sense out of creation without ever appealing to creation as creation? That is to say is the world so nuetral that it can accommodate a multitude of interpretaions?



What do you mean by "make sense of"? To make sense of something means to interpret it. I thought the whole point of presuppositionalism is that this is precisely what the unbeliever does!



jwright82 said:


> What point is that?



That only through theology does the TA make sense at all.



jwright82 said:


> Does his thinkng that the question is senseless make it senseless?



Objectively, no. Subjectively, yes. I can ask a perfectly sensical question in German (I'm studying the language) and the average American would be unable to understand it. Doesn't make it objectively nonsensical, but subjectively the effect is the same.



jwright82 said:


> How can it?



That's another debate entirely. According to Romans 1, though, it seems that autonomous reason has been catastrophically successful in deluding itself and suppressing the truth.


----------



## Ryft

heymike said:


> Would this be a bridge between presuppositional and classical apologists?



"The apologist can argue transcendentally that human logic and science have no adequate foundation apart from the Word of the true and living God. [What he cannot do is] make human logic and science his self-authenticating authorities and then use these to prove God. ... To say that logic and science are God-neutral common ground is to deny the existence of the sovereign God of Scripture for whom and through whom and to whom are all things. To say that the impersonal axioms of logic and science are the most basic principles of reality is to deny the Christ who is before all things, and in whom all things consist. ... In its quest for common ground with the skeptic, evidentialism makes concessions that compromise the very essence of Biblical Christianity ... Not only does evidentialism concede too much, it seeks to prove too little. The most evidentialism claims to be able to do is to prove the probable truth of Christianity. But if Christianity is only probably true, then Christianity is also possibly false." (Grover Gunn, "A short explanation and defense of presuppositional apologetics," [Southern Presbyterian Press].)

"It was Rene Descartes in the seventeenth century who most clearly divorced knowledge from revelation and laid the foundations upon which many after him would build. Descartes sought to establish certainty by doubting everything that could be doubted in order to reconstruct knowledge on unquestionable foundations. His method fueled an entire movement in Western culture and philosophy called the Enlightenment. Catholic theologian Hans Kung describes the result: 'With Descartes, European consciousness in a critical development reached an epochal turning point. Basic certainty is no longer centered on God, but on man. In other words, the medieval way of reasoning, from certainty of God to certainty of the self, is replaced by the modern approach, from certainty of the self to certainty of God.' Descartes proved a perhaps inadvertent midwife in producing our cultural moment of skepticism. Following Descartes, what counts for knowledge today no longer seeks its ultimate criterion in God and revelation, but it remains centered on the subject, deconstructing everything else by means of corrosive doubt." (Joe Boot, "Broader cultural and philosophical challenges," in Ravi Zacharias (Ed.) _Beyond Opinion: Living the Faith We Defend_ [Thomas Nelson, 2007], p. 156.)

"I believe that by recovering the value of faith in Christ for knowledge we can face our skeptical, doubt-filled time with confidence and find our way out of the humanistic quagmire. Otherwise, even with the best intentions we will become impotent allies of secularism. I believe that Augustine, Pascal, and others who have a similar direction of thought—placing faith commitment prior to true understanding as the sun by which all other facts are illumined—help to give us the tools needed in our day. As an apologist who has defended the faith in many contexts, I am utterly convinced that we need to return to the transcendent, triune God made manifest in Jesus Christ as our criterion in both apologetic message and method." (_Ibid._, p. 161.)




P. F. Pugh said:


> That only through theology does the TA make sense at all.



The situation is even more desperate: it is only through theology that anything make sense at all.


----------



## Philip

Ryft said:


> it is only through theology that anything make sense at all.



Objectively, yes. Subjectively, not necessarily.


----------



## Ryft

P. F. Pugh said:


> Objectively, yes. Subjectively, not necessarily.



"Subjectively" is autobiographical information, which is fundamentally irrelevant when produced by an unregenerate mind deluded in sin, from those who suppress the truth they know about God by their wickedness and whose mind is thereby darkened and confused. Such a person might imagine something "makes sense" to their thinking, but that is neither compelling nor intelligible. "Claiming to be wise, they became fools." And I should think we dishonor God if we set aside what makes sense by his word to entertain the contorted imaginings of an unregenerate mind who makes crooked the straight path of the Lord.

Rather we should honor God by setting forth the truth faithfully, speaking what is objectively true into the imago Dei which constitutes every person. "For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ" (2 Cor 10:3-5). It is by proclaiming the truth that we most faithfully defend the truth, caring more about being faithful to God than about being sensitive to imaginings of the unregenerate.

"Objectively" is fundamentally relevant, for its subject is divine truth; "subjectively" is fundamentally irrelevant, for its subject is sinful flesh.


----------



## Philip

Ryft said:


> "subjectively" is fundamentally irrelevant, for its subject is sinful flesh.



If this is your opinion, then you will never try to convince anyone. Do you try to speak persuasively? If so, then you speak to subjectivity. When we do apologetics, we must _always_ remember that we are rarely actually speaking about the logical problems---we are simply trying to clear them away so that the real issue is exposed.

Let's take the problem of evil: nine times out of ten when this question is raised, whether by Christians or non-Christians, there is real pain involved---there's a story involved. And unless you are willing to deal with it existentially, you will never address the real issue. Setting forth the truth faithfully means caring not only for objective arguments, but for the subjects created in the _imago Dei_ to whom these arguments are addressed. One must speak not only to the head but to the heart. Not every argument is useful for every person: some need an argument for the existence of God. Others need to be shown His goodness, etc. The minute that we forget that apologetics speaks subjectively too, we have lost our way.


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> Indeed not. However, your exaggeration of it seems to lead in that direction.



Since we are discussing this on a different thread we can discuss it there if you are all right with that?



P. F. Pugh said:


> [What do you mean by "make sense of"? To make sense of something means to interpret it. I thought the whole point of presuppositionalism is that this is precisely what the unbeliever does!



Exactly to interpret it. If I because of my presupossitions interpret a train as being a an illusion that I am a dead duck when I walk out in front of it. We can interpret reality any way we want but reality is one way and we have to correctly interpret it to survive in it. Reality is the anchor of interpretaion. We all must think and talk about the same stuff. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> That only through theology does the TA make sense at all.



No I would say that the TA has made sense to all philosophers up until the analytical movment, which they are thankfully coming around to to. I can appreciate your concerns with the TA but you have to my knowledge presented no logical problem with the form of the argument I gave you, it is one thing to disagree with the content of the argument another to disagree with the form of it. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Objectively, no. Subjectively, yes. I can ask a perfectly sensical question in German (I'm studying the language) and the average American would be unable to understand it. Doesn't make it objectively nonsensical, but subjectively the effect is the same.



But objectivly is all that matters. I mean sure someone who doesn't know any better can be warranted to believe just about anything but they are still wrong. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> That's another debate entirely. According to Romans 1, though, it seems that autonomous reason has been catastrophically successful in deluding itself and suppressing the truth.



But has it been successful despite of itself or consistantly with it self?


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> We can interpret reality any way we want but reality is one way and we have to correctly interpret it to survive in it. Reality is the anchor of interpretaion. We all must think and talk about the same stuff.



Correct---to a point. I don't see how atheism will lead one to walk out in front of a train (nihilism, possibly would, but that's just one form). I see quite a few atheists surviving fairly well.



jwright82 said:


> but you have to my knowledge presented no logical problem with the form of the argument I gave you



Yeah I have: the problem is that it gives me no reason to believe. All you've proven is "I have a consistent theory." Big deal. The conclusion isn't compelling to anyone but yourself. It isn't logically compelling (this is also the reason, by the way, why I don't like Kant). The "justification" here is merely _interesting_ to a certain brand of philosopher.



jwright82 said:


> But objectivly is all that matters.



Ah, so if the atheist doesn't speak English, you speak to him in English because "objectively is all that matters"? Do I really need to go into why the proposition is absurd? You can't communicate with someone unless you speak the same language. If they are wrong, then you must show that you are correct if you want to convince them. Right now we're getting real close to Barth-style fideism (is bringing Barth in the Van Tillian equivalent of Godwin's Law?).



jwright82 said:


> But has it been successful despite of itself or consistantly with it self?



Consistently with itself. According to Romans 1, this is part of what the wrath of God looks like: God gives us over to sin and we are allowed to continue to deceive ourselves.


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> Correct---to a point. I don't see how atheism will lead one to walk out in front of a train (nihilism, possibly would, but that's just one form). I see quite a few atheists surviving fairly well.



No, no, no. I am refering to someone who has inccorrect presupossitions about reality and trying to consistantly live them out. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Yeah I have: the problem is that it gives me no reason to believe. All you've proven is "I have a consistent theory." Big deal. The conclusion isn't compelling to anyone but yourself. It isn't logically compelling (this is also the reason, by the way, why I don't like Kant). The "justification" here is merely _interesting_ to a certain brand of philosopher.



You don't understand how a presupossition works out logically. I think I have a better example of it. In Russell's analysis of the statment "the present king of France is bald" is false because there is no present king of france, but the falsity of this stament implies that it is true. But that is equally false because it cannot be true that "the present king of France is bald". So we are at an impasse, how can both statments be false at the same time, which implies the truth of the oppisite statment? 

Well viewing logically in a presupossitional way avoids this confusion. The two different statments are not false but meaningless. If presupossition is in this form y being true or false presuposses x being true. X is true therefore y can either true or false.

1. (y)"the present king of France is bald" presuposses the truthvalue of the statment (x)"there is a present king of France"
2. There is no present King of therefore x is false
3. x is false therefore y is neither true nor false, or y is meaningless

This is a much better way to analyze statments of this kind. Therefore unless God's existance is irrelavant to everything else than we must presuposse that in order for to make sense out of anything in creation. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Ah, so if the atheist doesn't speak English, you speak to him in English because "objectively is all that matters"? Do I really need to go into why the proposition is absurd? You can't communicate with someone unless you speak the same language. If they are wrong, then you must show that you are correct if you want to convince them. Right now we're getting real close to Barth-style fideism (is bringing Barth in the Van Tillian equivalent of Godwin's Law?).



Why does your first statment seem to imply that I am saying that only english is the language that is objective? What I am pointing out is a weakness in you overemphasis of the idea of warrant. You seem to be making it the end all of epistemological considerations. You are right in arguing for its legitemacy but I think as a concept it becomes irrelavant when we move into tougher epistemological consideration like knowledge and truth. Barth and Van Til are so far aprt in their theologies that there is no comparison, Van Til's book on Barth is very good you may want to pick it up. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Consistently with itself. According to Romans 1, this is part of what the wrath of God looks like: God gives us over to sin and we are allowed to continue to deceive ourselves.



Oh I don't disagree, the schizophrinic's beleifs about things are subjectivly consistant but objectivly wrong. Your are still stuck with the idea that we are merely looking for coherence in our worldviews and that ends up with us comparing worldviews with eachother only. But remember that we are also and more importantly comparing them with reality.


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> I am refering to someone who has inccorrect presupossitions about reality and trying to consistantly live them out.



Which ones are you referring to, exactly? I see plenty of people living pretty consistently with themselves at the center of their own universe.



jwright82 said:


> In Russell's analysis of the statment "the present king of France is bald" is false because there is no present king of france, but the falsity of this stament implies that it is true. But that is equally false because it cannot be true that "the present king of France is bald". So we are at an impasse, how can both statments be false at the same time, which implies the truth of the oppisite statment?



Very simply: we deny the referential theory of language. Talking about something does not imply its existence---it's conceptual confusion at its worst and most pedantic.

I can have (and have had) lively debates over the subject of whether balrogs have wings, regardless of the fact that balrogs only exist in the lengendarium of Tolkien's Middle Earth.



jwright82 said:


> Why does your first statment seem to imply that I am saying that only english is the language that is objective?



It doesn't. My point is that the objective truth of a statement has nothing to do with whether it will make sense to me.



jwright82 said:


> You are right in arguing for its legitemacy but I think as a concept it becomes irrelavant when we move into tougher epistemological consideration like knowledge and truth.



We have gone around and around on this. The fact is that warrant is sufficient for a knowledge-claim until you present enough of a counter-argument to convince a person that his position is not the case. The burden (for one who is warranted in a belief) is one of disproof.



jwright82 said:


> Your are still stuck with the idea that we are merely looking for coherence in our worldviews and that ends up with us comparing worldviews with eachother only. But remember that we are also and more importantly comparing them with reality.



But this is exactly the trouble: the paranoid schizophrenic is interpreting reality in light of his delusion. The only way to cure it is to get rid of the source---to cure the delusion.


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> Which ones are you referring to, exactly? I see plenty of people living pretty consistently with themselves at the center of their own universe.



Well I was refering to hypothetical ones but ok. The atheist, is it possible to affirm what Romans tells us about general revealation and what man immediatly knows concerning God and argue that they can have any warrant for their beleifs based on atheistic presupossitions? Can they go through correctly interpreting things and die, then meet their maker and have any warrant at all? Is the Buhddist really warranted to believe as they do yet at the same time and in the same relationship the bible tells us indirectly that they are not? 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Very simply: we deny the referential theory of language. Talking about something does not imply its existence---it's conceptual confusion at its worst and most pedantic.



You are missing the point. If I ask whether or not Jack still beats his wife, it matters not how much I can say about said hypothetical wife if in fact Jack is not married. I can dream up all sorts of interesting things and talk on and on about Jack's hypothetical wife and why he should not treat in such a way but all that is meaningless in in fact Jack has no wife. Russell's analysis fails at this point which is why we must bring the logical idea of presupossition to make more sense out of it. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> I can have (and have had) lively debates over the subject of whether balrogs have wings, regardless of the fact that balrogs only exist in the lengendarium of Tolkien's Middle Earth.



The logic is still sound here, all talk about barlogs would not be false but meaningless if Tolkien had never invented them. Their existance is not the point but does anytalk about them presuposse that Tolkien invented them?



P. F. Pugh said:


> It doesn't. My point is that the objective truth of a statement has nothing to do with whether it will make sense to me.[/QUOTE}
> 
> True but I am talking something else. Making sense out of creation means correctly interpreting it.
> 
> 
> 
> P. F. Pugh said:
> 
> 
> 
> [We have gone around and around on this. The fact is that warrant is sufficient for a knowledge-claim until you present enough of a counter-argument to convince a person that his position is not the case. The burden (for one who is warranted in a belief) is one of disproof.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In all fairness we have gone round and round about many things, which in my case at least has only forced me to be better so thank for your very wise criticisms. On warrant though you seem to not allow for logical evidence at all in any consideration of warrant. For instance pointing out to someone that they are committing a logical fallacy in a beleif that they had warrant for previously seems to me to be sufficient evidence that they no longer have said warrant. But you have never to my knowledge admited such a thing.
> 
> You have it seems to me argued for warrant also in such cases where the only evidence avaible for warrant is based on ignorance, like someone who knows nothing about philosophy claiming it is pointless. If I as someone who has studyed philosophy a great deal encounter such a person I need only point out that they know nothing about philosophy and that eliminates all warrant for their beleif until they study up and present evidence to justify their claim. Both of those arguments are logical in nature. But in our discussions you seem to rule out such arguments on grounds like "the person finds such questions stupid", which seems to me to only base warrant on more ignorance which would make the whole thing irrational.
> 
> 
> 
> P. F. Pugh said:
> 
> 
> 
> But this is exactly the trouble: the paranoid schizophrenic is interpreting reality in light of his delusion. The only way to cure it is to get rid of the source---to cure the delusion.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Yes but how will do they function on their beleifs?
Click to expand...


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> Is the Buhddist really warranted to believe as they do yet at the same time and in the same relationship the bible tells us indirectly that they are not?



They are warranted---because of the fall, their _sensus Divinitatus_ is not working properly. This is part of what giving a person over to their unbelief means.



jwright82 said:


> Russell's analysis fails at this point which is why we must bring the logical idea of presupossition to make more sense out of it.



And I would say that Russell's problem is grounded in a bad understanding of language and meaning. His analysis is unnecessary.



jwright82 said:


> The logic is still sound here, all talk about barlogs would not be false but meaningless if Tolkien had never invented them. Their existance is not the point but does anytalk about them presuposse that Tolkien invented them?



The point of Russell's paradox is precisely their existence. You and I maintain that it is irrelevant, though, for entirely different reasons.



jwright82 said:


> Making sense out of creation means correctly interpreting it.



I think you have confused "making sense of" something with understanding it. One may be false in how one makes sense of something.



jwright82 said:


> For instance pointing out to someone that they are committing a logical fallacy in a beleif that they had warrant for previously seems to me to be sufficient evidence that they no longer have said warrant.



If and only if the belief in question was reached by means of formal logic. If it was reached by means of the senses, or some other form of deduction, it is more likely that a _de facto_ critique is needed.



jwright82 said:


> Both of those arguments are logical in nature. But in our discussions you seem to rule out such arguments on grounds like "the person finds such questions stupid", which seems to me to only base warrant on more ignorance which would make the whole thing irrational.



I'm simply pointing out that the rank and file even of intellectuals will find your criticisms to be either a) a logical puzzle to be solved away (the way that atheists, like William Rowe, treat the ontological argument) b) "quaint" in its reasoning c) uninteresting and irrelevant. My point is that you should probably first explain why they should care.



jwright82 said:


> Yes but how will do they function on their beleifs?



That question only works from the outside. Inside the delusion, it's irrelevant.


----------



## heymike

jwright82 said:


> I agree with what you say here but remeber that I am defending the TA that Van Til used here. What a TA does not do is remove the warrant for an unbeleiver to use say science or morality in their everyday life. It only shows that they cannot ultimatly explain why these things are here. The problem with causality is not not is there no such a thing as causality but why is there such a thing? Is Hume right and it is a mere convention we have, or assumption that is unproven? Or is there some reason, outside of creation (the creator), why we can rationaly explain why causality is here?



While an unbeliever may not be able to explain why causality is here, my aim would be show how causality and other interferences of the mind disprove atheism. I am not against the transcendental argument, yet it's interesting the argument must assume that an unbeliever accepts causality. If they question it like Hume, I don't think it works.

On the other hand, Hume is right about questioning causality to an extent. The apparent cause of an action may not in fact be the actual cause. In a unique instance, despite many common occurrences otherwise, another force may act upon the eight ball rather than the cue ball as it appears to hit it. But, and this is where Hume's eloquence hits a wall: if the cue ball moves without an observable cause, the action is most certainly not uncaused!

Once you turn that corner with Hume, and tell me if I am wrong, the transcendental and cosmological arguments would then be applicable.


----------



## heymike

Ryft said:


> "To say that logic and science are God-neutral common ground is to deny the existence of the sovereign God of Scripture." Grover Gunn



R.C. Sproul is a classical apologist who I cannot recall ever saying that. Neither I could imagine one saying that. However logic and science are helpful starting points, but to say that they are God-neutral is something else entirely. 

It is almost as if the presuppositionalist fears that because the classical apologist argues from irrefutable metaphysical arguments that they are somehow God-neutral. If you catch my train of thought, you may also find this a little ironic.

And I certainly agree "that we need to return to the transcendent, triune God made manifest in Jesus Christ as our criterion in both apologetic message and method." That is to the one who did not know what it was to be alone until he died for sinners!


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> They are warranted---because of the fall, their _sensus Divinitatus_ is not working properly. This is part of what giving a person over to their unbelief means.



Romans says that they are "without exscuse" because they "know God". You are taking one part of that verse and using it to interpret the whole thing because of philosophical predispositions. In a sense you are using philosophy to interpret Scripture.



P. F. Pugh said:


> And I would say that Russell's problem is grounded in a bad understanding of language and meaning. His analysis is unnecessary.[/QUOTE}
> 
> But you have not ruled out the presuppositional analysis as better and more meaningful.
> 
> 
> 
> P. F. Pugh said:
> 
> 
> 
> The point of Russell's paradox is precisely their existence. You and I maintain that it is irrelevant, though, for entirely different reasons.[/QUOTE}
> 
> But how is my ruling it out unsound in anyway?
> 
> 
> 
> P. F. Pugh said:
> 
> 
> 
> I think you have confused "making sense of" something with understanding it. One may be false in how one makes sense of something.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> No what I mean is in interpreting facts. The atheist comes across evidence for the ressurection and says "wow what an interesting freak accident of nature", that is an interpretation of things.
> 
> 
> 
> P. F. Pugh said:
> 
> 
> 
> If and only if the belief in question was reached by means of formal logic. If it was reached by means of the senses, or some other form of deduction, it is more likely that a _de facto_ critique is needed.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> That only has meaning if all beleifs are reached on inductive grounds alone, or that it is on inductive grounds only that beleifs are warranted. When a Nazi defends himself by appealing to the fact that all Nazi's thought genocide was o.k., will never be warranted and therefore get them of the hook for beleiving that. If and when the majority of Americans believe that gay marriage is ok, will it than be warranted for a beleiver to agree with that because evryone agrees with that?
> 
> You see in my hypothetical thought puzzle warrant was based on ignorance alone and further based on more ignorance, that throws such a huge monkey in your insistance on warrant only considerations as to make it almost irrelivant. I am not saying that all considerations of warrant are irrelivant just only your over emphasis on it. It is too problimatic to be given such stature as you are trying to do.
> 
> 
> 
> P. F. Pugh said:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm simply pointing out that the rank and file even of intellectuals will find your criticisms to be either a) a logical puzzle to be solved away (the way that atheists, like William Rowe, treat the ontological argument) b) "quaint" in its reasoning c) uninteresting and irrelevant. My point is that you should probably first explain why they should care.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I am not so sure about that but I don't really care to argue what the rank and file would think. The question is does warrant really matter if it is based on what in formal logic would be a fallacy or pure ignorance, does it in these cases really matter? Or can I simply dismiss the beleif by saying "you don't know what your talking about" or "your beleif is based on unsound reason"?
> 
> 
> 
> P. F. Pugh said:
> 
> 
> 
> That question only works from the outside. Inside the delusion, it's irrelevant.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Than why do we put these sort people away for the most part because they cannot "function" in society? If what your saying is true than they can function just fine regardless of their delusions.
> 
> ---------- Post added at 10:54 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:46 AM ----------
> 
> 
> 
> 
> heymike said:
> 
> 
> 
> While an unbeliever may not be able to explain why causality is here, my aim would be show how causality and other interferences of the mind disprove atheism. I am not against the transcendental argument, yet it's interesting the argument must assume that an unbeliever accepts causality. If they question it like Hume, I don't think it works.
> 
> On the other hand, Hume is right about questioning causality to an extent. The apparent cause of an action may not in fact be the actual cause. In a unique instance, despite many common occurrences otherwise, another force may act upon the eight ball rather than the cue ball as it appears to hit it. But, and this is where Hume's eloquence hits a wall: if the cue ball moves without an observable cause, the action is most certainly not uncaused!
> 
> Once you turn that corner with Hume, and tell me if I am wrong, the transcendental and cosmological arguments would then be applicable.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> And I am not exactly against what your proposing, questions of method are not really the areas that I would go to the mat over but I would offer considerations for making such arguments better, or in a sense giving you something to think about. I think that Hume is good in showing that we cannot justify our beleif in causality based on autonomous reason alone. Yes both arguments would be applicable but I would think that the trascendental argument is better and that In my humble opinion traditional formulations of the cosmological argument are problimatic. I hold out that it is possible for someone to take Van Til's criticisms of traditional apologetics and reformulate them on more solidly theological and philosophical grounds.
> 
> Your right about thr TA assuming that the unbeleiver accepts the existance of causality. But I think it would still work for Hume by showing that he cannot live consitantly if he in fact, which I don't think he actually did, didn't believe in causality. He might and appeal to saying that he was refering to our proof of our beleif in causality and not in the beleif itself but we might than point out that he has really criticized autonomous reason.
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> But you have not ruled out the presuppositional analysis as better and more meaningful.



No---it's unnecessary. Occam's Razor here.



jwright82 said:


> Romans says that they are "without exscuse" because they "know God".



Meaning that the evidence is there for anyone who is willing to see it, but the unbeliever is not willing.



jwright82 said:


> The atheist comes across evidence for the ressurection and says "wow what an interesting freak accident of nature"



That's not what he says at all. He says "But . . . but . . . but" and disregards the evidence entirely.



jwright82 said:


> If and when the majority of Americans believe that gay marriage is ok, will it than be warranted for a beleiver to agree with that because evryone agrees with that?



I'm going to disregard the Nazi example because of Godwin's Law. A believer is not warranted in this case because a) his heart has been illumined by the Holy Spirit b) he knows what Scripture says on this point. He's inconsistent.

But let's take an unbeliever who has been taught this from birth---I'd say he's warranted because that's all he's ever heard. It's not knowledge because it isn't true, but warrant has to do with sufficient ground for knowledge _claims_.



jwright82 said:


> The question is does warrant really matter if it is based on what in formal logic would be a fallacy or pure ignorance



As I said, all inductive reasoning involves formal fallacies. Therefore your belief that you are having a discussion withanother person is fallacious and based on a lack of evidence to the contrary. My belief in the desk in front of me involves my ignoring the little Rene Descartes in my head talling me that I could be a brain in a vat.



jwright82 said:


> Or can I simply dismiss the beleif by saying "you don't know what your talking about" or "your beleif is based on unsound reason"?



Depends on which beliefs you're attacking---there are times when attacking warrant is helpful. But nine times out of ten, reason isn't the basis for belief X at all.



jwright82 said:


> If what your saying is true than they can function just fine regardless of their delusions.



And it's precisely where the analogy breaks down. Atheists et al generally function just fine in society---it's Christians who cause problems.


----------



## heymike

jwright82 said:


> And I am not exactly against what your proposing, questions of method are not really the areas that I would go to the mat over but I would offer considerations for making such arguments better, or in a sense giving you something to think about. I think that Hume is good in showing that we cannot justify our beleif in causality based on autonomous reason alone. Yes both arguments would be applicable but I would think that the trascendental argument is better and that In my humble opinion traditional formulations of the cosmological argument are problimatic. I hold out that it is possible for someone to take Van Til's criticisms of traditional apologetics and reformulate them on more solidly theological and philosophical grounds.



I don't appreciate "autonomous reason" being forced into the discussion. And I don't think Hume deserves the credit you give him. Yet it's been awhile since I read him, so maybe you can show me something he said.

Traditional forms of the cosmological argument could have been better. Then again some of it comes down to how easily misunderstood Aquinas has been. Almost a thousand years later and William Rowe cannot understand the distinction between the possibility of a set proceeding to infinity and the impossibility of one becoming actually infinite!

Why should Van Til's criticisms be reformulated? To give place for classical apologetics?



> Your right about thr TA assuming that the unbeleiver accepts the existance of causality. But I think it would still work for Hume by showing that he cannot live consitantly if he in fact, which I don't think he actually did, didn't believe in causality. He might and appeal to saying that he was refering to our proof of our beleif in causality and not in the beleif itself but we might than point out that he has really criticized autonomous reason.



Causality is closely linked to non-contradiction... that reality does not contradict itself. Hume or any other person may say otherwise or even think it a possibility, and yet as I have seen, they will not accept that they are contradicting themself in some other area. As if there was something wrong with being inconsistent? One such person was also a fact and value moralist. His reaction was profound when it was said that it is a self-contradiction to treat other people as if they didn't exist when you believe they do. 

It was very far reaching discussion, and yet he could not find it in himself to say otherwise. Which is one reason why I find it superficial to compare classical apologetics with Arminianism.


----------



## Ryft

P. F. Pugh said:


> If this is your opinion, then you will never try to convince anyone. Do you try to speak persuasively?



Indeed I never try to convince anyone. As Christians we are called to spread the gospel and to disciple people; convincing them is God's job, not ours. Some of us plant while others of us water, but it is God who makes it grow. And no, I do not try to speak in a way that persuades them. I try to speak in a way that is faithful to God. It is his word that has power to convict and convince, not my words. Your question harkens my mind to something the apostle Paul said: "When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come with superior eloquence or wisdom as I proclaimed the testimony of God. For I decided to be concerned about nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and with much trembling. My conversation and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not be based on human wisdom but on the power of God" (1 Cor 2:1-5; cf. WCF 9.3, 9.4, 10.1, 14.1).

As Horatius Bonar noted, "What arguments can you expect to prevail with a man who refuses the Gospel? Admit that there are other arguments, yet the man is set against them all. There is not one argument that can be used which he does not hate. His will resists and rejects every persuasion and motive. How, then, is this resistance to be overcome, this opposition made to give way? How is the bent of the will to be so altered as to receive that which it rejected? Plainly by his will coming in contact with a Superior one, a will that can remove the resistance ... The will itself must undergo a change before it can choose that which it rejected. And what can change it but the finger of God?"



P. F. Pugh said:


> When we do apologetics we must always remember that we are rarely actually speaking about the logical problems; we are simply trying to clear them away so that the real issue is exposed.



I know.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Correct—to a point. I don't see how atheism will lead one to walk out in front of a train. (Nihilism possibly would, but that's just one form). I see quite a few atheists surviving fairly well.



And they do so despite their atheistic world view, not because of it.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Ah, so if the atheist doesn't speak English, you speak to him in English because "objectively is all that matters"? Do I really need to go into why the proposition is absurd?



Yes, you might need to. The atheist does speak English; he simply pretends not to (if we take God's word seriously). We neither respect nor validate his Christ-denying pretensions; we invalidate them by respecting the truth of God revealed in Scripture and proclaiming that boldly. As Presbyterian pastor Grover Gunn put it, "Evidence must be presented in the defining context of the gospel message. We must reject the notion that we can somehow use evidence and logical arguments apart from the gospel context to prepare the skeptic's heart and mind for the gospel message. It is in the context of the preached Word that God works His work of regenerating grace which enables the spiritually blind to see and believe."



heymike said:


> R. C. Sproul is a classical apologist who I cannot recall ever saying that.



I am not sure he ever did. But then again, I never claimed he did.



heymike said:


> It is almost as if the presuppositionalist fears that because the classical apologist argues from irrefutable metaphysical arguments that they are somehow God-neutral. If you catch my train of thought, you may also find this a little ironic.



No, what the presuppositionalist fears is the reality that these arguments of the classical apologist firmly establish (1) the existence of an ambiguous deity (2) with no clear relationship to Scripture and (3) that Christianity is more probable than any other view (and if something is only probably true then it is also possibly false). The number one thing that bothers the presuppositionalist is that the classical apologist agrees with the unbeliever that logic, reason, evidence, etc., are intelligible apart from God.


----------



## Philip

Ryft said:


> Indeed I never try to convince anyone.



Then why defend the faith at all? Why reason, if not to let God use your argument to persuade?



Ryft said:


> And they do so despite their atheistic world view, not because of it.



If this is the case, then convincing them should be easy.



Ryft said:


> The atheist does speak English



I don't think you understood my example at all. I'm speaking of an atheist who speaks only Swahili. If one is to argue with him, one must speak Swahili as well. You can only speak to someone in a language that they understand. The objective truth of your English propositions is utterly futile if the audience only speaks Swahili.

Would you say that belief can argue with unbelief at all? Or is preaching all we can do?


----------



## Ryft

P. F. Pugh said:


> Then why defend the faith at all? Why reason, if not to let God use your argument to persuade?



To engage opportunities for proclaiming the truth of God and the gospel of salvation. Ergo, it is precisely for letting God use my argument to persuade; see my reference to 1 Cor 2:1-5, the cited chapters of the Westminster Confession, and the points I cited Bonar and Gunn to make—all of which, for some reason, you chose to not respond to.



P. F. Pugh said:


> If this is the case, then convincing them should be easy.



Since convincing them is God's job, I am sure it is very easy (Matt 19:25–26). I wish you had have responded to that point I carefully argued.



P. F. Pugh said:


> I don't think you understood my example at all.



If your example was meant to be taken literally, then I do not understand its relevance to the issue being discussed. If your example was an analogy, then perhaps you could explain what "English" stands in place of, and what "Swahili" stands in place of.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Would you say that belief can argue with unbelief at all? Or is preaching all we can do?



No, belief cannot argue with unbelief at all. They are diametrically antithetical. What our arguments address is the inherent imago Dei and the truth of God they already know (but suppress). Their nature as imago Dei and that truth of God they know is the common ground we speak to when we defend the faith.


----------



## heymike

Ryft said:


> I am not sure he ever did. But then again, I never claimed he did.



Thank you for replying David. I understood the quote you provided to mean that the position was typical of classical or evidential apologists. Which is why I said I cannot recall Sproul affirming it nor could I imagine it of any one of them.



> No, what the presuppositionalist fears is the reality that these arguments of the classical apologist firmly establish (1) the existence of an ambiguous deity (2) with no clear relationship to Scripture and (3) that Christianity is more probable than any other view (and if something is only probably true then it is also possibly false). The number one thing that bothers the presuppositionalist is that the classical apologist agrees with the unbeliever that logic, reason, evidence, etc., are intelligible apart from God.



The ontological and cosmological arguments have been used to show the existence of a necessary being that caused the universe. I do not find this to be particularly problematic. However the arguments have not always been clear... and that probably has something to do with why a 1 Cor. 2:2 approach is appealing. But one has to be careful in how they read Paul here with respect to his ministry in Acts.

Again as far as the classical apologist is concerned, I do not know of any that says logic is independent of God. Now an atheist or some agnostic can have a far superior understanding of logic than you or me as a Christian. But once that logic, and even a child like understanding of it, is shown to disprove the reality or possibility of atheism for them, you will see them become profoundly irrational. That is apart from the work of God in them.

And in the spirit of agreement, I think Peter's sermon at Pentecost contains a helpful example of an apologetic message. Along with his use of Scripture, Peter used the disciples eyewitness testimony of the resurrection and the miracle that his audience directly witnessed to give support to what he was saying about Jesus.

"This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing." Acts 2:32-33


----------



## Philip

Ryft said:


> If your example was an analogy, then perhaps you could explain what "English" stands in place of, and what "Swahili" stands in place of.



I was simply pointing out that subjective meaning matters. You can have all the objectively-true English propositions you want, but if you can't speak Swahili, then it won't matter to an atheist who only speaks Swahili. Subjective matters.



Ryft said:


> To engage opportunities for proclaiming the truth of God and the gospel of salvation. Ergo, it is precisely for letting God use my argument to persuade



In which case, you should make your argument persuasive.



Ryft said:


> No, belief cannot argue with unbelief at all.



At least you admit that you're a fideist . . .



Ryft said:


> Their nature as imago Dei and that truth of God they know is the common ground we speak to when we defend the faith.



In which case we are actually arguing with unbelief---or at least with unbelievers (which is the same thing). You're talking out of both sides of your mouth here.


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> No---it's unnecessary. Occam's Razor here.



I don't see what is unnecessary about it. But I get the impression that you are mistaking how I am discussing the theory of presuppositional apologetics to you, someone educated in philosophy, and how I would actually do apologetics to someone who is an average non-philosophical type person. That is a question of strategy though and not a question of something wrong with the theory. I have done presuppositional apologetics to lay people many times, I make the questions much more shallow. Obviously I would never beat someone over the head by demanding they develop a theory of ethics to make an ethical statment. 

But I can subtly introduce it in a way that makes sense to them and where they are but never goes over their heads. This is the wisdom of doing apologetics that one must learn to do apologetics, as I am sure you know, correctly.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Meaning that the evidence is there for anyone who is willing to see it, but the unbeliever is not willing.



Well I must point out, for whatever its worth, that this seems to contradict the verse itself as well as our confession and traditional history. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> That's not what he says at all. He says "But . . . but . . . but" and disregards the evidence entirely.



What in their wordview rules out this response?



P. F. Pugh said:


> I'm going to disregard the Nazi example because of Godwin's Law. A believer is not warranted in this case because a) his heart has been illumined by the Holy Spirit b) he knows what Scripture says on this point. He's inconsistent.
> 
> But let's take an unbeliever who has been taught this from birth---I'd say he's warranted because that's all he's ever heard. It's not knowledge because it isn't true, but warrant has to do with sufficient ground for knowledge _claims_.



Even though Romans 2:12-16 implies that they "know" the moral law of God? I can know that murder is wrong without knowing that it is from God, in that I have an exscuse in the day of wrath. But to know that God has revealed it to me as wrong implies that I have no exscuse. No exscuse no warrant. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> As I said, all inductive reasoning involves formal fallacies. Therefore your belief that you are having a discussion withanother person is fallacious and based on a lack of evidence to the contrary. My belief in the desk in front of me involves my ignoring the little Rene Descartes in my head talling me that I could be a brain in a vat.



Yeah I will tell you something about Reformed Epistemologists that does confuse me. They always go to examples of beleifs, largley empirical, to prove their point and frame a discussion around. But how about more complex non-empirical beleifs like morality that there is much more ambuiguity in? I mean Kelly Clark (I think that is his name?) at Calvin college in an introtduction to RE goes to someone telling your wife is cheating on you. Now obviously that is a beleif that the skeptic must prove and to which I have every reason to doubt, but what about the Marxist beleifs of most liberals in America? 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Depends on which beliefs you're attacking---there are times when attacking warrant is helpful. But nine times out of ten, reason isn't the basis for belief X at all.



But again my ignorance example. If all that is needed to establish warrant, which I am reading a late sympathetic critic on Plantinga who says this it not all Plantinga is suggesting, is to say "it seems obvious to me" than what good is it? If someone can claim warrant on ignorance alone and posses no other espitemological categories (knowledge, truth, justified true beleif, etc...) than what good is it except in establishing burden of proof in limited cases?



P. F. Pugh said:


> And it's precisely where the analogy breaks down. Atheists et al generally function just fine in society---it's Christians who cause problems.



Do they function in accordance with their presuppositions or in spite of their presuppositions?

---------- Post added at 08:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:38 PM ----------




heymike said:


> I don't appreciate "autonomous reason" being forced into the discussion. And I don't think Hume deserves the credit you give him. Yet it's been awhile since I read him, so maybe you can show me something he said.
> 
> Traditional forms of the cosmological argument could have been better. Then again some of it comes down to how easily misunderstood Aquinas has been. Almost a thousand years later and William Rowe cannot understand the distinction between the possibility of a set proceeding to infinity and the impossibility of one becoming actually infinite!
> 
> Why should Van Til's criticisms be reformulated? To give place for classical apologetics?



Well I except a VanTillian/Dooyweerdian reading of western history, in which they both argue that it is one big story of autonomous reason. What is wrong with introducing this idea anyway? 

Hume simply pointed problems with how in a way, he of course did not consciesly do this but it is one way to understand him, the western presupposition about the nature of reason. Maybe you can change the prevailing view of Aquinas than. Van Til thought that a presuppositional version of that argument was better, I wouldn't go that far but I do agree with his version of it.

---------- Post added at 08:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:44 PM ----------




heymike said:


> Causality is closely linked to non-contradiction... that reality does not contradict itself. Hume or any other person may say otherwise or even think it a possibility, and yet as I have seen, they will not accept that they are contradicting themself in some other area. As if there was something wrong with being inconsistent? One such person was also a fact and value moralist. His reaction was profound when it was said that it is a self-contradiction to treat other people as if they didn't exist when you believe they do.
> 
> It was very far reaching discussion, and yet he could not find it in himself to say otherwise. Which is one reason why I find it superficial to compare classical apologetics with Arminianism.



Van Til in my opinion gave us better concerns for classical apologetics whether than essential problems with it. So if someone were say to start with Reformed theology and work out the philosophical consequences of this and develop an apologetic based on this theolgy than that is how it should be reformed. This is what Van Til did, if you can do that and work out a classical aproech than go for it, but if you fall into many the traps that plagued classical apologetics historically than you have done this. 

Causality cannot explain itself, so why do we just assume it? Unless we ar ewilling to in a very strange almost religous way make this unquestionable. So autonomous reason tells us that we do not question these things because if we do than we end up in skepticism so we can't go there. Nietzsche saw how foolish this was and declared to destroy the "idols" of western thinking. 

Now assume that we can both accept the reality of causality and logical laws but adopt an actual explination of why we should assume them other than just a fear of skepticism or claiming that they are given?


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> Well I must point out, for whatever its worth, that this seems to contradict the verse itself as well as our confession and traditional history.



I would be careful with the interpretation of this verse because "knowledge" entails belief, and the unbeliever, by definition, doesn't believe. Therefore in some sense he doesn't know.



jwright82 said:


> What in their wordview rules out this response?



Nothing---it's just not the response that most atheists would give.



jwright82 said:


> what about the Marxist beleifs of most liberals in America?



Most liberals aren't Marxists---this is essential to understand. Most liberals are elitists and there is a world of difference between them. Modern liberalism has co-opted Marxist rhetoric to maintain power. Marxism proper is a very different beast---and if implemented would produce a very different kind of society than the one liberals envision.



jwright82 said:


> But again my ignorance example.



What about it? It seems to me that what you are suggesting is that in order to be warranted in bringing a belief to the table, I have to know all possible criticisms of it. This is plainly absurd.



jwright82 said:


> If someone can claim warrant on ignorance alone and posses no other espitemological categories (knowledge, truth, justified true beleif, etc...) than what good is it except in establishing burden of proof in limited cases?



Again, let me point out that knowledge here is precisely what we are talking about. My contention is that warrant is the necessary and sufficient condition for a knowledge-claim. If you want to attack that warrant, that's fine, but you have to be careful lest you shoot yourself in the foot---because any criticism you make can then be applied to you.

As I've said before, justification-language implies a kind of epistemic panel of judges that I am not sure is warranted (pun intended).



jwright82 said:


> Do they function in accordance with their presuppositions or in spite of their presuppositions?



Yes.



jwright82 said:


> I don't see what is unnecessary about it.



Too complicated, not concrete enough. Exposing ground motives is one thing, but TAs are tricky beasts and (as I maintained) pretty much invite the accusation of possible equivocation (again, the OA gets the same thing---hence why I don't use it).


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> I would be careful with the interpretation of this verse because "knowledge" entails belief, and the unbeliever, by definition, doesn't believe. Therefore in some sense he doesn't know.



Than you are in fact denying the reality of anykind of self-delusion than right?



P. F. Pugh said:


> Nothing---it's just not the response that most atheists would give.



Van Til's point was if you want to do evidential apologetics than fine but what historical evidences will you bring up if and when an unbeleiver says this too? None, there is none. The argument at this point is a presuppositional one. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Most liberals aren't Marxists---this is essential to understand. Most liberals are elitists and there is a world of difference between them. Modern liberalism has co-opted Marxist rhetoric to maintain power. Marxism proper is a very different beast---and if implemented would produce a very different kind of society than the one liberals envision.



Well my phrase "Marxist beleifs" might have been misleading but notice that I did not accuse them of being Marxists, only of holding to beleifs that come from Marxism. But you still didn't answer my point. How would RE deal with these sorts of beleifs? It seems to me that they can't. Which is why a different method is needed, one that attacks their very foundations that is what is meant by a TC.



P. F. Pugh said:


> What about it? It seems to me that what you are suggesting is that in order to be warranted in bringing a belief to the table, I have to know all possible criticisms of it. This is plainly absurd.



No you miss my point. Can person in complete ignorance about any subject continue to be warranted in their beleif that said subject is stupid without knowing a single thing about it? If they meet an expert in such a subject and he or she tells them that they are ignorant than that says to me that the person must now go and study the subject in order to reastablish their warrant, this implies that the burden of proof is on them yes but thinking is hard work. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Again, let me point out that knowledge here is precisely what we are talking about. My contention is that warrant is the necessary and sufficient condition for a knowledge-claim. If you want to attack that warrant, that's fine, but you have to be careful lest you shoot yourself in the foot---because any criticism you make can then be applied to you.



That is fine but a TA is what is needed to really deal with these ultimate issues. Arguing over facts is fine, doing apologetics from a _de facto_ basis is fine also as long as you understand that you are dealing with an unbeleiver from different presuppositions.



P. F. Pugh said:


> As I've said before, justification-language implies a kind of epistemic panel of judges that I am not sure is warranted (pun intended).



I must admit that I agree with you about this language as you have used it in the past and present. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Yes.



Well you may be on to something here but it doesn't disprove Van Til's analysis of human beings. He was not able to articulate this mixture of truth and falsity in anyone but I think that he had a better point of view to put these things in perspective. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Too complicated, not concrete enough. Exposing ground motives is one thing, but TAs are tricky beasts and (as I maintained) pretty much invite the accusation of possible equivocation (again, the OA gets the same thing---hence why I don't use it).



How can it not be concrete? You are mistaking meanifullness with a sentence being undertood by someone. It can make complete sense to have a conversation over whether jack beats his wife but the whole conversation is more than just false it is meaningless if jack is not married. That is more than concrete. A TA can be very simple in how you apply it.


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> Than you are in fact denying the reality of anykind of self-delusion than right?



Not at all---there is a kind of willful ignorance involved.



jwright82 said:


> How would RE deal with these sorts of beleifs?



Ideologies are (in my opinion) manifestations of ground motives and attitudes. So if you tear them down, they'll simply reappear in another form. Presuppositionalism, unfortunately, deals way too much with the intellectual.



jwright82 said:


> Which is why a different method is needed, one that attacks their very foundations that is what is meant by a TC.



But again, be careful lest you shoot yourself in the foot. TC (if valid) is a double-edged sword.



jwright82 said:


> Can person in complete ignorance about any subject continue to be warranted in their beleif that said subject is stupid without knowing a single thing about it?



The problem here is that you think it's an intellectual problem. "That's stupid" isn't a belief at all---it's an end of discussion. It's the position that "this doesn't belong in the realm of what I consider rational discourse."



jwright82 said:


> If they meet an expert in such a subject and he or she tells them that they are ignorant than that says to me that the person must now go and study the subject in order to reastablish their warrant, this implies that the burden of proof is on them yes but thinking is hard work.



Let's suppose that I meet a philosopher who is concerned with the problem of wholes and parts. I can listen to him talk about it all day and I'll still think it irrelevant and a waste of time.



jwright82 said:


> You are mistaking meanifullness with a sentence being undertood by someone. It can make complete sense to have a conversation over whether jack beats his wife but the whole conversation is more than just false it is meaningless if jack is not married.



It's still a meaningful sentence even if Jack isn't married. We understand the terms, don't we? It's not nonsense, it just has no referent.


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> Not at all---there is a kind of willful ignorance involved.



I mean you must admit that you are outside confessional and traditional reformed understanding of this verse?



P. F. Pugh said:


> Ideologies are (in my opinion) manifestations of ground motives and attitudes. So if you tear them down, they'll simply reappear in another form. Presuppositionalism, unfortunately, deals way too much with the intellectual.



No It can be used for very simple beleifs as well. But again I must press you on the fact that RE cannot use it's own ideas to dismantle such beleifs or ideaologies. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> But again, be careful lest you shoot yourself in the foot. TC (if valid) is a double-edged sword.



I really don't know why you think the TA or TC can only be used by the beleiver. I am not saying that nor is Van Til. The question is can they use it in a way that completly makes sense out of reality such that when they stand before God they will have absolute exscuses for not beleiving in him. Or can they use it in such a way to make sense out of creation as something other than creation, which would result in the last statment I made. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> The problem here is that you think it's an intellectual problem. "That's stupid" isn't a belief at all---it's an end of discussion. It's the position that "this doesn't belong in the realm of what I consider rational discourse."



Alright so what is the difference between saying that something is stupid or saying that it is irrational? And again can someone in complete ignorance have warrant for saying that something is "outside rational discourse", or irrational, if they meet someone who has sufficient knowledge in such an area to know if it is irrational or not? At this point they now must educate themself in this area to reastablish their warrant or they are engaged in pure irrational thinking and should not be taken seriously by any rational person. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Let's suppose that I meet a philosopher who is concerned with the problem of wholes and parts. I can listen to him talk about it all day and I'll still think it irrelevant and a waste of time.



But you do not have the sufficient evidence because of your ignorance to really have warrant in this case or warrant is an irelevant idea. You can walk away from such a talk, if I understand you right, saying "wow he just proved that aliens exist", when he in fact never mentioned them at all. But If you are right than actual facts do not matter because it is all up to what someone thinks. Now Van Til would agree up to a point but he would insist on seeing if these ideas actually explain reality or not. Now again I am not dismissing you or Plantinga outright, only trying to put ya'll in perspective with regard to presuppositionalism.



P. F. Pugh said:


> It's still a meaningful sentence even if Jack isn't married. We understand the terms, don't we? It's not nonsense, it just has no referent.



No you are using it in a different way. The sentence "opsjfnvkj hfdhgfkjdf ksjfhfn" doesn't make sense in your sense because we do not understand it. The discussion of Jack beating his wife is pointless, hence meaningless, if Jack is not married. You can make coherent sentences and arguments about Jack and his wife for a week if you wish but you wasted an entire week if Jack is not married. Hence the logical form of:

If x is true (Jack is married) than y (jack beats his wife) is either true or false
If x is false than y is neither true nor false


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> I mean you must admit that you are outside confessional and traditional reformed understanding of this verse?



Not at all. I just am trying to point out the very real tension here.



jwright82 said:


> But again I must press you on the fact that RE cannot use it's own ideas to dismantle such beleifs or ideaologies.



Why does it have to? Systems of belief are built based on attitudes, so the only way to tear them down (really) is to chage the attitudes.



jwright82 said:


> The question is can they use it in a way that completly makes sense out of reality such that when they stand before God they will have absolute exscuses for not beleiving in him.



No---but when God speaks, no argument is needed.



jwright82 said:


> Or can they use it in such a way to make sense out of creation as something other than creation, which would result in the last statment I made.



Well they do. Hence unbelief.



jwright82 said:


> Alright so what is the difference between saying that something is stupid or saying that it is irrational?



In this context, one has to do with an opinion that the question at hand is not worth asking or dealing with. Irrationality would deal with whether a person is acting in a manner in accordance with reason.



jwright82 said:


> And again can someone in complete ignorance have warrant for saying that something is "outside rational discourse", or irrational, if they meet someone who has sufficient knowledge in such an area to know if it is irrational or not?



Naturally. I'm not familiar with the details of Leibniz' monadology, but meeting a Leibniz scholar would probably not change my opinion of its irrelevancy.



jwright82 said:


> You can walk away from such a talk, if I understand you right, saying "wow he just proved that aliens exist", when he in fact never mentioned them at all.



Not at all---I would probably be thinking more along the lines of "how pedantic---now, about lunch."



jwright82 said:


> But If you are right than actual facts do not matter because it is all up to what someone thinks.



No, I'm saying that the facts are always interpreted through the lens of what someone thinks.



jwright82 said:


> The discussion of Jack beating his wife is pointless, hence meaningless, if Jack is not married



Just because something is pointless does not make it meaningless. The debate over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin is pointless (pun intended) but still meaningful.



jwright82 said:


> If x is true (Jack is married) than y (jack beats his wife) is either true or false
> If x is false than y is neither true nor false



That's the referential theory of meaning, which is flawed in the extreme---hence why I reject it. If x is false, then y is false because its predicate describes a non-actualized state of affairs. It's not nonsense, though.


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> Not at all. I just am trying to point out the very real tension here.



What tension? Historic reformed thought on this matter seems to point out that people actually know God, not just that there is sufficient evidence available. Only recent reformed folk trying to reconcile an unreformed classical apologetics say that. 




P. F. Pugh said:


> Why does it have to? Systems of belief are built based on attitudes, so the only way to tear them down (really) is to chage the attitudes.



Agreed but saying that only proves my point. Their attitudes put them rationally at odds with reality because it is and always will be creation period, so that it will never be be understood correctly as creation but their attitude drives them to understand it as non-creation.




P. F. Pugh said:


> No---but when God speaks, no argument is needed.



If they are without exscuse than they know the truth but as Bahnsen has pointed out they are in self-denial. 




P. F. Pugh said:


> Well they do. Hence unbelief.



But as K. Scott Oliphant has pointed out unbeleif is essentially irrationality. 




P. F. Pugh said:


> In this context, one has to do with an opinion that the question at hand is not worth asking or dealing with. Irrationality would deal with whether a person is acting in a manner in accordance with reason.



I think we are both right here with a twist. You would agree that despite the person's warrant their opinion has actually no bearing on whether or not said subject, say monadology to use your example, is stupid or not. So the person is under no immediate obligation to deal with monadology in their everyday life. Up until now we agree. But it is when this person walks up to a group of philosophy students and overhears them discussing it and ignorantly points that it is stupid, that he or she has committed themselves to a discourse of metaphysics in which they must now support their argument or walk away embarrassed and now lacking warrant for their original beleif. That is why the philosophy students may ask why monadology is stupid and the person ignorantly claiming this must now give reasons for their beleif or be unwarranted.

Again I have read that for Plantinga time and evidences is essential to this whole thing. So my evidences up to a point and time may be warranted but once it is revealed that I am ignorant of said subject, whether or not I notice it or not, I lose any warrant I had for said beleif. So I may have a very meaningful conversation with an atheist about murder being wrong, but when they willfully engage me in an apologetical conversation than they are committed in some way to answering these tougher questions. Just like a Phd. student is committed to deal with certian issues on a scholarly level, whether they want to or not. 

Now you may correctly point out that the average person, even if they engage me in an apologetical conversation, can't answer these questions. But as the presuppositional apologets Joe Boot has pointed out apologetics is a craft to be practiced and developed. So how I would engage a questioning nice atheist and I how would engage a mean atheist are going to be different. 




P. F. Pugh said:


> No, I'm saying that the facts are always interpreted through the lens of what someone thinks.



Yes but that person can be in self-denial though, I can try to find Bahnsen's Phd. on self-denial, it is quite interesting (and a wonderful example of TA).




P. F. Pugh said:


> Just because something is pointless does not make it meaningless. The debate over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin is pointless (pun intended) but still meaningful.





P. F. Pugh said:


> That's the referential theory of meaning, which is flawed in the extreme---hence why I reject it. If x is false, then y is false because its predicate describes a non-actualized state of affairs. It's not nonsense, though.



We are using the term meaningless in two different ways. You mean does the sentence make sense to somebody, that is not what I mean by the term. What I mean is something more along the lines of without truth-value, hence the slight problem with Russell's analysis (even if said analysis is good). Also it is without any value. I can talk all day long in meaningful (your definition) ways about Jack beating or not beating his wife without them meaningfully having any value. The statment "Jack does not beat his wife" implies that he has a wife, hence the old referential problem. But Do I make any ontological committments by raising the old problem in a discussion of meaningfullness?

I would say no, because I am not refering to beings at all but to the meaningfullness of sentences. I am not sure that meaningfullness as an ontological category is on par at all with existance or being. It is not meaningful at all to ask whether or not Jack beats his wife if he is not married, this implies no ontological status to "Jack's wife" at all. As I understand it that is the age old question of universals that Russell and Quine nicley freed us from.


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> What tension? Historic reformed thought on this matter seems to point out that people actually know God, not just that there is sufficient evidence available. Only recent reformed folk trying to reconcile an unreformed classical apologetics say that.



The tension between the various senses of the word "knowledge." Do you mean that the unbeliever actually believes? Or do you mean knowledge of another sort?



jwright82 said:


> Their attitudes put them rationally at odds with reality because it is and always will be creation period, so that it will never be be understood correctly as creation but their attitude drives them to understand it as non-creation.



So, practically speaking, what trouble are they going to have living it out?



jwright82 said:


> But as K. Scott Oliphant has pointed out unbeleif is essentially irrationality.



For a given value of irrationality. Define what you mean by rational here.



jwright82 said:


> But it is when this person walks up to a group of philosophy students and overhears them discussing it and ignorantly points that it is stupid, that he or she has committed themselves to a discourse of metaphysics in which they must now support their argument or walk away embarrassed and now lacking warrant for their original beleif.



But that's not how it works. He comes up to a group of students discussing monadology, hears all sides of the argument, and says, "It's pointless and idiotic." He then walks away. It's not unsupported at all because it's not the kind of opinion that requires an argument, necessarily, to be rationally-held.



jwright82 said:


> You mean does the sentence make sense to somebody, that is not what I mean by the term. What I mean is something more along the lines of without truth-value



If a proposition makes sense, then it has truth-value. Again, you're committing the referential fallacy, assuming that truth-value depends upon all terms having referents. This is simply false: the proposition "Jack beats his wife" is false because Jack has no wife. There's no lack of truth-value, simply a need for clarification of reasoning. The sentence "Jack has no wife and therefore is incapable of beating her" is also a contrary of "Jack beats his wife."



jwright82 said:


> It is not meaningful at all to ask whether or not Jack beats his wife if he is not married



Sure it is: it's just that the predicate doesn't describe anything---and it's only because the predicate is intelligible, and hence meaningful, that I can say this. A meaningless proposition would be unintelligible altogether, and hence incapable of any sort of analysis.


----------



## Ryft

P. F. Pugh said:


> You can have all the objectively-true English propositions you want, but if you can't speak Swahili, then it won't matter to an atheist who only speaks Swahili. Subjective matters.



You did not answer my question. Were you using these terms literally or analogously? If the former, what was your point? If the latter, what were they standing in for?



P. F. Pugh said:


> In which case, you should make your argument persuasive.



1. Why, if God is doing the persuading? ("It is precisely for letting God use my argument to persuade.")

2. You did not address my supporting citations (Scripture, Westminster Confession, Bonar, and Gunn). Please do.



P. F. Pugh said:


> At least you admit that you're a fideist . . .



Non-sequitur. Furthermore, I am nothing of the sort. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> In which case we are actually arguing with unbelief—or at least with unbelievers (which is the same thing).



The two are not the same thing at all. A believer can argue with an unbeliever as they have common ground (their nature as imago Dei and the truth of God they both know) which the believer must speak to when defending the faith. But belief cannot argue with unbelief as they are antithetical (no common ground).



P. F. Pugh said:


> "Knowledge" entails belief, and the unbeliever, by definition, doesn't believe.



Who says? The unbeliever? God says otherwise. The unbeliever by definition is deluded, if Scripture establishes our definitions—manifest by his pretending to be an unbeliever as he suppresses the truth he knows by his ungodly and wicked ways, but he knows because the God who has made it plain in him says he does.


----------



## Philip

Ryft said:


> You did not answer my question. Were you using these terms literally or analogously? If the former, what was your point? If the latter, what were they standing in for?



My point was this: your argument must make sense subjectively not just objectively, or else it's just an exercise in self-congratulation. You must speak the language of your audience.



Ryft said:


> Why, if God is doing the persuading?



Because otherwise, you might as well not do apologetics at all.



Ryft said:


> The two are not the same thing at all.



Yes they are. An unbeliever disbelieves and therefore when you argue with him, you are arguing with unbelief.



Ryft said:


> The unbeliever by definition is deluded, if Scripture establishes our definitions—manifest by his pretending to be an unbeliever as he suppresses the truth he knows by his ungodly and wicked ways, but he knows because the God who has made it plain in him says he does.



Define "knowledge" from Scripture, then.


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> The tension between the various senses of the word "knowledge." Do you mean that the unbeliever actually believes? Or do you mean knowledge of another sort?



I mean precisley what Paul says they know that God is there and that they owe him their obediance. Just like an abused women will offer all sorts of reasons to herself to believe that her relationship is a good one, despite knowing better. In this same way you might say psychologicaly this is what is going in the unbeleiver.




P. F. Pugh said:


> So, practically speaking, what trouble are they going to have living it out?



None, they will live on borrowed capital and God's common grace. This point is of use to the apologist only. 




P. F. Pugh said:


> For a given value of irrationality. Define what you mean by rational here.



Knowing that God is there and yet denying it is an irrational beleif to hold basede on self-deception.




P. F. Pugh said:


> But that's not how it works. He comes up to a group of students discussing monadology, hears all sides of the argument, and says, "It's pointless and idiotic." He then walks away. It's not unsupported at all because it's not the kind of opinion that requires an argument, necessarily, to be rationally-held.



Your right but lets add something here that I meant to say. He tries to convince them through debate that he is right. He is throughly embarrassed for his ignorance and than walks away, does he still have warrant?




P. F. Pugh said:


> If a proposition makes sense, then it has truth-value. Again, you're committing the referential fallacy, assuming that truth-value depends upon all terms having referents. This is simply false: the proposition "Jack beats his wife" is false because Jack has no wife. There's no lack of truth-value, simply a need for clarification of reasoning. The sentence "Jack has no wife and therefore is incapable of beating her" is also a contrary of "Jack beats his wife."



A sentnece is meaningful, in one definition of meaningful, if it can be shown to be true or false. This was Strawson's critique of Russell because Russell was guilty of the referential fallacy. This led Strawson to work out the logic of a presupposition to correct this mistake in Russell. The name "Jack's wife" is an empty name and hence no judgments can be made about it. Strawson said that we can transfer attributes and information to this ficticious name and than make limited judgements about it. 




P. F. Pugh said:


> Sure it is: it's just that the predicate doesn't describe anything---and it's only because the predicate is intelligible, and hence meaningful, that I can say this. A meaningless proposition would be unintelligible altogether, and hence incapable of any sort of analysis.



Your monopolizing on one definition of meaningless, there is it seems more than one.


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> I mean precisley what Paul says they know that God is there and that they owe him their obediance. Just like an abused women will offer all sorts of reasons to herself to believe that her relationship is a good one, despite knowing better. In this same way you might say psychologicaly this is what is going in the unbeleiver.



But the analogy breaks down. The unbeliever seems to be deceived such that they aren't even aware of the deception. I think it's also useful to point out that the word knowledge is used in Scripture in various different ways.



jwright82 said:


> Knowing that God is there and yet denying it is an irrational beleif to hold basede on self-deception.



Yes, but demonstrating it is the trick. Saying this in theory is very easy.



jwright82 said:


> He tries to convince them through debate that he is right.



If he thinks it truly idiotic, he won't attempt to debate. Idiocy is not worth arguing with. Again, if you exclude position X from rational discourse, that means the issue isn't even on the table.



jwright82 said:


> A sentnece is meaningful, in one definition of meaningful, if it can be shown to be true or false.



I'll grant this for now (Wittgenstein has huge problems with it, though). "Jack beats his wife" can be shown to be false as soon as it is shown that Jack has no wife. It's only if we understand the term that we can determine that X doesn't stand for any existent thing. The ontological status of Jack's wife has no bearing on the meaningfulness of the proposition.



jwright82 said:


> Your monopolizing on one definition of meaningless, there is it seems more than one.



I'm using the word as it is used in ordinary parlance.


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> But the analogy breaks down. The unbeliever seems to be deceived such that they aren't even aware of the deception. I think it's also useful to point out that the word knowledge is used in Scripture in various different ways.



You say "seems" as if they way things appear in experience now have the monopoly in how we understand scripture rather than scripture telling us how we should understand things. 




P. F. Pugh said:


> Yes, but demonstrating it is the trick. Saying this in theory is very easy.



You absolutly got me there. It is very hard but Bahnsen wrote his Phd. on self-deception, which I cannot find again on the internet but I have been looking for you.




P. F. Pugh said:


> If he thinks it truly idiotic, he won't attempt to debate. Idiocy is not worth arguing with. Again, if you exclude position X from rational discourse, that means the issue isn't even on the table.



But my question was if he decides to debate and is shown to be simply ignorant than does he still have warrant?

Also I have been trying to figure this out for weeks now but it seems that your reliance on warrant in your mind means two things that I can't figure out. These are not arguments against your position only humble questions on my part because I want to understand where you are coming from. We may disagree but we are still brothers in Christ and I owe that to you to understand your position as you understand it yourself. 
1. That warrant has ramifications for apologetics
2. That the idea of warrant means that Van Til is wrong on at least some things

For 1 I guess I can see but if the person is warranted when they are not debating than why would this matter to me in a debate? That is, why should I care about whether or not they were warranted in their beleifs before they entered into an apologetical discussion with me, where we are considering actual knowledge and not simply knowledge claims?

For 2 it seems to me that you and I are both valid in our aproech except we are starting from two different ends? And what does warrant have to do with a presuppositional argument in the context of a debate? I am fine with warrant but I don't see how it invalidates Van Til's aproech?




P. F. Pugh said:


> I'll grant this for now (Wittgenstein has huge problems with it, though). "Jack beats his wife" can be shown to be false as soon as it is shown that Jack has no wife. It's only if we understand the term that we can determine that X doesn't stand for any existent thing. The ontological status of Jack's wife has no bearing on the meaningfulness of the proposition.



In the sense that you are using it sure you are correct. It is ironic that it was a later Wittgensteinian that developed it from supposedly his aproech. I just disagree with Russell's analysis and prefer this one. I guess they could both be valid and analyze things from two different perspectives. 




P. F. Pugh said:


> I'm using the word as it is used in ordinary parlance.



I'll grant this you are in a college and I am not. So my limited exsposure to the philosophical world comes from what I can read from my books and what I can get online. But here is one place to get the definition: Meaningless statement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.


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## Philip

jwright82 said:


> You say "seems" as if they way things appear in experience now have the monopoly in how we understand scripture rather than scripture telling us how we should understand things.



I'm trying to reconcile the phenomena with Scriptural teaching.



jwright82 said:


> But my question was if he decides to debate and is shown to be simply ignorant than does he still have warrant?



No, because by debating it he has falsified his opinion by allowing the subject to be discussed.



jwright82 said:


> For 2 it seems to me that you and I are both valid in our aproech except we are starting from two different ends? And what does warrant have to do with a presuppositional argument in the context of a debate? I am fine with warrant but I don't see how it invalidates Van Til's aproech?



It makes us much more cautious when it comes to presuppositions because metaphysical considerations don't make a belief warranted or unwarranted. The beliefs are a given and therefore metaphysical systems are tested against them.



jwright82 said:


> But here is one place to get the definition: Meaningless statement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.



Just for the record, my position is that most accounts of meaning are confused. I more or less agree with Wittgenstein that meaning is use.


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## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> I'm trying to reconcile the phenomena with Scriptural teaching.



There is nothing wrong that. When I find that disertation I will send it your way, it is very anaytical so it should be right up your alley.




P. F. Pugh said:


> No, because by debating it he has falsified his opinion by allowing the subject to be discussed.



Fair enough, that always confused me in our debated but I understand and agree now.




P. F. Pugh said:


> It makes us much more cautious when it comes to presuppositions because metaphysical considerations don't make a belief warranted or unwarranted. The beliefs are a given and therefore metaphysical systems are tested against them.



I think that I can agree with most of this, I don't think it invalidates a presuppositional aproech. You are right that most people walking around have warrant for their beleifs without any recourse to metaphysics or presuppositions, except that I would say that presuppositions determine in some way how we use our functions (or at least color their use in some way).




P. F. Pugh said:


> Just for the record, my position is that most accounts of meaning are confused. I more or less agree with Wittgenstein that meaning is use.



I agree with Wittgenstein on that too and your opinion is very interesting, I will have to ponder that.


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