Jim Johnston
Puritan Board Sophomore
I was asked to start a new thread. But, just like with Kaiser Soze, "And like that, he's gone." That is, I just came back to post this one post. Here's what I had typed up:
/////////////////////////
Alright, I'm gonna come out of retirement for one post since I feel there' some loose strings I should tie up with Dr. Anderson:
Consumerism
I actually ordered it about 4 hours ago. "Christian Trader" got in my ear about your previous book (Reasons and Worldviews), hyped it up, and so I ordered it. Just so you know, I went into it really wanting to like it, unfortunately there were too many problems for it to sit well with me. Don't have cognitive rest There are definitely aspects I liked. Don't get me wrong. I appreciate the fact that you're Reformed and in Academia. I appreciate Natural Law (though haven't totally worked out my version of it yet). And I appreciate the fact that you call unbelief on the carpet. I appreciate that you like much of Plantinga. I was happy to see a nod go Van Til's way too. I appreciate the use of NL, mainly in serving as a defeater-defeater. But my purpose here is to interact with your stuff in a critical way. You did ask to hear thoughts, and since you received enough laudatory comments via Christian Trader, I figured I'd fill the negative lacuna. Hope that's okay with you?
My Critiques in General
i) The author also has a job to make himself clear too. In the book I was referred, there was no time taken in discussing nuances. I criticized Christian Trader and he never laid out your nuances but, rather, said some things that exacerbated the problems.
ii) Some of my complaints don't seem to have been solved, and, indeed, some of your "nuances" make it more confusing (see below).
iii) There has not been one single person, besides Christian Trader, who, by the way, said this on page one: "My biggest problem is that I have not read but so deep in philosophy past a few van tillian works, so I can't really see if your work is truly awesome or that I only think it is awesome due to my lack of philosophical depth," that did not make the same observations and see the same problems when I sent them quotes from your book. I tried to make sure I wasn't the only one. Some of my correspondents have Ph.Ds in philosophy too.
Epistemology
i) By evidentialism I mean the view that:
Evidentialism = df Person S is justified in believing proposition p at time t if and only if S’s evidence for p at t supports believing p.
I say this for a few reasons:
a) Your definition of "know" on page 1 of this thread.
b) Page 13 of Reasons and Worldviews (R&W): "[H]is view leads to a kind of fideism where certain beliefs are held as basic not needing proof." And again, "...thus the assertion of such beliefs without proof ... becomes fideistis" (ibid). And later, "This is to go further than the requirements of Clifford (do not believe without proof); it is to say that even if there are some basic beliefs that do not require proof, one has the obligation to make inference and be able to respond to alternatives" (p.75)
c) Your denial of "evidentialism" in the book is a denial of a view that is purely inductive and probabilistic, and thus to deny 'evidentialism' in this way isn't to deny it in the way I meant it (which should have been clear (!) given the context in which I was speaking).
ii) Given your definition of knowledge both here and in the book (in the book as JTB, p. 125), I find it odd that you would deny deontologism given that Plantinga and others have shown fairly convincingly that deontologism is tied up in views of knowledge that seek "justification", as well as internalist constraints.
iii) I see you didn't deny my charge of internalism. I wonder how integral this constraint is to your program. Since I think it is pretty clearly false (cf. Bergman's work), then if it is integral to your position I find that to be a major hindrance.
iv) Therefore, from where I'm standing epistemologically, your view is beset by some major worries. Some I'm unsure can be recovered from.
Metaphysics of Freedom
From your book: "Libertarianism: A view of freedom where ought implies can; one is free if one could have done otherwise; related to causality, if my act was caused it could not have been otherwise; libertarianism denies determinism ... in order to affirm freedom" (p. 126).
i) So are you saying you're a libertarian about "worldview, presuppositional, and reason?"
ii) I struggle to see how you could agree with my critiques at the first two, but not the second. I don't see how my argument could fail at any level that assumed ought implies can is required for moral responsibility.
Frankfurt counters would work at this level too. But first:
i) It appears you assume classical compatibilism CC. So you'd need to defend yourself against the myriad attacks of CC both from within and without the compatibilist camp (do you in your book I ordered)? We can see you affirm CC by your hypothetical model (S could have done otherwise if S had wanted to do otherwise). But first, it's not clear that CC (Hypothetical Classical Compatibilism, HCC) can refute the consequence argument.
A different worry with HCC is that its analysis of 'can' and 'could have done otherwise' sometimes wrongly tell us that we could have done otherwise even we clearly could not have. McKenna puts it this way: Suppose Danielle has been scarred by a terrible childhood accident involving a blond Labrador retriever. This accident rendered her psychologically incapable of wanting to touch a blond-haired dog. Imagine that, on her sixteenth birthday, unaware of her condition, her father brings her two puppies to choose between, one being a blond-haired Lab, the other a black-haired Lab. He tells Danielle just to pick up whichever of the two she pleases and that he will return the other puppy to the store. Danielle happily and unencumbered does what she wants and picks up the black Lab.
Was she free to do otherwise? It doesn't seem so. Given her childhood experience, she cannot even form a want to touch a blond-haired Lab, thus she couldn't pick one up. But in this case the HCC analysis would be true. That is: IF Danielle had wanted to pick up the blond-haired Lab, then she could/would have done so. This is clearly false, though. The problem brought out here is that HCC isn't enough. We need more than just: S could have done otherwise if S had wanted to do otherwise. We need, rather, something like this: ..."and S could also have wanted to do otherwise." And this pushes the question back to whether the agent could have wanted to do otherwise. To answer that requires another 'could' statement: S could have wanted or chosen to do otherwise. This requires another hypothetical analysis: S would have waned or chosen to do otherwise, IF S had wanted or chosen to want or choose otherwise. The same question would arise about this analysis, needing another 'could' statement to be analyzed, and so on ad infinitum... (cf. Kane, Intro to Free Will, pp. 28-31).
ii) As you state in R&W: "...while ought implies can, can implies want." Two things:
a) How is 'can' to be understood? Hypothetically? Then we have your statement as:
"...while ought implies you could do x if you had wanted to, the ability to do otherwise if you had wanted to implies want."
That seems odd.
b) We have a Frankfurt worry. Imagine that a person—call him 'Stanley'—deliberately keeps himself very still. He wants to. He refrains, for some reason, from moving his body at all. … suppose that here is someone with a powerful interest in having Stanley refrain from making any deliberate movements, who arranges things in such a way that Stanley will be stricken with general paralysis if he shows any inclination (including a want)to move. Nonetheless, Stanley may keep himself still quite on his own altogether independently of this person's schemes. Why should Stanley not be morally responsible for keeping still, in that case, just as much as if there had been nothing to prevent him from moving had he chosen to do so?
Here it appears that Stan is responsible, yet he could not have wanted to do otherwise.
Subtle changes would only be required to work for all your various "instances," I suspect.
Also, I'm unsure how this argument still wouldn't apply (to whatever realm you place "ought implies can" in):
1. Suppose some individual, John, does something morally wrong.
2. If John's Xing was wrong, then he ought to have done something else instead.
3. If John ought to have done something else instead, then he could have done something else instead. (The OA and CT premise)
4. So John could have done something else instead. (from 3, PAP)
5. But if causal determinism is true, then John could not have done anything other than he actually did. (Reformed premise)
6. So, if causal determinism is true, it cannot be the case that John's Xing was wrong. (Entailed by CT's and OA's position).
The Knowledge of God
i) I am sorry to report that I did not think it was cleared up, at all. Mathew Winzer started off on the right foot, but then you trapped him. Based on the (what I would call obviously false) definition of "know" you gave on page one, of course unbelievers don't 'know' God in that sense. Now, if that's your definition of know, then, yes, unbelievers don't know. But, problematically for you, you don't either since I showed you had an infinite regress problem. Your view also assumes internalism, which I deny. They know if they know that they know.
ii) You then claim that there are "other senses" of the term "to know" that can be meant for those in Romans 1.
I find this odd for at least two reasons:
a) You never even so much as indicated that there was any sense that unbelievers know God exists in your R&W I just finished.
b) You seem to deny them any knowledge based on your exegesis of Romans 1. For example, you claimed: It is easy to prove that not everybody has knowledge or belief in God as defined by theism. ... Theistic belief has not been held by every human throughout history, nor is it held by every human alive today. ... It is the eternal power and divine nature of God, not some vague sense of a higher power, that Paul says is knowable and the ignorance of which is inexcusable. And when Paul says that God's existence and nature are known from the things that are made this suggests and inference, not an immediate or invariant truth. When Paul says in verse 21 that 'although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were they thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened", there seems to have been a progression from having known God to failing to know God. it is far from clear that the word 'they' in this passage refers to all humans who have ever lived, but rather may be referring to an original context where humans knew God and then a process in which humanity exchanged belief in God for belief in idols."
Thus for you to claim that Romans 1 allows for "some kind" of knowledge that ALL MEN have is contradicted by your own exegesis of the passage!
iii) I find your exegesis suspect for a number of reasons:
a) Paul is speaking about the universal problem of sin and God's wrath towards all men. His reason (because) is that "they knew God." So you have God giving a reason for his universal wrath upon all men that some men knew him but then ceased to know him.
b) Who are these people who "knew" God? Were they saved? Regenerate? How did they "know God" in this robust sense if they were not, according to your views on the matter (i.e., salvation restores one to knowing)? If they were saved, how do you avoid denial of perseverance?
c) Apropos (b), you seem to indicate that not even Adam and Eve knew God in this sense. So I fail to see who you think it could be.
d) Schreiner disagrees (Romans, 85-87); Moo disagrees (Romans, 103-104); Murray disagrees (Romans, 37-38).
e) Oliphint disagrees (Reasons for Faith, 133-140), same with Frame, Bahnsen, Van Til, et al. They disagree with your exegesis. To affirm it in their sense is to deny your exegesis.
f) People even disagree with your claim that those who say there's a knowlegde mean there's a vague knowledge. So Oliphint: "And it is a knowledge with significance and substantial content" (ibid, 134). So it appears we have straw men.
g) You claim that men do not understand God. You claim they don't know him either. Calvin disagrees:
"To prevent anyone from taking refuge in the pretense of ignorance, God himself has implanted in all men a certain understanding of his divine majesty. Ever renewing its memory, he repeatedly sheds fresh drops. Since, therefore, men one and all perceive that there is a God and the he is their Maker, they are condemned by their own testimony because they have failed to honor him and to consecrate their lives to his will."
And further,
"Men of sound judgment will always be sure that a sense of divinity which can never be effaced is engraven upon men’s minds. Indeed, the perversity of the impious, who though they struggle furiously are unable to extricate themselves from the fear of God, is abundant testimony that this conviction, namely that there is some God, is naturally inborn in all, and is fixed deep within, as it were in the very marrow. . . .For the world . . .tries as far as it is able to cast away all knowledge of God, and by every means to corrupt the worship of him. I only say that though the stupid hardness in their minds, which the impious eagerly conjure up to reject God, wastes away, yet the sense of divinity, which they greatly wished to have extinguished, thrives and presently burgeons. From this we conclude that it is not a doctrine that must first be learned in school, but one of which each of us is master from his mother’s womb and which nature itself permits none to forget, although many strive with every nerve to this end."
h) God implants the knowledge. Thus its source is God himself and it's content is [insert what Rom. 1 says], its function is dependant on God's activity, and this activity will not fail (cf. Oliphint, 136). Add a seity to this, and God is not dependant upon age, cognitive development, or anything for his knowledge to be implanted. Also, since I deny the internalist constraint you affirm, I deny your claims about men's interpretation of this knowledge as if men had to know that they know in order to know. it is given by God and is not dependant on us, as you make it.
i) Do all men have a knowledge of God: Reymond agrees (ST, 131); Berkof agrees (ST, p. 35-38); Bavink agrees (RD, 302, 361); Turretin agrees (IET, 1.3.7). They all agree that it's in the Rom. 1 sense, and thus isn't vague but is enough to render inexcusable
Conclusion
I look forward to reading your next book, but so far I find much of your position to be (a) theologically and (b) philosophically problematic. I'm merely expressing my reasons why, based on the information contained in your book that was referred to me. If it is so unclear that one must either email you and ask what you mean all the time, or wait for future books, then perhaps a disclaimer should go into the book I read. But, as it stands, even with your explanations here, it's not clear that you have clarified your position enough to avoid the problems.
I don't post here anymore. Came out of retirement for this post. As I said, if I go ahead with a review (which will be much longer and more detailed now that I have to include your other book with it), I'll email you before I post it anywhere.
I also would like to see you do what you claim needs to be done. I am bored of silver bullet apologetic claims and endless discussion of method. I like to see people be able to put their money where their mouth is. From the little section on NT I saw in your book, there’s going to have to be a lot more convincing. I also see some problems in that section. Some smuggling in of assumptions not known by reason or NT. But I’ll leave that for another day.
I have no ill-will toward you, and I hope you take my comments simply as they were meant to be: objective criticisms I have with what I understand of your position so far...
/////////////////////////
Alright, I'm gonna come out of retirement for one post since I feel there' some loose strings I should tie up with Dr. Anderson:
Consumerism
Have you had a chance to read my more recent and developed book?
I actually ordered it about 4 hours ago. "Christian Trader" got in my ear about your previous book (Reasons and Worldviews), hyped it up, and so I ordered it. Just so you know, I went into it really wanting to like it, unfortunately there were too many problems for it to sit well with me. Don't have cognitive rest There are definitely aspects I liked. Don't get me wrong. I appreciate the fact that you're Reformed and in Academia. I appreciate Natural Law (though haven't totally worked out my version of it yet). And I appreciate the fact that you call unbelief on the carpet. I appreciate that you like much of Plantinga. I was happy to see a nod go Van Til's way too. I appreciate the use of NL, mainly in serving as a defeater-defeater. But my purpose here is to interact with your stuff in a critical way. You did ask to hear thoughts, and since you received enough laudatory comments via Christian Trader, I figured I'd fill the negative lacuna. Hope that's okay with you?
My Critiques in General
I suspect most/all of the apparent disagreements are due to needing to be careful in how we attribute things to others, and in the limitations of this format.
But this is what I mean by recognizing nuances that require time to develop and discuss.
i) The author also has a job to make himself clear too. In the book I was referred, there was no time taken in discussing nuances. I criticized Christian Trader and he never laid out your nuances but, rather, said some things that exacerbated the problems.
ii) Some of my complaints don't seem to have been solved, and, indeed, some of your "nuances" make it more confusing (see below).
iii) There has not been one single person, besides Christian Trader, who, by the way, said this on page one: "My biggest problem is that I have not read but so deep in philosophy past a few van tillian works, so I can't really see if your work is truly awesome or that I only think it is awesome due to my lack of philosophical depth," that did not make the same observations and see the same problems when I sent them quotes from your book. I tried to make sure I wasn't the only one. Some of my correspondents have Ph.Ds in philosophy too.
Epistemology
I don't agree that I maintain evidentialism or deontology.
i) By evidentialism I mean the view that:
Evidentialism = df Person S is justified in believing proposition p at time t if and only if S’s evidence for p at t supports believing p.
I say this for a few reasons:
a) Your definition of "know" on page 1 of this thread.
b) Page 13 of Reasons and Worldviews (R&W): "[H]is view leads to a kind of fideism where certain beliefs are held as basic not needing proof." And again, "...thus the assertion of such beliefs without proof ... becomes fideistis" (ibid). And later, "This is to go further than the requirements of Clifford (do not believe without proof); it is to say that even if there are some basic beliefs that do not require proof, one has the obligation to make inference and be able to respond to alternatives" (p.75)
c) Your denial of "evidentialism" in the book is a denial of a view that is purely inductive and probabilistic, and thus to deny 'evidentialism' in this way isn't to deny it in the way I meant it (which should have been clear (!) given the context in which I was speaking).
ii) Given your definition of knowledge both here and in the book (in the book as JTB, p. 125), I find it odd that you would deny deontologism given that Plantinga and others have shown fairly convincingly that deontologism is tied up in views of knowledge that seek "justification", as well as internalist constraints.
iii) I see you didn't deny my charge of internalism. I wonder how integral this constraint is to your program. Since I think it is pretty clearly false (cf. Bergman's work), then if it is integral to your position I find that to be a major hindrance.
iv) Therefore, from where I'm standing epistemologically, your view is beset by some major worries. Some I'm unsure can be recovered from.
Metaphysics of Freedom
I do maintain ought/can, but not in a way that leads to or assumes libertarianism or arminianism.
From your book: "Libertarianism: A view of freedom where ought implies can; one is free if one could have done otherwise; related to causality, if my act was caused it could not have been otherwise; libertarianism denies determinism ... in order to affirm freedom" (p. 126).
I agree with what is expressed by the Reformed thinkers you quotes concerning necessity, and I think there is still an important sense of ought/can that we can rely on ... One way I try to do that in "Clarity" is to discuss levels of freedom. I distinguish between these levels:
practical, psychological, worldview, presuppositional, and reason.
Your examples (and those used by the authors you reference) are limited to the first two levels, and on those levels I completely agree with you.
i) So are you saying you're a libertarian about "worldview, presuppositional, and reason?"
ii) I struggle to see how you could agree with my critiques at the first two, but not the second. I don't see how my argument could fail at any level that assumed ought implies can is required for moral responsibility.
I can iff I want to, and my want is entirely predetermined by God, and since it is my want I am responsible for it
Frankfurt counters would work at this level too. But first:
i) It appears you assume classical compatibilism CC. So you'd need to defend yourself against the myriad attacks of CC both from within and without the compatibilist camp (do you in your book I ordered)? We can see you affirm CC by your hypothetical model (S could have done otherwise if S had wanted to do otherwise). But first, it's not clear that CC (Hypothetical Classical Compatibilism, HCC) can refute the consequence argument.
A different worry with HCC is that its analysis of 'can' and 'could have done otherwise' sometimes wrongly tell us that we could have done otherwise even we clearly could not have. McKenna puts it this way: Suppose Danielle has been scarred by a terrible childhood accident involving a blond Labrador retriever. This accident rendered her psychologically incapable of wanting to touch a blond-haired dog. Imagine that, on her sixteenth birthday, unaware of her condition, her father brings her two puppies to choose between, one being a blond-haired Lab, the other a black-haired Lab. He tells Danielle just to pick up whichever of the two she pleases and that he will return the other puppy to the store. Danielle happily and unencumbered does what she wants and picks up the black Lab.
Was she free to do otherwise? It doesn't seem so. Given her childhood experience, she cannot even form a want to touch a blond-haired Lab, thus she couldn't pick one up. But in this case the HCC analysis would be true. That is: IF Danielle had wanted to pick up the blond-haired Lab, then she could/would have done so. This is clearly false, though. The problem brought out here is that HCC isn't enough. We need more than just: S could have done otherwise if S had wanted to do otherwise. We need, rather, something like this: ..."and S could also have wanted to do otherwise." And this pushes the question back to whether the agent could have wanted to do otherwise. To answer that requires another 'could' statement: S could have wanted or chosen to do otherwise. This requires another hypothetical analysis: S would have waned or chosen to do otherwise, IF S had wanted or chosen to want or choose otherwise. The same question would arise about this analysis, needing another 'could' statement to be analyzed, and so on ad infinitum... (cf. Kane, Intro to Free Will, pp. 28-31).
ii) As you state in R&W: "...while ought implies can, can implies want." Two things:
a) How is 'can' to be understood? Hypothetically? Then we have your statement as:
"...while ought implies you could do x if you had wanted to, the ability to do otherwise if you had wanted to implies want."
That seems odd.
b) We have a Frankfurt worry. Imagine that a person—call him 'Stanley'—deliberately keeps himself very still. He wants to. He refrains, for some reason, from moving his body at all. … suppose that here is someone with a powerful interest in having Stanley refrain from making any deliberate movements, who arranges things in such a way that Stanley will be stricken with general paralysis if he shows any inclination (including a want)to move. Nonetheless, Stanley may keep himself still quite on his own altogether independently of this person's schemes. Why should Stanley not be morally responsible for keeping still, in that case, just as much as if there had been nothing to prevent him from moving had he chosen to do so?
Here it appears that Stan is responsible, yet he could not have wanted to do otherwise.
Subtle changes would only be required to work for all your various "instances," I suspect.
Also, I'm unsure how this argument still wouldn't apply (to whatever realm you place "ought implies can" in):
1. Suppose some individual, John, does something morally wrong.
2. If John's Xing was wrong, then he ought to have done something else instead.
3. If John ought to have done something else instead, then he could have done something else instead. (The OA and CT premise)
4. So John could have done something else instead. (from 3, PAP)
5. But if causal determinism is true, then John could not have done anything other than he actually did. (Reformed premise)
6. So, if causal determinism is true, it cannot be the case that John's Xing was wrong. (Entailed by CT's and OA's position).
The Knowledge of God
My sense is that this [man's knowledge of God] was cleared up earlier in the thread. I agree with these thinkers depending on what "know" means. The meaning of the term I am focused on includes some form of assent or believing, so that a person does not "know" if they do not agree to the truth of a claim. But I believe there are other senses of the term "know" that people use and that can explain the quotes above.
i) I am sorry to report that I did not think it was cleared up, at all. Mathew Winzer started off on the right foot, but then you trapped him. Based on the (what I would call obviously false) definition of "know" you gave on page one, of course unbelievers don't 'know' God in that sense. Now, if that's your definition of know, then, yes, unbelievers don't know. But, problematically for you, you don't either since I showed you had an infinite regress problem. Your view also assumes internalism, which I deny. They know if they know that they know.
ii) You then claim that there are "other senses" of the term "to know" that can be meant for those in Romans 1.
I find this odd for at least two reasons:
a) You never even so much as indicated that there was any sense that unbelievers know God exists in your R&W I just finished.
b) You seem to deny them any knowledge based on your exegesis of Romans 1. For example, you claimed: It is easy to prove that not everybody has knowledge or belief in God as defined by theism. ... Theistic belief has not been held by every human throughout history, nor is it held by every human alive today. ... It is the eternal power and divine nature of God, not some vague sense of a higher power, that Paul says is knowable and the ignorance of which is inexcusable. And when Paul says that God's existence and nature are known from the things that are made this suggests and inference, not an immediate or invariant truth. When Paul says in verse 21 that 'although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were they thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened", there seems to have been a progression from having known God to failing to know God. it is far from clear that the word 'they' in this passage refers to all humans who have ever lived, but rather may be referring to an original context where humans knew God and then a process in which humanity exchanged belief in God for belief in idols."
Thus for you to claim that Romans 1 allows for "some kind" of knowledge that ALL MEN have is contradicted by your own exegesis of the passage!
iii) I find your exegesis suspect for a number of reasons:
a) Paul is speaking about the universal problem of sin and God's wrath towards all men. His reason (because) is that "they knew God." So you have God giving a reason for his universal wrath upon all men that some men knew him but then ceased to know him.
b) Who are these people who "knew" God? Were they saved? Regenerate? How did they "know God" in this robust sense if they were not, according to your views on the matter (i.e., salvation restores one to knowing)? If they were saved, how do you avoid denial of perseverance?
c) Apropos (b), you seem to indicate that not even Adam and Eve knew God in this sense. So I fail to see who you think it could be.
d) Schreiner disagrees (Romans, 85-87); Moo disagrees (Romans, 103-104); Murray disagrees (Romans, 37-38).
e) Oliphint disagrees (Reasons for Faith, 133-140), same with Frame, Bahnsen, Van Til, et al. They disagree with your exegesis. To affirm it in their sense is to deny your exegesis.
f) People even disagree with your claim that those who say there's a knowlegde mean there's a vague knowledge. So Oliphint: "And it is a knowledge with significance and substantial content" (ibid, 134). So it appears we have straw men.
g) You claim that men do not understand God. You claim they don't know him either. Calvin disagrees:
"To prevent anyone from taking refuge in the pretense of ignorance, God himself has implanted in all men a certain understanding of his divine majesty. Ever renewing its memory, he repeatedly sheds fresh drops. Since, therefore, men one and all perceive that there is a God and the he is their Maker, they are condemned by their own testimony because they have failed to honor him and to consecrate their lives to his will."
And further,
"Men of sound judgment will always be sure that a sense of divinity which can never be effaced is engraven upon men’s minds. Indeed, the perversity of the impious, who though they struggle furiously are unable to extricate themselves from the fear of God, is abundant testimony that this conviction, namely that there is some God, is naturally inborn in all, and is fixed deep within, as it were in the very marrow. . . .For the world . . .tries as far as it is able to cast away all knowledge of God, and by every means to corrupt the worship of him. I only say that though the stupid hardness in their minds, which the impious eagerly conjure up to reject God, wastes away, yet the sense of divinity, which they greatly wished to have extinguished, thrives and presently burgeons. From this we conclude that it is not a doctrine that must first be learned in school, but one of which each of us is master from his mother’s womb and which nature itself permits none to forget, although many strive with every nerve to this end."
h) God implants the knowledge. Thus its source is God himself and it's content is [insert what Rom. 1 says], its function is dependant on God's activity, and this activity will not fail (cf. Oliphint, 136). Add a seity to this, and God is not dependant upon age, cognitive development, or anything for his knowledge to be implanted. Also, since I deny the internalist constraint you affirm, I deny your claims about men's interpretation of this knowledge as if men had to know that they know in order to know. it is given by God and is not dependant on us, as you make it.
i) Do all men have a knowledge of God: Reymond agrees (ST, 131); Berkof agrees (ST, p. 35-38); Bavink agrees (RD, 302, 361); Turretin agrees (IET, 1.3.7). They all agree that it's in the Rom. 1 sense, and thus isn't vague but is enough to render inexcusable
Conclusion
I look forward to reading your next book, but so far I find much of your position to be (a) theologically and (b) philosophically problematic. I'm merely expressing my reasons why, based on the information contained in your book that was referred to me. If it is so unclear that one must either email you and ask what you mean all the time, or wait for future books, then perhaps a disclaimer should go into the book I read. But, as it stands, even with your explanations here, it's not clear that you have clarified your position enough to avoid the problems.
I don't post here anymore. Came out of retirement for this post. As I said, if I go ahead with a review (which will be much longer and more detailed now that I have to include your other book with it), I'll email you before I post it anywhere.
I also would like to see you do what you claim needs to be done. I am bored of silver bullet apologetic claims and endless discussion of method. I like to see people be able to put their money where their mouth is. From the little section on NT I saw in your book, there’s going to have to be a lot more convincing. I also see some problems in that section. Some smuggling in of assumptions not known by reason or NT. But I’ll leave that for another day.
I have no ill-will toward you, and I hope you take my comments simply as they were meant to be: objective criticisms I have with what I understand of your position so far...
Last edited: