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We are Van Tillians at WSC. Mike has, however, written a lot over the last 20+ years and his views have developed. In the years following his doctoral work he studied CVT and adopted his approach though he has emphasized the utility of evidences.
I guess I will reveal my ignorance now about this issue. I have found more problems with the debating of this issue than I have found with baptism. Both seem to be just as heated. I have a problem with Van Til on the issue of paradox and a problem with Clark's view that all truth is propositional. Hopefully Dr. Horton can reconcile the issues. At least both sides are presuppositionalist.
He is right that beleifs of anykind are either true or false.
He is right that beleifs of anykind are either true or false.
"I believe in Jesus." This statement is one of belief, but can neither be true nor false: it may be warranted or non-warranted, but it cannot be true or false, at least not in any factual sense.
He is right that beleifs of anykind are either true or false.
"I believe in Jesus." This statement is one of belief, but can neither be true nor false: it may be warranted or non-warranted, but it cannot be true or false, at least not in any factual sense.
He is right that beleifs of anykind are either true or false.
"I believe in Jesus." This statement is one of belief, but can neither be true nor false: it may be warranted or non-warranted, but it cannot be true or false, at least not in any factual sense.
Now that confuses me. The statement has to do with the person making the statement, not in Jesus Himself. So is it not true that the person believes in Jesus? Is it not a fact that they do?
Both descriptions of the name Jesus sastify the statement "I believe in Jesus" but one is more warrented than the other and they are either true or false.
Apparently, I worded this badly: how can we say that a belief in Jesus is either true or false.
When one is believing in Jesus, one is not believing in a set of propositions, necessarily. How would we say that this belief is true or false regardless of its content? Statements of trust like this may or may not be warranted (slightly different sense here) but to call them "true" or "false" in a propositional sense is a category mistake. Can we meaningfully say that Jesus is true? No, he's a person not a proposition. It's meaningful to say that He is truth, but that's a whole different bird.
Either he existed or he didn't or he either wore pokadot pants or he didn't, either he died for my sins or he didn't.
but if we determine that their beleif is false than they no longer have any logical warrant for beleiving it anymore.
I don't think you are suggesting that there are beliefs that can be as false as the day is long and someone still has enough warrant to believe it despite that.
None of those constitute belief in Jesus. When I say "I believe in Jesus" I do not simply mean "I believe that there was a historical figure named "Jesus" who was God incarnate and died for sins." Even Satan believes that. When I profess belief in Jesus, I am professing far more than simple assent to a set of propositions. I am professing belief in a person, which may lead to propositions about that person, but nonetheless, the propositions can be true if and only if they accurately describe that person.
Not necessarily---that's assuming that "we" convince them a) that "our" model of rationality ought to be accepted b) that on our model of rationality, the belief in question is not warranted. However, my determination of what is and is not true has no effect on someone else's warrant unless I can make a de facto case that they accept.
Sure they can. People were warranted for centuries in believing in abiogenesis, despite the fact that it has since been proven false.
No thats assuming an objective reality that all of our beleifs must submit to. This clashing of "models" seems to be like the presupossitional argument put foward by Van Til but you reject that so in what ways is it different?
For instance if someone's beleif contradicts itself than their warrant disapears
but you offer no proof of it that I can see
Your view of warrant seems far to subjective to me, it seems to break down all comunication between differing models.
If I am warranted to believe anything I like without exception than rationality breaks down.
In my opinion there is an objective standered outside all models that determines whether or not a person is warranted to hold a beleif at all
Would someone please describe what a person is without using propositions or describe an individual they know without using propositions.
So would you advocate a subjective reality instead?
The difference here is that these models will share much. An atheistic common-sense model will share much in common with my own Christian model. I may be able to show that its methods are less consistent than mine, but this would not disprove the model, merely show that it needed tweaking.
To think of this in political terms: it would be like arguing for a law change based on an inconsistency in current policy. All that would be required by the critique would be an adjustment, not a new constitution or the scrapping of English Common Law.
That would be a de facto claim.
It accounts for the way in which we form and hold our beliefs far more simply than Van Til's account. Van Til's account would work only if everyone were a philosopher with a well-thought-out system of beliefs. However, this just isn't the case. We're dealing with the beliefs of philosophers, theologians, scientists, autistic individuals, 5-year-olds, down syndrome individuals, and the like
On the contrary, I'm simply pointing out that warrant is dependent on the resources that one has. Aristotle was warranted, based on the evidence he was working with, in believing in geocentrism and abiogenesis. I happen to think that both of these facts are false, and probably Aristotle would were he alive today, but he was still warranted then.
The fact is that you can't do this. If you believe something, then most likely you have some warrant for believing it. All that warrant does is to give one grounds for rationally holding a belief.
Again, abiogenesis was a rational belief to hold before it was disproven. We cannot fault the medievals as being irrational or lacking warrant in holding this belief.
This would itself constitute a model of rationality, though. It would be the true model.
Maybe what you are trying to get at would be that certain beliefs could never be warranted. Am I correct?
http://www.puritanboard.com/f49/gordon-h-clark-logic-man-47056/
Just for reference we discussed some of these arguments in the thread I am posting here.
No I advocate an onjective reality. Your description of how the models relate is very Van Tillian in nature. The difference is that your agreement with him seems to be merely consequential. You believe that an atheistic model can be successful in aquireing truth, but how can a model that starts from bad assumptions be successful in the end?
Logical fallacies are universal for this reason. So in a sense Van Til is disproving their beleif's logical foundations which is as you said is a legitemate de facto form of argument.
Also why we can critique the set of beleifs, or worldview, on logical and philosophical grounds
But in our other discussions you seem to say that an unbeleiver has warrant for being an unbeleiver.
Sure but I think you can't make this a blanket policy accross the board for all beleifs.
But the second that he and I have a debate, hypothetically speaking, and I demonstrate to him that he simply has missed the logical point that he has not shown why what he views as right or wrong is actually right or wrong, on as deep a logical depth as can be taken. I am simply asking for him to produce a deeper level of logical warrant for his beleifs.
Would someone please describe what a person is without using propositions or describe an individual they know without using propositions.
Sure, I can show you a picture.
WHat if I'm blind?
Would someone please describe what a person is without using propositions or describe an individual they know without using propositions.
Sure, I can show you a picture.
Except that you have it backwards. A model starts with the facts and proceeds to extrapolate, but where they take it is due to their ground motives and personal commitments. Thus, an atheist may start with truths, but he will take even those truths and reason autonomously from them.
It's like the story of "The Absence of Mr Glass" by Chesterton, where both Father Brown and the psychologist have the same facts. The difference is that the psychologist's commitments lead him to conclude that there is a blackmailing, while Father Brown concludes (rightly) that there has been no crime committed.
This is where you are mistaken. You take it that most beliefs have these "logical foundations", whereas I do not. My belief in the tree outside is dependent on no other belief, neither is my belief in God. What you would refer to as the "logical foundation" of that belief, I simply take to be the metaphysical story behind why that belief is, in fact, true. Now, if you prove this story to contradict the initial belief, then all I am compelled to do is to find a new story that adequately explains the phenomenon or else just remain agnostic.
But here's another problem, because worldviews comprise so much more than simple propositional beliefs, but include attitudes, predispositions, and sensibilities we cannot critique them on a purely propositional level. How do I critique, for example, what I consider to be bad taste?
Given his assumptions, I think he does have warrant. Now, he's suppressing everything that would lead to God, but that's not to say that his unbelief is irrational, given that his Sensus Divinitatus is not functioning properly. He may well have a kind of coherence to his worldview.
Why not? Warrant has to do with how you came to hold a belief.
But before this criticism works, you have to show him in some compelling way the necessity of providing this. Why can't his ethical beliefs be basic (produced by moral sense) with his metaphysical story being second-order?
Again, warrant has nothing to do with the metaphysical story you tell about the content of the belief and more about how you came to hold the belief. I would have the same warrant for believing that the tree is there regardless of whether I was a Christian or an atheist or a Muslim.
Here's the example: let's say that we are walking in the desert and I say "Look, there's a lake." and you say "No, that's a mirage." Now you can try to prove that my vision is not working quite properly in this context, or you can just walk me over and show me the facts.
So I don't know how you can still after this hypothetical discussion say that he has warrant for his beleif?
So than it could be false that you believe a certian joke is in "bad taste" and yet believe it is in bad taste?
Also if I start from false assumptions I can only arrive at false conclusions
he can never be justified in his beleifs that based on false assumptions and be completly truthful as well.
I don't think this is entirerly correct. You come to hold a truthful beleif on false premises and you are are justified to hold that beleif?
They state "I believe such and such..." and they are not required to give any justification for that statment?
You seem to suggest that they have warrant regardless. Do you mean that their beleif is formed on the basis of their senses so that is all the warrant they need to believe that they see a tree outside?
So I see no value in parking every discussion of beleifs in a spot that is at the end of the day pure subjectivity.
Examples of this would be political opinions, do they not require more reasons for warrant and convincing people than just pointing outside to a tree to prove that you see a tree.
That is the next level of beleifs, now lets look at another example beliefs or theories like global warming. There are people who believe that we are causing global warming.
You might say that why does someone even need to come up with a theory of ethics, in fact most people don't? Well because of the nature of the very beleif in a standered of right and wrong logically entails certian requirments for warrant in that beleif. Any moral demand can be countered with why I ought to do that? How does one establish what we ought to do?
True, these are value judgments. However, these are far fuzzier beliefs. How would I demonstrate to you, for instance, that freedom should be the highest priority of law? (by the way, I don't believe that it is). We have disagreements over this stuff within the Church, for crying out loud.
Global warming is a scientific issue and therefore the principle of Occam's Razor is applicable here (the simplest theory that adequately explains all the data should be accepted). Now, in reality personal commitments will play a huge role, but that's not necessarily bad.
Again, here what we have are conclusions that will be reached based on personal commitments and value judgments. Why do I accept a Christian view of ethics? Simply put, it's because I have a commitment to Christ. It's not because it's the only logically valid system out there. Frankly, I think that a non-Christian could possibly come up with an ethical system that could account for all of what you just said.
Yes but you now have crossed over into a theoretical analysis of law, so you only went into the thried level I mentioned (see how easy it is to cross bounds here).
No assumptions are not neccassaraly bad
Your rigth we both have a christian ethics formost because of Christ but a christian ethic happens to be the only logicaly valid system out there as well.
"murder is wrong" is a basic beleif therefore we ought to believe it and follow it
But that's the point. In order to evaluate an ethical claim, you have to do ethics---in the evaluation, the possibility of ethics is a given.
I said "personal commitments" not "assumptions."
You can say that if and only if you can actually demonstrate it. The best you can do on that score would be an inductive argument.
Wrongness is a basic category that implies a moral imperative.