A TAG Objection

[Bryan]

I've began to listen to some Bahnsen debates with Steain and Tabash and have been impressed by his approach and the TAG argument. I have also been looking over the net to see Athiest responces to both and can across THIS SITE.

Does the author have a valid point? Just becasue an answer as to where, logic for instance, comes from isn't available at the moment to an Athiest (It may be unknowable or with further discovery be available in the future) doesn't mean that the alternate view, it comes from God, is correct.

I am sure this issue has been brought up in debates before, so I am curious as to how the one arguing TAG would answer the objection.

Thanks,

Bryan
SDG

 

[Puritan Sailor]

He hasn't really attacked the TAG. All he did was tell a story with a moral, "just because we don't know the asnwer yet, doesn't mean there isn't one." Well, that's all nice and probably gives the atheist warm fuzzies all over, but that sort of thinking completely undermines there own methodology. What if they found out through there "superior scientific knowledge" that in fact they have been the ones believing in "Persephone" (which they are)? They have no objective basis for the truths they hold. It's all based on unproven assumptions and opinions. They simply want us to believe them because they say so. They are saying "Trust us. We know what's right. We can't tell you why but that doesn't matter, we will eventually." Only those who refuse to submit to the one true and living God would buy into an explanation like that.

 

[RamistThomist]

Originally posted by Bryan

Does the author have a valid point? Just becasue an answer as to where, logic for instance, comes from isn't available at the moment to an Athiest (It may be unknowable or with further discovery be available in the future) doesn't mean that the alternate view, it comes from God, is correct.


Thanks,

Bryan
SDG

Not really,
Suppose Michael Jordan beats every basketball player known to man. He can justifiably claim that he is the best player in the world. Now, what about the possibility that Jordan has not played everybody and there may be a better player? Jordan's answer is obvious: "Bring him on." The theoretical possibility of a better player is not a concern to him. In the world of basketball it is the one who is actually the best player, and not a possible best player, that counts. The same goes for worldviews. What matters are actual worldviews, not possible ones.

Second, this criticism is of no practical value to the unbeliever. The unbeliever either 1) implicitly assumes the Christian's presuppositions, 2) considers it a mystery that not everything is mysterious or nonsensical, or 3) offers a worldview in which words adn reasoning are meaningful.

On 3) the Christian proceeds to refute the proffered worldview; 2) is tantamount to acknowledging defeat;

However, this criticism misses the thrust of TAG altogether (TAG argues for the impossibility of the contrary [the non-Christian worldview]). TAG does not establish the necessity of Christianity by inductively refuting each and every non-Christian worldview. As finite individuals, this would be impossible. If the negation of Christianity is false, Christianity is proved true.
Either A or ~A; ~~A; therefore A.

Hope this helps. See Michael Butler's essay in teh Festrchifft to Greg Bahnsen.

 

[RamistThomist]

Paul
Paul,
I really enjoyed Butler's essay in the Standard Bearer. Do you know if he is ever going to write a major book on presuppositionalism?

 

[Bryan]

Thanks for the responces they make sense.

Am I then correct in thinking that TAG can only, or the point of it, is to show that the Athiest worldview has holes in it that the Chrsitian one does not?

Bryan
SDG

 

[Bryan]

Makes sense. Ive only seen it applied to athiesm as of yet

Bryan
SDG

 

[RamistThomist]

I am curious if TAG can be applied to Roman Catholicism?

 

[Bryan]

Thanks for those Paul, very useful and interesting.

I guess the more I am reading on Presuppositionalism and TAG the more I get the impression that it is moreso a way of thinking about how to interact in a discussion then a set of questions to ask or answers to give. I can tell you I learned mroe about it listening to those two debates I mentioend earlier then in reading sites about it. You look at their arguemnt and see what they have persumed to make their arguemnt, you then look at those presumptions and see if they are valid weith their worldview and if they are not explain to them why they are not valid in their world view but would be (if they are) in a Christian worldview.

It also seems to be a skill honed by expirence.

Bryan
SDG

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Bump for the TA's in Pual's post.