It appears Cheung has replied

[Don]

Originally posted by Civbert

No, no, no.

Internalism says that a proposition (P) is know by a subject (S) if that person can, on reflection, give a reason for P.

Roughly speaking, it says: S knows P if and only if S, upon reflection, can give a reason for P.

It doesn't say that S must give a reason prior to knowing P - only that S can give a reason for P given enough time and effort.

So your "internalist constraint" on knowledge is an unjust constraint on internalism. I think you should reconsider, and if you still disagree, then give relevant quotes to support "your" definition of "internalism".

Anthony,

You are aware that he (Pappas - the article you linked) is contrasting different forms of internalism, right?

I don't think that 'given enough time and effort' would do much good since the internalist constraint is still there. A person still has to give reasons for his belief in order to be justified to have knowledge. I'm not sure how postponing justification for an indefinite amount of time helps. To rid yourself of it, it would seem that one would need some form of externalism, but I digress on this point.

Nevertheless, Cheung's internalism does not seem to be the same as the 'accessibility knowledge internalism' (AKI)spoken of in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article and can be seen from the rhetoric in most of his books. It also appears that AKI would run headlong into the same problem. As relates to your apologetic methodology, you would need to allow the unbeliever this same luxury, that he can have *knowledge* and that he can also, like the Scripturalist, put justification off indefinitely.


Don


[Edited on 3-13-2006 by Don]

 

[Don]

Hi Robin,

Reviewing this thread...I noticed that the most important element is being left out: "general" revelation and "special" revelation. The TWO revelations God uses.

General has to do with God's self disclosure in creation or nature. All men have knowledge of God, the Creator; his power and supremacy; his Laws. This knowledge is either distorted or supressed. Hence, all the world's religions are evidence that man MUST express an awareness of God - though it's idolatrous. All men express ethical traits (some form of the 10 C.) In this sense, all men "know" God and are therefore "without excuse...."

Special revelation has to do with the Gospel - which is utterly (alien) outside man's knowledge. It must be given by God, directly and must be "preached" so it can reach the ears/mind since it is located only in the Word of God. The Gospel is the "word of Christ" or information about the Jesus of Holy Scripture. It is precisely this information that is toxic to unbelief. However, faith (trust) in this information must be applied/given via the Holy Spirit (who is IN the word.)

J. G. Machen helpfully decribes faith in 3 parts: knowledge; assent; trust. The first two parts, any man can have. They are information; and agreement with the information. However, the last part (trust in the information) is given by the Holy Spirit upon hearing the Gospel.



Robin

[Edited on 3-10-2006 by Robin]

I don't think that Sean or anyone here would disagree with you on the distinction between general and special revelation. However, we were looking into the problem of holding opposing beliefs and attempting to resolve this without landing in contradiction. In other words, how can one be said to believe that a) God doesn't exist (per his own testimony) and 2) God does exist (per revelation). That's where the epistemological vs psychological distinction comes into play.

Don

 

[Civbert]

Originally posted by Don

Originally posted by Civbert

No, no, no.

Internalism says that a proposition (P) is know by a subject (S) if that person can, on reflection, give a reason for P.

Roughly speaking, it says: S knows P if and only if S, upon reflection, can give a reason for P.

It doesn't say that S must give a reason prior to knowing P - only that S can give a reason for P given enough time and effort.

So your "internalist constraint" on knowledge is an unjust constraint on internalism. I think you should reconsider, and if you still disagree, then give relevant quotes to support "your" definition of "internalism".

Anthony,

You are aware that he (Pappas - the article you linked) is contrasting different forms of internalism, right?

I don't think that 'given enough time and effort' would do much good since the internalist constraint is still there. A person still has to give reasons for his belief in order to be justified to have knowledge. I'm not sure how postponing justification for an indefinite amount of time helps. To rid yourself of it, it would seem that one would need some form of externalism, but I digress on this point.

Nevertheless, Cheung's internalism does not seem to be the same as the 'accessibility knowledge internalism' (AKI)spoken of in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article and can be seen from the rhetoric in most of his books. It also appears that AKI would run headlong into the same problem. As relates to your apologetic methodology, you would need to allow the unbeliever this same luxury, that he can have *knowledge* and that he can also, like the Scripturalist, put justification off indefinitely.


Don


[Edited on 3-13-2006 by Don]

Yes, it's an interesting article. And what is most interesting, is that it does not says that the internalist does demands S give an account for P in order to know P. The internalist issue has to do with access to an account for P, the other forms of internalism seem to make Chueng and externalist.

Access internalism says can S access a reason for P, not that he must access the reason for P. S does not have to "give a reason" for P in order to "know" P. But he must have the ability to give a reason. As long as a reason is available for S to know P, then S knows P.

CT said that the internalist constraint is the P is an opinion until S gives a reason for P. This is not correct. P is known by S, even if S never gives an account for P.

I have not problem with unbelievers having knowledge. In fact I know he has knowledge. He has knowledge of the existence and character of God.

There were three forms of internalism given by the article, and none of them seems to be a problem as presented by Chueng's detractors.

1. Internalism in the first instance is a thesis about the basis of either knowledge or justified belief. This first form of internalism holds that a person either does or can have a form of access to the basis for knowledge or justified belief. The key idea is that the person either is or can be aware of this basis. Externalist, by contrast, deny that one always can have this sort of access to the basis for one's knowledge and justified belief.
2. A second form of internalism, connected just to justified belief but probably extendable to knowledge as well, concerns not access but rather what the basis for a justified belief really is. Mentalism is the thesis that what ultimately justifies any belief is some mental state of the epistemic agent holding that belief. Externalism on this dimension, then, would be the view that something other than mental states operate as justifiers.
3. A third form of internalism concerns the very concept of justification, rather than access to or the nature of justifiers. This third form of internalism is the deontological concept of justification, whose main idea is that the concept of epistemic justification is to be analyzed in terms of fulfilling one's intellectual duties or responsibilities. Externalism with respect to the concept of epistemic justification would be the thesis that this concept is to be analyzed in terms other than special duties or responsibilities.
   [/list=1]

1. 
   
   The first seem to be the one that is being called a problem for Cheung. Since it does not say that the person has to first give an account prior to knowing - so the objections stated by many are not the internalist view. Cheung may be an internalist, but that is not a problem - it's is merely a way of describing Chueng's epistemology.
   
   The second form of internalism seems to make Chueng an externalist - since Chueng makes the Holy Spirit the basis for knowledge in the mind. The Spirit places the knowledge in a persons mind, and it does not have to do with the mental abilities or reasoning of the person.
   
   The third form does not seem to apply to Cheung's epistemology either way.
   
   Aquascum makes the following statement which is out-of-line with internalism:
   

   "The idea that someone can happily know p even though he has no idea how he knows p, is rejected by those who put an internalist constraint upon knowledge."

   
   The access knowledge internalism only says that a person must be able to access his basis for P, not that he must be immediately aware of how he knows P. Men know of God, but few have any idea how they know this. Chueng "occasionalism" gives and answer that is ironical externalist. So how does is Chueng an internalist - will Aquascum says it's implicit, since Chueng doesn't say he is.
   
   Chueng seems to argue from an internalist perspective by asking on what basis does a person know something. This implies that a person who can not give a basis does not have a way of showing that something he claims to know, is really knowledge. All this does is undermine typical assaults on Christianity - by saying since may un-believers can not account for the things they believe, they can not use them to defeat Christianity. It's a defeater defeater. And it's not bad at that. The only problem is Chueng should not say that unbelievers don't know things, only that they don't have a reliable justification for knowing things. That's not infalliblism - it's simply an argument against alternatives to non-biblical knowledge that would contradict Christianity because they are unreliable.
   
   Aquascum has many problems with Chueng, basically because Aquascum's particular epistemology includes induction as a justifier, and empiricism, and other non-Scriptural justifications for knowledge. It's not so much that Chueng is right or wrong, but his epistemology is different than Aquascum. So Aquaboy has never defeated Chueng.
   
   His infallibilsim and internalism descriptions are strawmen. We can tell this because Aquascum never gives a description of Chueng's epistemology that Chueng would agree with. Aqm gives strawmen versions and question begging premises that are well constructed for he's knocking down. At best, he might show some inconsistent statements on Chueng's part - but he has failed to defeat Scripturalism.
   
   [Edited on 3-13-2006 by Civbert]

 

[Don]

Anthony,

Tell you what, since you have 'refuted' Aquascum, why not email this to him so he'll shut up! Just last week, he posted another critique of Cheung's latest post. There's an email address on his page.


Don

 

[Civbert]

Originally posted by Don
Anthony,

Tell you what, since you have 'refuted' Aquascum, why not email this to him so he'll shut up! Just last week, he posted another critique of Cheung's latest post. There's an email address on his page.


Don

Do you have the link to his latest post? I didn't notice it when I looked at his site, what's it titled?

 

[Don]

Originally posted by Civbert

Do you have the link to his latest post? I didn't notice it when I looked at his site, what's it titled?

It's the next to last link on his homepage. Here it is. I have yet to read it, but noted it so you'd know he's still around and I am sure he would love to read your critique.

His email is aquascumSPAMMENOT at gmail dot com.

 

[Civbert]

Originally posted by Don

Originally posted by Civbert

Do you have the link to his latest post? I didn't notice it when I looked at his site, what's it titled?

It's the next to last link on his homepage. Here it is. I have yet to read it, but noted it so you'd know he's still around and I am sure he would love to read your critique.

His email is aquascumSPAMMENOT at gmail dot com.

I'll give you the short refutation. Chueng says God controls all beliefs we have, true or false. Aquascum says this makes it "a fallible process".

Here is Aquascum's argument in a nutshell: since Chueng rejects "sense-experience" as a justification of knowledge on the grounds it is fallible, then he should reject occasionalism since it is fallible because God's "divine illumination" also makes people believe false propositions.

Chueng argues that empiricism is uncertain and should not be a justifying process for knowledge - and that is true. The process of empiricism is to take sense-experiences and induction to test for the truth of propositions. "Divine illumination" is not fallible in the same sense because it is not a justifying "process". The comparison should be made to the Scripturalist justifying process for knowledge by deduction from Scripture. Certainly deduction from Scripture is much more reliable then induction from sense-experiences. But both are fallible in that both call for normal reasoning functions that suffer from the noetic effects of sin.

The "divine illumination" process is a different matter altogether. It is an infallibly metaphysical means that God makes us believe truths and falsehoods - not the "justifying" process of epistemology. And it never fails to do what it purports to do - no matter what epistemological process one employs to justify a proposition (empiricism or Scripturalism or rationalism) as knowledge.

Aquascum has compared apples to oranges in his argument - an epistemological process (empiricism) for justifying knowledge, to a metaphysical process (divine illumination) for believing any proposition is true or false.

Empiricism is an unreliable process for justifying knowledge. Scripturalism is not infallible, but far more reliable as a process. "Divine illumination" is infallible because it does exactly what it says - and is justified as a proposition from the Scripturalism epistemology.

Aquascum is refuted again!

:bigsmile:

[Edited on 3-13-2006 by Civbert]
Don't ya hate it when you notice your typos and spelling mistakes after you're post is quoted! :} What a maroon I am!

[Edited on 3-13-2006 by Civbert]

 

[Magma2]

Certainly deduction from Scripture is much more reliable then induction from sense-experiences. But both are fallible in that both call for normal reasoning functions that suffer from the noetic effects of sin.

Good point! As Clark used to say, people make mistakes in balancing their checkbooks too.

The "divine illumination" process a different matter altogether. It is a infallibly metaphysical means that God makes us believe truths and falsehoods - not the justifying process of epistemology. And it never fails to do what it reports to do - no matter what epistemological process one emplys to justify a proposition (empiricism or Scripturalism or rationalism) as knowledge.

Aquascum has compared apples to oranges in his argument - an epistemological processes (empiricism) for justifying knowledge, to a metaphysical process (divine illumination) for believing any proposition is true or false.

Excellent point # 2!

Epiricism is an unreliable process for justifying knowledge. Scripturalism is not infallible, but far more reliable as a process. "Devine illumination" is infallible because it does exactly what it says - and is justified as a proposition from the Scripturalism epistemology.

Aquascum is refuted again!

[Edited on 3-14-2006 by Magma2]

 

[Don]

Since you have corrected your spelling now, are you ready to send this to Aquaboy? I probably wouldn't if I were you as there are so many problems with it, but I'm tired of rehashing stuff over and over.

I think it's time to 'man' up, send it to Aquaboy, and show this PHD how he's wrong!



Don

 

[Civbert]

Originally posted by Don
Since you have corrected your spelling now, are you ready to send this to Aquaboy? I probably wouldn't if I were you as there are so many problems with it, but I'm tired of rehashing stuff over and over.

I think it's time to 'man' up, send it to Aquaboy, and show this PHD how he's wrong!



Don

Signed and delivered. I also copied Vincent Cheung to be fair. Maybe I'll get something interesting back. Who knows?

 

[Civbert]

I got lengthy replies from Vincent Chueng and Aqu Scum. Both gave made some good points, clarified some things for me, and were quite gracious. I'll post them according to their wishes.

... including their corrections - I certainly can't throw stones on that account.

[Edited on 3-17-2006 by Civbert]

 

[Civbert]

My thanks to Aqua Scums for his following response to my e-mail. He wrote:

originally by Aqua Scum in an e-mailed to Anthony Coletti dated 3/16/2006. Re: Coletti's response to Aquascum's "On Cheungian Occasionalism

Hi Anthony,

Thanks for your feedback on the following link:

<http://www.reformed.plus.com/aquascum/occasionalism.htm>

...which was recently added over at:

<http://www.reformed.plus.com/aquascum/>

Here are my thoughts:

> "Divine illumination" is not fallible in the same sense
> because it is not a justifying "process".

I'm not sure why you import the notion of a *justifying* process into
my discussion. If you want to do this, you're going to have to make
clear whether we're talking about internalist justification,
externalist justification, or some combination of the two (such as
that delineated by Alston in "An Internalist Externalism").

Here I would simply encourage you to read section 4 of my "A Response
to Vincent Cheung," where I lay out Cheung's own position on divine
illumination and occasionalism, using citations from his own works. In
the citation which begins section 4.1 ("What does Cheung mean by
'occasionalism'?"), Cheung explicitly contrasts empirical
investigations with the divine illumination of the logos, which occurs
on the occasion of our empirical observations. So if you think (as you
say below) that comparing empiricism with occasionalism is "comparing
apples to oranges," then it appears your problem is with Cheung, not
with me. On pp. 16-17 of "Ultimate Questions," Cheung sketches out two
contrasting ways of obtaining knowledge -- empirical investigations
and occasionalism -- and says that it is only by the latter that we
can gain any knowledge.

> The comparison should be made to the Scripturalist justifying
> process for knowledge by deduction from Scripture. Certainly
> deduction from Scripture is much more reliable then induction
> from sense-experiences. But both are fallible in that both call
> for normal reasoning functions that suffer from the noetic
> effects of sin.

Err, what? Here you say that "deduction from Scripture" is "fallible,"
even as "induction from sense-experiences" is "fallible". Once again,
your problem appears to be with Cheung, not with me. Why, exactly, is
the fallibility of sense-experience a problem then, if deduction from
Scripture is likewise fallible?

> The "divine illumination" process is a different
> matter altogether. It is an infallibly metaphysical means
> that God makes us believe truths and falsehoods - not the
> "justifying" process of epistemology. And it never fails to
> do what it purports to do - no matter what epistemological
> process one employs to justify a proposition (empiricism or
> Scripturalism or rationalism) as knowledge.

The problem here is a simple equivocation on the notion of
"infallible". No doubt if an omnipotent God seeks to cause in us
belief X, then he cannot fail of his purpose. Such a belief *will* be
produced. In that sense, the process is infallible (though the better
terminology here is to say that the process is deterministic rather
than probabilistic). But, of course, the fact that God cannot fail to
attain his goal of producing in us a particular belief on any occasion
he chooses, does not give us any reason at all to think that the
belief will be either true or false. On many, many occasions, God
produces false beliefs in human beings, rather than true beliefs.
Thus, the process of occasionalist divine illumination is fallible
*from the epistemic point of view*.

In this latter sense, then, the parallel with sense-experience is
exact, and relevant. When epistemologists comment upon the fallibility
of sense-experience, they wouldn't be moved by the suggestion that, if
all the physical causes of a belief are in place on a particular
occasion, then the belief *will* be produced, and thus the process of
sense-experience is 'infallible'. For this leaves entirely out of the
analysis what is important from an epistemic point of view: whether or
not the process produces only true beliefs. Clearly it doesn't, and so
the process is fallible. Ditto for occasionalist divine illumination.

My comparison between sense-experience and occasionalist divine
illumination, as to their fallibility, was intended to be from the
epistemic point of view, and no other. Presumably, this is also the
comparison intended by Cheung in the passages I cite. Here are two
examples.

First, Cheung does not take occasionalist divine illumination to be a
merely 'metaphysical' process, such that it carries no epistemological
weight. On the contrary, in section 4.2 of my Response I cite Cheung's
claim that occasionalist divine illumination is an *epistemological*
thesis:

<<<
"Christian epistemology affirms that all knowledge must be immediately
"“ that is, without mediation "“ granted and conveyed to the human mind
by God. Thus on the occasion that you look at the words of the Bible,
God directly communicates what is written to your mind, *without*
going through the senses themselves. That is, your sensations provide
the occasions upon which God directly conveys information to your mind
*apart from* the sensations themselves. Therefore, although we do read
the Bible, knowledge never comes from sensation" ("Ultimate
Questions," p. 38).
>>>

Cheung says that the above view is "consistent with Christian
metaphysics," but clearly he takes it to be an affirmation of
"Christian epistemology". It is Christian *epistemology* which
"affirms that all knowledge must be immediately "“ that is, without
mediation "“ granted and conveyed to the human mind by God." It is
Christian *epistemology* which affirms that "on the occasion that you
look at the words of the Bible, God directly communicates what is
written to your mind, *without* going through the senses themselves.
That is, your sensations provide the occasions upon which God directly
conveys information to your mind *apart from* the sensations
themselves."

Second, take Cheung's treatment of the matter in
<http://www.vincentcheung.com/2005/04/29/occasionalism-and-empiricism/>,
which I cite in section 4.3 of my Response. There he says:

<<<
And if I know that 'Vincent is a man,' I certainly do not know this on
an empirical basis (what precisely do I sense to know that 'Vincent is
a man'?) or by common sense, but by illumination from the Logos, in
accordance with my explanation on occasionalism.
>>>

Clearly, Cheung is contrasting two *epistemological* processes. There
are two candidates for how Cheung *knows* that "Vincent is a man": he
either "knows this on an empirical basis," or he knows it "by
illumination from the Logos, in accordance with my explanation on
occasionalism."

In addition, in the citation above you misapply the distinction
between "metaphysical means" and "epistemological process". No doubt
there is a distinction here, but it does you no good in this context.
Both sense-experience and occasionalist divine illumination can be
characterized as "metaphysical means". Advocates of sense-experience
say that there is a genuinely metaphysical process, a *causal*
process, that obtains in virtue of sensory stimuli causing effects in
us, namely, beliefs. That is why discussions of causation loom large
in treatises on metaphysics; it is in general a metaphysical matter as
to what causes what. Similarly, as you rightly bring out,
occasionalist divine illumination is a metaphysical means. Divine
illumination is a *causal* process that obtains in virtue of God
directly causing beliefs in us on the occasion of empirical
observation.

By the same token, both sense-experience and occasionalist divine
illumination can be characterized as an "epistemological process".
Once you bring in the question of the *truth* of the beliefs produced,
and bring in the question of the reliability of the process in
bringing about true beliefs, you are comparing the processes from the
epistemic point of view, where increasing our stock of true beliefs is
the chief (although not only) epistemological desideratum. Notice that
we can do this because in each case one of the causal relata is
*beliefs*, which are things that can be either true or false. (By way
of contrast, it's difficult to analyze the causal process of
photosynthesis from an epistemic point of view, because there's
nothing produced by the process that can conceivably be characterized
as true or false.)

So no, the divine illumination process *isn't* "a different matter
altogether." No matter how you slice it, the comparison is apt. You
are either comparing metaphysical to metaphysical, or epistemological
to epistemological, in noting aspects of these two processes. I took
the intended comparison as epistemological because that's how *Cheung*
takes it, in the material cited in section 4 of my Response.

> Aquascum has compared apples to oranges in his argument -
> an epistemological process (empiricism) for justifying
> knowledge, to a metaphysical process (divine illumination)
> for believing any proposition is true or false.

Hopefully you are now in a position to see why this charge won't fly.
They are both 'metaphysical' processes, being causal processes, and
they can both be evaluated from an epistemic point of view, being
causal processes which issue in beliefs. And when done so, it is
easily seen that they are both fallible. Thus, it seems clear to me
that my original critique stands.

> Empiricism is an unreliable process for justifying
> knowledge. Scripturalism is not infallible, but far
> more reliable as a process.

Do you really think this will satisfy Cheung's standards for
knowledge?! Scripturalism is "more reliable" than sense-experience,
rather than being infallible? Surely Cheung will reject this
abandonment of the infallibilist constraint on knowledge, as evidenced
by my citations of him in section 3.1 of my Response.

> "Divine illumination" is infallible because it does
> exactly what it says - and is justified as a proposition
> from the Scripturalism epistemology.

One might as well say that "sense experience" is infallible because it
does exactly what *it* says. After all, any time sensory stimuli are
in a position to cause our beliefs, they do so, or so says the
advocate of sense-experience. Cheung of course demurs, and says that
this causal process doesn't obtain. But in its place he puts in
another causal process: empirical "observation stimulates the mind to
intuit what the logos immediately conveys to it on the occasion of the
observation, often about what the person is observing" ("Ultimate
Questions," p. 17).

But once we examine either causal process from an epistemic point of
view -- as to whether it produces *true* beliefs -- it is easily seen
that they are equally fallible.

You can publish this reply in any public forum you'd like, as long as
you do so in its entirety.

-- Aquascum

[Edited on 3-17-2006 by Civbert]

 

[Civbert]

A follow up form Aqua Scum came the later that day.

originally by Aqua Scum in an e-mailed to Anthony Coletti dated 3/16/2006 11:03 PM. Re: Coletti's response to Aquascum's "On Cheungian Occasionalism


Hi Anthony,

Just a quick follow-up. From what I can by perusing the main
'Aquascum' threads over at the Puritanboard, your main response to my
critiques is that I fail to recognize that Scripturalism is an
axiomatic system. On your view, I should have recognized that one must
simply assume the axioms, and that we can never know them. The
following comment of yours is, I think, emblematic of this kind of
response:

> Does Scripturalism say that we can justify the truth of "the
> Scripture is true"? Nope. We can believe it. We can not "know" it.

I'm not sure if this is the case, but you might have missed the
following document over at the Aquascum page:

"Second Reply: Some Comments" (07 July 05)
<http://www.reformed.plus.com/aquascum/secondreply.htm>

I think the entire document is relevant to your concerns, but of
particular interest is the section entitled "On 'begging the
question'". There, I argue that "the Scripturalist is in the fairly
ludicrous position of having to hold that no one can know that
Scripturalism is true. Indeed, no one knows the truth of
Scripturalism. Indeed, it follows that *Scripturalism is unjustified
opinion*."

This seems to be in accordance with your opinion above. This goes
back, of course, to the alethic Scripturalism / epistemic
Scripturalism distinction which Sudduth draws, as well as the vanilla
Scripturalism / Rocky Road Scripturalism distinction which he draws.
Cheung's view is Rocky Road epistemic Scripturalism, and I do think
it's subject to my critique.

You might argue, however, that although Scripturalism isn't knowable,
nevertheless it is *justified* opinion, rather than being unjustified
opinion. That's fine. But in my view, that's simply an abandonment of
Scripturalism (at least as Cheung conceives it), since now you've got
to come up with an account of positive epistemic status in which there
can be a "justification" which falls short of knowledge. In other
words, you'd have to actually do epistemology, which I think is in
short supply in Cheungian circles. If my critiques lead Scripturalists
to abandon Scripturalism and actually do some epistemology, that would
be a good thing in my view.

Again, feel free to post this on the Puritanboard, as long as you do
so in its entirety.

-- Aquascum

P.S. I can't even copy/paste without need to correct my errors.

[Edited on 3-17-2006 by Civbert]

 

[Civbert]

originally by Aqua Scum in an e-mailed to Anthony Coletti dated 3/16/2006 11:16 PM. Re: Coletti's response to Aquascum's "On Cheungian Occasionalism

On 3/16/06, Aqua Scum <[email protected]> wrote:

> This seems to be in accordance with your opinion above. This goes
> back, of course, to the alethic Scripturalism / epistemic
> Scripturalism distinction which Sudduth draws, as well as the vanilla
> Scripturalism / Rocky Road Scripturalism distinction which he draws.
> Cheung's view is Rocky Road epistemic Scripturalism, and I do think
> it's subject to my critique.

Oops. To be clear, my view is that Rocky Road epistemic Scripturalism
*is* self-referentially incoherent, whereas vanilla Scripturalism
reduces to unjustified opinion, unless one wants to supplement it with
some actual epistemology about "justification".

-- Aquascum

originally by Aqua Scum in an e-mailed to Anthony Coletti dated 3/17/2006 10:24 AM. Re: Coletti's response to Aquascum's "On Cheungian Occasionalism

Argh! You know, I really should proofread every line before sending. A
slight revision to the below.

On 3/16/06, Aqua Scum <[email protected]> wrote:

> Oops. To be clear, my view is that Rocky Road epistemic Scripturalism
> *is* self-referentially incoherent, whereas vanilla Scripturalism
> reduces to unjustified opinion, unless one wants to supplement it with
> some actual epistemology about "justification".

By "vanilla Scripturalism" I meant, of course, vanilla *epistemic*
Scripturalism.

These distinctions are taken from:
<http://www.puritanboard.com/forum/viewthread.php?tid=16689&page=1#pid232007>

This should be my last email on this particular topic

-- Aquascum

 

[Civbert]

I'll get to add Chueng's response to my e-mail latter today or early next week. His will require even more work since it includes more formating to separate quotes from snippets from other conversations.

I'm impressed by the detail and effort that both of them took in replying to me. I didn't expect so much and I'm grateful to them both. As far as my comments to what they wrote.... eventually I'll get a chance to digest it all, but so far I've only skimmed then.

Thanks for the suggest Don - it was very fruitful advice - even if it was almost a dare. And it shows that it's okay to play with the big-boys, they don't bite as much as you little guys!

 

[Don]

Civbert,

Well, since you were critiquing Aquascum and not anyone here, I thought it'd be appropriate to send him your critique.

Thanks for the suggest Don - it was very fruitful advice - even if it was almost a dare. And it shows that it's okay to play with the big-boys, they don't bite as much as you little guys!

So is this a bite at the little guys?!


Don

 

[Civbert]

Originally posted by Don
Civbert,

Well, since you were critiquing Aquascum and not anyone here, I thought it'd be appropriate to send him your critique.

Thanks for the suggest Don - it was very fruitful advice - even if it was almost a dare. And it shows that it's okay to play with the big-boys, they don't bite as much as you little guys!

So is this a bite at the little guys?!


Don

Arf!