Magma2
Puritan Board Sophomore
God is the ontological basis for knowledge to be possible…period. However, God has given us the Scriptures as a means for us to gain knowledge. As such, I can take as axiomatic the starting point of “the Scriptures are the Word of God” and use it as a means to gain knowledge. However, this is only possible because there is an omniscient God who always tells the truth and has revealed stuff to us. Apart from the ontological reality of God, the Scriptures are incapable of giving us knowledge. The Scriptures depend upon God and not the other way around.
Couple of small points. If what you mean by “God is the ontological basis for knowledge to be possible” the same thing as what the WCF asserts and that “our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth, and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the word in our hearts” we have no disagreement. One could not have a true belief unless God first caused one to believe. However, you seem to be suggesting metaphysics as necessarily prior to epistemology and I simply do not agree. Knowledge is belief in the truth with an account of its truthfulness. Consequently, it is Scripture alone, the mind of Christ revealed, which gives us both the content and account for knowledge. There is no “God” apart from the God as He has revealed himself in Scripture, this is why Scripture and not God would be the chosen axiom.
Axiom: The book called #### is the Word of ****.
Since this is our axiom, we accept the proposition as being true. Whatever ‘####’ points to is asserted to be the Word of whatever ‘****’ points to. At this point, am I able to draw any truth-value conclusions about the propositions contained within the book called ####? The answer is no. I need more information about the nature of this book and the nature of the entity referred to by ‘****’. For instance, if this entity is omniscient, infallible and always lies, then I can conclude the propositions contained in the book called #### are all false. (Interestingly enough, this would give us a basis for knowledge because when we know something is false, then there is something we know that it true.) Now, let’s go back to your question…
I think some of the confusion here is that the book called the bible isn’t a pointer to something else. When I refer to Scripture I do not mean ink marks in a black book.
You ask, “How do you know anything of God, such as God is omniscient, doesn't lie, makes knowledge possible, etc. without positing God's self-revelation first?” The argument above makes the case that unless there is some prior knowledge concerning the nature of Scripture and God, then the axiom that “Scripture alone is the Word of God” is incapable of giving us knowledge.
And I would say that unless you accept the axiom that the Scripture alone is the Word of God you would be able to arrive at no knowledge of God whatsoever or anything else for that matter (see Clark’s quote). If there was some prior knowledge concerning the nature of Scripture and God than that knowledge, whatever it might be, would be the axiom of the Christian system and not Scripture. Further, while the truth of Scripture cannot be proven there are certain evidences that attest to the fact that the Scripture is the Word of God. One such bit of evidence is the consent of the parts and the logical coherence of all Scripture teaches.
We have no rational basis to draw any truth-value conclusions concerning the propositions contained in the Scriptures from simply the assumption that our axiom is true.
If you mean by this we have no prior proof that the Scriptures are true, then you are exactly right. The axiom of Scripture is accepted as true without prior proof. If not “Scripture alone is the word of God” would be a theorem and not an axiom. You correctly pointed out that Clark was very concerned with not confusing axioms with theorems, but I’m afraid you’ve done exactly that.
I am not sure I follow you. I denied that the claim is “man’s knowledge follows logically from the proposition ‘God Exists’” in the above quote. I did not affirm this. My position is that for man to be able to gain knowledge from the Scriptures, then there must exist a God who is omniscient and always truthful. As such, the ontological reality of God is the foundation upon which we can have justified true beliefs. My axiomatic starting point(s) would be as follows…
Axiom 1: There exists an omniscient God who always tells the truth.
Axiom 2: The Bible is the very Word of God.
Axiom 3 (our deductive apparatus): Man has been given certain cognitive faculties that when functioning properly are designed to produce true beliefs.
I would refer you to Clark’s discussion again on axioms in his Intro and also his piece God and Logic where he states:
God as distinct from Scripture is not made the axiom of this argument [as it is in your arrangement above]. Undoubtedly this twist will seem strange to many theologians. It will seem particularly strange after the previous emphasis on the mind of God as the origin of all truth. Must not God be the axiom? For example, the first article of the Augsburg Confession gives the doctrine of God, and the doctrine of the Scripture hardly appears anywhere in the whole document. In the French Confession of 1559, the first article is on God; the Scripture is discussed in the next five. The Belgic Confession has the same order. The Scotch Confession of 1560 begins with God and gets to the Scripture only in article nineteen. The Thirty-Nine Articles begin with the Trinity, and Scripture comes in articles six and following. If God is sovereign, it seems very reasonable to put him first in the system.
But several other creeds, and especially the Westminster Confession, state the doctrine of Scripture at the very start. The explanation is quite simple: our knowledge of God comes from the Bible. We may assert that every proposition is true because God thinks it so, and we may follow Charnock in all his great detail, but the whole is based on Scripture. Suppose this were not so. Then “God” as an axiom, apart from Scripture, is just a name. We must specify which God. The best known system in which “God” was made the axiom is Spinoza’s. For him all theorems are deduced from Deus sive Natura. But it is the Natura that identifies Spinoza’s God. Different gods might be made axioms of other systems. Hence the important thing is not to presuppose God, but to define the mind of the God presupposed. Therefore the Scripture is offered here as the axiom. This gives definiteness and content, without which axioms are useless.
Thus it is that God, Scripture, and logic are tied together. The Pietists should not complain that emphasis on logic is a deification of an abstraction, or of human reason divorced from God. Emphasis on logic is strictly in accord with John’s Prologue and is nothing other than a recognition of the nature of God. http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=16
I think Clark’s solution is much more elegant as that it combines all three (or at least two) of your axioms into one and is considerably more defensible for some of the reasons he mentions above. Regardless, you’re free to choose your own axioms and if you would prefer to have three what do I care even if the first seems to me to be a redundancy and I’m not sure what 3 gets you? I would think it would contradict 2 since proper function isn’t exactly a biblical truth. Total depravity is.
Talking about an omniscient "entity" who does not lie or any such thing outside of God's self-revelation is to beg the question.
Not if you make it your axiom. Go back and read Clark’s argument in his An Introduction to Christian Philosophy concerning the nature of axioms in light of the very objection you raised. If I remember correctly, he deals with it in a couple of places. One is given a complete section titled something like “Does this beg all questions?” I would also like to point out that my three axioms are completely consistent with each other, and as such the system derived from this is internally consistent. It should also be noted that the system derived from my three axioms would be the very system Clark subscribed to.
Like I said, you’re free to choose whatever you want. I’m not sure what or how much is deducible from 1 & 3, but since 3 seems to contradict 2 and 1 is already asserted within 2, I really don’t see what your 3 axioms gets you next to Clark’s humble one?
Quote:
Consequently, your point #3 is just another assertion of the very thing that needs to be demonstrated in order for "reason and senses" to be considered "faculties" by which deductions from Scripture are made.
If man does not have cognitive faculties by which to process sensory inputs like the symbols on a page and is not able to properly draw conclusions from these sensory stimuli, then the Scriptures fail to be a source of knowledge for man.
This doesn’t follow. Again, Scripture is not ink marks in a black book. See Moreland’s discussion on propositions mentioned above. It’s quite good.
Essentially, if you deny my axioms 1 and 3, then you undermine your ability to know anything. I look forward to your response, and hope that Anthony chimes in as well.
Again, I think 1 & 3 are already including in Clark’s single axiom and 3 with some qualification and modification.
Let me ask you a question, how do you think I would be perceived by those on the Scripturalist list? Do you think they would perceive me to be a friend or an enemy of Scripturalism?
You would be not viewed as a Scripturalist. That’s OK, I have lots of friends that aren’t Scripturalists. Some are even Van Tilians.