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Christendom is a society of people who call themselves Christians because they occupy themselves with obtaining information about those who a long time ago submitted themselves to Christ's examination - spiritlessly forgetting that they themselves are up for examination.

-Soren Kierkegaard, as quoted in Provocations - The Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard

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Plantinga's Air Conditioner

I know this video has been making the rounds, but considering how much Dr. Reiter loved Plantinga and how much of him we had to read in our philosophy classes, it's funny to see him on a local news show... not talking about anything remotely philosophical. My guess is, the news crew had no idea they were in the house of one of the greatest living analytic philosophers in the world.

Alvin Plantinga

I was looking through my copy of Plantinga's Warranted Christian Belief from Dr. Reiter's Epistemology class. We were fortunate enough to have a Philosophy professor in college who was not only a Calvinist, but whose doctoral thesis was on epistemology. At the time, I didn't appreciate our discussions of epistemology, Cornelius Van Til or Alvin Plantinga nearly enough, but now years later I am intensely grateful to have gained my Philosophy degree from an orthodox, believing Westminster man who loved Jesus Christ and studying epistemology.

Our initial encounter with Alvin Plantinga in class was in our "Atheistic Argument from Evil" class where we specifically discussed the so-called "problem of evil." In the class, we encountered Plantinga's answer to the problem from his book God Freedom and Evil, the infamous free-will defense where he discusses transworld depravity and other notions which I barely grasped (and still don't understand). All I knew was that if Plantinga used the free-will defense, then he was no bueno in my book.

All that to say, my first impressions of Alvin Plantinga weren't all that great. Even now, I don't feel like I understand Transworld Depravity (maybe some plainspoken genius can put it into English for me). However, piggybacking somewhat off of the Van Til post from yesterday, it occurred to me that Plantinga does a great deal of footwork which we Van Tillians can make use of in our apologetics - especially against agnosticism and naturalism.

Plantinga has a chapter in Warranted Christian Belief where he discusses the dual enemies of the Christian philosopher: agnosticism and naturalism. What I want to do in tomorrow's post is take a cursory glance at Plantinga's argument against Hume's brand of agnosticism. In a later post we'll look at Plantinga's (not entirely original - and yet devastating) argument that naturalism is self-defeating.

James Anderson Blog and John Frame Festschrift

James Anderson, a RTS-Charlotte professor, has just made available his chapter in John Frame's Festschrift titled, Speaking the Truth in Love. Anderson's article is called, "Presuppositionalism and Frame’s Epistemology," and as the title suggests, the article gives a succinct overview of Frame's presuppositionalism. Some will even be interested in that he defends Frame's triperspectivalism which is regularly misunderstood by those who appear to have not read Frame very carefully (or at all!). Anderson writes,

Perhaps the most helpful analogy here is the geometrical one. Given that we are stereo-optical creatures restricted to one point of view in time and space, we lack the capacity to see every part of a three-dimensional object at once, particularly if it is large and complex. For example, suppose I visit a house to assess it as a potential purchase. Clearly, it is not possible for me to view the front, back, and sides of the house simultaneously. I need to change my vantage point—my perspective—to gain a fuller understanding of the house. Likewise, I cannot see the entire house all at once in fine detail. I can first stand back and take a wide view, but then I need to step up close and scrutinize individual features. Exterior and interior views give me further perspectives and enhance my knowledge. I may also decide to visit the property again in different weather or lighting conditions. Finally, it will be prudent of me to invite other people to view the house, so that I can benefit from their additional perspectives. Our spatiotemporal limitations are but one aspect of our finitude.

Frame’s basic point is that what goes for geometrical perspectives goes for other kinds of conceptual perspectives too. The geometrical analogy also makes it clear that the charge of relativism, occasionally leveled at Framean perspectivalism by its critics, is quite misguided. It doesn’t follow, from the fact that a house appears differently to five people standing in various locations, that the house as such is different for each person or that there are no objective truths about the house. The critics thus conflate relativism and relativity; the former is self-defeating nonsense, whereas the latter ought to be self-evident common sense. In any case, Frame is careful to point out that the very basis for objectivity is the existence and self-revelation of an absolute God.

My point in this quote is not to claim that Frame's triperspectival "perspective" is helpful (though I have found it to be helpful in my hermeneutics), but only to point out that triperspectivalism, rightly understood, is not teaching "relativism" or that you can't call someone's perspective "wrong." After all, Frame calls people's "views" wrong all the time!

If you are interested in the festschrift more details can be found at Anderson's blog.

Epistemological Argument For an Old Universe

The Speed of Light is defined as “The speed at which light travels in a vacuum; the constancy and universality of the speed of light is recognized by defining it to be exactly 299,792,458 meters per second.” A light year is considered the distance that light travels (through a vacuum) in one year (9.46 x 1017cm). The nearest star (other than the Sun) is 4.3 light years away. In other words, we see this star as it existed four years ago, not as it actually is right now. The distance to the most distant object seen is about 18 billion light years. Hence, we can at least be confident, given the time that this light has taken to reach our planet, that the universe is, at the minimum, 18 billion years old. The distance to the galaxy M87 in the Virgo Cluster is 50 million light years. Likewise, when we look into a telescope and see M87, we are looking into the past and seeing M87 as it was 50 million years ago. But did M87 even exist 50 million years ago? Some Christians think it did not. Christian Reconstructionist Gary North clearly rejects the scientific measurement of the speed of light when he argues, “The Bible’s account of the chronology of creation points to an illusion. …The seeming age of the stars is an illusion…Either the constancy of the speed of light is an illusion, or the size of the universe is an illusion, or else the physical events that we hypothesize to explain the visible changes in light or radiation are false inferences.”*

1. If the entire universe is a maximum of 15,000 years old then the speed of light is not a constant 299,792,458 meters per second.
2. The speed of light is a constant 299,792,458 meters per second.
3. Therefore, it is not the case that the entire universe is a maximum of 15,000 years old.

Using modus tolens, we can see that one must either reject the constancy of the speed of light or reject the young-universe proposition that the universe has only existed for 15,000 at the most. However, there are other extra-scientific possibilities which should be considered before a final judgment is issued. For example, some such as Gary North, argue that astronomers’ measurements of the size of the universe are simply wrong. Often, as Hugh Ross points out, those arguing this point are under the misleading notion that scientists only use the unreliable redshifts to measure astronomical distances. However, scientists actually use a wide variety of methods to measure distances within the universe.

If, nevertheless, the young-earthers are correct, then the truthfulness of their proposition would require that the scientists’ distance measurements be off by more than 200,000,000 percent. This is very implausible. Entire textbooks have been written just on the measurement of distances within the universe, and one thing we are sure of is that the possibility of anything more than a 10-15 percent range of error for the calculations of the distance of stars is not only unlikely, but also contested by nearly all astronomers. Consider that this 200,000,000 percent error in calculation on the part of astronomers also applies to the actual scale of the universe if the young-earther is correct in offering this argument. If the argument is sound, then the universe is 200,000,000 percent smaller than astronomers have calculated.

Others have argued – and this is perhaps the most persuasive argument possible – that God created the light already in transit. In response, it is first important to note that the argument is not that God could not create the light already in transit. That is not in question. What is in question is the implications for general revelation and knowledge in general if God causes things to appear a certain way when they are not (or were not) actually so. This argument tells us that, though the speed of light is basically constant, it was created in transit to earth. Given this perspective, as an example, supernovas have never actually happened. Astronomers for the past thousand years have observed numerous supernova explosions, though these supernovas are millions of light years away. If the light from these supernova were created already in transit, then it is valid to conclude that we have been observing, with our eyes, events which have never actually occurred. Perhaps they are occurring today in some farthest reach of the galaxy, but no one on earth will know of their occurrence for millions of years. It should also be noted that this is fundamentally unscientific because it is non-falsifiable. There is no methodology which can be used to refute this particular approach to the problem, because its proponents can always say, when evidence is presented, “God just made it look that way.”

In support of this argument that God created the light in transit, the parallel is often drawn between the light being created in transit and Adam’s being created full-grown. However, this is not a parallel, because though Adam was created looking grown up, we have no records or visible evidence that he was ever a child for this to contradict. For the parallel to exist, there would have to be some sort of scenario where we can “see” Adam as an infant, though we know better than that. Such a scenario does not exist. Adam – it is alleged – was created with the appearance of having lived for many years, but this is not the same as the starlight problem, because we can actually see the stars as they were millions of years ago, yet it is being asserted that they did not exist millions of years ago. In order to be effective, the analogy of Adam with starlight must be parallel, though this is certainly not so.

My basic argument is that if one wants to deny that the stars which are millions of light years away existed as we see them, then they are not epistemologically justified in believing in the existence of the sun. In the same way that we see the sun several minutes after the light leaves it, we se distant stars millions of years after the light leaves them. There is only a quantitative difference between them. To deny the existence of these stars billions of years ago is to undercut the very science upon which the young-earth creationists attempt to build their own “scientifically” based approach to apologetics.

Let x be anything which can be seen with the human eye and y be any other object which can be seen with the human eye.

1. If x appears to have properties of existence yet does not, then one is unwarranted in believing in the existence of y.
2. One is warranted in believing in the existence of y.
3. Therefore, it is not the case that x appears to have properties of existence yet does not.
4. Therefore, if distant stars appear to have properties of existence yet do not, then one is unwarranted in believing in the existence of the sun.

The final argument which should be seriously considered is that which says that the speed of light was much faster thousands of years ago, though it now does take many light years for light to reach the earth from distant stars. From a scientific perspective, there is no question that the speed of light is constant, and according to all scientific studies and measurement, has always been constant for at least the last 14 million years. The question that must ultimately be answered is, has God constituted the universe in a constant way so that induction is possible? As Hume asked, do we have any assurance that tomorrow will be like today? Given the Christian worldview, we do, but this seems to be called into question by this response. If the speed of light has changed, then the possibility of induction seems to have been severely compromised. This may not seem so at first, but when one philosophically considers what happens when one falls back on the inconsistency of the universe to sustain their scientific hypothesis, they will find a fundamentally unscientific response couched in scientific terminology. Without induction, science is impossible, and without consistent laws of the universe, induction is impossible.

1. If one is justified in believing that the speed of light is not constant, then no one is justified in believing in induction.
2. The speed of light is not constant.
3. Therefore, no one is justified in believing in induction.

Those who hold to a young-universe perspective do so in contradiction to relatively simple astronomical observations. In response to these observations, they are forced to deny the consistency of science, and therefore to remove their own foundations for other scientific arguments which they then readily use after just having denied it. They rather conveniently pick and choose what data to use and what to refuse depending on whether the data at a given time suit their conclusions. This methodology not only sends a message to the unbelieving world that Christians are unwilling to be consistent in their argumentation, but also that we do not believe God himself to be honest or consistent in the universe that he has presented us. Even worse, this type of thinking leads us to the Gnostic, cultic notion that “there is no life, truth, or substance in matter,” if we choose to take the path which yields us a world of illusion. According to the book of Romans, God has made himself known to all men – not only in the Scriptures, but also in different ways throughout the physical, observable universe in which we live. The heavens declare the glory of God - none would doubt that. But do they declare the dishonesty of God? I submit that they do, if the universe is not tremendously older than the young-earthers claim.

*North, Gary The Dominion Covenant: Genesis (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1987) 255.

Thoughts on Dillahunty v. Slick

Per Wizard's request following our discussion, I listened to episode #593 of The Atheist Experience entitled "A Fallacy Model," while I was on vacation, and I do have a few thoughts with regards to the show.

In the episode (which aired on February 2nd of this year), Matt Dillahunty received a call from Matt Slick (of CARM.org) so that they could specifically discuss Matt Slick's formulation of the Transcendental Argument. I won't review the entire discussion, but I would like to make some comments on the conversation and its relevance to our own discussion we are having with our friend, Wizard.

The most relevant to our own discussion was, in my opinion, Matt Dillahunty's inability to present a positive statement of the nature of the laws of logic. In the discussion, Matt Slick pressed him to get him to admit that the laws of logic are physical. From a strategic perspective, Slick was doing this because if Dillahunty said that they are conceptual, then there must always be a mind to perceive and evaluate truth in order for the laws of logic to exist. If Dillahunty admitted that the laws of logic were physically based, then he would have had to admit that logic is nothing more than a social convention (not to mention a host of other problems that calling the laws of logic "physical laws" creates).

All that Matt Dillahunty would admit in the discussion is that the laws of logic are non-conceptual. Slick pressed him, however, arguing that you cannot say what the laws of logic are not without knowing what they are. Slick presented Dillahunty with two options: Either the laws of logic are (a) Physical or (b) Conceptual. In the conversation, Dillahunty repeatedly insisted that there must be a third option, though he was unable to present an accounting of what that third option might be (this is the same point we have been pressing Wizard on). In other words, what I drew from the conversation was exactly what I suspected when trying to think of the third option on my own: there is not a third option. If there is, I would like the atheists to offer it, because then my own claim that atheism cannot account for the laws of logic will face an obstacle. He uses these laws, he insists that everyone else conform to them, and his entire scientific enterprise is built upon them. But unlike the Christian, all the atheist can say is, "I don't know what the laws of logic are, or why they exist at all, but I do know that they are real and that they're not conceptual or physical." Precisely. That is the substance of the Christian claim. Our worldview can coherently account for what is, but given the atheist worldview, there would be no such thing as universal, invariant, non-physical laws.

Thoughts About the Thought Experiment
If anyone listens to the audio of the broadcast and decides to listen to the thought experiment they do at the beginning (somewhere around the 10 minute mark), they will find an excellent example of defining your opponents out of the conversation. In the broadcast, the co-host set out several jars. One had dice in it, and two others were "empty." For the purposes of the conversation, she informed the audience that one of the jars had existent dice, one was empty (she says it contains "non-existent dice"), and one had transcendent supernatural dice (she said they were "existent supernatural transcendent dice").

She then scrambled the jars up and argued that since there is no physical way to determine the difference between the empty jar and the jar with the transcendent supernatural dice, then there is no point in recognizing anything that is transcendent and supernatural. Now, Wizard asked me to comment on this, but I'm tempted to engage in ad hominem and just make fun of the argument. I won't do that, but does this immediately strike anyone else as a terrible argument?

The only way this would strike anyone as a good argument is if they were already committed materialists. But isn't that precisely the point under discussion? Let me put this another way: The claim that transcendent and supernatural entities exist entails the proposition that these entities cannot be measured with physical instruments. And yet, the claim that their existence can be identified through philosophical means or by means of revelation is completely rejected without a word of debate.

Two teams come to the field. One is dressed in red, the other team is wearing blue. A dad from the red team is reffing the game and moments before the kickoff he decides to tell everyone on the field that only teams wearing red are allowed to play today. Is anyone surprised, then, when the red team walks away with the trophy? It's not exactly the most fulfilling win of the red team's career, but a win's a win, right? I think you get my point.

Red Beetle is Up to it Again

I was looking around youtube today and ran across the following video titled "A Van Tilian's Analogical Testimony Before A Calvinist Elder" under the label "The Heresy Of Van Til." Red Beetle, the creator of his and other videos we have posted, mainly goes after Van Till's emphasis on the Creator/creature distinction. He argues that unless we know the exact same way God knows, we cannot know anything, even the gospel. Of cource I disagree with him on this, as you would have guessed, but even if I agreed with Red Beetle, why this is heresy, I do not know.



(Also, I am not sure why one of the guys is in a cage when he is examined for church membership? My church does not practice this, does yours?)

The Transcendental Argument (Part 4)

Conclusion

Whether or not the transcendental argument succeeds is beyond the scope of this paper. We attempted to demonstrate that the arguments leveled against the transcendental argument by Michael Martin and Sean Choi do not stop the weightiness of the presuppositionalist’s argument. Martin’s arguments seem to either: (1) miss the point of the transcendental argument, or (2) misunderstand a basic teaching of the Christian faith; while Choi fundamentally misunderstands the nature of a worldview. These arguments are helpful in showing areas that the TAG can be improved, or at the very least, areas where the TAG can be bolstered. But they do not put forth a significant challenge to the TAG.

The Transcendental Argument (Part 3)

Response to Critics of the TAG

With this brief outline of the transcendental TAG, we can turn to the main objective of this paper, which is a response to critics of this argument. In this section a response will be given to two main critics of the TAG: (1) Michael Martin, atheist professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Boston University since1975 and (2) Classical Apologist Sean Choi, Ph.D. candidate in philosophy at the University of California. Martin has written or co-written 13 books and over 100 articles in the areas of: philosophy of religion, philosophy of social science and philosophy of law. Two of his articles are of specific interest: 1) “Does Induction Presume the Existence of the Christian God?” and 2) “The Transcendental Argument for the Non Existence of God.” Choi has a chapter on the TAG in Reasons for Faith: Making a Case for the Christian Faith. Each of these will be looked at in turn.

a. A Brief Response to “Does Induction Presume the Existence of the Christian God?”[1]

Martin begins his discussion of the transcendental argument by giving an overview of the TAG. His overview is not one of the strongest overviews on the subject, but he does hit the essence of the presuppositional argument.

The basic idea of TAG when used against atheists is easy to understand and state. It maintains that certain things that atheists assume are true can only be true if there is a God. Primarily these atheistic assumptions are the beliefs that logical reasoning is possible, that scientific inference is justified, and that objective moral standards exist. So if an atheist uses logic to refute a theistic argument, uses scientific evidence to undermine some biblical position, or argues that God’s omnipotence and moral perfection are incompatible with evil in the world and consequently that God does not exist, TAG maintains that he or she is implicitly assuming God’s existence.[2]

After Martin’s overview of the TAG, he moves to a response to this argument. His main point is that even if the transcendental argument is sound it fails to show that the Christian God exists. He states the argument in this form, “To say that A presupposes B is to say that we could not ‘make sense’ of A without assuming B. However, supposing we grant that one must assume B to make sense of A, it does not follow that B is true.”[3] Martin is right here, however, this is not the claim made by the TAG. The TAG adds that everyone accepts “B” to be the case. This is why the TAG is so forceful. But Martin misses this point and it is seen in his counter example: “For example, if I am trying to communicate to an audience by speaking to them in English, my action makes no sense unless they understand English. But it does not follow that they do. They might only understand Chinese.”[4] Martin’s example illustrates that he has missed the weight of the transcendental argument. First, in the example given by Martin, the person speaking in English, in order to communicate (which is a speakers primary goal), must assume that the hearers know English. To apply this to the realm of the transcendental argument, if a person uses induction then that person must assume the Christian God. Martin fails to see that the very example he uses helps support the presuppositional argument. For if the communicator did not believe that his audience spoke English, he would not be speaking it. Granted, this does not mean that the audience does speak English (or God exists), but it does mean that the speaker believes this to be the case. To apply this to our situation, the non-Christian, must think that the Christian God is real in order to uses, say, induction.

Second, the claim made by the transcendental argument is not only that the non-Christian believes in the Christian God (which the transcendental argument does claim), but that the Christian God must be true in order for induction, or any other fact, to be true. Martin’s counter example fails to address the full claim of the transcendental argument. In other words, his counter example does not do justice to what the TAG is trying to address. Martin has set up a rather easy straw man to knock down. If Martin wanted to uses a better analogy (or illustration) for the TAG, the following would work better. The speaker in standing on a stage in front of an audience and the whole point of his speech is way he is not standing on a stage. The speaker is standing on the very thing he is attempting to deny.

Again, Martin fails, as he does many times in this article, to see the weightiness of the transcendental argument. In addition to this, Martin says, “[The transcendental argument] would not establish the truth of the Christian worldview but only the inconsistency of atheists [non-Christians] who presuppose science, logic and objective ethics.”[5] This statement by Martin fails to understand that the strongest logical argument that can be made in favor of a proposition is reductio ad absurdum. That is to say, that demonstrative proof for p can be made by assuming ~p and showing that a contradiction follows, thus proving the truth of p. But Martin assumes that this form of argument, reductio ad absurdum, does not prove anything; rather only shows the falseness of atheism. Martin is wrong in this assumption, and thus by admitting that if the transcendental argument is true the atheist would be inconsistent, he shows that this is a positive proof for the Christian worldview.

b. A Brief Response to “The Transcendental Argument for the Non Existence of God”[6]

Martin endeavors to show that the truth of logic, science and morality presuppose the falsehood of Christianity. “I will show how one can argue exactly the opposite conclusion [of the TAG], namely, that logic, science and morality presuppose the falsehood of the Christian world view or at least the falsehood of the interpretation of his world view.”[7] Martin’s best transcendental argument for the nonexistence of God is based on the law of logic.

Consider logic. Logic presupposes that its principles are necessarily true. However, according to the brand of Christianity assumed by TAG, God created everything, including logic; or at least everything, including logic, is dependent on God. But if something is created by or is dependent on God, it is not necessary—it is contingent on God. And if principles of logic are contingent on God, they are not logically necessary. Moreover, if the principles of logic are contingent on God, God could change them. Thus, God could make the law of noncontradiction false; in other words, God could arrange matters so that a proposition and its negation were true at the same time. But this is absurd.

There is no disagreement that the principles of logic are necessary, in fact, the necessity of logic is one of the arguments for God. But they are necessary for humans, not God. This is a fundamental problem in Martin’s worldview. He seems to think that God is a creature, as he is, and as such that God is bound (if he exists) to logic. This is the exact opposite of what is claimed by the Christian worldview. God is the creator and we are his creature. This is a fundamental metaphysical distinction in the Christian concept of reality. The “Eimi/eikon” distinction is central to the way the universe is ordered.

We must, then, begin with this basic and fundamental distinction—the Eimi/eikon distinction—the distention of the “I am” and his image. If we begin in that way, then all of our discussion about “reality,” “individuality,” “externality,” “objectivity,” “knowledge,” “truth,” and the like has that distinction as its context and as its defining character.[8]

Martin fails to understand this central principle of the Christian faith. His unbelieving worldview leads him in this direction, and on one level he cannot be faulted for the conclusions he comes to. However, on another level, he misses this critical distinction and as such misses the whole point of the TAG and can be faulted for misunderstanding the argument he is trying to engage. Though his argument is original, it fails to do any substantial damage to the presupposition argument because he fails to see the “Eimi/eikon” distinction, which leads him to wrongly conclude that God would be held in subjection to logic.

c. A Brief Response to “The Transcendental Argument”[9]

Unlike Martin, Choi does a much better job of setting forth the TAG. However, his criticisms still fall short. Choi’s criticism of the TAG demonstrates that he understands the ‘heart’ of the TAG when he argues that: “It is possible that: there is a worldview distinct from Christian theism and which is such that if it were true, it would provide a sufficient justification for the laws of logic.”[10] In arguing this way, Choi basically grants the validity of the TAG,[11] but he argues that the primes that states the Christian God is the only way to account for intelligibility is false. Choi does this by attempting to provide another worldview that would satisfy the preconditions for intelligibility.

As a specific illustration of such a worldview, consider Fristianity, which is a theistic worldview that holds to the doctrine of the quadrinity (one God in four persons) and is otherwise identical to Christianity, or as similar to Christianity as possible (given its qaudrinitarian tenet).[12]

Thus, Choi offer “Fristianity” as an alternative worldview to Christianity that, as he claims, would account for the preconditions for intelligibility. This argument is not substantial to the TAG for at least two reasons. First, we are not concerned about hypothetical worldviews that can be made up to fit the preconditions; rather, we are interested in actual worldviews. In other words, the TAG is concerned with actual worldviews that can stand this criticism. If no one holds to “Fristianity”, at the end of the day, it is really irrelevant to the presuppositional project.

Second, and much more substantial, Choi has failed to provided a coherent worldview to account for intelligibility. The worldview that Choi sets forth is identical to Christianity with one major alteration, the Trinity is gone. But what Choi does not understand that worldviews are not disconnected propositions—as if one doctrine can be changed and the system remains largely in tack. Instead, worldviews are organic. One part flows into the other. By changing one part the whole system will change. Thus, if the doctrine of the Trinity is changed the entire worldview is altered. Take for instance the doctrine of the Scripture. The Christian worldview teaches that the Bible is the final and complete revelation from God about himself. If the Trinity were altered, the Christian Bible would have to be altered significantly to make room for the “quadrinity.” At the very least, sections would have to be added introducing us to this fourth person. Or take the doctrine of salvation; it would have to be changed. As it stands, Christianity holds that all three person of the Trinity are directly involved in the salvation of God’s people—the Father chooses his people, the Son dies for his people and the Holy Spirit sanctifies his people. If a fourth person were added to the Godhead, a role for this person would need to be added to the doctrine of salvation. These are but a few of the many examples that could be given to show that adding the “quadrinity” is not as nice and neat as Choi would like it to be and as such, Choi fails to understand the organic nature of worldviews.

---

[1] Martin, Michael. “Does Induction Presume the Existence of the Christian God?” Skeptic Vol. 5, #2: 71-75.

[2] Ibid., 72.

[3] Ibid., 72.

[4] Ibid., 73.

[5] Ibid., 73.

[6] Martin, Michael. “The Transcendental Argument for the Nonexistence of God.” 1996. [April 30, 2008.]. .

[7] Ibid., pp. 1

[8] Scott Oliphint, Reasons for Faith: Philosophy in the service of Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2006) 180.

[9]Choi. “The Transcendental Argument.”

[10] Choi. “The Transcendental Argument.” 243.

[11] In fact, from page 236 to 242 Choi goes to length to show a valid form of the TAG.

[12] Choi. “The Transcendental Argument.” 243 (emphasis mine)

The Transcendental Argument (Part 2)

The Transcendental Argument for the existence of God[1]

Simply put, the transcendental argument sets out to show the impossibility of the contrary to Christian theism. In other words, any worldview that is not Christian will yield absurd conclusions—it will have internal contradictions. The transcendental argument does this by discovering the preconditions of human experience or human intelligibility. This is done by taking some aspect of human experience and understanding what must be true in order for that experience to even be possible (or intelligible). Transcendental arguments tend to have the following form. For x (some aspect of human experience, say, the laws of logic) to be the case, y must also be the case (that is y must be presupposed), since y is the precondition of x. Since x is the case, y is the case. In syllogistic form it would be:

1) In order for x to be the case, y must be the case

2) x is the case

3) Therefore, y is the case

Or put into practice:

4) In order for logic to be possible, God[2] must to exist.

5) The logic is possible

6) Therefore, God exists.

In his recent chapter on the TAG, Sean Choi formulates the TAG as:

(TA1) q.

(TA2) It is necessary that: if not-p, then not-q.

(TA3) So, p. [3]

The TAG can be done with a number of human experiences such as: causation, the laws of logic, objective morality, predication, language, induction, and so on. Michael Butler puts it this way:

[The transcendental argument for the existence of God] starts with human experience—such things as science, love, rationality, and moral duties. It then asserts that the existence of the Christian God is the necessary precondition of such experience. Finally, it proves this indirectly by demonstrating the impossibility of the contrary.[4]

Or as Choi states, “TAG is not supposed to be transcendental in name only, but it is supposed to be a true transcendental argument for the existence of God.”[5] Then, he continues, “Now, TAG is…to argue that God exists as ‘a necessary precondition’ of some fundamental and uncontroversial phenomenon. There are three such fundamental phenomena that are often appealed to in discussions of TAG: logic, science and objective moral standards.”[6]

Further, the transcendental argument has also been put in a negative and a positive form:

Negative form

1N) If God does not exist, then the world[7] is unintelligible.

2N) God does not exist

3N) Therefore, the world is unintelligible

(3N) flows from (1N) and (2N) by modus ponens. This negative formulation of the transcendental argument shows that God must exist. How? If (3N) is correct then the syllogism would make no sense. However, this syllogism does make sense[8] because we can see that (3N) at the very least follows logically from (1N) and (2N). Even reading the syllogism shows that there is intelligibility in this world. Thus, since this syllogism does make sense, (1N) or (2N) must be wrong. This is where the positive formulation of the TAG comes in:

Positive form

1P) If the world is intelligible, then God exists.

2P) The world is intelligible[9].

3P) Therefore, God exists.[10]

Again, (3P) flows from (1P) and (2P) by modus ponens. Even skeptics of the TAG, such as Choi[11], agree that the world is intelligible (granting 2P). Thus, God, the Christian God, must exist. The heavy lifting is needed to bolster this idea that God is the precondition for intelligibility, to an extent this will be done below. However, it is not the direct point of this essay to show that the TAG is sound—has all true premises. Rather as stated earlier; the point of this essay is to show that the recent attacks on the TAG do not succeed in proving their case. For now, however, it should suffice that the TAG, in the various forms given, is a valid argument—the conclusions follow from the premises.

The transcendental argument is a powerful argument for the Christian God’s (the only God) existence. If sound, it can show that the only way to make sense of reality is to believe in the Christian God. In addition, it also shows that the non-Christian is deceiving himself when he says he does not believe in the God of Christianity, for he does think reality makes sense.[12] It has been said that the only way a non-Christian can slap God in the face is by sitting in His lap. The transcendental argument shows this analogy to be true with respect to slapping God intellectually. The only way to deny God is to use (affirm) him.

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[1] The author is indebted to the writings of Michael Butler and Greg Bahnsen for most of this section.

[2] Every reference to “God,” unless other wise stated, is a reference to the God of Christianity, as summarized nicely in the Westminster Standards.

[3] Sean Choi. “The Transcendental Argument.” in Reasons for Faith: Making a Case for the Christian Faith (ed. Norman L. Geisler and Chad V. Meister: Wheaton: Crossway Books. 2007). 234. There is nothing objectionable in Choi’s formulation of the TAG, though it can be a bit hard to follow and as such, confusing. However, it does aid to this the TAG formulated in a few different ways, thus it is included here.

[4] Michael Butler, “The Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God,” in The Standard Bearer, ed. Steven Schilssel (Covenant Media Press, 2002), 76.

[5] Choi. “The Transcendental Argument.” 233.

[6] Choi. “The Transcendental Argument.” 235.

[7] By “world” we mean everything that exists,--the universe.

[8] That is not to say that it is right.

[9] By “the world is intelligible” we mean, we are able to make sense out of the world.

[10] John Frame, Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1995) 318.

[11] For example on p. 235, Choi argues that a person can know that they exist (by way of Descartes’s Cogito). Thus, he believes, at least, one thing can be known, the self.

[12] See Greg Bahnsen, “A Conditional Resolution of Apparent Paradox of Self-Deception” (Ph.D. diss, University of Southern California, 1978).

The Transcendental Argument (Part 1)

Introduction

Throughout the history of the Christian church many arguments have been developed to prove the existence of God. Some of the most famous arguments were given by Thomas Aquinas, namely, the cosmological and the teleological argument. While others, such as C. S. Lewis, offered the moral argument for the existence of God. These arguments try to argue from a certain truth in the world to the conclusion that God exists. That is, they are deductive arguments. However, others in the Christian community (especially in the Reformed tradition) have argued for a different kind of argument; an argument that is not deductive or inductive, but transcendental. This transcendental argument for the existence of God (TAG) argues that God is the transcendental (“thing behind” in layman terms) for all knowledge. In other words, for anyone to know anything they must first presuppose the Christian God. Or put more simply, in order for anyone to know anything God must exist. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob stands behind all of our thinking and our ability to think. This approach to apologetics is also called presupposition apologetics because it argues that God is presupposed in order to think or make sense of the world. It is the aim of this paper to briefly layout the TAG and then to respond to recent attacks on this approach. It is not the aim of this essay to prove that the TAG is sound, though I think it is. Rather, the aim of this paper is more modest, in that I only want to show that recent attacks on the TAG fail to do any significant impairment to the TAG.

Nestorianism and Gordon Clark

I have been in dialogue lately with many followers of or people who are at least influenced by Gordon Clark. I would like to start a blog series on dealing with the philosophical positions of Clark, specifically, his epistemology. However, before I begin a review of his theory on knowledge, I need to deal with a few issues that will clear the way for a clear conversation on these issues.

To lay all my cards on the table up front, I am squarely in the Van Tilian school of epistemology. As soon as a Clarkian hears this they want to throw the charge out that Van Til was a heretic (I know this because it has happened to me about 15 times) because of a comment he made about the Trinity. I do not believe that Van Til is a heretic and further, I think he is completely orthodox in his understanding of the Trinity. However, I do not wish to defend Van Til on this point here. Rather, what I want to do, is point out that Clark made many claims about the Trinity that are as troubling, if not more troubling, than Van Til's comment that God is three persons in one person. My goal in doing this is to disarm the Clarkian claim about Van Til by showing that Clark was not as "squeaky clean" on issues of the Trinity as the Clarkians let on.

In his book The Incarnation, Clark deal directly with the theological issues surrounding the second person of the Trinity becoming a man. After raising may valid questions that the Incarnation raises, Clark begins to answer these questions. It is in these answers that Clark allows his desire to be "logical" to lead him astray. "On the cross Jesus said, 'I thirst.' No Trinitarian Person could have said this because the three persons are pure incorporeal spirits and thirst is a phenomenon of the body" (Page 73). Notice that Clark claims that no Trinitarian person said "I thirst." However, Jesus made this statement. Thus, Clark concludes that Jesus must be both a human person and a divine person (he affirms the divinity of the Logos in earlier sections). This view of Christ being two persons is known as the heresy of Nestorianism. Clark know that he was flirting with the line between the orthodox understanding of the Trinity (which states that Jesus is only one divine person) and Nestorianism. "Some unfriendly critics will instantly brand the following defense of Christ’s humanity as the heresy of Nestorianism" (Page 75). Clark is right that people will call his view Nestorianism, because it is. However, notice Clark's use of the fallacy of poisoning the well when he says that those who will call his view Nestorianism are "unfriendly critics." Whether or not a person is friendly is irrelevant to the accuracy of labeling a view, if your view is Nestorianism, it is right to call it that.

I realize that this discussion is brief, however, that is the nature of a blog. But, I think that this post is sufficient to at least show that Clark made some troubling statements about the Trinity. I hope that this will disarm the ready response of the Clarkians to call Van Til a heretic and will allow us to discuss the merits and/or demerits of both Clark and Van Til's epistemology in the future.

Plantinga on God, Evil, and Ontology

OVERVIEW

Alvin Plantinga is a leading thinker in the realm of Christian and theistic philosophy. As such, he offers some very cogent arguments for philosophical dilemma’s facing Christianity. The two I shall examine here are the problem of evil and proof for the existence of God.

To answer the problem of evil, Plantinga attempts to argue from a definition of intrinsic characteristics for morals and the world that must be true in all possible worlds. You can read the explanation and analysis below.

To answer the proofs for the existence of God, Plantinga reformulates the ontological argument as follows:

1. Define God: God is that than which no greater can be conceived.

2. It is greater to exist not only in the mind or in the imagination but also independently of the imagination (i.e. in reality) than to exist only in the imagination.

3. It is possible to conceive of that than which no greater can be conceived.[1]

4. It is possible to conceive of God existing not only in the mind but also in reality.

5. If God exists only in the imagination but not in reality then (because of 2.) it is possible to conceive of a being greater than that than which no greater can be conceived.

6. 5. self-contradicts.

7. Therefore, the protasis of 5. must be false (i.e. God exist only in the imagination….)

8. Therefore, God exists not only in the mind but also in reality.

** The entire argument depends on the very nature of God himself and, thus, it hinges on the actual definition of the term God.

You can read the entire synopsis below, or click here.

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

Many philosophers have held that the existence of evil is such a glaring blemish on the face of theism that it essentially renders belief in God, at least the Christian God, as incoherent. It is this claim that has caused Plantinga to take up the pen to defend the coherence of theism. Plantinga’s resolution for the problem of evil and the supposed contradiction of the existence of a good God is what he calls the Free Will Defense.

The propositions asserted by atheologians, one who “offers arguments against the existence of God,”[2] do not themselves, via the strictures of logic, lead to a formal inconsistency. The two usual propositions are:

1. God is omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good.
2. There is evil in the world.[3]

These two propositions do not, by themselves, lead to a valid conclusion. Thus, a third proposition that is consistent with one of the propositions and necessarily entails the other must be found to either vindicate or destroy theism. Thus, Alvin modifies the above propositions by simply stating that 1. is not inconsistent with 2., and thus begins his explanation of a plausible third proposition.[4]

At this point Plantinga offers some “preliminary definitions and distinctions.” First, freedom entails the ability to freely choose or reject an action – “no casual laws and antecedent conditions determine either that” the individual will or will not perform the action. A morally significant action is one that is morally wrong to perform or right to abstain from, or vice versa. Thus, to be significantly free is to be “free with respect to an action that is morally significant.” Lastly, Plantinga differentiates between moral evil and natural evil. Moral evil is the result of a “human being’s going wrong with respect to an action that is morally significant for him.” On the other hand, natural evil are those misfortunes of nature like earthquakes and tsunamis.[5]

Given the definition of terms, Plantinga delineates the Free Will Defense as follows:

A world containing creatures whom are sometimes significantly free (and freely perform more good than evil actions) is more valuable, all else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures at all. Now God can create free creatures, but he cannot cause or determine them to do only what is right. For if he does so, then they are not significantly free after all; they do not do what is right freely. To create creatures capable of moral good, therefore, he must create creatures capable of moral evil; he cannot leave these creatures free to perform evil and at the same time prevent them from doing so. God did in fact create significantly free creatures; but some of them went wrong in the exercise of their freedom: this is the source of moral evil.[6]

Plantinga believes that the vindicating third proposition is both found in the above statement and is the core of the Free Will Defense. It “is the claim that it is possible that God could not have created a universe containing moral good…without creating one containing moral evil.”[7]

However, at this juncture Plantinga addresses a difficult objection. Since we are supposing that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good, then surely it is possible that God could have simply created a world “containing significantly free creatures who always do what is right.” After all, cannot an omnipotent God create “any logically possible world?” The Free Will Defender answers, no, claiming that, although God is omnipotent, He “could not have created just any possible world he pleased.”[8] Because Plantinga directly limits the activity of God in order to preserve the creature’s freedom and culpability in relation to actions, it can be said that God only brings into existence objects and not properties, numbers, propositions, or states of affairs. Thus, all states of affairs potentially exist. They only become actualized when both God so orchestrates the variables necessary to bring about the said state of affairs, and as the actions of significantly free agents bring to pass, in the communing of particular events and variables, the state of affairs presented to them by God’s orchestrated variables. Thus, when you combine Plantinga’s demand that a morally good universe necessitates moral evil, which by default entails the property of trans-world depravity in man in all possible worlds, with the semi-autonomy of significantly free individuals, then the product is one that only allows for the state of affairs that have so far existed in this actual world.

CRITIQUE

It strikes me as unsettlingly odd when brilliant men present their arguments as robed in the finest of logic and rhetoric when in actuality they are as naked as the emperor with no clothes. The Free Will Defense was a fun philosophical and logical read. However, Plantinga’s argument suffers from two fatal and irresolvable flaws. First, and perhaps most significantly, if Plantinga mandates that the ability to do good necessarily entails the same capacity to do evil, then how does he account for God’s moral purity? Does not God always do what is righteous and good? Yet, God does not possess even the minutest ability to do evil. If God can be called morally culpable, albeit only to Himself, even though He cannot sin, then there must exist a more consistent and correct understanding of both moral responsibility and the exercise of free agency.

Second, although Plantinga’s argument at hand does not mention middle knowledge, the actual truths of middle knowledge are in almost every paragraph of his exposition of the Free Will Defense.[9] Middle knowledge can be defined as that knowledge in God “by which God knows absolutely what men will freely do without having specifically decreed their actions, ‘since [He] knows what any free creature would do in any situation [and thus] can, by creating the appropriate situations, bring it about that creatures will achieve his ends and purposes and … will do so freely.’”[10] However, the irresolvable flaw in this reasoning is that the arbitrary and undetermined actions of individuals are, by definition unknowable – even when God has so foreordained the circumstances surrounding the actions. Thus, if man is truly arbitrary in his choices, then God is no longer omniscient in his knowledge. As Dr. Reymond rightly states, “Created forces cannot be independent forces and independent forces cannot be created forces.”[11]

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[1] I.e. it is possible to have God in the imagination.

[2] Alvin Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 165.

[3] Ibid, 165.

[4] Ibid, 165.

[5] Ibid, 166.

[6] Ibid, 166-167.

[7] Ibid, 167.

[8] Ibid, 168.

[9] While originally developed by the Jesuits and later assimilated by Arminians, in our day Plantinga is one of the leading proponents of middle knowledge.

[10] Dr. Robert Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, 2^nd ed. (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998), 189.

[11] Ibid, 189.

Plantinga's Argument for the Existence of God

The Reformed community widely differs on the acceptability of the “natural” proofs for God’s existence. However, Alvin Plantinga has reformulated St. Anselm’s classical ontological proof for the existence of God. The consistency of the argument is rather convincing. St. Anselm’s traditional formulation, which is a reduction ad absurdum argument, is as follows:

1. God exists in the understanding but not in reality.
2. Existence in reality is greater than existence in the understanding alone.
3. God’s existence in reality is conceivable.
4. If God did exist in reality, then he would be greater than he is (from 1. & 2.).
5. It is conceivable that there be a being greater than God is (3 & 4).
6. It is conceivable that there be a being greater than the being than which nothing greater can be conceived (5., by the definition of ‘God’).

But Surely

7. It is false that it is conceivable that there be a being greater than the being than which none greater can be conceived.

Since 6. and 7. contradict each other, we may conclude that

8. It is false that God exists in the understanding but not in reality.

So if God exists in the understanding, he also exists in reality. [1]

Thus, step 1 is the proposition “to be reduced to absurdity.” Steps 2, 3, and 7 are premises in the argument of which step 2 poses the only real problem. That is, is it necessarily true that “existence in reality is greater than existence in the understanding alone?” What is St. Anselm comparing at this point? He is comparing something that exists with something that does not exist and then predicating that that which exists is by default greater than which was does not. However, are existent and non-existent terms comparable terms? No, St. Anselm is comparing unlike terms. Even more, there is a sense in which the term “existent thing” is valid and the so-called term “non-existent thing” is absurd, for it is really nothing. Also, does St. Anselm’s argument account for the supreme excellence of God in all possible worlds? That is, can it be predicated of God that a necessary attribute of his is supreme excellence, thus it is true in every possible (or hypothetical) world? Rather, St. Anselm’s argument does not leave itself open to this analysis since his argument directly deals with the actual world.

However, Plantinga reformulates the argument and remedies these inconsistencies. First, it is important to understand that “those who worship God do not think of him as a being that happens to be of surpassing excellence in this world but who in some other worlds is powerless or uninformed or of dubious moral character.” Thus, if P is a property of an individual, then it can be stated that, “P is a universal property if and only if P is instantiated in every world or no world.” Therefore, unlike St. Anselm’s postulate, “Existence and necessary existence are not themselves perfections, but necessary conditions of perfection.”[2] That is, existence in both this world and all possible worlds do not constitute perfection. However, if we are arguing for the existence of an all perfect being, then one thing that must be true of this perfect being is that his essence or properties are necessarily the same in all possible worlds – thus contributing to his perfection. This can be stated as follows:

9. The property has maximal greatness entails the property has maximal excellence in every possible world.
10. Maximal excellence entails omniscience, omnipotence, and moral perfection.
11. Maximal greatness is possibly exemplified.

Thus, if the property maximal greatness is possibly exemplified in any world, then it is necessarily follows that it is exemplified in all world by the mere definition of maximal greatness including or entails maximal excellence. Therefore, the ontological argument can be restated as follows:

1. God exists in a conceivable world but not in reality.
2. It is conceivable that God exists in a world W and as a perfect being has an essence E such that E is exemplified in W and E entails has maximal greatness in W.
3. Maximal greatness necessarily exemplifies the property has maximal excellence in every possible world.
4. Therefore, God’s essence entails has maximal excellence in every possible world.
5. If world W had been actual, it would have been impossible that essence E fail to be exemplified given its necessary nature.
6. Therefore, there exists a being that has maximal excellence in every world.

In simpler terms:

1. Define God: God is that than which no greater can be conceived.

2. It is greater to exist not only in the mind or in the imagination but also independently of the imagination (i.e. in reality) than to exist only in the imagination.

3. It is possible to conceive of that than which no greater can be conceived.

4. It is possible to conceive of God existing not only in the mind but also in reality.

5. If God exists only in the imagination but not in reality then (because of 2.) it is possible to conceive of a being greater than that than which no greater can be conceived.

6. Number 5 self-contradicts.

7. Therefore, the protasis of 5. must be false (i.e. God exist only in the imagination.)

8. Therefore, God exists not only in the mind but also in reality.

CRITIQUE

Plantinga’s ontological argument was much more cogent and convincing than his disappointing Free Will Defense. The argument definitely required at least a cursory knowledge of logic and valid syllogisms. All in all, it was an intellectually rigorous work, but well worth the read. The one point at which I believe an atheist or atheologian could respond is in questioning the premises. The reasoning is valid, but the axioms utilized to establish the validity of the conclusion would undoubtedly be attacked by contrary thinkers, albeit, it is an unjustified attack given the cogency of the argument.

I would recommend both of these arguments to be read by believers. The Free Will Defense can aid the Reformed thinker in flushing out his own beliefs about God’s sovereignty and the means by which free agents both act/move and are culpable for their actions. Plantinga’s ontological argument is a good example of right reason and logic applied to the things of God in a cogently conclusive manner.

However, I would not recommend the Free Will Defense to unbelievers or for any use in an apologetic discourse. As noted above, it is fraught with too many perils. However, if you can get an unbeliever to actually go through the ontological argument with you, I believe it can serve to show forth the rationality and coherence that is Christianity.

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[1] Plantinga, 198.

[2] Ibid, 214.