Question for presups...

[Athée]

So I ran into this in a conversation earlier today. My conversation partner was a presupositional apologist and was arguing that because I have to rely on potentially flawed senses and cognition, that I can't claim to know the things I think I know.

While i think i can tell a reasonable story about evolutionary reliablism in this instance I chose to point out my other worry about this line of argument.

It seems to me that this move applies equally for the theist. He argued that God could instil that knowledge in him such that he could know for certain and I asked him if he came to that conclusion using reason or the evidence of his senses. When he feels a piece of knowledge is from God how does he verify this, does the process include reason or senses? You see what I'm getting at.

So the question to any presups out there is simply, what am I missing? How is it that your knowledge claims are unassailable? How do you hold any of them without at any point using reason, senses or experience? This seems obviously impossible on the face of it and I am worried that I missed his point.

Help a heathen out?

 

[Occams Barber]

So I ran into this in a conversation earlier today. My conversation partner was a presupositional apologist and was arguing that because I have to rely on potentially flawed senses and cognition, that I can't claim to know the things I think I know.

While i think i can tell a reasonable story about evolutionary reliablism in this instance I chose to point out my other worry about this line of argument.

It seems to me that this move applies equally for the theist. He argued that God could instil that knowledge in him such that he could know for certain and I asked him if he came to that conclusion using reason or the evidence of his senses. When he feels a piece of knowledge is from God how does he verify this, does the process include reason or senses? You see what I'm getting at.

So the question to any presups out there is simply, what am I missing? How is it that your knowledge claims are unassailable? How do you hold any of them without at any point using reason, senses or experience? This seems obviously impossible on the face of it and I am worried that I missed his point.

Help a heathen out?

Ohhh, come on Athee - it's so simple.

The Catch 22 Principle - First Derivative:
The only way to know for certain that God does not exist is if God tells you.​

OB

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

I don't think what you are describing is tenable. I assume there is some misunderstanding here, or someone is building a strawman.

Radical Pyrrhonian Scepticism can't really be beaten. Everything is doubtful, be it your senses, cognition, reason, etc. You have to assume an axiom somewhere from which you are working.

For many theists, that would be a ground of Being, that something fundamentally must exist, which we articulate as God. Based on this axiom, we then can affirm reason is valid, matter existing, that senses reflect something real perhaps, etc. This then becomes secure, but is built of Faith, essentially.

If you deny God, you still need to make an axiomatic leap of faith somewhere, though. The problem is where you do so, for Materialism denies validity or veridicality to Reason, intersubjectivity becomes problematic against solipsism, etc.

But maybe this gentleman was just holding an incoherent position? He isn't here to defend himself, but I assume you are missing some nuance here.

 

[Athée]

I don't think what you are describing is tenable. I assume there is some misunderstanding here, or someone is building a strawman.

Radical Pyrrhonian Scepticism can't really be beaten. Everything is doubtful, be it your senses, cognition, reason, etc. You have to assume an axiom somewhere from which you are working.

For many theists, that would be a ground of Being, that something fundamentally must exist, which we articulate as God. Based on this axiom, we then can affirm reason is valid, matter existing, that senses reflect something real perhaps, etc. This then becomes secure, but is built of Faith, essentially.

If you deny God, you still need to make an axiomatic leap of faith somewhere, though. The problem is where you do so, for Materialism denies validity or veridicality to Reason, intersubjectivity becomes problematic against solipsism, etc.

But maybe this gentleman was just holding an incoherent position? He isn't here to defend himself, but I assume you are missing some nuance here.

Good insight. I did a bit of looking around for other articulations of this position. My tentative conclusion is that he was taking a similar line as Sye Tenbrugencate and really just trying to stump me rather than worrying about the implications for his own position.

 

[Eudaimonist]

It seems to me that this move applies equally for the theist. He argued that God could instil that knowledge in him such that he could know for certain and I asked him if he came to that conclusion using reason or the evidence of his senses. When he feels a piece of knowledge is from God how does he verify this, does the process include reason or senses? You see what I'm getting at.

You are correct about that. Presup thought is shooting everyone in the foot, including oneself, just out of a desire to shoot other people in the foot.

But you actually are missing something. Presups don't care about reason. They depend on a black hole like all-consuming epistemological skepticism in order to prop up faith. And they believe that faith can wield the mighty sock puppet of reason to "reason". It's not anything more than a destructive apologetic.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[bcbsr]

So I ran into this in a conversation earlier today. My conversation partner was a presupositional apologist and was arguing that because I have to rely on potentially flawed senses and cognition, that I can't claim to know the things I think I know.

While i think i can tell a reasonable story about evolutionary reliablism in this instance I chose to point out my other worry about this line of argument.

It seems to me that this move applies equally for the theist. He argued that God could instil that knowledge in him such that he could know for certain and I asked him if he came to that conclusion using reason or the evidence of his senses. When he feels a piece of knowledge is from God how does he verify this, does the process include reason or senses? You see what I'm getting at.

So the question to any presups out there is simply, what am I missing? How is it that your knowledge claims are unassailable? How do you hold any of them without at any point using reason, senses or experience? This seems obviously impossible on the face of it and I am worried that I missed his point.

Help a heathen out?

Yep, there seems some hypocrisy in that man's position. It's not a Biblical position. From a Biblical standpoint for example the reason why we know God exists is not because the Bible says so, as some claim. It's because of the forensic evidence all around us. (Romans 1:20) Though God's existence is inferred from nature, and inferences are not absolute proof, yet nonetheless humans put confidence in inferences all the time, and it's involved in scientific endeavors.

Same when it comes to the issue as to on what basis the Bible says we can believe Jesus, his apostles, and the prophets. (Acts 2:22) It's not because they say so (unlike in Islam). Rather it's because of the evidence of miracles. And again granted that the alleged historic account of miracles is not absolute proof, yet we use they type of evidence in legal trials, so it shouldn't be discarded out of hand.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Good insight. I did a bit of looking around for other articulations of this position. My tentative conclusion is that he was taking a similar line as Sye Tenbrugencate and really just trying to stump me rather than worrying about the implications for his own position.

And......................................................we're right back to all of those nasty epistemological complications that lie in and out of the OTF argument. And you already know how I feel about all of that kind of thing, Athée! So, excuse me while I sit this one out.

I'm not familiar with Sye Tenbrugencate, but in looking at the following website, I came across this little question apparently presented by him,

* Sye begins by asking “could you be wrong about everything you claim to know”. If the answer is “yes” (which it is the vast majority of the time), then the unbeliever has crossed into the realm of absurdity. If you could be wrong, then you don't really know.
​

Of course, we could try to hone in on the inherent delineation of meaning which seems to be implied in his question/comment and possibly find that his implication is a few bricks short of a load, but all this would essentially do is push us into a puddle of agnosticism and leave us with more questions (typically of the kind that can't REALLY be answered by a human being).

So, as I said: excuse me while I sit this one out.

​

 

[Sanoy]

I think you are right to push back on the Christian here. Whenever we think of knowledge, in the regressive sense, we always arrive at these black boxes that we can't open. Logic, moral reason, mathematics, empiricism all begin from whatever is in these boxes. Whatever is in these boxes is inexplicably coercive, like a hunger in the mind. When we satisfy that coercive force we prosper, when we deny them things fall apart. We can call these black boxes our intuitions, their driving coercive force is a concept of proper and improper. If we follow these intuitions that logic is real, mathematics is real, matter is real, morality is real we do prosper. Whether you are Christian, Athiest, or Agnostic you live with these inexplicable intuition boxes that you cannot open. Everyone lives with at least some of these coercive forces acting upon ones freewill.

Imo the real discussion is what are they, and how did they get there. It reminds me of the concept of creating AI. If we could program a living AI, it would include black box programming that would guide it like gutter guards on a bowling alley toward a proper behavior. And it would be hidden in a box to not intrude upon the consciousness. It would act like a natural force, like magnets on a monorail, or like waves pushing someone back to the shore.

 

[Uber Genius]

presupositional apologist

I just posted two similar threads entitled, "Square circles," and, "Married bachelors!"

A quick look at the gospels and we see Jesus teaching about God's love for his creation and a plethora of ways to respond. This is incoherent since on a Calvinist/presuppositional view the audience would not be able to respond due to the dullness of their senses in an unregenerate state.

Similarly in the book of Acts we see every evangelist preach based on evidence and argument. Which is not possibly effective given the presupositions of presuppositionalists (sorry, I couldn't resist).

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

So I ran into this in a conversation earlier today. My conversation partner was a presupositional apologist and was arguing that because I have to rely on potentially flawed senses and cognition, that I can't claim to know the things I think I know.

While i think i can tell a reasonable story about evolutionary reliablism in this instance I chose to point out my other worry about this line of argument.

It seems to me that this move applies equally for the theist. He argued that God could instil that knowledge in him such that he could know for certain and I asked him if he came to that conclusion using reason or the evidence of his senses. When he feels a piece of knowledge is from God how does he verify this, does the process include reason or senses? You see what I'm getting at.

So the question to any presups out there is simply, what am I missing? How is it that your knowledge claims are unassailable? How do you hold any of them without at any point using reason, senses or experience? This seems obviously impossible on the face of it and I am worried that I missed his point.

Help a heathen out?

I rarely get into this discussion but will make an exception. The whole point is that the non-Christian by necessity borrows from the Christian worldview to justify knowledge claims in a sense which are anything more than relative, and this has to do with autonomy and Theonomy, but so few seem to truly grasp the issues and rather just wallow in misconceptions and deception of their presuppositions. One of the most basic questions of philosophy is framed something like; what is the ultimate reality in the universe? The humanist claims that man is, the Christian claims that God is. There is a world of difference between the two claims. If man is the ultimate interpreter of the universe, all interpretation leading to knowledge is autonomous and therefore relative, and can be summed up by philosopher René Descartes in the famous statement; "I think therefore I am". In this scenario, certainty of knowledge cannot be justified in an objective sense. If God is the ultimate interpreter of the universe, the God of Christianity, existing outside of the Christian, and revealing Himself to man and as the Creator of everything, knows everything exhaustively, is the justification for knowledge that is anything but relative to the person. Now I await the incoming ridicule and mockery in the spirit of our age especially evident in politics.

 

[Athée]

And......................................................we're right back to all of those nasty epistemological complications that lie in and out of the OTF argument. And you already know how I feel about all of that kind of thing, Athée! So, excuse me while I sit this one out.

I'm not familiar with Sye Tenbrugencate, but in looking at the following website, I came across this little question apparently presented by him,

* Sye begins by asking “could you be wrong about everything you claim to know”. If the answer is “yes” (which it is the vast majority of the time), then the unbeliever has crossed into the realm of absurdity. If you could be wrong, then you don't really know.
​

Of course, we could try to hone in on the inherent delineation of meaning which seems to be implied in his question/comment and possibly find that his implication is a few bricks short of a load, but all this would essentially do is push us into a puddle of agnosticism and leave us with more questions (typically of the kind that can't REALLY be answered by a human being).

So, as I said: excuse me while I sit this one out.

​

I'm not sure this path leads to the OTF but after hearing this objection I also wanted to sit the conversation out

 

[Athée]

I rarely get into this discussion but will make an exception. The whole point is that the non-Christian by necessity borrows from the Christian worldview to justify knowledge claims in a sense which are anything more than relative, and this has to do with autonomy and Theonomy, but so few seem to truly grasp the issues and rather just wallow in misconceptions and deception of their presuppositions. One of the most basic questions of philosophy is framed something like; what is the ultimate reality in the universe? The humanist claims that man is, the Christian claims that God is. There is a world of difference between the two claims. If man is the ultimate interpreter of the universe, all interpretation leading to knowledge is autonomous and therefore relative, and can be summed up by philosopher René Descartes in the famous statement; "I think therefore I am". In this scenario, certainty of knowledge cannot be justified in an objective sense. If God is the ultimate interpreter of the universe, the God of Christianity, existing outside of the Christian, and revealing Himself to man and as the Creator of everything, knows everything exhaustively, is the justification for knowledge that is anything but relative to the person. Now I await the incoming ridicule and mockery in the spirit of our age especially evident in politics.

It seems to me that you haven't really solved the problem at hand. On naturalism we do have some reason to doubt our senses and our reason, I agree. On theism you can make a case that God doesn't suffer from these problems but I don't see how the problem of human subjectivity is solved. In other words maybe it is the case that God exists and knows things for certain and without error, but it seems to me that irregardless of this, humans still interpret the world and their experiences through the same flawed senses and reason matrix that was problematic on naturalism. How do you solve that tension as a presup of indeed you would happy to be described that way.

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

It seems to me that you haven't really solved the problem at hand. On naturalism we do have some reason to doubt our senses and our reason, I agree. On theism you can make a case that God doesn't suffer from these problems but I don't see how the problem of human subjectivity is solved. In other words maybe it is the case that God exists and knows things for certain and without error, but it seems to me that irregardless of this, humans still interpret the world and their experiences through the same flawed senses and reason matrix that was problematic on naturalism. How do you solve that tension as a presup of indeed you would happy to be described that way.

That's just it, it cannot be solved assuming humanism is true. Where the Christian worldview shines so far as knowledge goes is we have the Scriptures, it's not a bare theism or simply assuming a higher power or a god, it assuming a God that has revealed Himself in Scriptures which inform man about God and the nature of man, and provides a starting point or axiom outside of self for all knowledge, including knowledge acquired through sense perception which rests on predication. Christianity can account for both the natural and the supernatural or unexplained out of the ordinary phenomena. The natural order assumes regularity, stability, predictability within the universe, and not the sort of irregularity, instability, and randomness one might expect assuming there is no immutable sovereign orderer governing the universe. It's not that the non-Christian does not know things or cannot interpret things, the issue is justification for that true interpretation, for having knowledge which is outside of self and universally true, including conceptual knowledge like mathematics for example.

 

[essentialsaltes]

So the question to any presups out there is simply, what am I missing? How is it that your knowledge claims are unassailable?

It isn't, but they assert it so confidently.

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

It isn't, but they assert it so confidently.

So we cannot be confident about conceptual knowledge like the laws of logic, mathematics, deduction from using the scientific method, or the law of causality? And if humans ceased to exist these would no longer apply? And humans can account for these universal laws how? I am confident in THE sovereign immutable exhaustive all knowing mind of God, which all other minds are subject to. Our confidence is in God, and comes from God, not in self, not in our own understanding.

 

[essentialsaltes]

So we cannot be confident about

As stated, the presup argument is that we cannot be confident in anything relying on senses and cognition. This argument doesn't actually rest on the absence or presence of elves or gods, so if the argument is correct, it affects everyone equally, and no one knows anything.

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

As stated, the presup argument is that we cannot be confident in anything relying on senses and cognition. This argument doesn't actually rest on the absence or presence of elves or gods, so if the argument is correct, it affects everyone equally, and no one knows anything.

Incorrect, the presuppositional argument is that the non-Christian lives on borrowed capital, that the truth of the existence of the true God of Scripture is suppressed in unrighteousness [per Scripture] and as such there is a self-deception of the highest order going on so far as suppressing the justification for knowing truth is concerned. Everyone with the mental capacity can know things, because everyone is created in the image of God and created with a consciousnesses with self-awareness with capacity to reason and make decisions accordingly. As it turns out, [Reformed] Christian presuppositionalism is the overall methodology, the framework for a robust evidential [scientific] apologetic, rational apologetic, historical apologetic, and so on and so forth. However, so many Christians are unaware for all the vitriol, ridicule, and mockery in the spirit of our age akin to the attitudes and behavior displayed between opposing views in politics, towards presuppositional apologists. Some non-Christians are aware of the offensive nature of the presuppositonal method [as opposed to taking a defensive approach] and because they are aware of this, have a particular strong disliking for this method, and from this inner disdain the motivation to attempt to shut down the Christian employing the presuppositional apologetic asap. At the end of the day, it boils down to man's dependency on God and need for the Gospel of Christ, the foolishness of God which is the power of God to salvation for us who believe. Sometimes it would be nice to just pour the Holy Spirit into people, but that's not how it works, God alone is in charge of the miraculous work of regeneration. Speaking of, this is at the heart of the difference between the believer and non-believer, the regenerated consciousness and unregenerate consciousness, the will in submission to God, the will at enmity with God, the mind self-deceived seeking independence assuming autonomy, and the heart, mind, and soul under submission to Christ and the authority of God, which is what is meant by theonomy in this sense.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Everyone with the mental capacity can know things, because everyone is created in the image of God and created with a consciousnesses with self-awareness with capacity to reason and make decisions accordingly.

There is no substantial difference between this and saying that...

Everyone with the mental capacity can know things, because everyone has a consciousnesses with self-awareness with capacity to reason and make decisions accordingly.

Gods are entirely beside the point.

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

There is no substantial difference between this and saying that...

Everyone with the mental capacity can know things, because everyone has a consciousnesses with self-awareness with capacity to reason and make decisions accordingly.

Gods are entirely beside the point.

I beg to differ, consciousnesses, self-awareness with a capacity to reason and make decisions accordingly are unique traits to humans. At what point did matter become aware that the matter is matter? How is it even possible through natural selection? God is the point, He created self-aware sentient beings capable of reasoning and making decisions. Your view lacks explanatory power and shows its deficiency for lack of answers to important questions pertaining to origins.

 

[essentialsaltes]

I beg to differ, consciousnesses, self-awareness with a capacity to reason and make decisions accordingly are unique traits to humans.

Okay. But adding gods still doesn't actually explain this fact any more than adding elves or splunge does.