Clutch

Oh, for pete's sake.

I liked bit to go's post a lot, but it was plainly a (lucid and forceful) extension of the same points Vinnie and others have made all along. (As were my posts, I should say.)

By this silly attempt to turn your own unresponsiveness to those points into some shared theistic virtue, you embarrass yourself badly. Very shoddy stuff indeed.

blt to go

Clutch is absolutely correct, my previous post was a reiteration of the "special pleading" argument he has been making.

And the other points were brought up, if not explicitly, then certainly tacitly by others.

Frankly, the biggest reason I finally responded (even though I was following the thread) is that I could not possibly see how RobertLW's three questions further his position. Or why he would keep asking them. (And I had to correct that use of the word "presumption." )

I'll try it again. You see, RobertLW, if I claim the "ultimate authority" is logic, reason and rationale, the more you debate, the more you validate that position!

RobertLW

Let me explain as I see that you do not understand me correctly. Presuppositions as the above "innocent until proven guilty" are defeasible. They are subject to change based on the evidence at hand. However an ultimate presupposition "or standard of truth" does not change in the face of evidence because it is the standard by which the evidence is evaluated. Why can two people look at the same evidence and come away with two different conclusions? It is because they have different presuppositions guiding their evaluation of that evidence. Thus, to say "my presumption is my argument" is to say, "if you start with my ultimate authority (or standard of truth) you will come to this conclusion". The only recourse left to someone who would like to challenge those conclusions would be to attack my ultimate authority. Something nobody has been able to figure out. To attack a "surface anomaly" is useless because the standard by which I evaluate the evidence will lead me to a different conclusion than the attacker. Likewise, I would not bring up evidence like the testimony of history, the historicity of the resurrection, or the reliability of the text of scripture because I know that someone who has "Human knowledge" as their ultimate authority would interpret the evidence differently and come to a different conclusion. Consequently, the realm of argumentation should be reserved for debating these ultimate questions. To do otherwise is to just play games.




I stand behind everything I say and will change it if proven wrong so feel free to use any of my statements from my debate.




I believe that I have sufficiently explained the difference between defeasible and non-defeasible presuppositions above.




Ok, let's use your pretend atheists ultimate authority as our case study.



You have given a circular argument. You (if you were an atheist) have used human knowledge to support your belief in human knowledge. I do not fault you for that; on the contrary you must say that because when you get to this level ALL reasoning is circular. If someone's ultimate authority were "reason" the only way to prove that would be to use reason, if it were empirical data the only way to prove that would be through appealing to empirical data. And if your ultimate standard of truth is the revealed Word of God, you appeal to it to prove it. For example, you hear people say after they have exhausted their reasoning abilities, "well, it just seems reasonable to me!" or, "don't tell me that I saw it with my own eye's!" or, "well, the bible says so!" They have all appealed to their ultimate authority and cannot go beyond it. It is that presupposition by which all other propositions are evaluated. The question then becomes, "Whose ultimate authority provides all of the necessary justification for the rest of knowledge?" It is my contention that only the Christian one does.




Here your pretended ultimate authority would refute your conclusion. Because it is ever changing you cannot trust it to establish any fact, you cannot "know" anything. You can only be a pragmatist and do what works without knowing any true knowledge, because tomorrow it might change. By adding your caveat "it is limited" to your ultimate authority you destroyed the possibility of truly knowing and are reduced to skepticism about everything. If I had a broken clock on my wall and it said 3:30 all the time and you asked me at precisely 3:30 "what time is it" would you accredit me with true knowledge because I said 3:30 or would you say "well he was right but he had no justification for that knowledge"? With your ever-changing "human knowledge" how can you ever accredit anybody with true knowledge? Thus, you cannot speak against someone else's propositions. You are almost correct about what the Chicago Statement says but this is another way of saying that we remain true to our ultimate authority. The authors of the Chicago Statement knew there are certain difficulties, not errors, and are honest with themselves and others by clearly stating that they will remain true to their ultimate authority.




I am sure of that, but we will use this as our case study.




I disagree. I think everybody lives PRACTICALLY as if God DID exist yet all the while wishing that He didn't. We rely on logic and other universals, which could only be accounted for if God did exist. In a universe where everything is "matter in motion, sound and fury signifying nothing," (Bahnsen) we would not have universals like logic. In using those universals we betray our belief that God exists. People can say they don't believe in God but they can't live that way, they can't be consistent with their own beliefs. They are like a person who climbs onto a house using a ladder then throwing it away and claiming that no ladder exists and they got up there on their own. Their criticisms are like the little boy who smacks his father in the face; he can only do so because the father holds him up. (Van Til) Are the laws of logic matter? Are morals matter? These are universals that we use everyday that cannot be accounted for if everything is matter, i.e. materialism. To "put money in a bank" would be betraying your belief that God exists because you would be relying on logic to tell you that that is a good move to put your money in a safe place.




Again, I must respectfully disagree. You use faith in everything you do. Faith is only trust in secondhand knowledge. (Ala Augustine) I have faith in the fact that my name is Robert because my mother told me so. I think she is pretty reliable. As a matter of fact almost everything we "know" is based on this faith. Someone else has told us what we know and we trust them, we have faith in their trustworthiness. We know very little from direct observation when compared with that which we know secondhand. Now, because I place trust in what someone else has told me about God (the Bible) that is somehow a different "faith"? I don't see it that way. I believe the Bible to be more trustworthy than the skeptic who refuses to acknowledge the obvious. This is not "special pleading". I apply the same rule here as anywhere.




I can use logic and reason because my ultimate authority justifies them. An atheist has no justification for logic and therefore must borrow from my worldview to use them. Once again, materialism cannot account for logic because it is a transcendent universal and does not fit in a world of matter only. To be sure, atheists do use logic but only because they cannot remain consistent to their own worldview and must borrow from ours. The atheist says, "there is no God or any afterlife, there is only matter in motion. However, I want a couple of exceptions, I want logic, morals, universals, and so forth. Then there's nothing but matter." Well, I am not entertaining exceptions. No justification, no universals.




On an ultimate level, you are right and I would say because "God says so". I would then proceed to show how my ultimate authority justifies my use of logic and morals and any other authority does not.




Fideism is not a good choice for anyone. I place my trust in the Biblical God because to do any other would be to deny the possibility of morals, logic, and all universals. Inerrancy logically follows my presuppositions.




Nobody had asked me the "why" question. I believe I have answered it above. I am only confused as to why people cannot understand that presupposing the verity of the authors leads you to inerrancy. Look at my debate with Vinnie for example. How many times did I make that statement? Vinnie's response was that I could not "simply assume that". How many times have I stated that in this forum? I even gave people the tools required to refute my claim. I have invited anyone to refute me, given them the tools to do so and only you asked me "why" properly. What I mean by "properly" is that you went to the ultimate and showed that you would not remain arbitrary. This is the difference. I will not play on an arbitrary playing field because my arguments are not arbitrary.




I don't expect them to assume the verity of the biblical authors. I only expect them to live with the consequences of their belief and they can't.




I do.




The fallacy here is that not only does every one of those authors claim to have been inspired by God, but they also claim that the Bible is true as well. To show that they contradict the Biblical teachings that they themselves have claimed as authoritative is an easy thing to do.




I do assume their verity. I use the logic that my worldview justifies and they are shown to be internally contradictory. I use the same logic against the Bible and it passes the test. This is why; it only claims authority for itself, where the others claim authority for themselves and the Bible. To show that they contradict is an easy thing. It would be another matter if they did not claim that the Bible is authoritative.




See above answer.




Yes, if I didn't, but I do presume their verity.




I hope by now you can see that I do not apply a different standard. I apply the same standard to all. No other worldview can account for logic, morals, and universals, only the Christian worldview. And so I believe it. By having Gods word as my ultimate standard for truth I have logic, morals, and universals at my disposal, and they are JUSTIFIED. That's the point.




The Bible says in Christ are hidden "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge". Atheists don't have that knowledge. Their reasoning is "darkened" according to the scriptures. You on the other hand, as a Christian, have justification for your knowledge and so it can rightly be called knowledge. They have no such justification and cannot be said to "know" anything. It might be objected that they do "know" things but that's because they cannot be true to their ultimate authority and have to borrow ours. This whole debate is like 2 people debating whether or not air exists and the entire time they are debating, they are breathing air. (Van Til) In order to debate, the atheist has to assume the validity of the laws of logic but cannot justify them, so they" breath our air".




To abandon inspiration is to abandon logic and not the other way around. To be intellectually honest you would have to conclude that reason itself can only "be" if the Biblical God exists, because only by presupposing Him can we justify reason.

Also, our faith is not blind. As proof of our faith not being blind; without the Christian worldview you cannot prove anything. Logic itself is not justified by any other worldview but the Christian worldview.


Thanks,

Robert


P.S.

Clutch, Bark at me all you wish. I want to discuss inerrancy but I do not want to do so arbitrarily. I repeatedly asked three simple questions. Blt was the only one to answer my questions. I simply pointed out that out of all the people posting, the theist among you answered my questions. Only the theist among you is willing to get to the ultimate. Am I embarrassed? Not at all, I am willing to get to the ultimate. Are you?

Vinnie

I've given up. I've answered his "verity argument" a ton of tons of times. I asked where they (the authors) claim to be writting the inerrant word of God (which is what Robert's verity argument defense for inerrancy requires). Robert is a no show here despite my CONSTANT request for this information. I don't know what to make of Robert's incessant failure to address this issue. I am close to outright calling him a liar and intellectually dishonest.

Re: verity: it is also asked why a person who claims to be writing God's word is given the benefit of the doubt? Private revelation is intellectually paralyzed by all the mutually exclusive religious claims that were supposedly ordained or dictated or inspried by God. Why these claims rather than those claims? Why these theologians rather than those theologians? WHy this holy book rather then those other holy books?

Canonical dimension was supposed to be argued for and my surface anomaly argument was SUPPOSED to be addressed. Robert continues to reiterate nonsense I plainly refuted and asks totally irrelevant questions about ultimate authority. Red herring alert!

This thread is becoming useless. I suggest turning the lights off and going home.

Vinnie

doubtingthomas

You're confusing the issue here. The debate is about scriptural errancy. It is these scriptures that are your only means of knowing the Christian God, which is your ultimate authority. You can not use the thing the scriptures are trying to prove in order to prove the scriptures.

Clutch

1) If you think that was barking, you've never been barked at. I simply pointed out the extremely shoddy nature of both your evasion and your mischaracterization of your interlocutors' points. I assure you, my voice never rose above pleasantly modulated tones.

2) "get to the ultimate" is not even grammatically coherent. It would be nice if you at least phrased your evasion intelligibly.

3) If you think nobody has answered your questions, you have not understood much that's been said to you, even though it has been rather clearly expressed. Notice that sometimes an answer amounts to pointing out that the question was ill-formed. "Do you still beat your dog?" "Your question is based on a false presupposition." -- That counts as an answer; the same general kind of answer that you have been given several times on this thread alone. Your determination not to reply to these answers does not affect their existence.

4) Maybe you were eating lunch as you typed, but I think the acronym for "bit to go" would be "btg". A blt is a sandwich.

5) There's no telling who will feel embarrassment and under what conditions. Certainly I did not mean to suggest that you would feel embarrassed; in a sense my point was quite the opposite. To that extent your point is well-taken. I grant that you do not feel embarrassed.

Cross Examiner

Recall that I wrote this:
To which you responded:
1. Nor did you what?
2. How is it that you say I conflate the parallel?

You imply here and here that the phrase 'surface anomalies' corresponds to the phrase 'an appearance of flaws'. Since the 'surface' of something s is what yields the appearance of something s to an observer o, 'surface' corresponds plainly enough to 'an appearance of' while leaving the seminal terms 'anomalies' and 'flaws' to supposedly correspond to one another. As mentioned previously, I'd like to know why you, or anyone else for that matter, believe that 'anomalies' corresponds to 'flaws'. More to the point, here, I originally asked: To which you answered with an analogy from apples. Do you, or another, have a direct answer to the emboldened question? If not, no worries. I truly do not wish to be overly combative. I only wish to know why people believe the things they do, which obliges your participation here in no way whatsoever.

Regards,
BGic

Clutch

Well, crikey, it's just grammar. "One need not X." "Nor did I".

It's a construction that means, I didn't.


I did not recognize that you were taking "surface" to correspond to "appearance of"; so it seemed you were correlating "anomalies" with "appearances of flaws". I accept that you did not mean it this way; thanks for the clarification.


Hang on with the "direct answer" stuff -- or see the "minutiae" to Robert, to see why this is not always a coherent request.

I'm explicating what I took Vinnie to be saying; and he's using "anomaly" as a term of art. I've rephrased what I took his point to be, in my own terms. My own terms are pretty clear, I think; the interesting thing to me is whether you have any well-founded complaint with the way I've put the matter, and not whether you accept that my argument is actually a restatement of Vinnie's -- ie, whether "anomaly" divides evenly by "prima facie error" or leaves a remainder.

As for your bolded question, I've already explained my preference for other terminology altogether over talk of "default positions". I take this to have answered your question (defeasibly!), though not, I grant, in a simple Yes or No. So be it; I'm aiming for clarity over simplicity.

blt to go

Me, too. I am abandoning this train wreck.

RobertLW, out of politeness, I will explain. Once you said: I was done.

Sven said it best, so I will not be accused of creating a new argument, when his will suffice: This idea that an "ultimate presupposition" (referred to in the common man's tongue as "fact") does not change in the "face of evidence" is troubling to me.

It is fine that you assume the Biblical authors were being truthful. What is NOT fine is that you see to fail to support this position with any evidence, except to keep repeating that they were being truthful.

See, I keep seeing your argument like the tale of why a lawyer never calls the mother of the accused as a witness in the criminal trial. The question/answer (although not compeletly accurate) goes like this:

Q: Why do you think your son did not do the crime?
A: Because I know my son, and there is no way he could have committed the crime.

Q: But what about his confession to the police?
A: Since I Know that there is no way that my son could ever do this crime, the confession must be false, and the police must have beat it out of him.

Q: But what about the eyewitnesses?
A: Since I know there is no way that my son committed this crime, they must have been wrong.

Q: Don't you care about how the eyewitnesses viewed the scene, how far away they were, the lighting?
A: No, it is not like there was videotape.

Q: Funny you should say that, here IS the videotape which alleges your son committed the crime.
A: Since I know there is no way my son committed the crime, that tape must be false. Why, my 12-year old put my face on Dolly Parton's body and Damn, if it didn't look real. If they can do that, anything can be shown.

Q: What about the fingerprints on the weapon?
A: I know that there is no way that my son could do this, so the weapon must be planted.

I can go on virtually forever.
See, the woman in my story, while holding on to the "ultimate presupposition" actually never presents any facts to support this position. RobertLW, you are correct that based upon our own personal bias, we will ALWAYS review evidence. But that does not make our own personal bias the "ultimate presupposition."

I would note that in your first rebuttal reply, you freely indicated a full bias to the inerrancy and inspiration of scripture. Hence, your argument is no better than the mother of our defendant.

RobertLW - very good at saying both "yes" and "no" to the assumption of the truthfullness of the authors of the three other books I mentioned. Very good at not explaining why they are not inerrant or inspired but the Bible is. Again, Vinnie is correct--time to abandon this train wreck.

Cluth, my moniker is actually (in capitals) "BLT TO GO" so RobertLW was (somewhat) correct in calling me by the abbreviation of "BLT." "BTG" is also correct. Frankly, on Friday I was called a "slimy little fuck" by my opponent, so pretty much regardless WHAT you call me, it is an improvement over real life. So, give him credit. He got one thing correct.

blt to go

O.K., BGic, Vinnie, and any others.

I freely apologize for my ignorance, but I apparently view "errors" in Scripture in a different light. BGic and Clutch raised an issue, that while I am done with other areas touched upon, I DO have a question.

What is a "Surface Anamoly?"
What is a "Inconsistency?" (Chicago Statement)
What is an "Error?"
What is a "Contradiction?"
Are they Different? (perhaps some are interchangeable?)

If you can explain the differences and give an example of each, that would be helpful in my reviewing the posts made.

If you hate me for continuing this post, I will live just fine with that.