Jade

Earlier when I said that "a law of logic is a description of the nature of existence itself, a description that happens to be true" you said that you (thought you) had no disagreement with my statement. But your statements above indicate that perhaps you do not agree with my statement.

Consider; if the laws of logic are just true descriptions (of the nature of existence itself) then it is ambiguous to say that "the laws of logic exist" or "the laws of logic are dependent upon God". It is ambiguous because, as with all true descriptions, there are in fact two sorts of things in play rather than just one, and so there is room for confusion as to which of these things you are referring to when you say "the laws of logic ___". That is to say, there are truth-bearers and truth-makers. The truth-bearers are utterances and sentences and beliefs that people make and hold, and they 'bear' truth-values (i.e. they are true). The truth-makers are those things in virtue of which the truth-bearers are true.

So when you talk about 'the laws of logic', what are you talking about? The truth-bearers, or the truth-makers?

If you are talking about the truth-bearers, then it does make sense to say that "the laws of logic exist" (insofar as any utterance or statement or belief exists). It also can make sense to say that "the laws of logic are dependent upon God", because the truth-bearers are contingent entities (if humans had not existed then no one would have made the utterances and sentences), and if you believe that humans and all the things they say and do are dependent upon God (as the Ultimate Creator) then obviously the truth-bearing 'laws of logic' would be dependent upon God.

However, if you are talking about the truth-makers of the 'laws of logic' then there are some rather serious problems with both proposed statements. It seems to be a category error to say that 'the nature of existence itself' (i.e. the truth-maker of the laws of logic) is itself an entity that exists. Furthermore, it seems bootstrappingly circular to try to explain why existence itself has the nature it does by appealling to a thing that exists -- which means that 'the laws of logic' (in the truth-maker sense) cannot be dependent upon God in any meaningful sense (assuming "God exists" is true).

As for whether the laws of logic are 'mind-independent' or 'conceptual', the same analysis holds: the truth-bearers are obviously mind-dependent -- though a case can be made for them existing partly 'outside' of minds (e.g. as letters on a page, or whatnot). However, the truth-makers are another story: they cannot meaningfully be mind-dependent, for much that same reasons that they cannot be dependent upon God.
I'm going to have to disagree with you. "Articulate" means able to express something clearly, or in other words, to communicate such that your interlocuter has the same (or close enough) understanding of your utterance as you do. Paul Manata, I would gather, is very articulate when his interlocuters (or audience) are fellow Christian presuppositionalists, because they all possess the same constellation of background concepts (such as what the 'laws of logic' are). But when he is debating with an atheist, who does not share the same constellation of background concepts, Manata is usually far from articulate. Manata is skilled at rhetorical flourishes and biting witticisms and in making atheists look foolish (at least in the eyes of other Christian presuppositionalists) -- but he is not good at actually meaningfully communicating with atheists.

punkforchrist

Ahh, sorry bro. That happened to me a couple weeks ago, too. Very frustrating, indeed!

Thank you for the kind words. I've enjoyed our discussion, too.

Gentlemen, I'm going to limit my interaction on the forum to the formal discussions, which I'll hopefully participate in from time to time. I appreciate the thoughts you've all put in. The combination of school, a personal life, and the number of posts that I unfortunately cannot respond to have made me realize the need for very organized and limited discussion. Thanks for your time, though; I hope I've been gracious in my interactions.

SwoleMan

This brings back memories. See especially the comments.

Jade

Ouch. I guess I posted a day late and a dollar short, as it were.

Jade

Indeed. Sadly this is typical of Manata's dialogues rather than a deviant outlier. Compare Manata's bluster with, for instance, Brian Bosse's clarity and charity to see (one reason) why I cannot call Manata 'articulate'.

blastula

That may be a soundbite representation of presuppositionalism, but that works for me because I only have superficial, soundbite understanding of logic and philosophy anyway. I consider myself a materialist and relativist (though I am not sure if my definitions of the terms are the standard), and my argument against the above would be that relativism doesn't say there are no objective truths; relativism as I see it says it's perception that's relative and that there may or may not be objective truths. Relativism does not deny objective truth, only that it can be absolutely described or even whether it exists. "There are objective truths" is an unprovable statement.

The laws of logic are also relative to our perception. There may be absolute objective laws of logic, but we can't absolutely prove what they are.

But everyone is in the same boat, theist and atheist alike, in having to make assumptions as to the utility of logic or as to the existence of an objective reality. But once we've made and agreed on some assumptions, we can proceed with our arguments on that playing field, which is always relative to some initial assumptions.

Now, even if one does start with the presupposition that Christianity is true, and that there is a true logic derived from God, Christianity still has the problem of how that same logic combined with empirical observations contradict some basic statements of Christianity, such as for example, that there is no credible evidence for divine intervention or the power of prayer, or that there are internal contradictions within allegedly perfectly true scripture. A bare bones deist theology can be internally consistent, but none of the Abrahamic religions are.

While admitting my superficial knowledge of these arguments, I don't get how presuppositionalism has ever been or continues to be seriously argued at such great lengths. I see no there there.

blastula

Steve could have responded that reality may reflect human made logic, but is not necessarily dependent on it. Gene's statement about a star is a human made statement relying on human made perception. Without absolute knowledge, we can't say whether or not a star may be a star and not a star, we can only say that based on a certain system of logic, a star cannot be not a star.

Of course, Steve could also say that whether an event happened before humans existed is irrelevant to whether a human today can use logic to analyze the event.

blastula

Just wanted to add another apparent logical contradiction within Christianity is the trinity. If the trinity is logical then it's also logical that a star can be a star and not a star at the same time.