SingleDad

SeaKayaker

There is absolutely no reason to believe it is true, however.

What is offensive is the assertion of an arrogant position with no reason to believe that position is true.

I found this work to be highly arrogant.

SeaKayaker

Single Dad,

This is topic of our whole discussion, is it not? According to your definition of arrogance, you are the one being arrogant here, claiming something without providing any evidence for it. Therefore, in order to be consistent you either need to not condemn what you see as arrogance in my arguments or not be arrogant (according to your own definition) yourself.

What makes something arrogant? I am not just asking a silly question; I am serious here. Can someone defend the truth and be arrogant? Can a person defend falsehood and not be arrogant? Are you saying that this work is arrogant because you believe that it advocates falsehood (the content itself) or because of the tone of the argument (the style of the presentation)?

Thanks for your input,
SeaKayaker

Jack the Bodiless

The presuppositionalist method fails in its objective, to demonstrate the existence of God. Therefore, irrespective of whether or not God exists, the argument is false, and should not be used.

The argument is dead, because it assumes that unbelievers cannot "account for" such things as the ability to reason etc: we can. Unfortunately, too many presuppositionalists simply don't know when to quit.

It is perceived as "arrogant" because it contains an unsupported assertion which is simply declared to be true, and this is then used to assert a baseless attack on unbelievers: that we cannot even use logic without conceding the argument. This is an outright lie, hence passions are aroused...

HRG

Easy. If they did not work, they would not be called "laws of physics", right ?

HRG.

SeaKayaker

HRG,

In response to my argument that scientists use the laws of science and logic without knowing why they work, you replied that,

You seem to be saying that it only matters that the laws of science do work, not why they work. However, the fact that they work is the basis for my argument. If there were no scientific theories of rules of logic, I could not make this argument (both because we could not achieve meaningful communication without logic and because my argument rests on the existence of science and logic). I think that I have dealt with this somewhat already, but an analogy may help. For instance, in the late eighteen hundreds, Thompson proposed the “plum pudding” model of the atom. He thought that the atom was a positively charged sphere containing the negatively charged electrons. However, Geigr and Marsden showed through experimentation that this model could not account for the way atoms acted and that a new model was necessary. This is what I am attempting to do. I am seeking to show that, according to your worldview, the theories of science cannot work. Since we agree that the theories of science and rules of logic generally work, if your worldview says that they cannot work (just as the plum pudding model of the atom said it would behave in a way it did not), your worldview contradicts itself. At this point, according to the logical proof of reductio ad absurdum (RA), your worldview is invalid.

SeaKayaker

SeaKayaker

Jack the Bodiless,

About the transcendental argument you write,
First, the transcendental argument does contain a statement with no (direct) support that is declared true. But your worldview does too. But first, I would like to briefly discuss the transcendental argument in general. There are two steps to the transcendental apologetic method. One is to show that atheism is internally inconsistent and the other is to show that Christianity is internally consistent. In order to determine the internal consistency of a worldview, one must enter into that worldview (for the sake of discussion) and then see if that worldview contradicts itself. I cannot look at the atheistic worldview from a Christian perspective and say that it is false because it denies the existence of God, which the Bible teaches (since atheists would say that the Bible is fallible). If a Christian (believing in the infallibility of Scripture) were to say that God did not exist, his worldview would be (blatantly) internally inconsistent. Therefore, in order to evaluate the internal consistence of a worldview, one must examine it on its own premises and see if it can stand up to its own scrutiny.
Now, I said that everyone has beliefs (presuppositions) assumed to be true without direct support. You may deny this, but it is a necessity. Many atheists would affirm that we must use science and logic to answer factual questions (as Gordon Stein said, “all factual questions must be settled using logic or reason”). Now, if I ask you why we should use science and reason to answer factual questions, you have two choices. You can appeal to science or reason to answer, or you could appeal to some other authority. If you appeal to science or reason, you are doing the exact same thing the presuppositionalist does when he assumes the infallibility of Scripture. If you appeal to another authority, you invalidate your first statement. Therefore, the presuppositionalist does make a claim that he does not support directly, but so does everyone else. Recognizing this, I will attempt to indirectly investigate the presuppositions.
What do these presuppositions mean for the way you live your life? If presuppositions are those fundamental beliefs that we use to question other beliefs, then we will not (cannot) challenge or evaluate them directly. For example, the person who presupposes the existence of logic (just about everyone) cannot accept an argument against the existence of logic since the formulation of an argument requires the use of logic and therefore any argument arguing that logic does not exist is a mute point. Rather, we must do so indirectly. This is where the part about evaluating the internal consistency of a worldview comes it. In order to evaluate a worldview, one must adopt its presuppositions and then see if they contradict each other or other aspects of the worldview. If they do, then the worldview is inconsistent. If all aspects of the worldview comport with each other, it is internally consistent. This is why the presuppositionalist makes what you call the unsupported assertion. He is not trying to prove to the atheist that Christianity is true when he assumes the truth of the Bible, but rather trying to prove that it is consistent. If he proves that the other worldviews are inconsistent and that Christianity is consistent, eventually he arrives at a disjunctive syllogism proving that Christianity is true (either p v q, ~p, therefore q or p v ~p, ~~p, therefore p).

I hope that this explains why the presuppositionalist assumes the truth of the Bible and his justification for doing so.

SeaKayaker

SingleDad

SeaKayaker

Yes, but we don't use the presuppositions directly to compare alternative worldviews.

Remember, for the sake of accuracy in terminology, you should use "naturalism" and "naturalist" rather than atheism or atheist; atheism does not imply a particular metaphysical system, merely the nonbelief in gods. But this is indeed the fundamental claim of the transcendental argument.

Good for you. You're one up on Jim Mitchell.

Well... depends on what you mean by "direct support". It is true that some beliefs (presuppositions or axioms) must held that cannot be logically deduced. However, some beliefs are properly basic and directly evidentiary, such as the existence of the self and the existence and importance of perception. But from a logical perspective, yes, some axioms must be held without deductive support.

This is a false dichotomy. When we're talking about metaphysics, we're usually on the ground of formal axiomatic systems, and the necessity of strict hierarchies of logical description. I go into more detail of terminology in my essay <a href="http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=74" target="_blank">Presuppositionalism and Metaphysics</a>.

You are criticizing metaphysical scientism, which, much like metaphysical logical positivism, has already been discarded by naturalists.

Science is (in some sense) a metaphysical statement about the relationship between [b]ontology[/i] (statements about what is) and epistemology (statements about what we know). In general, naturalism is a metaphysical system, in that it contains statements about what constitutes valid ontological statements, what constitutes valid epistemological statements, and theiry relationship (throw in humanism or Objectivism for ethics, add a dash of aethetic subjectivism, and are well on the way to a complete metaphysical system).

It is important to note, however, that metaphysical statements, since they talk about ontological statements, are not themselves ontological statements. A metaphysical statement does not claim that a definition of ontology actually exists, and it does not claim that we know our definition of epistemology.

Therefore it is not a contradiction to privilege a perceptual epistemology or a scientific ontology. Naturalistic metaphysics is merely a different class of statements than ontological or epistemological statements.

It is useful to note that christianity can be evaluated according to this formula, with similar results:

Everything that exists must be (extrinsically) caused; a god causes everything to exist. Therefore, if a god exists, it must be caused; if not caused, it must not exist. If god exists, and is not caused, then cause is not necessary for existence, therefore there is no reason to assume that a god must exist to cause everything.

This argument is flawed for the same reason that your argument against naturalism is flawed: It assumes that a god must "exist" in the same way that the ordinary world "exists". Likewise, naturalism does not hold that ontological axioms exist in the same way that the ordinary world (which ontological axioms describe) exists.

Much depends on the presupposition. It is not the fact that one holds an idea as a presupposition that shields it from challenge. Rather, it seems prudent to choose presuppositions that are rock solid on their own.

Additionally, one can challenge a presupposition indirectly much like one challenges scientific ontological axioms by evidentiary means. If a set of presuppositions (including the presupposition that contradictions derive from falsehoods) leads to a contradiction, then one must abandon that presupposition.

The fundamental naturalist presupposition is fairly rock-solid: That perception is directly knowable and true as perception. It seems difficult to challenge this assertion, so it is a good candidate for a presupposition.

FYI, it's moot point.

I myself am moving away from the necessity for the presupposition of logic. First of all, it leaves unspecified <a href="http://www.cc.utah.edu/~nahaj/logic/structures/" target="_blank">which logic</a> you're talking about. Secondly, I think that one can make inductive or evidentary arguments for the value of logical systems. I think all that needs to be presupposed is the truth of perceptual experiences and the partial reliability of induction. And one has a direct basis for presupposing those things because it our brains appear to be directly wired to value perception and use induction.

Well, actually the evaluation of the internal consistency of a worldview does not even indirectly question the truthfulness of logic.

Internal consistency does not seem a particularly strong criteria; there appear to be quite a lot (if not an infinity) of mutually contradictory yet internally consistent metaphysical systems. So proving the internal consistency of christianity is not a particularly compelling conclusion.

Well, it is a difficult endeavor to prove that all other worldviews are inconsistent.

HRG

I'm afraid you did not get my point. That they work is a result of their definition: the laws of science are "that which works".
The rules of logic follow from the semantics of our language.

IOW, Thompson's model did not work and thus was not part of the "laws of science".

I'm always amused when someone tries to derive a scientific statement from a philosophical position.

Let me present a scenario which shows that the existence of laws of science is compatible with naturalism:
The laws of science describe the default behavior of the universe. As long as no superior beings (gods, djinns, fire giants etc.) exist - who could change said behavior -, it is guaranteed that the universe does not deviate from it. Ergo, the laws of science work.

[quote]
Since we agree that the theories of science and rules of logic generally work, if your worldview says that they cannot work (just as the plum pudding model of the atom said it would behave in a way it did not), your worldview contradicts itself.

[quote]
But it doesn't.

Since I have just demonstrated that the existence of laws of science which work is compatible with my worldview, any further discussion is unnecessary, isn't it ?

Regards, HRG.

Jack the Bodiless

SeaKayaker:

In my experience, presuppositionalists generally do not perform the analysis you describe. They begin by making the presupposition, and then get carried away by it: because Christianity is true, the Christian worldview IS internally consistent, and all other worldviews (specifically the "atheist worldview") ARE self-refuting. The conditional nature of the presupposition is tossed aside. Jim Mitchell, for instance, is adamant about this: the Christian presupposition MUST be accepted completely and absolutely, to do otherwise is to adopt "autonomous reasoning", which is false because it can give the wrong answers.

Rather than being used as a tool of argument, it is bolted onto fundamentalism and transformed into another excuse for a fundie rant: "We ARE right, your worldview IS wrong, our God IS ultimate, you CANNOT deny this".

No Christian presuppositionalist has yet demonstrated that atheism (or materialism, or whatever) actually is internally inconsistent. Furthermore, the presuppositionalists I have encountered so far have all been Biblical inerrantists: as the Bible is NOT inerrant, they cannot legitimately use the presuppositionalist method, because their own worldview has already failed their own test. Theoretically, an "errantist" Christian could attempt to legitimately use the method after devising an internally-consistent form of Christianity to form the basis of their presupposition, but I have yet to see one attempt this.

"Neo-Christianity" must be developed, debugged, and laid out in written form first. Only then will it be solid enough to form the basis of a coherent worldview.

SingleDad

Jack the Bodiless

It should be noted that the truth of a metaphysical system is entirely different from its internal consistency. This is one reason I consider the argument from internal consistency to be very weak.

The bible can be held inerrant, but at the cost of concluding that perception is not at all a valid epistemological basis.

It is indeed true that "christianity" is not a well-defined metaphysical system, or rather, I have not seen a rigorous definition. Furthermore, I have hints that presuppositionalists hold that human beings do not adhere to actual christianity; it is the god's metaphysical system, and simply assumed to exist in a perfect noncontradictory form.