Nothing is Absolute
I was checking in on some discussion boards I used to post regularly on and came across the following statement by an atheist in response to a discussion over the Bible:
Atheist: All interpretation of the bible is subjective. You don’t hold the final word on it. It’s all in your own mind and isn’t absolute. Nothing is.
If this gal had left off the last sentence, she probably wouldn’t have gotten my attention. After all, she was just sharing her own opinion about another gal’s interpretation of the Bible – nothing remarkable there. But that last sentence … “nothing is [absolute]” made my ears perk up as it does anytime I hear it.
The following was my response to her:
BK: Nothing is absolute? Does that include your assertion above?
Of course, I was referring to her assertion that “all interpretation of the Bible is subjective”. The point being that she was undercutting her very own ability to argue by making the claim that “nothing is absolute.”
Her response to me:
Atheist: But, I never claimed that my assertion was absolute. So, if mine is not, then neither is hers. It’s all her subjective opinion – nothing else.
Here she fails to see that the very making of an assertion implies that it is true, and not relatively true. For instance … “all men are mortal” implies that every man, in every case, is mortal. “God exists” implies that God exists, not just “for me”. That’s the nature of making unqualified assertions such as “nothing is absolute”; they imply that what is being stated is absolutely true.
Here’s my next response:
BK: So if your assertion is not absolute then it is relative, meaning its truth varies, meaning it is at least possible that some things are indeed absolute. Therefore, in this context it entails that it is possible that her opinion of scripture is not subjective after all – at least according to what you have asserted.
It was at this point that things got interesting. Here is her reply:
Atheist: No, my assertion that nothing is absolute could be absolute – because there is still that possibility – according to your way of thinking.
A true Christian would not believe that one person who posts here has the “absolute” interpretation of Scripture. If there was “one absolute interpretation” of the Christian bible, there wouldn’t be so many Christian sects that branched out because they interpreted the words differently.
Nothing is absolute, as I said.
I found it remarkable that this person would make such a bold statement as she did about what a “true Christian” would believe about the Bible. After all, where does she get her perception of what a “true Christian” would believe, if not from the Bible itself? And didn’t she just say earlier that all interpretation of the Bible was subjective?
Well … read my response:
BK: No, because then there would be something which was absolute! Think about it … if your assertion “nothing is absolute” were absolute, then your assertion would be incorrect. It would be absolutely wrong. My way of thinking is simply taking your comments to their logical conclusion.
More to the point – if nothing is absolute, then this includes any claims you make, including your claim that anyone’s view of scripture is subjective. My comment earlier did not remove the possibility that her claims are, in fact, subjective – it simply brought to light that it is possible they may not be, which is in direct contradiction to your assertion that they are.
I thought perhaps at this point I had made it clear what the issue was. But instead I received the following response:
Atheist: Just as I said … Nothing including all your inane verbiage there is absolute.
And so the game was over. No further desire to interact or address what I said – just a dismissal of my response and a labeling of it as “inane verbiage”.
Here was my final reply, which I have yet to receive a response to:
BK: Is it that you don’t understand what I am saying? Is that the problem?
“Nothing is absolute”. The term “nothing” is universal, meaning your assertion implies that even your assertion is not absolute.
1. If it is true that your assertion is absolute, then your assertion that nothing is absolute is false.
2. If it is not true that your assertion is absolute, then your assertion is of no consequence.
Either way, your assertion undermines itself, either in refuting itself or in making it inconsequential.
Now please understand that this is not a shot against Atheists or Atheism at all – it is a demonstration of a lack of critical thinking. This could have just as easily been a Christian as an Atheist. Unfortunately too many times it is.
BK
Sacrificing the Gospel on the Altar of Unbiblical Apologetics
Often so-called objections to the presuppositionalist methodology are downright frightening. Take this article for example -
http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/240172 written by Caleb Colley.
Under the section on presuppositionalism, Caleb writes the following:
“While the presuppositionalist is right that worldview is important, the presuppositional approach is in conflict with Paul’s prescription of the cosmological argument”
Um…I am sorry?
“the presuppositional approach is in conflict with Paul’s prescription of the cosmological argument”
Now I do not know about other people, but I am left wondering how people prior to Paul came to know that God exists without Paul being alive to present them with the cosmological argument. There are plenty of other questions that come to mind, like why Paul would prescribe a proof that does not prove the existence of God but rather some vague notion of a “First Cause” or “Unmoved Mover”, why Paul would prescribe a proof that is full of problems that keep it from reaching its conclusion anyway, and where Paul ever presents this proof to begin with.
Caleb writes that Paul prescribed this argument “in Romans 1:19-20” and then quotes the passage:
“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”
Okay, let me read that again.
“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”
Do you see anything there that is even remotely similar to the cosmological argument? Is there any talk of a First Cause or Unmoved Mover? The passage does show that the world was created and that things have been made, but this is far from an instance of the cosmological argument. Let us be honest, the passage says nothing at all about the cosmological argument. It is never named, never written out as a syllogism, and never alluded to. The cosmological argument is never even described in this passage, much less prescribed. Presuppositionalism cannot be in conflict with Paul’s prescription of the cosmological argument, because Paul never prescribes it. The author has apparently deceived himself into thinking that there is something in the text which is not actually there, holding fast to a syllogistic puzzle invented and used by Aristotelians, Roman Catholics, and Muslims along with other non-Christian groups. What the text does describe is a universal knowledge of God that is plain and clear because it is given by God, but this sounds like the claim of presuppositionalists!
Caleb writes, “God does not expect us to presuppose that His revelation is true”. Caleb cannot know what God does and does not expect of us if Caleb does not presuppose that the revelation of God is true. God never makes a statement in Scripture to the effect of Him not expecting us to presuppose that His revelation is true. The opposite is the case, for the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. (Proverbs 1.7) Any argument from Scripture that Caleb gives us concerning what God does and does not expect is going to require us to take God at His Word just like God always desires we do.
“He wants us to examine the evidence”
Again, Caleb cannot know what God wants and does not want without appealing to the Word of God. There are numerous problems with the underlying assumptions of this statement, but I will not be going into them here.
“People will be lost, not because they failed to make a presupposition, but because they failed to reason from the revealed order to the One who revealed it.”
People will not be lost because they failed to make a presupposition. Whoever said such a thing? I do not know what Caleb is arguing against here, but it is not presuppositionalism. If Caleb understood what he is writing about (and frankly, he does not), he would know that the presuppositionalist claim is in direct opposition to his misrepresentation. No one fails to make the presupposition that God exists. Further, no one is in a place to question the Word of God because there is no higher authority than God! This misrepresentation is bad, but not nearly as bad as what comes next.
Caleb preaches another gospel:
“People will be lost…because they failed to reason from the revealed order to the One who revealed it.”
No Caleb, people are lost because people are sinners. People do not become lost, people are lost. People will not “be lost” on judgment day “because they failed to reason from the revealed order to the One who revealed it” either, but rather because they are unrepentant sinners. In answer to the lost person’s question, “How might I be saved?” Caleb must answer, “[R]eason from the revealed order to the One who revealed it”. Caleb writes that “People will be lost” if they fail to do so. The gospel of Caleb, which is no gospel, is not good news at all. Rather, his gospel calls for a works righteousness of the intellect. To be consistent Caleb must believe that the reason he is saved while others are not is because he has reasoned better than they have. Presenting the actual Gospel contained in Scripture is not an option Caleb is able to take, for he claims that “God does not expect us to presuppose that His revelation is true”.
The remainder of what Caleb writes is in harmony with his anathematized gospel. (Galatians 1.8) He writes, “A presuppositionalist once told me that the unbeliever has a ‘heart problem’”. It appears that, though it is biblical, Caleb is skeptical of the claim that the unbeliever as a heart problem. Not only does Caleb put the phrase in quotes, he finishes his sentence, “A presuppositionalist once told me that the unbeliever has a ‘heart problem’, rather than intellectual difficulty, that keeps him from obeying Christ” (emphasis mine). Now I would posit that the unbeliever has both a heart problem and intellectual difficulties because both are taught throughout Scripture, but I believe that Caleb is trying to say something much different than I am when I use these phrases. When Caleb writes that “the unbeliever…[has]…intellectual difficulty” I see no reason to read this as meaning anything other than what he has already proposed, that “People will be lost…because they failed to reason…”. He is setting “intellectual difficulties” in opposition to a problem of the heart.
“This presuppositionalist explained that the unbeliever was unable to develop faith rationally because, having a ‘sinful nature,’ he was unwilling to presuppose that Christianity is valid.”
Caleb might actually go beyond the Thomist conception of man here, denying not just the fallen nature of reason, but quite possibly the sinful nature of man, as Caleb puts the term in quotation marks! More of Caleb’s unbiblical anthropology becomes apparent when he writes, “I admitted that some are prejudiced against Christianity”. Some unbelievers are prejudiced against Christianity? Try all. One is either for Christ or against Him.
“I admitted that some are prejudiced against Christianity, but then asked whether it was at least possible that an unbeliever wants to obey Christ, but has an intellectual objection to the existence of God, such as the problem of evil.”
Notice again the unbiblical anthropology which proposes the possibility that there are unbelievers running about who want to obey Christ but cannot. He then assumes that the Problem of Evil is an intellectual objection to the existence of God without showing the inconsistency in stating that God exists as well as evil. The Bible clearly shows that this is the case and I have been unable to find any inconsistency with it. Where then is the intellectual objection?
Caleb has shown us the kind of horrible errors unbiblical approaches to apologetics will lead us toward when more consistently practiced.
Colley, Caleb. “Ready Always to Give an Answer”. Apologetics Press : Scripturally Speaking. http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/240172. Accessed September 25, 2009.
Confused About Presup
If one “googles” “presup”, he or she will find the video below at the top of the list. This gentleman argues that presuppositionalists undermine their own position in their insistence that reason and sense experience must “find their ground” in God. His argument consists of assuming that his particular version of atheism is true without giving us any reason for doing so.
The author of the video says that, “Presuppositionalists like to tell us that there can be no neutral ground between a Christian and an atheist in a discussion. This move tries to obscure the fact that we are all born in a state of implicit atheism…Implicit atheism is the neutral ground presuppositionalists will tell you does not exist.” We must recognize that the Bible teaches that we all know God (Romans 1.18ff). We deduce from this that we are born knowing God. If God exists then it is the case that we are born knowing God. To state without argument that we are born atheists logically entails the proposition that God does not exist and that atheism is true. It is extremely difficult to miss the assumption of atheism without argument. In using this argument against Christianity the author of the video begs the question. The atheist is not neutral at all, he is assuming atheism. There is no neutral ground between us.
There are many truth claims we have no choice but to accept upon pain of irrationality. One such truth claim is that God exists. The individual in the video is correct that we must accept a “certain set of truth claims in order to become Christians”, but one need not be a Christian in order to know that God exists.
He says that after “becoming…Christian, some people like to invoke radical skepticism to undermine reason and knowledge, the things that enabled them to accept their religion in the first place”. He provides an analogy of “delusional vandals setting fire to their own home” and imagining “they are immune from the flames”. Here he misses the point, which is that the reason and knowledge that were means to these people becoming Christians are not undermined by radical skepticism if Christianity is true, but are undermined if it is false. He understands that the “presuppositionalist claims that Christianity dispels radical skepticism” but errs in asserting that the presuppositionalist “was able to use precisely this untrustworthy, non-Christian, reason and sense experience in order to accept Christianity in the first place”. If Christianity is true then reason and sense experience are neither non-Christian nor untrustworthy. Non-Christians are able to come to know things precisely because Christianity is true. That is, they have intelligible experience only because they are inconsistent. The non-Christian operates on “borrowed capital” as Van Til put it, taking from the Christian worldview what he or she needs in order to make sense of things.
While it is fatally flawed, the best argument the young man in the video puts forth is, “At best the presup apologetic paints acceptance of Christianity as a kind of wishful thinking, accepting a claim because of the perceived negative ramification of not accepting it”. There are at least two problems here. One is that we accept Christianity based on the authority of God. We know that God exists and Christianity is true because God has told us so. The other is that if we reject this, we have no place where we might stand and argue that presup is wishful thinking. If the senses and reason are undercut by a rejection of the truth of Christianity, then we cannot intelligibly make statements like the person in this video. The argument that Christianity is just wishful thinking presupposes that Christianity is true.
Notice too that the author of this video does not give us anything like an answer to the position of radical skepticism. If he accepts it, and I would argue that he must, then he has no place to be making the arguments that he does in the video. We do not dispense with intellect or reason or senses or any other parts of intelligible experience. We do not “embrace…Cartesian skepticism” either. Cartesian skepticism does not even come close to the radical skepticism an unbeliever would be forced to “accept” if he or she were consistent. We do not adhere to fideism, assuming our position to be the case without argument. Our argument is that people like the gentleman in the video reject Christianity at the expense of rationality itself, falling prey to the self-defeating skepticism which inhabits and inhibits philosophy from Thales to Dewey. We have an argument, where is his?
Providence and Presuppositions
One of the easiest areas to spot the truth of the claim that presuppositions determine the way people view evidence is in the discussion of the providence of God.
Last night a friend of mine told me that his wife left her job.
Tonight he told me that his wife had been given a new job out of nowhere!
The new job is by far preferable to the old. For this we thank God. Upon sharing about this with unbelievers, my friend stated that he was “…getting hit up by atheists on why his wife got the job, and that it wasn’t providence at all…”.
As believers we see the hand of God at work in our life in incredible ways, especially when we reflect on what God has done in the past. When we take this to unbelievers we can usually expect to be greeted with skepticism and explanations and ridicule.
I am not suggesting that we need to stop talking about how God is at work in our lives. We absolutely should. It really only makes sense from within the Christian worldview though…
…just like anything else.
An atheist who gets it…
Well, some of it anyway. I do wish more Christians understood what is set forth in this video.
Greg Bahnsen opened in his debate with Gordon Stein as follows -
It is necessary at the outset of our debate to define our terms; that is always the case. And in particular here, I should make it clear what I mean when I use the term “God”.
I want to specify that I’m arguing particularly in favor of Christian theism, and for it as a unit or system of thought and not for anything like theism in general, and there are reasons for that. The various conceptions of deity found in world religions are in most cases logically incompatible, leaving no unambiguous sense to general theism – whatever that might be.
I have not found the non-Christian religions to be philosophically defensible, each of them being internally incoherent or undermining human reason and experience.
Since I am by the grace of God a Christian, I cannot, from the heart, adequately defend those religious faiths with which I disagree. My commitment is to the Triune God and the Christian world view based on God’s revelation in the Old and New Testaments. So, first I am defending Christian theism.
For the full transcript – http://www.bellevuechristian.org/faculty/dribera/htdocs/PDFs/Apol_Bahnsen_Stein_Debate_Transcript.pdf
Pragmatism vs Justification
I have been following the discussion on Induction between Chris and Mitch with great interest. Even though they are about to wrap things up, I wanted to comment on part of Mitch’s most recent response.
Mitch writes: It might not be a justification of induction in Bolt’s opinion, but such is the nature of pragmatism. It needs not be a justification, it simply is a warrant for its continued use. There is no error here as Reichenbach is not attempting to contest that induction is justified or unjustified in that statement, simply that we have a reason to continue to use it.
I am not quite sure what Mitch is saying here when he states on the one hand that “it needs not be a justification” and on the other hand states that “it simply is a warrant for its continued use.” Perhaps Mitch means something less formal by use of the word “warrant” than I am used to in discussions of this nature.
It seems to me that the statement “it needs not be a justification” implies no justification is present. Therefore, perhaps the word “warrant” simply means “reason” in the weaker sense, as in something that provides a motivation, rather than a logical basis. If Mitch means something more formal by the term, then I don’t find consistency with the implication that no justification is present.
Now, if Mitch means “warrant” as a motivation, then it seems to follow that it is entirely reasonable to hold a particular position on the basis of pragmatism alone (i.e. without the need for a logical justification). If this is truly the case, then I wonder how Mitch would respond to those who might claim to hold the position that the Christian God exists as a pragmatic belief? Is there “warrant” for believing in God if it allows the believer to accomplish a particular goal? Does the believer “have a reason to continue” their belief, if it gives them the ability to meet a particular end? At what point is it acceptable to give up the search for justification and appeal to pragmatism?
BK
