A prolific participant on the Van Til Discussion list - and arguably one of the more reasonable and clear-minded participants of the list, is Mr. Eric Smallwood, a believer in Christian theism, and an apologist devoted to establishing the truth of Christianity and its validity as a worldview.
In this critique, I examine Mr. Smallwood's apologetic arguments. I have chosen to analyze Mr. Smallwood's messages to the Van Til Discussion list for two primary reasons. First, they show presuppositionalism in action qua apologetic method. Since in these messages Mr. Smallwood is not simply "preaching to the converted," but actually engaging a non-believing participant of the discussion, we have the opportunity to examine exactly how the presuppositionalist "method" proceeds. Second, Mr. Smallwood's apologetic, from what I have been able to determine, is typically representative of the standard presuppositionalist approach. I do not presume on this, however, should it be determined that I effectively criticize Mr. Smallwood's arguments, that I have successfully dealt with all issues which presuppositionalists bring up in their encounters with non-believers, since there are issues which do not come up or are downplayed in Mr. Smallwood's messages. I leave these other issues for other analyses. However, both of these reasons, I am confident, are confirmed by a comparison of Mr. Smallwood's messages and numerous debates I have examined, such as those involving the "transcendental argument for the existence of God" on the Secular Web.
In order to ease navigation throughout this page and thereby facilitate careful study, I have broken my analysis into three primary sections, which I shall call "trials," which divide the analysis according to the three posts submitted by Mr. Smallwood.
The following critique is offered in response to the following post to the Van Til list, submitted by apologist Eric Smallwood:
http://www.ccir.ed.ac.uk/~jad/vantil-list/archive-May-2000/msg00010.html
In that message, Mr. Smallwood was responding to a post to the Van Til list by Brian of Murfreesboro:
http://www.ccir.ed.ac.uk/~jad/vantil-list/archive-May-2000/msg00003.html
Salutation and Clarifying Remarks
Mr. Smallwood opened his comments with the following:
Hello Brian,
Thank you for your contribution. I think it is important that a Christian apologetic not be taken so much for granted that we forget that those who do not affirm it (or who may have never heard it) might have a difficult time with it, hearing only its conclusion apart from its reasoning. We have to be perceptive enough to realize that the non Christian (or even the Christian not familiar with this particular apologetic) is not necessarily going to automatically comprehend its language. In other words, we have to be careful to not "preach to the choir" when we're not addressing the choir ;)
Mr. Smallwood prefaces his comments by pointing out the importance of actually presenting an argument when prior bristling postured the possession of one. The question of understanding - "comprehends its language" - foreshadows the suspect nature of the presuppositionalist's reasoning. Non-acceptance of the validity or soundness of an argument can easily be explained away as a consequence of failing to grasp fully what is being argued.
Certainly the Christian can "conclude" that reality is explainable only by the Christian God, but to offer this conclusion without explanation to the non theist is sure to result in a similar reaction as your own. I believe however that it is important to understand that the conclusion is not necessarily the argument. In this particular forum, because of a shared set of common assumptions, the argument is often assumed and thus presenting the conclusion is, in effect, the argument, but only in this particular forum.
Mr. Smallwood points out the obvious: that an argument's conclusion must be distinguished from the argument as a whole. But in doing so, Mr. Smallwood has already tipped his hand and shown his proclivity for stolen concepts. Notice that he believes that "reality is explainable only by the Christian God." Is God part of reality? If yes, then how does God "explain" reality? If something that is part of reality can explain reality as a whole, then why does he need to point to God? If God is not part of reality, then how can the apologist argue that God is real? This is just a taste of the kind of stolen concepts one should be prepared to find in all religious apologetics, presuppositionalism being no exception whatsoever.
Mr. Smallwood also states:
In a Christian forum, an appeal to God as the answer to a question is not necessarily begging the question because the existence of God is already assumed by the participants. This would be a different situation is this were a different forum.
In other words, the explanatory value of appealing to zero-worship is assumed as a matter of course and habit by the apologist.
But we can't find ourselves so secluded in an ivory tower that we forget that there are other people in the world who are not a part of this forum. This is why I think that your comments are valuable, in that, we must always be reminded that to the person who does not acknowledge a given presupposition, the use of a presupposition is only as valid as the substantiation for that use.
And each person needs to have a grasp of the truth and reasoning of an apologetic (to "own" it) for himself, not merely refer to someone's belief.
Mr. Smallwood is still clearing his throat here before addressing the non-believer's "needs" in front of his peers. But what is important here is Mr. Smallwood's implicit recognition of the fact that knowledge is hierarchical in nature - a fact which the religionist cannot keep in consistent focus throughout any comprehensive defense of his god-belief claims, as we shall see in a later section.
Already implicit in Mr. Smallwood's remarks is his awareness of the need for a starting point to one's reasoning. If knowledge is hierarchical in nature - and it is, where does that hierarchy begin? Without a starting point, requiring substantiation for every "presupposition" in one's thinking would result in an infinite regress.
Presuppositionalists famously posture their rhetoric as if they had in mind a specific idea or conception as their starting point. But, from their rhetoric, much of which tends to digress to abstract issues whenever the opportunity avails itself, it is unclear exactly what that starting point may be, and how they achieve awareness of it.
Ostensibly, presuppositionalists maintain, the "biblical triune God of Christianity" is their starting point. But the identity of this idea is shrouded in incoherence and self-negating paradoxes, camouflaged by appeals to "mystery" in order to suspend disbelief. [
1] And certainly there is the issue of how precisely any given presuppositionalist can achieve awareness of the "biblical triune God of Christianity" qua starting point, that is, without any knowledge prior to this idea. Or, in the presuppositionalist's terminology, without contaminating "presuppositions."Mr. Smallwood quoted the Bible to emphasize his point:
I'm reminded:
Oddly enough, we never see such things today. What did this "evil spirit" look like? How did the author know about this event, assuming it was not a later embellishment or a complete invention? Are we to accept the telling of this tale as relating an instance of historical fact unquestioningly? Such primitive beliefs were customary in primitive cultures of primitive times. Causal attribution of disease, mental retardation or dementia to the activity of unseen "spirits" - entities of bodiless consciousness floating about and "infesting" or "corrupting" existence, was quite common among pre-scientific cultures, and bespeak their ignorance of science quite candidly. How modern Christians insist on such mythology as truth is, to say the least, quite embarrassing.
An Exercise in Repeating a Claim
Another member of the Van Til list wrote:
I think that this hypothetical atheist has no way to generalize from aparticular, because there is no reason that anything occurring should be able to do it again in the same way...His belief in induction is cultural--the byproduct of a theistic worldview.
There are an awful lot of assumptions here. Let's see if they can be supported by his 'apology'. The question is not one of by-products, but whether or not a god-belief is essential or even compatible with induction. The Objectivist position states a resounding No! to this question. [
2]Brian, the non-believer whom Mr. Smallwood challenged, responded:
--Step back and look at the big picture and your wordplay and you will see that this makes no sense. In cultures who did not believe in a theistic god inductive logic was possible, was used and in fact predates the Judeo-Christian God as well. We need to be more careful of such unthought out broadsides because anyone with half a brain will find it easy to rebut such arguments.--
And to this, Mr. Smallwood offered the following thoughts in rebuttal:
I can understand your concern, but again I would say that more often than not the posts in this forum are based upon a set of common assumptions, so the conclusion is not necessarily all there is to the argument.
This is good to know. What, then, is Mr. Smallwood's argument to the effect that the "hypothetical atheist has no way to generalize from aparticular" [sic]? Below I will review Mr. Smallwood's apologetic, ostensibly intended to validate his claims against non-believers.
Mr. Smallwood asserts the following:
The possibility of equivocation is nonetheless found here:
1. The non theist's use of induction is the product of a theistic (meaning Christian) world view
This is the claim which Mr. Smallwood puts before himself as his primary point of debate, the claim he sets out to establish. Will Mr. Smallwood demonstrate why should anyone accept this claim as true? The following analysis will answer this question.
But before we review Mr. Smallwood's arguments, there are a few questions which this claim immediately generates. For instance, where does Christianity teach induction, where does it teach that man should use induction, and why should man use it in the first place? If "the non theist's use of induction is the product of a theistic (meaning Christian) world view," as Mr. Smallwood claims, then obviously we would have to look to the Christian's religious sources for guidance on these pestering questions. But what sources offer answer these questions specifically? The concept induction is not even found in the Bible (in fact, my copy of Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible contains no entry for this term or its closer cousins).
Furthermore, the Bible (speaking of Christianity), actually shows animosity towards reason by its preference that knowledge claims be accepted on faith, and out of fear of eschatological threat. Such "epistemology" does not square with the principles and methods of reason, such as logical induction, which reserves judgment on a conclusion until the relevant facts of a case have been identified and integrated according to objective standards. Faith makes claims to knowledge regardless of what the relevant facts of the case indicate.
Also, in its preference for faith-based 'knowledge' over reason, the Bible subordinates man's comprehension to his feelings as a "means of knowing." For instance, Proverbs 1:7 tells us that fear (an emotion) holds primacy over knowledge, and Proverbs 3:5 says that the believer should not "lean upon [his] own understanding." But man's emotions are not a means of identifying knowledge, but a response to new knowledge, and the goal induction is the achievement of greater understanding. The statement "the non theist's use of induction is the product of a theistic (meaning Christian) world view" cannot be integrated into a worldview which itself downplays man's understanding and commands him to rely instead on faith as a means toward knowledge. Faith and induction are not one and the same, and even more so, the two cannot be integrated for they are fundamentally incompatible. Either one must abandon faith in order to accept the validity and applicability of induction, or, more broadly, reason; or he must dispense with reason and exclaim, "Whatever the Bible tells me, I'll accept as truth." This is not induction.
Furthermore, induction is not setting out with a preset conclusion, such as "the Bible is wholly inerrant through and through," and rationalizing every otherwise legitimate contention incompatible with that conclusion into some content construed to be harmonious with that preset conclusion. Reason follows known facts toward the identification and validation of conclusions yet unknown, but knowable (which means: induction operates on the assumption that Man can achieve knowledge [
3]).For instance, when I recently spoke to a young woman I know who is a devout "non-denominational" Christian (why would there be denominations splintering adherents of an allegedly infallible worldview into rival factions anyway?), I asked her how much of the Bible she had read. She told me that she only read a small portion of it, concentrating in Genesis, the Psalms, Proverbs and the New Testament gospels. (This sparse selectivity is typical among the vast majority of Christians I have known.) But, in spite of this, she claimed that the entirety of the Bible is true. How could she make this claim if she had not read the entirety of the Bible? Obviously, a search for truth, if it takes such an irresponsible course as this, is not genuine. Indeed, it is evasion which is sought, not enlightenment. And it is precisely this kind of intellectual default which mysticism, whose 'method' is faith, fosters in the religious mind.
Of course, in order to seal his case for such a claim - since his claim rests on the validity of Christianity, and Christianity is a form of god-belief, Mr. Smallwood would expectedly consider as his ultimate goal the task of proving the existence of God. Proving the dependence of induction on the existence of God is for the apologist, allegedly, sort of an indirect route to proving the existence of God. Thus, if he can prove the dependence of induction on the existence of God, the apologist figures, he's made a great case for the validity of his god-belief. The problem for the apologist should already be apparent to the critic, for presupposing God's existence throughout - even an indirect proof for God's existence - brings the apologist no closer to validating his god-belief, for he simply begs the question.
Clearly, Mr. Smallwood has his work cut out for himself. However, on the face of his primary assertion, the proving of which is the ostensible goal of the "transcendental argument for the existence of God" (TAG), his task appears doomed from the start. But Mr. Smallwood feels otherwise, so let us bear with him, and see what results he can produce. If his arguments fail to produce its declared results, then we are justified in rejecting his god-belief claims.
Mr. Smallwood claims that his primary assertion entails the following:
Above Mr. Smallwood declared his primary claim that "the non theist's use of induction is the product of a theistic (meaning Christian) world view." And here he offers a) and b) as clarification of this claim. At this point there are a few questions:
Does Mr. Smallwood define his terms? How does Mr. Smallwood distinguish between the "valid use of induction" and its invalid use? What is the distinction between "efficient cause" and "instrumental cause"? What is meant by "justification for the observer" and what is Mr. Smallwood's case that "the observer" even requires a "justification"? Justification from what? For what purpose is a "justification" required and what is the real consequence of (a) not having such a justification, and (b) not knowing what constitutes this justification? Indeed, has Mr. Smallwood even discussed whether or not man needs induction, and if so, why he needs it?
Also, we should ask whether these points a) and b) bring Mr. Smallwood any closer to proving his conclusion. Since both of these points obviously assume the validity of the claim that God exists, which is the very point in question, we would be wise to recognize that no progress is yet made toward an explanation or proof.
Mr. Smallwood continues his apology:
The non Christian will, of course, disagree with [a] and [b], but from a Christian perspective I believe this distinction should be made because the comment that the non theist "borrows" or "presupposes" Christian truths can be interpreted in different ways.
Granted, on the face of it, there is no reason why non-Christians should accept either a) or b) above. But let's see if Mr. Smallwood can offer any good reasons why these claims should be accepted.
He writes:
Now, certainly the non Christian "uses" induction without proclaiming a belief in the Christian God. We can say that, according to [a] she uses induction because the "existence" of induction is secured by God (i.e.. it is the product of what Christian theism describes). In this case, God is the necessary precondition for the existence and use of induction, and therefore induction presupposes God (which, in my opinion, is what should be said instead of saying that the non theist presupposes God in her use of induction, for this leads off into all sorts of problems).
Here Mr. Smallwood merely repeats the very claim which is in question as if it were a proven fact, as if any argument supporting his conclusion that "God is the necessary precondition for the existence and use of induction," etc., had been presented and sustained criticism. Mr. Smallwood has skipped this part, so therefore he begs the question, and does nothing to establish the truth of theism.
Thus, when Mr. Smallwood states that "We can say that, according to [a] [the non-believer] uses induction because the 'existence' of induction is secured by God," what does he add to its support when he states, "In this case, God is the necessary precondition for the existence and use of induction, and therefore induction presupposes God"? Not only does Mr. Smallwood fail to support his assertions, he offers no basis on which his assertions can be tested for their validity. His initial claim and its clarifications a) and b) remain unsupported.
Mr. Smallwood made the following statement:
She would most likely disagree with [b] (and of course with [a]) that her pragmatic use of induction is the product of Christian or theistic thinking,
This non-believer certainly does not agree with either [a] or [b], and the apologist has so far given no reason whatsoever to accept the notion that the "use of induction is the product of Christian or theistic thinking." So far, Mr. Smallwood offers a series of bald assertions. Is there an argument in the making here?
Mr. Smallwood continues:
in other words, she only thinks induction is valid because theists before her said so.
Who says this? The apologist does not say. Mr. Smallwood's initial claim was that "the non theist's use of induction is a product of theistic" philosophy. Is one's only alternative to accepting the presuppositionalist's claim that induction presupposes the existence of God, that one must take the say-so of theists that inductive reasoning is valid? Why would this be? Can one not discover and recognize this independent of theistic apologetic teachings? Why not?
Speaking from my own experience as a believer in the early 1990's, there was absolutely no discussion of induction or inductive norms among my fellow believers. Indeed, judging by their overall lack of education (many of them even insisted that I abandon my ambitions to earn an accredited degree at the nearby university; good thing I didn't listen), I'd say they'd each be hard-pressed to even explain what induction is, let alone answer many of the other questions brought up in this present discussion.
He continues:
This type of argument I believe leads off into an irrelevant tangent because even if it were demonstrated that the use of induction was historically derived from people believing that a god was its justification, that belief alone isn't a justification.
Indeed, this is true. Many people have been caught up, to varying extents, in the psychological throes of god-belief, including the acceptance of a whole host of tangential and remote irrelevancies. This does not make god-belief true, nor does pointing this out further Mr. Smallwood's argument. Many people who have been quite successful at legitimate, human endeavors have been so deluded as to believe in such superstitions. I hold that their successes came in spite of the irrationality of their god-belief, not because of it. Induction is open to man, but this does not guarantee that his results will be sound.
Mr. Smallwood states:
The presuppositionalist wouldn't agree that a belief in a false god is a substantiation for the use of induction.
The notion of a "false god" is a redundancy. There is no reason to belabor the point.
Observe the following statement:
From a Christian perspective, induction exists because of the creative work of God, and its use is ordained and justified by the design of God.
By now we should be fully aware of what Mr. Smallwood's claim is. But does repeating his claim over and over, rephrasing it in a whole variety of ways, establish the truth of his claim? Obviously it does not. Mr. Smallwood obviously accepts this claim, but remains quite secretive as to why he accepts it.
Mr. Smallwood offers the following analogy:
Just as a child is given a geometry textbook, she has no idea of what its contents mean or what purpose its has apart from her being instilled with the tools to understand and to use it. If Christianity is true, then both [a] and [b] are true regardless of the confession of faith made by the non Christian. Conversely, if some other view of the world is true, then of course Christianity is false.
Again, Mr. Smallwood stalls in offering an argument to establish the claim he seems so committed to defending. Why should anyone accept it? Blank out.
Mr. Smallwood confesses:
For the Christian, he doesn't believe that Christianity is true based on a series of arguments.
STOP RIGHT THERE: If this is the case, then "the truth of Christianity" is not to be established or demonstrated by reason. One must surrender reason and simply believe - i.e., accept the religionist's god-belief claims as true for no reason. But if it is the case that the Christian "doesn't believe that Christianity is true based on a series of arguments," then why does the apologist argue?
Smallwood continues:
He may have come to believe that Christianity is "believable" because of some degree of argumentation, however he knows of the truth of Christianity because of an encounter with the Spirit of God.
Mr. Smallwood goes from repeating the claim that "God is the ground of induction" to a discussion about a supposed "encounter with the Spirit of God." First he begs the question, then he drags the discussion off course. Which point does Mr. Smallwood want to make: That "God is the ground of induction" or that discovering "the truth of Christianity" requires a mystical "encounter with the Spirit of God"?
Clearly, the tactic being engaged at this point is a classic safety mechanism which the apologist announces before his argument fails. This precaution is necessary at the outset so that a non-believer's rejection of his "argument" can be dismissed as some fault or deficit on the non-believer's part rather than because of an error in the argument's reasoning. But in doing so, the apologist admits that it is not reason which leads individuals like Mr. Smallwood to accepting his god-belief, but their feelings. No god-belief claims have been validated by this.
Mr. Smallwood claims:
This encounter however cannot be given from the believer to the non believer. The believer can "model" the work of the Spirit, but the believer is not the Spirit Himself.
Indeed, Mr. Smallwood basically admits that he must abandon rational argument and prefer instead to claim possession of a mystical experience which he is unable to repeat for those to whom he makes the claim that his God exists. What he has "modeled" so far is not objectivity, but a faulty and clumsy attempt to use logic in order to fashion mental pretzels. He seems to be trying to say both sides of a contradiction at the same time without letting the nature of his casuistry out of the bag.
Finally, Mr. Smallwood makes the following admission:
All arguments ultimately break down at the gap between believability and knowledge, and it is God who fills this gap.
Having become frustrated with the task of establishing his claims by reason, Mr. Smallwood now condemns argument as ultimately impotent in such matters. Thus, the apologist hopes to evade the onus of proof to which his god-belief claims commit him. Mr. Smallwood attempts to dignify this evasion when he claims that such mystical evasions constitute "a personal level of Christianity."
The Question of a Valid Non-Christian Worldview
Next, after failing to establish the truth of any of his claims thus far, Mr. Smallwood turns his attention to what a refutation of Christian theism would have to entail:
From a philosophical level, a presuppositional apologetic would maintain that the easiest means of refuting Christianity (as a world view) is through producing a valid non Christian world view, for Christianity cannot be true if another view is true.
Does this mean that the apologist assumes that his god-beliefs are true until they are refuted? So far, Mr. Smallwood has shown (like so many apologists before him [
4]), that he cannot establish the truth of Christian theism. However, since this supposed truth is accepted on faith, he now assumes that Christian theism need not be established by a course of reasoning. In spite of this, he suggests that non-believing critics of Christianity somehow inherit, by virtue of their non-belief, the onus of refuting it. But if even Christianity's own apologists and defenders cannot establish the truth of their claims, why would one need to refute it? Mr. Smallwood does not say.Additionally, if all that Mr. Smallwood believes is required to refute Christianity is for a non-believer to produce a valid worldview which dispenses with his god-beliefs, then Mr. Smallwood admits defeat in his task to defend Christian theism from the very outset. For Objectivism is a valid worldview, resolving all the legitimate problems in philosophy which Christian apologists claim their god-beliefs resolve (e.g., the "problem of universals" and the "problem of induction," etc.), as well as slashing off all illegitimate issues which god-belief packages into those alleged resolutions (e.g., the negation of the law of identity, the enshrinement of incomprehensibility and the tyranny of whim-worship, man's supposed unearned guilt and need for redemption, the ethics of self-sacrifice, etc.). [
5]Then again, even if we did not have Objectivism, this would not make Christianity true.
Mr. Smallwood reasons:
A concept here is that the non Christian attempting to refute a Christian view from "within" Christianity will inevitably import assumptions from her own view as an evaluation standard (such as assuming the use of logic and rational thought has a justification outside of a Christian view) and thus beg the question (admittedly, the converse of this, the Christian bringing his assumptions into an evaluation of a non Christian view, is often a short coming of a presuppositional approach).
If we agree that begging the question renders an argument invalid (and on this point, I agree that this is the case), then Mr. Smallwood must admit that his entire argument so far is invalid, for he has merely repeated the very claim he's called to establish as if this were sufficient to handle the task of proving it. The presumption in Mr. Smallwood's foregoing quote is that he as a Christian does not share any basic assumptions with non-Christians; or, that if there are any shared basic assumptions between Christians and non-Christians, to the extent that those assumptions are legitimate and sound, they belong to the Christian worldview. But what are those assumptions? So far Mr. Smallwood has yet to make any case that holds water.
The basic assumptions of Objectivism is declared explicitly at its foundation, that existence exists, and its logical corollaries, identity and consciousness. Even Mr. Smallwood must make assume each of these, albeit implicitly, though Christian theism as a whole, from start to finish, is incoherent with the undeniable foundation which Objectivism identifies. And should he attempt to challenge these primary, irreducible facts, or to posit something prior to them - thus denying their order of primacy, he necessarily checkmates himself.
To recap Mr. Smallwood's apologetic thus far, recall that above he opened his argument with the statement: "The non theist's use of induction is the product of a theistic (meaning Christian) world view." He qualified this claim with the following two points:
In his attempt to support this claim, Mr. Smallwood offered the following key points:
"We can say that, according to [a] [the non-believer] uses induction because the "existence" of induction is secured by God…"
"In this case, God is the necessary precondition for the existence and use of induction, and therefore induction presupposes God…"
"From a Christian perspective, induction exists because of the creative work of God, and its use is ordained and justified by the design of God…"
Each of these statements are nothing more than a re-phrasing of his initial claim (by now we should know what Mr. Smallwood claims to be the case), which he is called to establish, and therefore does nothing to move him closer to this goal. Mr. Smallwood begs the question for he clearly assumes the truth of the very assertion he needs to prove. Where is his argument?
Meanwhile, as if to sabotage his own effort, Mr. Smallwood offers non-believers several reasons why his claim need not be accepted:
So, not only does Mr. Smallwood fail to establish his truth claim (indeed, where is his argument?), he also acknowledges (perhaps inadvertently) that there are good reasons not to accept his claim. This is demonstrated upon reviewing the merits of his "reasoning" before any alternative non-theistic solutions, which will come to light in the following sections, are laid out and developed.
Mr. Smallwood's Apologetic in Action:
Citing the following objection (from non-believing Brian):
This is just my way of thinking perhaps, but if somehow God "died tomorrow" I dare say that gravity would still continue to exist here on earth and in the universe.
Mr. Smallwood countered:
This type of comment is based in a basic assumption that the components of the universe exist independently of God. In other words, the reality of gravity, for example, is not sustained in its existence by the work of God, rather God has somehow created the physical preconditions for gravity to "begin" to exist, but He Himself is not the precondition for gravity to "continue" to exist. In my opinion, this would be a deistic view of God.
If Mr. Smallwood's critic held the conviction that "gravity would still continue to exist here on earth" if "somehow God 'died' tomorrow" - a position that grants validity to the notion of God, then Mr. Smallwood's response would basically be correct.
However, is the "assumption that the components of the universe exist independently of God" an unjustifiable assumption? This, we will see, is essentially the question which should be addressed, and when Mr. Smallwood states that assuming that "the components of the universe exist independently of God" as a "standard for disproving a Christian view" (see below) begs the question, we have to inquire what basic assumptions are operative in Mr. Smallwood's reasoning to this objection.
I submit that the assumptions underlying Mr. Smallwood's view here are not essentially that the existence of God is required for gravity to exist, but something deeper and more fundamental.
First of all, there is the unargued assumption implicit throughout such a view that an act of consciousness is a pre-requisite to existence and identity (and consequently, to causality), which is untenable (because of the
stolen concept involved). This is the doctrine of metaphysical subjectivism, which is the view that existence finds its source in a form of consciousness (e.g., "God's will" or "divine directive"), and constitutes a wholesale attack on objective reality.The other operative assumption in Mr. Smallwood's view is that an object and its identity are somehow separate or distinct - that a thing and its nature (e.g., its attributes) are not one and the same. This too is an attack on the law of identity and against objective reality. If the law of identity is intact, and one recognizes that a thing is itself - that an entity and its nature are one and the same, then there would be no justification for the apologist's mysticism and the rôle he attributes to the reality-ruling consciousness of his god-belief.
When one holds that an object behaves as it does simply because it does (e.g., that the sun exerts gravitational force against the earth), the active (yet implicit) assumption is not a form of theism or deism, as Mr. Smallwood reasons, but that existence exists, and that to exist is to have identity (i.e., that a thing is itself, that A is A, that should A exist, it must be A, regardless of any will or desire for the contrary). These are primary metaphysical facts of reality, immutable, irreducible and undeniable. As such, they are not provable; rather they are axiomatic, since any process of proof will require the assumption of these facts, and one must assume them even to deny them.
The recognition "that the components of the universe exist independently of God" (insomuch as the notion 'god' can have any meaning), becomes clear when these primary facts of reality are made explicit. The conclusion "that the components of the universe exist independently of God" is not, as Mr. Smallwood seems to believe, a primary, unargued assumption demonstrating the groundless "atheistic bias" of anti-Christian rebellion, but a consequence of the explicit recognition of the primary facts of reality, available to man's conceptual consciousness through perception. In other words, for Objectivism, atheism is a conclusion of prior reasoning about reality, by reference to what is perceptually self-evident.
In a manner of speaking, just as the fact of existence is the case for Objectivism, the recognition that existence exists independent of the activity of consciousness is the case against theism.
Thus, when Mr. Smallwood states, "If this concept was assumed to be true" - by "concept" it is understood as referring to the "basic assumption that the components of the universe exist independently of God" - "and then used as a standard for disproving a Christian view, this assumption would beg the question." But as we've seen, it is not necessarily the case that this "concept" - as Mr. Smallwood calls it - is the operative assumption supporting a treatment critical of Christianity. Since the bare root assumption is nothing more than the self-evident facts of reality, identified explicitly by axiomatic concepts which necessarily infer a rational hierarchy (e.g., existence is identity, consciousness is identification, etc.), refutation of any form of theism proceeding on such a basis does not beg the question, but follows necessarily.
Mr. Smallwood's characterization of the argument critical of Christian theism:
Note that premise 1) is basically what Mr. Smallwood projects onto non-believing critics as if the idea that "the universe (or 'components' thereof) can exist independently of God" were assumed as an irreducible primary on the non-believer's part. But there are far too many assumptions in such a statement for it to have any feasibility as a fundamental primary, so Mr. Smallwood is purposely stacking the deck, and therein his argument commits a straw man fallacy.
In distinction to the above, an Objectivist argument from objective reality (from the fact of existence), however, may proceed along the following lines:
Premises 1) though 3) are implicit in all perception, but made explicit in objective philosophy through axiomatic concepts. These truths are inescapable and presumed in all cognition.
Premises 4) through 6) logically follow from the Objectivist axioms.
Premises 7) and 8) are only necessary once the notion of a universe-creating, reality-ruling consciousness is posited by the mystic.
One does not "presuppose" anything about the "Christian triune God" - either that God exists or that God does not exist - when he recognizes the fact that existence exists, even when that recognition is completely implicit. To argue otherwise is to commit the fallacy of the stolen concept (for such an assertion would fail to recognize objective conceptual priority and the hierarchical nature of knowledge). Asking "Why does existence exist?" - to anticipate the theist - is also invalid, for it would require one to posit something prior to existence, and again commit the fallacy of the stolen concept. We must start somewhere, and this is it: the undeniable, unchanging fact of existence. Furthermore, what we perceive must come before what we conceptualize, for otherwise we would have no content to conceptualize.
The operative assumption lying hidden at the root of virtually all theistic arguments is that a form (i.e., act) of consciousness must be posited as primary to existence and identity, that form of consciousness being responsible for the fact that existence exists and supplying the 'glue' that bridges the invented gap assumed to separate an entity from its identity. (Humean skepticism fares no better than theism, for it also argues - because Hume thought that human cognition begins on the sensory level of consciousness rather than on the perceptual level - that we cannot prove that an entity and its identity are not separate and distinct.)
Even the theist, in attempting either to argue for theism or to refute challenges to his theism, must implicitly assume the fact the primacy of existence for several reasons, which will be articulated below.
How the Apologist Affirms the Primacy of Existence and Contradicts His Claim that God Exists:
The apologist himself implicitly assumes that existence exists independently of consciousness when he asserts any statement as fact. When one states something as fact, he asserts it as something that is objectively true, i.e., as something in reality independent of his own consciousness, independent of his or anyone else's acceptance or rejection of the claim. Thus, in two respects, personally and socially, the apologist implicitly rejects the primacy of consciousness when he asserts a claim as true of objective reality, a truth that is thought to be true independent of consciousness. This is the implicit recognition of the primacy of existence, the fact that existence holds primacy over consciousness.
For example, if one claims that the moon is made of green cheese, a claim that obviously finds no evidential support in reality, he still asserts this claim as true and therefore as a fact independent of his own mind, independent of his own inventive imagination and awareness. Additionally, he asserts this claim as true independent of the acceptance of others, independent of their consciousness. For such reasons, the primacy of existence is inescapably implicit in all cognition, even if the conclusions one draws from that cognition are false or completely arbitrary. [
7]Similarly, when the theist asserts the claim "God exists," he asserts this claim as true of reality, as a fact that is dependent neither upon his own mind's integrity (or disintegration) and cognitive functions, nor upon the minds of others. He does not assert that "God exists" only in his own mind or in the minds of others, for this would certainly not be compelling and it would defeat his apologetic ambitions. Because the apologist asserts the claim "God exists" as a genuine identification of fact, he necessarily implies the validity of the primacy of existence. Essentially, the theist claims "God [or whatever] exists outside my mind, independent of my conscious functions." By doing so, the theist implicitly affirms the fact that existence as such exists independent of consciousness and that the task of consciousness is not to create or invent reality, but to identify it. And thus he affirms the validity and pertinence of the primacy of existence.
Furthermore, the theist asserts the supposed truth of his claim "God exists" as true independent even of God's own (alleged) mind itself (even if we do not grant that God could deny Himself), otherwise theism would admittedly reduce to divine solipsism. So even with respect to the primacy of supernatural consciousness, the theist's very act of claiming that God exists still affirms implicitly the primacy of existence.
In any case, thus, we see that the theist implicitly affirms the primacy of existence simply by asserting the claim that God exists.
But the claim itself that "God exists" is a claim that is diametrically contrary to the primacy of existence, for it is the assertion of its opposite, the primacy of consciousness. The primacy of consciousness holds that existence (reality) is the product of an act or form of consciousness, thus consciousness has the upper hand over existence. As corollaries to this view, the primacy of consciousness holds that the identity of entities (i.e., of objects which exist) is subject to conscious revision at will, and that consciousness is metaphysically causal (i.e., that consciousness creates its own objects; cf. "divine creation"). In this way, we see that the theist wants to have his cake (i.e., the certainty of the primacy of existence as a basis for asserting truths and identifying reality), and to eat it, too (i.e., the fantasy of the primacy of consciousness and the evasion of the law of identity).
In Christianity, for instance, we find the doctrine of creation, which states that God, a "bodiless, unextended Spirit and Will" (i.e., a form of consciousness "beyond existence") created the universe (i.e., the realm of existence, including the galaxies, the stars, the planets, the solar system, and life on earth) through an exclusively conscious process (i.e., by his will God commanded the universe to "come into" existence). This is an explicit expression of the view that consciousness holds metaphysical primacy over existence.
Additionally, the primacy of consciousness is found in the Christian doctrine of miracles, which essentially holds that God can manipulate entities against their "created natures" (since, it is argued, "God has creator rights" to reality). Which means: the identity of an object is not absolute, but can be "revised" or "rewritten" by an act of consciousness. [
8] This again is an explicit expression of the view that consciousness holds metaphysical primacy over existence, which contradicts the primacy of existence implicitly assumed when the theist asserts his claims as true of reality.In epistemology, Christianity asserts the doctrine of 'faith' as the believer's means of acquiring knowledge of the supernatural. Since Reason will neither lead to nor validate god-belief, the believer must assert a non-rational means of acquiring the "knowledge" (a term used most loosely here, for obvious reasons) he claims to possess of the supernatural. According to Objectivism, this is mysticism, which Ayn Rand defined as
the acceptance of allegations without evidence or proof, either apart from or against the evidence of one's senses and one's reason. Mysticism is the claim to some non-sensory, non-rational, non-definable, non-identifiable means of knowledge, such as "instinct," "intuition," "revelation," or any form of "just knowing." …. Mysticism is the claim to the perception of some other reality - other than the one in which we live - whose definition is only that it is not natural, it is supernatural, and is to be perceived by some form of unnatural or supernatural means. [
Indeed, Rand's identification is not unwarranted or off-target. Consider the words of one Christian apologist who argues that his "belief in God starts with the direct perception of his being" through some kind of "sixth sense," as Miss Rand warned. By "perception" in this context, this apologist means "any knowledge which is written directly into our consciousness (by God, but we may not think so) without our fabrication. Perception therefore includes not only our five external senses but also our internal feelings, such as guilt, fear, and love." [
10]Here we have an explicit admission, by a Christian apologist, that one's feelings are thought to be a means of perception, and therefore of gathering and validating knowledge. Not only does this openly embrace the subjective view of knowledge by assuming the primacy of emotions over knowledge, it also undermines any attempt to argue objectively for one's conclusions, even if that conclusion is the claim that God exists.
Compare the above definitions with the definition of 'faith' offered in the New Testament: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). According to this primary source of Christian philosophy, the "means of knowledge" for the believer is, explicitly, the elevation of one's hopes over the facts of reality and the naming of what is not perceivable as "evidence" for the "truth" of those hopes. In other words, the believer's desires (a form of consciousness) are promised to hold epistemological primacy over the facts of reality, just as the divine consciousness is thought to hold metaphysical primacy over existence. As Rand points out above, the believer's faith claims are said to be supported by divine 'revelations' to which the believer has privileged access. Furthermore, in line with Rand's identification, faith dispenses with the evidence of the senses in preference for 'evidence' of the non-senses (i.e., nonsense). [
11] This too is an explicit expression of the metaphysical primacy of consciousness over existence.In each case, what the theist claims to be true about reality (which action implicitly affirms the primacy of existence), amounts to a fundamental denial of the facts of reality (by asserting content which explicitly affirms the primacy of consciousness). For this reason we must deduce that the very claim that "God exists" is a self-contradictory claim. Such internal inconsistency normally eludes the mind of the theist. [
12]To deflate a doomed balloon, you need only one arrow. And in the case of showing the invalidity of god-belief, you need nothing more than the believer's own unwitting and implicit affirmation of the primacy of existence.
The Apologist's Grasping for Straws:
Mr. Smallwood cautions us that, "If this concept was assumed to be true and then used as a standard for disproving a Christian view, this assumption would beg the question." But, as Mr. Smallwood's own statements acknowledge, this particular assumption (that "the components of the universe exist independently of God"), is not assumed to be basic, in the case of a critique stemming from Objectivist fundamentals. The recognition that existence exists independently of consciousness is implicit in perception as well as in any truth claim (as we saw above); but the implicit nature of this recognition is identified explicitly by Objectivism. And once Objectivism is achieved, we recognize in principle by corollary that existence is not a creation of consciousness. Even the theist's own actions affirm this.
The conclusion that the notion of a universe-creating, reality-ruling consciousness is invalid, is not a basic assumption incorporated as a matter of metaphysical primacy in the development of Objectivism, but a matter of local derivation. The conclusion that the idea of God is invalid is the consequence of prior reasoning, utilizing premises which even the apologist must assume, even in order to defend his denial and/or rejection of those premises. [
13] This is the heart of Objectivist atheology.That God (Christian or otherwise) does not exist is not a primary assumption for the Objectivist. Rather, it is a logical consequence of inescapable fundamentals. So circularity is actually avoided, much to the chagrin of the hopeful apologist set on trapping his opponents in the commission of fallacy. Were the theist more attentive to his own fallacies than those of his opponents, his efforts would be more in line with some part of his own doctrine! [
14] Furthermore, the apologist must guard himself against the temptation to argue from silence, since even if the critic of Christianity begs the question on a certain fundamental point, this in itself is not sufficient to establish the truth of the believer's claims.Smallwood wrote:
Christianity doesn't promote a god who could "die tomorrow" or a god who does not hold all things together in their existence, thus utilizing such a god would assume that Christianity's view of God is false, in order to argue that Christianity is false. If this view of God was assumed to be a Christian view, then this would involve a straw man argument.
That's fine. I would hazard that the point which the critic of presuppositionalism was trying to make above, was that there is no inconsistency in affirming the self-sufficiency of the universe and the non-existence of the Christian God. The part about "if God died tomorrow" was, in my reading of it, simply rhetorical and contextually generous to the theist's position. I do not think that the straw man charge which Mr. Smallwood mounts here is compellingly plausible.
But notice what Mr. Smallwood states next:
Finding a valid non Christian view begins by looking for a basic atheistic view, and thereafter the search turns to a theological evaluation of competing theistic world views (and other varieties in between). This argues for theism over non theism, and then Christian theism over other theisms (or other categories such as polytheism, pantheism, animism, etc).
Why does Mr. Smallwood assume that the search for a valid world view "turns to a theological evaluation of competing theistic world views" after one looks "for a basic atheistic view" in his effort to find "a valid non Christian view"? If the discovery and/or validation of a non-Christian view is one's goal, what is the relevance of theology? Which theology governs the "evaluation competing theistic world views"? Must an "evaluation of competing theistic world views" find its basis in some assumed theology, or can the evaluation of theism stem from an objective basis (such as Objectivist Atheology)?
Mr. Smallwood asserts that a search for "a valid non Christian view," which (apparently by necessity) "turns to a theological evaluation of competing theistic world views," "argues for theism over non theism, and then Christian theism over other theisms" [sic]. But why is that? Mr. Smallwood does not say. He merely asserts it as if it were an obvious fact.
Of course, theists of a color different from Christianity (and even some Christians as well) may contest Mr. Smallwood's apparently hasty remark that "[f]inding a valid non Christian view begins by looking for a basic atheistic view," by pointing out that a theistic competitor to Christianity may be "a valid non Christian view." Certainly, non-Christian theists probably think that their worldviews are valid, Mr. Smallwood's disapproval of such assessments notwithstanding. Of course, Objectivism would not agree with this, but Mr. Smallwood, who as a theist himself obviously grants theism validity to begin with, overlooks this potential problem, which is completely coherent with his own broadly defined premises (i.e., given his general commitment to the primacy of consciousness). In the final analysis, this is Mr. Smallwood's problem to tackle and resolve, since granting theism validity necessarily invites such conflict and rivalry.
For the Rational Man, as rare as he may be, the search for a valid view of reality begins by looking at the facts of reality as his starting point - especially those facts which he normally takes completely for granted, and by identifying them in the broadest and most explicit terms. How can a view of reality, whose purpose is to identify reality in a manner coherent to Man's needs qua Man, be valid if it should fail to isolate the primary, essential facts of reality as its starting point? What can be more primary than the facts of reality? The whims of an alleged supernatural form of consciousness, whose existence must be accepted on faith, but can never be established by Reason?
Certainly, Mr. Smallwood - along with those who would agree with his reasoning here - has some explaining to do.
He states:
A presuppositional apologetic would maintain that a non theistic world view is foundationally logically invalid, in that, it cannot within itself account for its own truth claim.
Which "non theistic world view is foundationally logically invalid"? And which non-theistic worldview "cannot within itself account for its own truth claim"? Which truth claim is under dispute here?
Certainly, there are many invalid philosophical views which are not theistic in nature. But their invalidity (or, more accurately, their unsuitability to Man) as philosophical systems is not due essentially to their dissociation with or rejection of god-belief; and their list of errors goes far beyond their inability to avoid contradiction or fall into the same pitfalls as religion. What should concern an individual surveying various philosophical viewpoints is not only the solidity of its foundations, but also its consequences when put into practice. Whether or not a particular viewpoint or philosophical doctrine is suitable for Man should be a primary factor in determining its value, and the resistance to examining this criterion seriously (since, for instance, one may reject Man as irrelevant to the standards of a worldview), should tell us something at the start.
It is not the Objectivist position that non-theism alone guarantees philosophical soundness. This would only cheapen its principles. Instead, Objectivism begins by willingly and delightfully embracing the challenge it puts before itself to name its starting point, a starting point which assumes nothing prior to itself, either implicitly or explicitly. For the Objectivist, this initial truth claim, existence exists, is undeniable and essentially primary. How can even a theist, regardless of his embrace of the arbitrary or regardless of his rejection of Reason, argue against the constantly and readily perceivable fact that existence exists?
Naturally, anticipating the theist's own automatized dependence on stolen concepts, we can expect the apologist to insist that the Objectivist "account for" the very fact of existence, as if existence could be explained by something prior to existence. The assumption that existence itself is neither fundamental nor primary, is so taken for granted by the theist that he does not recognize the conceptual breach of this all-too frequent and devastating philosophical error. It is so habitual for the theist that he implicitly (yea, even psychologically) assumes that all persons, theistic and atheistic, naturally grant stolen concepts the same validity he does. Objectivism, however, does not. And here the theist sets up his own checkmate.
Mr. Smallwood makes the following qualified concession:
Yes, a non theistic view can "use" logic and rational thought, but it can offer no justification for this use apart from appealing to its use,
If this were the case for every non-theistic system, that by nature non-theistic philosophy "can offer no justification for [the use of logic] apart from appealing to its use," this could indeed be a problem. But how does Mr. Smallwood (or any other apologist so persuaded) establish that all non-theistic systems commit this blunder, and how does he demonstrate his contention that a non-theistic philosophy defaults on this matter by virtue of its nature as being non-theistic? Either he has some homework which demonstrates his review of every possible non-theistic system, or he is parroting another source which claims to have done such research. Where is that research?
Objectivism does not offer a justification for the use of reason or logic simply by "appealing to its use." Objectivism appeals to the perceptible facts of reality. Again, existence exists. By now this should become clear.
Mr. Smallwood continues:
and there is little explanation for the "origin" of the components of its use (for example, a basic foundational aspect of inductive thought is the concept that similar events should be thought to be related in some way instead of their simply being observed as isolated events. But what is the origin of such a concept? Yes, we certainly use this concept but we are not taught it, rather it is a precondition before any thought or learning can occur. Thoughts have to have some meaningful connectivity before thinking can occur).
No matter what the "origins" of the components of induction are (which, we'll see in
Trial 2 below, Mr. Smallwood agrees to consist of the object of perception [existence] and a perceiver [consciousness]), existence still exists. All of the points which Mr. Smallwood parenthetically includes as part of the basics to induction, are soundly identified and integrated through a process of Objectivism. Specifically, the reader is encouraged to examine the Objectivist view of concept-formation and reason, as identified by Ayn Rand in her book Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. [15]
The Impossibility of the Contrary?
Mr. Smallwood states that "the argument is often made that Christianity is substantiated, in part, by the 'impossibility of the contrary' (I personally would rather say the implausibility of the contrary)." Presuppositionalists are fond of parroting this claim, and of boasting that their particular apologetic approach is to "argue for Christian theism from the impossibility of the contrary." From what I have seen, this alleged "impossibility of the contrary" seems often to be taken for granted by most presuppositionalists, such as the well-known apologist Greg Bahnsen, as if the bulk of their homework were already completed, documented and readily comprehended by non-believers. Though this is far from the case, many non-believers may be deceived by this presumptuousness on the apologist's part, and grant credence where no credence is due. If this is the intention behind repeating the claim that "the truth of Christian theism follows from the impossibility of the contrary" (and I suspect it is), then clearly the apologist is seeking the unearned so far as his ambition in debate is concerned. This would hardly come as a surprise.
Objectivism is, to say the least, quite contrary to the Christian worldview. Does Mr. Smallwood therefore hold that Objectivism is impossible or implausible? If this is his view, it would be very hard to discern it from his statements, for he demonstrates no awareness of Objectivism anywhere in his apologetic. If Mr. Smallwood is of the opinion that Objectivism is either impossible or implausible, can he show why he believes this? Or, does he simply expect his readers to accept his assertion on faith, without putting any effort into proving his own claim?
However, not all advocates of presuppositionalism are completely square with the proclivity to take "the impossibility of the contrary" for granted. In considering whether or not Bahnsen has or can clearly demonstrate the truth of this apologetic mantra, apologist Greg Welty, a former member of the Van Til Discussion list, offers frank criticism in the following (citing famous debates between Bahnsen and atheist scholars):
…Bahnsen’s frequently equivocating language at crucial points in these debates leads one to suspect that not even Bahnsen himself really believes he has achieved a logical demonstration of the Christian worldview, despite initial claims to the contrary. Thus when Bahnsen explains why it is necessary for the abstract, universal laws of logic to be derived from the transcendent nature of God—instead of simply assuming with the secularist the transcendental nature of logic on its own—Bahnsen says (emphasis mine), "it seems to me you need to have a world view in which the laws of logic are meaningful" or "I believe that Christianity provides [a meaningful account of logic], and I just can’t find any other one that competes with it that way." And here we must ask: has he really demonstrated the impossibility of the contrary? Indeed, can that impossibility really be demonstrated through a merely inductive analysis of a finite series of alternate world views that present themselves to us in the context of a debate? Is he not, through such an analysis, simply expressing his faith that all possible forms of the contrary are impossible? For how could all possible alternate world views be examined one by one? Or, barring that, how could it be shown that all alternate world views are in principle impossible? Presumably the reason that they are wrong is not that they are simply different from Christianity, but because of some other, more specific, feature which characterizes each of them. No one would want to be caught saying, "World view #739 is wrong because it is different from Christianity." The argument would have to be more cogent, and less viciously circular, than that. Anybody is able to argue for the impossibility of the contrary if they are allowed to (1) premise their own worldview at the outset, and (2) stipulate from within their worldview that all opposing positions are impossible! (Especially if they need not actually make that stipulation cogent with respect to all other world views.) [
Or, as apologist S. Joel Garver remarks:
...if we view these transcendental strategies as a "proof" we run into difficulties. One possible strategy that might be considered a proof is the attempt to show the "impossibility of the contrary" of Christianity, but it would be necessary to do so for every possible contrary. One could atempt to derive contradictions, inconsistencies, or kinds of unintelligibility (logical, practical or otherwise) from the alternatives to Christianity. If this were successful, I suppose one would have gone a long way towards some kind of objective "proof" of Christian theism by process of elimination. But that's the problem. Even if even if every other contender is problematic and even if you could show that to be the case (and imagine the odds of being able to do that!), you are not really left with anything deserving the title of "proof." For the purposes of proof you can't just eliminate the contenders and then assume the coherence of Christianity. You just try to demonstrate it. [
Indeed, citing problems within or refuting a worldview does not simultaneously accomplish the task of establishing a potential rival to that worldview. Just because, for instance, a presuppositionalist can demonstrate problems with a materialist view of reality (assuming he is not straw-manning his subject matter), does not mean that the "reformed faith" is true. Since he claims that his god-belief is true, he bears the onus to argue for the supposed merits of his doctrines, not simply assume them to be sound.
This having been said, however, in reviewing many of Greg Bahnsen's (and other presuppositionalists') articles and essays on apologetics critical of non-theistic worldviews, I have never come upon one which gives any genuine attention to Objectivism and a treatment of Objectivist metaphysics and epistemology. [
17] And the many critiques which I have reviewed have for the most part been treatments of caricaturized non-theistic models, models which their theistic critics have apparently designed with the purpose of expedience and yielding refutation. Thus, I can only conclude that the hypertensive claim that "Christian theism is true because of the impossibility of the contrary," and its cognates, have been uttered in hasty ignorance of Objectivism and Objectivist principles.For these reasons, the presuppositionalist appeal to "the impossibility of the contrary" is incomplete and invidiously suspicious. Therefore, I cannot consider it to be a valid maneuver.
There's a Positive Side to Presuppositionalism?
In anticipation of plausible criticism for fleeing behind the skirt of "the impossibility of the contrary," Mr. Smallwood explains that "This doesn't mean that presuppositional approach is a completely 'negative' apologetic, relying only on the negation of other views, rather this is a 'part' of the apologetic." To be honest, that's good to hear, for so far, the only real 'meat' of any apologetic attempt I've seen to date among presuppositionalists has consisted in nitpicking the non-believer to "account for" all kinds of items under the sun, as if the average non-believer fashioned himself as a Rhodes Scholar, or perhaps the creator of the universe himself! Is such practice, amounting to "if you cannot provide an account for X, you must believe Y," appropriate to the validation of one's claims?
So far as I have seen "applied presuppositionalism" practiced as an approach to Christian apologetics, the primary aim has not been to establish the truth of the apologist's god-belief claims at all, but to attack the unsuspecting (and usually philosophically unprepared) non-believer's confidence in his own ability to reason. The alleged "truth" of Christian theism is thus assumed to "win" by default, as the apologist will insist that his assertion of "God" is sufficient to "explain" all issues brought up during such an encounter. If the apologist is successful, the non-believer, now convinced that there's cause for doubting his own view of things, begins to grant validity the apologist's hidden, unexpressed premises, which remain undefended yet (sometimes) subtly camouflaged throughout his jargon and convolutions. From this point forward, the process of apologetics becomes more a matter of psychological dismantling, with the non-believer's views of reality becoming choked with the apologist's own confusions, contradictions and reversals.
If the presuppositional approach has a positive means of establishing its truth claims (as if a truth claim could be established simply by negating competing truth claims), several questions should be addressed by those advocating such an approach. For instance, what is the presuppositionalist's starting point? How does the presuppositionalist gain awareness of this starting point? Does this starting point, or the means by which he gains awareness of this supposed starting point, presuppose any prior knowledge or means which the apologist ignores, denies or rejects outright?
Mr. Smallwood states that the "presuppositional approach is not a completely 'negative' apologetic," thus suggesting the promise that there is some positive aspect to its argumentative ambitions. But if the presuppositionalist has a positive argument for the existence of God, an argument which does not beg the question by assuming God's existence in one of its premises (thereby disqualifying it as an instance of invalid reasoning), what is that argument? What is his first premise? What is his second premise? Are there more premises? If so, what are they? Are these premises perceptually undeniable, or do they require the support of sub-arguments themselves? If so, what are those sub-arguments, and are they sound? What connects these premises? A process of reason?
"In conclusion," Mr. Smallwood recommends, "I would encourage you to be patient with the posts on this forum, recognizing that there is a history behind them and continued dialogue can bring that history to light."
I have been patient. And I've watched for a long time. And still, I have seen nothing to convince me of any of your god-belief claims. So far, Mr. Smallwood has failed to establish the truth of his theistic claims.
TRIAL 2:
The following critique is offered in response to the following post to the Van Til list, submitted by apologist Eric Smallwood:
http://www.ccir.ed.ac.uk/~jad/vantil-list/archive-May-2000/msg00012.html
In that message, Mr. Smallwood was responding to a post to the Van Til list by Brian of Murfreesboro:
http://www.ccir.ed.ac.uk/~jad/vantil-list/archive-May-2000/msg00009.html
Mr. Smallwood continues his attempts to convince the non-believer of the "truth" of Christian theism, beginning with his response to the following remark made by Brian the unconvinced:
I am saying that in any society across the globe, even before God spoke to man in the Jewish writings, we see undeniable evidence that inductive reasoning was used. Therefore, even without knowledge of the "GOD of the Bible" inductive reasoning is possible. To say that it isn't would be cheating.
Mr. Smallwood responded:
I think you're misunderstanding the argument. The argument isn't that a person needs to know the God of the bible before he can use inductive reasoning. It is already recognized that inductive reasoning is used by both the Christian and non Christian. The point of contention is how a given world view explains induction (its origin and the justification for its operation) that we "do" observe.
Actually, the essential point of contention between advocates of god-belief and those who do not accept god-belief claims is not how "a given world view explains induction," but whether or not the apologist's god-belief claims are true. The whole issue with induction tends to be a sideshow intended to drag the specious nature of the apologist's claims out of the direct attention of his non-believing audience. This needs to be borne in mind if one chooses to address the matter of inductive principles and the justification of their foundation.
For one thing, the Bible does not teach induction. In fact, as I mentioned in Trial 1 above, Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible does not even contain an entry for the word 'induction'. Rather it goes from the word 'inditing' (referring to Psalm 45:1) to the word 'industrious' (referring to I Kings 11:28), by-passing all direct reference to induction. At first blush, any explicit connection between the Bible and induction claimed by presuppositionalist apologists is at best dubious.
Instead, the Bible clearly takes induction for granted - a luxury which the apologists do not want non-believers to enjoy, then gives all induction the slip by attacking the laws of identity and causality which anchor a rational view of induction (e.g., faith, supernaturalism, 'revelation', miracles, double orientation, psychological dissociation, confusing emotion with knowledge, etc.). A rational, healthy-minded view of induction is certainly not compatible with such superstition and fantasy, and the apologist's hand-waving about the Christian God, contrary to his claims, explains nothing.
There is a hidden connection, however, between the squarely-set primacy of consciousness of theism and the apologist's view of induction. If the primacy of consciousness were true, then identity would presuppose consciousness (because to exist is to have identity and existence is imagined to be a product of an act of consciousness; e.g., biblical creation). And this assumption - that identity presupposes a form of consciousness (e.g., the Christian God), bridges the salient gulf between the error of metaphysical subjectivism (the view that existence finds its source in a form of consciousness) and basic rational methodology (e.g., induction).
It is due to this fundamental reversal, which lies hidden from view at the very foundation of a theistic view of reality, that drives the presuppositionalist apologetic and gives the apologist the psychological compulsion to argue on behalf of his god-belief claims.This is the attempt to cohere a view of knowledge (epistemology) with the view one accepts of the nature of reality (metaphysics). In this sense, and only in this context, can it be recognized that a legitimate issue lies at the root of the apologist's intellectual meandering. Unfortunately, since the issue of metaphysical primacy is never explicitly (or honestly) addressed, the apologist fails to check his premises thoroughly, and consequently perpetuates the error. As Ayn Rand herself noted in reflecting on the philosophical impact of religion,
Since religion is a primitive form of philosophy - an attempt to offer a comprehensive view of reality - many of its myths are distorted, dramatized allegories based on some element of truth, some actual, if profoundly elusive, aspect of man's existence. [
The failure of skeptic philosophers like David Hume (1711-1776) has served to prompt many defenders of religious views to claim that "non-theistic philosophy" (as if there were only one philosophy which dispenses with the supernaturalism of god-belief) has had its day in court and has been judged a failure for all eternity. But what is overlooked is the fact that philosophers like David Hume themselves failed to address the issue of metaphysical primacy and consequently did not align their fundamentals squarely and explicitly on the primacy of existence and objective reality. [
19]But remember also that earlier Mr. Smallwood stated (see above):
[A non-believer] would most likely disagree with [b] (and of course with [a]) that her pragmatic use of induction is the product of Christian or theistic thinking, in other words, she only thinks induction is valid because theists before her said so.
The important point to note here is Mr. Smallwood's notion that the non-believer's "pragmatic use of induction is the product of Christian or theistic thinking." This notion is not supported by the facts of the case, and nowhere does Mr. Smallwood prove this. Then, when Brian mentioned that induction in some form was in practice among members of non-Christian societies, even before the first century of the Current Era (i.e., before the genesis and spread of Christian ideas), Mr. Smallwood responded that his argument is being misunderstood.
We already saw in my
discussion of Mr. Walker's apologetic that the so-called "attributes of the Christian God" cannot be the foundation of induction, and that to insist on this idea is to enshrine the arbitrary. So, anticipating the clarification that Mr. Smallwood's argument amounts to the claim that only by appealing to the existence of the Christian God can a rational justification of induction be reached, we have already been there and done that. [20]Many apologists will erect straw man caricatures of non-believing philosophies (which allegedly apply to all atheists wholesale), which state that atheists have no alternative to assuming an accidental or chance-ruled universe. The assumption in this case happens to be a false dichotomy: that either the universe must be ruled by a form of consciousness (e.g., "God"), or by randomness, chance, or as apologist Mark McConnell calls it, "stupid, blind Luck." [
21] This kind of characterization is all too familiar among apologists, but I have never seen any reason to accept this dichotomy, and I believe there are good reasons to reject it.First of all, such characterizations are asserted in order to slander atheism as such. If one accepts the premises of such a characterization, no one would want to be caught endorsing such an obviously problematic notion that the universe is governed by chance, randomness, accidents, etc. It is the attempt to link atheism as such with disorder at the metaphysical level of non-believing philosophy. No good reason is given for accepting this.
Second, arguments which attempt to show that atheists must ultimately be committed to a random universe always stem from the primacy of consciousness, since the only alternative to this randomness, we are told, is "design," which means, the activity of a supernatural form of consciousness. Such arguments accept the premise that "design" versus "chance" as exhaustive metaphysically, even though apologists can give no good reason for accepting this dichotomy. Since the metaphysical basis of this dichotomy is invalid (existence does not find its source in a form of consciousness), there is good reason to reject it.
Third, such characterizations are made in gross ignorance of rational philosophy, such as Objectivism. Objectivism neither asserts nor sanctions the false dichotomy "design" or "chance" in its metaphysics. Objectivism recognizes that the concept which such dichotomies ignore and/or reject is causality, which is defined by Miss Rand in her novel Atlas Shrugged:
The law of causality is the law of identity applied to action. All actions are caused by entities. The nature of an action is caused and determined by the nature of the entities that act; a thing cannot act in contradiction to its nature. An act not caused by an entity would be caused by a zero, which would mean a zero controlling a thing, a non-entity controlling an entity, the non-existent ruling the existent… the law of identity does not permit you to have your cake and eat it, too. The law of causality does not permit you to eat your cake before you have it. [
The point made here is that there is no causality without existence, that causality necessarily presupposes existence and the identity of those entities engaged in the action in question. If we have the law of identity, then the law of causality is necessarily valid, since causality is the law of identity applied to action. And if existence exists, then that which exists is that which exists, or A is A, which means: the law of identity is valid. Man has no need to jump beyond existence, beyond nature, beyond the universe, beyond reality, in order to recognize the validity of these self-evident facts of reality. Jumping beyond existence and identity only renders one's own mind philosophically impotent. Or, as Miss Rand states,
[I]f you drown both laws [identity and causality] in the blanks of your mind, if you pretend to yourself and to others that you don't see - then you can try to proclaim your right to eat your cake today and mine tomorrow, you can preach that the way to have a cake is to eat it first, before you bake it, that the way to produce is to start by consuming, that all wishers have an equal claim to all things, since nothing is caused by anything. The corollary of the causeless in matter is the unearned in spirit. [
Here we see eloquently how broad are the philosophical implications of rejecting the fundamental facts of reality in one's metaphysical premises. This is what primitive philosophy would have us do, and history has shown exactly these results. Existence is the result of a conscious act, they tell us - which is causeless in matter; man's "ultimate knowledge" is not the result of his own efforts and discoveries, but a "gift of revelation" - which is unearned in epistemology. Man's moral nature is predetermined by his inheritance, not by his own choices, actions and values - which is the unearned in ethics. His salvation from his depravity, which he did not choose, cannot be achieved by his own actions, but must be given to him in an act of mercy, which they call "grace" - which is the unearned in spirit. In each case, the fundamental in operation is the rejection of the law of identity.
Apologists who are committed to their god-beliefs will likely continue trying to establish the validity of such false dichotomies, since they are unwilling to question the fundamentals of their view of reality. So long as they accept the notion that existence finds its source in a form of consciousness (the doctrine of metaphysical subjectivism), there will be a need for them to defend the idea that the only alternative to supernatural "design" is "stupid, blind Luck" or action without identity. Both alternatives reduce to a false metaphysics.
Similarly, if the presuppositionalist's premises in his alleged justification of induction are false (which by now should be clearly established), then there is no reason to accept Mr. Smallwood's unargued claims that induction finds its justification in religious mysticism. We know that existence exists, we have the law of identity and the law of causality, and we have consciousness capable of both perception and of conceptual thought. Where is the need for supernaturalism? The answer is: nowhere, no how, no way. [
24]When Brian pointed out:
When [another member of the Van Til list] say[s] however that "The Christian claim is that the atheist is being inconsistent with his atheism when he uses induction..." To begin with, you are painting with too large a brush. All Christians do not say this...nor do most have any apparent need to justify their belief so or even to 'demonize' atheists or any of another faith by such ascertions.
[sic]Mr. Smallwood responded:
The argument that an atheistic world view cannot account for the use of induction is not an ad hominem against the atheist. It is a rational conclusion about his world view, given the description of his world view.
Is the description of a worldview as "atheistic" sufficient to generate this allegedly "rational conclusion about [an atheist's] worldview"? If this is what the apologist believes, he is sorely naïve and intellectually inconsiderate. Such an assumption indicates that the apologist has fallen prey to a very common misunderstanding about the nature of atheism as such. That misunderstanding is that atheism per se is a unified, systematic worldview in its own right, and that those who are threatened by the fact that some people do not accept the religionist's god-belief claims, can assume what it is that atheists do accept as truth in regard to a view of reality, knowledge, morality, etc. This misunderstanding is just one of the unchecked premises lingering in the apologist's repertoire of arbitrary ideas.
Atheism is here defined as absence of god-belief, and is negative in nature. Atheism is not a positive and says nothing about what an individual does believe about the world, reality and Man. The assumption that one's non-theism per se is a primary indicator of one's philosophical view, however implicit that view may be, is also a hasty error. On the contrary, the issue fundamental to all philosophy is the issue of metaphysical primacy, as identified by Ayn Rand:
"[T]he basic issue that lies at the root of any system of philosophy [is]: the primacy of existence or the primacy of consciousness.
The primacy of existence (of reality) is the axiom that existence exists, i.e., that the universe exists independent of consciousness (of any consciousness), that things are what they are, that they possess a specific nature, an identity. The epistemological corollary is the axiom that consciousness is the faculty of perceiving that which exists - and that man gains knowledge of reality by looking outward. The rejection of these axioms represents a reversal: the primacy of consciousness - the notion that the universe has no independent existence, that it is the product of a consciousness (either human or divine or both). The epistemological corollary is the notion that man gains knowledge of reality by looking inward (either at his own consciousness or at the revelations it receives from another, superior consciousness). [
Theism is a flagrant instance of the primacy of consciousness view of reality taken seriously. But this does not mean that atheists necessarily avoid the problems of this erroneous view. Indeed, that many non-theistic forms of philosophy (positive comprehensive statements about reality and life which do not make appeals to the explicit supernaturalism of god-belief) are infected by the primacy of consciousness fallacy, is one of the primary reasons why the
Objectivist Atheology website exists in the first place. While the explicit arbitrariness of god-belief has been rejected by many modern philosophical models, thus calling themselves broadly atheistic, the fundamental error of the theistic view of reality - that consciousness holds metaphysical primacy over existence - is the residual baggage of its primitive ancestors, clouding the deeper waters of philosophical thought, and loosening the very same consequences on Man when put into practice.
Consistency vs. Reality is a False Dichotomy
Mr. Smallwood wrote:
The subject is the logical consistency of his world view, not the moral or intellectual standing of him as a person.
That the focus of discussion should be the validity of a world view, rather than the "moral or intellectual standing" of its representatives and advocates, is agreed. However, caution is in order on this point that we not overlook the fact that a worldview may yet be consistent within itself, but still not be properly rooted in an objective view of reality (cf. the issue of metaphysical primacy). If the primacy of consciousness is the metaphysical anchor of a system of thought, virtually any means one can imagine to make that system appear internally consistent with itself can be said to be "valid" by its apologists.
In a most eloquent passage, Thomas Paine wrote,
I lay it down as a position which cannot be controverted, first, that the agreement of all the parts of a story does not prove that story to be true, because the parts may agree and the whole may be false; secondly, that the disagreement of the parts proves the whole cannot be true. The agreement does not prove true, but the disagreement proves falsehood positively. [
Principally, this suggests to me that the consistency of a set of doctrines within themselves is not a guarantee of those doctrines' truth. Where Paine speaks of the consistency of various relevant stories with one another, the same principle he identifies is surely applied - and most importantly so - to the issue of the inter-doctrinal coherence of a particular philosophy. It is not enough, in other words, that the doctrines of Mr. Smallwood's preferred worldview be consistent with each other (even if he professes the conviction that they are rationally consistent with each other). What is at issue, and what should be emphasized by Mr. Smallwood were this his concern, is whether or not those doctrines are consistent with the general, perceptually self-evident facts of reality. And if Mr. Smallwood objects to an appeal to the perceptually self-evident facts of reality as pertinent to the matter of first philosophy, he is certainly invited to state his objection for the record.
It is not a false dichotomy to expect both internal consistency and consistency with reality in the formation of a philosophy. And it is a compromise to settle for one, in the name of upholding the other, or denying it. There can be no call to sacrifice philosophical consistency for the sake of adherence to reality, for reality is singular and self-sufficient, not a dependent or derivative. Indeed, a consistency which discards contextually-relevant facts offers man no more value than a reality in chaos or constantly subject to revision from without or above.
What is commendable is that Mr. Smallwood's statement suggests that he has respect for the virtue of intellectual consistency. But we are not told whether or not his respect for consistency would still apply when it comes to critiquing the Bible, the source of his preferred god-belief's doctrines. Would Mr. Smallwood be consistent to his apparent respect for intellectual consistency should his commitment to explicitly biblical doctrines be subjected to scrutiny?
Mr. Smallwood states:
If a world view makes the claim for itself of possessing intellectual integrity, then it cannot at the same time offer no substantiation for the claim.
Agreed. The integrity of Objectivism as a world view is a matter of published record.
Numerous sources are offered to articulate this integrity. Objectivism does not sacrifice form over content, or vice versa, or consistency over objectivity, for the same reasons. Objectivism is not purely self-referential, but refers wholly and explicitly to reality.Mr. Smallwood continues:
The believer in such a view "is" being inconsistent if he demands rational justification for all things, yet special pleads the case for his own world view (if the only substantiation that's offered for the use of induction is the use of induction, then this is inescapably circular, regardless of the fact that we "know" induction is a viable means of acquiring knowledge. The point is that the atheist's "description" of what we know is faulty. It's not that induction itself is faulty). This is not "demonizing" a person.
Naturally, this is a question of starting points, what one's starting point identifies, and the means by which he is aware of what his starting point identifies. What specifically is the presuppositionalist's starting point, and how is he aware of it? Is his starting point the facts of reality, the awareness of which he acquires through perception, or is it an alleged consciousness transcending reality which communicates through revelations? If the latter is what he claims as his starting point, how is he aware of it, and how is this starting point epistemologically primary?
Mr. Smallwood made the following comment:
A given Christian may not make the claim that a non theistic world view is inconsistent with reality, but certainly Christianity as a world view does, for it would be contradictory for Christianity to maintain that all things are created by God, and yet somehow support a world view that contained no God.
Again, this has to do with one's starting points and the manner in which a given worldview, theistic or not, deals with the issue of metaphysical primacy, as defined above. If existence exists, it has metaphysical primacy, and no religious view can overturn this fact. Since all god-belief reduces to the primacy of consciousness view of reality, it is invalid. This applies to Christianity as well as to Islamic beliefs, or any other form of god-belief, for the same reasons. This is why you will see in apologetic encounters between Christians and believers in opposing religious ideas, such as Islam, debate essentially boils down to a matter of "our god is better than your god for the following reasons…"
Since both the Christian and the non-Christian theistic viewpoints fundamentally endorse the primacy of consciousness error, neither side can deal effectively with fundamental issues and remain philosophically intact at the same time. For to question the fundamental essentials of a rival god-belief, if indeed such a line of interrogation should address the issue of metaphysical primacy, criticism would equally apply to both views, in spite of their apparent opposition, broadly speaking. Like democrat and republican presidential candidates, the two differ only in degree and detail, not in fundamentals.
Brian the skeptic wrote:
Induction is a process arrived at through observation. I fail to see how God "created" it anymore than that 1+1 = 2. I mean, this is arrived via observation wether it is man or a monkey or a manmade computer 'observing' it.
[sic]And Mr. Smallwood responded:
I think you're missing something here. If induction is a process (of thought) arrived at through observation, then what needs to exist as a precondition for induction? There needs to be a person who possesses the personal quality of intelligence, and within that quality is the understanding that similar events "ought" to be considered as being connected in some way (the observer is justified in thinking this). There has to be events that are observed, events that "are" similar and do occur on an orderly basis. There has to be rational thought that is governed by "laws" of logic that dictate that similar events are distinct events and that general "themes" of consistency can be derived from observation.
In a very broad sense, Mr. Smallwood is correct here. But all of this should be reduced to more fundamental essentials in order not to smuggle false premises into the mix.
Induction is indeed a process which requires perceptual observation. According to Leonard Peikoff, induction is "the process of reasoning from the observation of concretes or individuals to a general or universal conclusion." [
27] Already from this, we can start to answer Mr. Smallwood's first question, "what needs to exist as a precondition for induction?" But where Mr. Smallwood begins with a person, meaning a being capable of the conceptual level of consciousness, we must assume that he takes for granted the object of this being's awareness. So here we notice that there are two primary things that need to exist as a "precondition for induction": An observer and the observed, or subject and object, or essentially, consciousness and existence.The Objectivist view of induction will naturally find its validity on the soundness of its primary axioms, existence, identity and consciousness. Objectivism holds that to exist is to have identity, that existence is identity. If A should exist, it must be A. Also, Objectivism rejects the idea that a form of consciousness is metaphysically responsible for A being A. This view, the primacy of consciousness view, is invalidated by the fact that existence exists.
Moreover, where Mr. Smallwood holds that "there has to be events that are observed, events that 'are' similar and do occur on an orderly basis," Objectivism takes this analysis back one step. Rather than beginning with events per se (i.e., as if causality itself held primacy), Objectivism recognizes that there are no events apart from the entities which act in those events. This fact, too, should not be carelessly taken for granted in the development of a thoroughgoing analysis of induction. Thus, if there are events to speak of, there must be entities which are causing those events. And if there are entities which are causing those events under consideration, then we have identity to work with, since to exist is to have identity. And so on.
Induction therefore requires an object to be perceived (existence) and an observer which perceives (consciousness), and a means of reasoning (the conceptual level of consciousness). Existence and consciousness are the rudimentary requirements. What is important is how a particular view answers the question: Which holds metaphysical primacy?
Pay very close attention to Mr. Smallwood's following remark:
The very creation of an intelligent humanity is the instrumental cause for induction. The proscriptive design of human intelligence and the designed natural order of a universe that is observed is the justification for the use of induction. You're assuming that all we need is an observer and we have induction; no God is necessary. That is the very claim that the non theist has to justify. It isn't justified by saying, "Look, we see induction occurring."
Correction: It is the evolution of Man's consciousness to the conceptual level that is the instrumental cause for induction. The facts that existence exists, that existence exists independently of any act of consciousness (objective reality), and the fact that Man's consciousness is capable of conceptual thought, are the rudimentary facts which must lie at the heart of any attempt to solve the "problem" of induction.
By qualifying both human intelligence and the "natural order of the universe" as the product of design, Mr. Smallwood is here caught trying to smuggle in the very assumptions he is called to defend. We know that existence exists, and upon this recognition we can determine that we have consciousness of that existence. The two basic components are self-evident: we have the object of induction right in front of us (existence), and we have the means of induction within us (consciousness). This is not controversial since they must be assumed by both sides of the debate (indeed, Mr. Smallwood acknowledged this in the preceding paragraph).
Mr. Smallwood at no point demonstrates any awareness that he has contaminated his reasoning with unargued assumptions, the basis of which he is called to validate. This is most likely a consequence of his having deceived himself into believing that god-belief is valid by default.
Now, Mr. Smallwood flagrantly interjects his assumption that "intelligent humanity" is a creation (thereby assuming a creator) and that existence is the product of design (thereby assuming a designer). Mr. Smallwood has assumed his way through his "argument," but nowhere does he justify these questionable assumptions. (It is because the "transcendental argument for the existence of God" ["TAG"] relies ultimately on the validity of more traditional theistic arguments - e.g., first cause, design argument, etc. - that we should recognize TAG as such to be little more than a rip-off, posited as concerning itself with more profound epistemological issues - e.g., induction, universals, etc. - when in reality these issues are merely window-dressing.)
Then he remarks that the critic is "assuming that all we need is an observer and we have induction; no God is necessary. That is the very claim that the non theist has to justify." But Mr. Smallwood himself has already acknowledged that the two basic components of induction are the object of observation and the conscious observer! Why would the recognition of the necessity of these two components entail the further necessity to assume either that a God is or is not responsible for the creation of human intelligence and/or that a God is or is not responsible for the design of the universe, unless this is already assumed? And if it already assumed, what justifies it? Mr. Smallwood never tells us.
Does Mr. Smallwood make the assumption, on the par with what he accuses the non theist, that Allah is not necessary for induction? Is the assumption that the existence of Blarko the WonderBeing is not a precondition for induction necessary to the success and justification for induction?
This is the kind of reversal which the apologist uses to grind his axe in order to debate. What the apologist seeks to evade is his onus of proof. Instead of justifying any of his questionable assumptions, he places on his critics the arbitrary onus of justifying their non-assumption of his questionable assumptions. When a critic counters that he has no such onus, he is accused of begging the question. Nowhere does the theist establish any truth to this claim that the supernatural exists, which is the central point of the debate, and he pounds his chest in the meanwhile as if he's scored a major victory.
This is indeed a very dishonest way to parade a supposed argument.
It is an argument from silence to say that everything could exist just fine without a God. There is no means of verifying that this is true apart from merely assuming it. Simply because the non theist doesn't "see" God doesn't argue that he is justified in saying that the universe exists just fine without a God. The only way the claim could be proven to be true, or even proven to be a possibility, is if we actually observed a universe that existed absolutely separated from the influence of any God. How exactly is such a universe proven to exist? [emphasis - Thorn]
Here, Mr. Smallwood attempts to shirk the onus of proving his claim that "god exists" by committing a reversal to have his critics prove that god does not exist. He disguises his reversal by attaching his negative claim to a would-be positive claim which he expects his critics to defend. After defining the problem as he sees it to be - that the non-theist has "no means of verifying" that the universe does not require a God in order to exist, but must naively assume it to be so by fiat, Mr. Smallwood then asks "How exactly is such a universe proven to exist?"
Mr. Smallwood should recognize that the existence of the universe, whatever its attributes and nature, is not under dispute here. Existence exists. The universe is the sum total of existence. While the theist may object to the definition of 'universe' (he's welcome to supply his own and argue for it, being careful to cite the source of his definition and to explain how his concept was formed), this is not essential to his claim that a God exists. Disguising his claim to appear as an onus belonging to the non-theist (that onus ostensibly being to prove the existence of the universe) is an attempt to smuggle hidden assumptions into the argumentative framework accepted by all sides of the argument. Those hidden assumptions are the inarticulate presupposition of the primacy of consciousness view of reality.
The existence of the universe is not in dispute, nor is it the topic of debate. To endow the universe as being subject to the "influence" of God, is itself specious and untenable. When the apologist demands that the nonbeliever prove that a universe void of the influence of God exists, this is even more specious. Nothing short of assuming that God exists can justify such a demand, yet this is precisely what Mr. Smallwood is called to prove.
In response to this statement, to show how empty it really is, and to show how its line of reasoning can be used against Christian theism to boot, I offer the following rephrasing of the same. To show how Mr. Smallwood's argument resists any kind of rational verification, I have changed a few of the inputs but maintained the basic reasoning of Mr. Smallwood's last paragraph. The words in bold replace Mr. Smallwood's original words:
It is an argument from silence to say that the Christian God could exist just fine without Blarko. There is no means of verifying that this is true apart from merely assuming it. Simply because the Christian doesn't "see" Blarko doesn't argue that he is justified in saying that the Christian God exists just fine without Blarko. The only way the claim could be proven to be true, or even proven to be a possibility, is if we actually observed a God that existed absolutely separated from the influence of Blarko. How exactly is such a God proven to exist?
Thus, if Mr. Smallwood - or anyone else siding with his argument here - denies the existence of Blarko, he commits himself to the same fallacy he accuses the atheist of committing. If the apologist retorts that God does not require Blarko's creative and sustaining activity, he begs the question, for this is precisely what he must prove. If the apologist argues that God's self-sufficiency justifies the assertion that God does not require Blarko's creative and sustaining activity, he still begs the question, for this is essentially what he is called to prove, according to his own line of reasoning. After all, if the non-believer rejects the apologist's theistic presuppositionalism on the basis that existence exists independently of the activity of consciousness (divine or otherwise), the non-believer is accused of begging the question, for it is precisely this, sayeth the apologist, that the non-believer is called to prove.
Naturally, the apologist will insist that the Blarko-believer prove that Blarko exists and that the Christian God cannot exist without Blarko's creative and sustaining activity. But the apologist has already argued against non-theism on the tacit assumption that everything requires an explanation beyond itself (though he makes exception to this 'rule' in order to make room for his god-belief). After all, the apologist holds, the universe cannot exist as a self-sufficient primary, needing no explanation beyond itself (he will likely claim that this is somehow incoherent).
Indeed, Mr. Smallwood himself interjected that, "Simply because the non-theist doesn't 'see' God doesn't argue that he is justified in saying that the universe exists just fine without God." (Does he imply here that the theist does "see" God?) So, if the non-theist is not justified in asserting the universe (which, by the way, is the sum total of existence) as a self-sufficient primary, requiring no "explanation" beyond itself (indeed, appealing to non-existence "explains" nothing), what justifies the theist in his claim that God is a self-sufficient primary, needing no explanation beyond itself? He cannot prove this, he can only beg the question (e.g., repeat the claim in a variety of essentially similar statements, as we've seen above, or appeal to the Bible, etc.; of course, things may be different if a god actually existed.)
If the apologist argues that God is self-sufficient by definition, then his argument has already been checkmated; for the non-theist may simply point out - and rightly so - that the universe, by definition, is a self-sufficient primary (i.e., the universe as defined as the sum total of existence leaves nothing to "explain" it). On every square of the chessboard the theist attempts to position his pieces, he cannot protect his king from its vulnerability. That vulnerability is the apologist's enshrinement of the arbitrary in the place of legitimate knowledge.
The task which everyone is waiting for the theist to do, is, essentially speaking, to demonstrate that existence finds its source in a form of consciousness. This is the doctrine of metaphysical subjectivism, the root of all theistic cosmology. Of course, he will have to contend with several self-defeating issues, if he wishes to undertake this task. For instance, positing a form of consciousness prior to existence commits the fallacy of the stolen concept, for this would assert a concept (consciousness) while denying that concept's objective roots (existence). This is like trying to lift a bar stool over your head while sitting on it. Furthermore, the assertion of a universe-creating consciousness (i.e., God) commits the theist to the fallacy of pure self-reference, as demonstrated in my essay,
God and Pure Self-Reference, Letter 6 of my series Letters to a Young Atheologist. This fallacy is exposed by the simple question: Of what was God conscious prior to his creation of any existence outside himself? Naturally, such questions are desperately annoying for the theist, since there is no convenient answer, and no way out of the purely self-referential corner into which he paints himself.Of course, the Blarko-believer will find a ready need here for his Blarko to fill here, claiming that Blarko must be the object of God's consciousness (since consciousness requires an object, and without Blarko, God would not be conscious prior to any creative activity). So, already the Blarko-believer can gain the upper hand over the Christian apologist, playing the same arbitrary game.
The point is that we can multiply the arbitrary all we like, ad nauseum, if first we grant the arbitrary validity. The question, however, is: Why grant the arbitrary any validity at all? If Mr. Smallwood expects his original line of reasoning in the above paragraph to hold argumentative validity, how can he object to my revision of that line of reasoning above?
So far, the "defense" which Mr. Smallwood offers for his faith is nothing short of a catastrophe of reasoning.
Appealing to Authority Versus Appealing to the Facts of Reality
Mr. Smallwood asks:
Who/what says that one observed event should be thought to be connected to another observed event?
Objective reality "says" this. A fact is a fact, whether or not any of us choose to acknowledge it. To discover the facts of reality, we must acquire awareness of them somehow, and that somehow begins with perception.
He then states:
Yes, we do make this connection, but the issue isn't that" we do this, the issue is the fundamental explanation for how this came about.
If one wishes to discover how this all "came about," we need look no further than the facts of the case. Existence exists. This fact is both fundamental and primary and must be incorporated into any such explanation. To exist is to be something specific. When we perceive an object, we perceive it - i.e., we become aware of it as a whole, as an entity, as something with a specific nature. Which means: our awareness is valid. This is a completely natural process. Some dogs, for instance, can distinguish perceptually a Frisbee thrown to them by their own master from another Frisbee thrown nearby to another dog from another master. The perceptual level of consciousness is a powerful integrating mechanism. This is the starting point of it all.
Man, as opposed to the dog, has a capacity for integration far beyond that of simply distinguishing one flying object from another. This is because he has evolved beyond the perceptual level of consciousness, and has developed the conceptual level of consciousness. But he still requires the perceptual level of his consciousness, for otherwise he would have no content to conceptualize. Any genuine search for "the fundamental explanation for how this came about," is intellectually naïve if it overlooks or fails to take such facts into account.
Mr. Smallwood reasons:
Simply because things "do" occur doesn't argue that we ought to think they should occur.
But perception of an object in action is sufficient for Man to acquire awareness of the primary facts of reality, and to identify them conceptually (since he possesses the conceptual level of consciousness). The axioms identify in explicit terms the facts which we perceive. We are justified in assuming the validity of the axioms if indeed the facts which they identify are perceptually available. The facts which the axioms identify are perceptually available. If the facts of reality are facts of reality, then the law of identity holds. And if the law of identity holds, then the law of causality holds (since causality is the identity of action). Thus, facts are facts by virtue of their existence, not by virtue of an act of consciousness (e.g., intention, whim, fantasy, wish-fulfillment, etc.). So, these things do not occur because one thinks they ought to; rather, one thinks they ought to occur because they do.
The presuppositionalist will likely say, "But that's begging the question!" But this is not the case. If one asks for a rational justification for induction, there is no alternative to looking to the facts of reality and to identifying them for what they are. To object that looking at the facts of reality and/or that identifying them is begging the question, denies the perceptual level of awareness and its nature as metaphysically and epistemologically antecedent to the conceptual level. Where else would the theist have us begin? And by what means of awareness?
Mr. Smallwood asks:
Who/what says that it is "rational" to consider similar reoccurring events as being related. Who/what defines what "rational" is in terms of human thought? Yes, it is rational to suppose that the sun will "rise" tomorrow, but who/what says this is true, that this is what we ought to think? It isn't an explanation to simply say that we "do" think this way or that we have always thought this way. The question isn't what we "use", the question is the origin and ultimate justification for what we use.
Why must something or someone say "that one observed event should be thought to be connected to another observed event"? Must Man be told this? Or, like an infant playing with a ball or burning his finger on a stove, can Man discover the facts of reality for himself as he interacts with his environment and develops his conscious faculties? How many times must a toddler roll a ball to recognize that his action has an effect in his surroundings, or be burned by an open flame to determine that fire causes him pain? Where Objectivists see the intellectual product from Man's interaction with existence as drawing principle from experience, the non-Objectivist views this very phenomenon as "I get the message," and from this misidentification draws the unnecessary and untenable inference that there is a messenger (i.e., that a form of consciousness is behind causality).
What are the philosophical implications of the view that Man must learn how to operate his consciousness from some cosmic source beyond himself? What are the philosophical implications of the view that Man has no hope of learning how to operate his consciousness without outside guidance? Answers to such questions entail metaphysical assessments of man's nature. Not just about his ability, but even more fundamentally about his capacity to develop ability. The religious view of Man holds essentially that he cannot achieve the good through his own effort; that he must enlist the help of the supernatural, and that enlisting the help of the supernatural requires that he subordinates himself to the supernatural. Ultimately the same end is being served: the individual's own desires. But are those desires legitimate and rationally bound, or, are they the unbounded whims of a reality drop-out?
Of course, I am not speaking about learning from other human beings who have already matured. I am speaking of the notion that Man must learn how to operate his consciousness from some conscious force which has designed existence and is still directing reality.
Mr. Smallwood cautions:
I think you may be taking for granted the enormous complexity of human cognition. How does matter in motion somehow arrive at rational introspection and the concept of justified thought?
Here Mr. Smallwood repeats the same evasive tactic which so many other apologists have modeled before him. As if to reduce man to a collection of randomly assembled atoms and chemicals, thus denying Man's identity qua Man, the apologist asks "How does matter in motion somehow arrive at rational introspection and the concept of justified thought?" Already the hidden assumptions become apparent: That nature has no rightful propriety in Man's identity, but rather the supernatural can be the only explanation. Does the apologist prove the existence of the supernatural? Not at all. He never even comes close. How can one prove the existence of a 'reality' which contradicts reality? Blank out.
When Mr. Smallwood asks,
I see words on a computer screen, but who/what has dictated that words on a computer screen should have "meaning" and not merely be disconnected events? We shouldn't view them as being disconnected events because we haven't viewed them as being disconnected events?
We must ask: what ensures us that his interest in finding answers to such questions is genuine? Will he accept the answers of science, which look at the facts of reality and do not attempt to deny the law of identity, or will he insist on the dogma of his preferred theological allegiance, and expect his audience to accept the arbitrary therein enshrined, seeking to conform all facts into supporting the conclusion he has in mind, rather than waiting to discover where the facts of the matter lead?
TRIAL 3:
The following critique is offered in response to the following post to the Van Til list, submitted by apologist Eric Smallwood:
http://www.ccir.ed.ac.uk/~jad/vantil-list/archive-Jun-2000/msg00209.html
In that message, Mr. Smallwood was responding to a post to the Van Til list by fellow apologist Mr. David Hewins:
http://www.ccir.ed.ac.uk/~jad/vantil-list/archive-Jun-2000/msg00206.html
The Ever-Elusive "Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God"
In an unusually frank post to the Van Til discussion list on June 21, 2000, apologist Eric Smallwood offered the following thoughtful questions to the group:
Citing Mr. Hewins,
I agree that a TA is deductively valid, or at the very least expressible as a valid deduction after it has occurred.
Mr. Smallwood asked:
But do we actually have an argument that can be expressed in a syllogistic form so that it can be deemed to be deductively valid by the non theist?
Rarely has there been a particular argument about which so much ink has been spilt, but which still remains shrouded in mystery. That even seasoned presuppositionalists must debate whether or not their enshrined 'argument to end all arguments' can be expressed as a basic syllogism is quite telling, and indicates that their own understanding of what the argument entails and just how it is supposed to "work", is generally quite weak. What is presupposed is that TAG is sound, even though its sworn defenders struggle amongst themselves to identify why it is sound while tediously busying themselves with threading dozens of needles in their attempts to avoid inner conflict between the various and already over-burdened doctrines of creed-guided Christianity. Finally, for the umpteenth time, the question confronts the presuppositionalist once again: Can TAG be expressed as a simple syllogism? Or, in Objectivist terms: Can this legendary argument be identified explicitly in terms of essentials?
I have been keeping my ear very close to the ground of presuppositionalism for quite some time now, and to this date I have seen precious little attempt on its advocates' part to offer such a syllogism. [
28]
Deriving the Axioms from What We Perceive
As a result of all this attention to philosophical detail and rigid indoctrination, the apologist has allowed himself to be transformed, so that he is essentially no longer a defender of the faith per se, but a defender of an argument. In this case, however, this argument is intended to prove the existence of a metaphysical zero.
Mr. Hewins writes:
Circularity does indeed seem unavoidable. For example even in proving the law of contradiction (LC) we presuppose that law.
This is true insomuch as the notion of "proving the law of contradiction" can be granted any rhetorical validity for the sake of argument. The fact of the matter is, that the law of contradiction is a corollary of the law of identity, which itself is a corollary of the fact that existence exists. We need the law in order to conduct a proof; therefore it cannot be the conclusion of proof.
By 'corollary' I mean an idea or set of ideas which follows naturally from a basic principle which has been accepted as knowledge of reality. According to Dr. Leonard Peikoff, a 'corollary' is "a self-evident implication of already established knowledge" ("Causality as a Corollary of Identity," Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, p. 15).
Points to keep in mind:
Since one's starting points are the beginning of his cognition, there is no knowledge prior to these starting points to which one can refer in support of proving them or of their acceptance as knowledge. One's starting points are the foundation from which any proof must be shown to proceed. Thus, one's starting points cannot be the conclusion of proof since they are the ultimate anchor for proof.
This does not mean that one's starting points cannot be validated, which is a process broader than proof. Since, according to Objectivism, knowledge is knowledge of reality, logic as a means of validating and establishing knowledge as such is a process of non-contradictory identification. What is it that we are attempting to identify when we argue for a certain conclusion? We are attempting to identify reality. Thus, the question will ultimately come down to: By what means do we gain awareness of reality? In many regards, this is where the key issues between subjectivism and mysticism on the one hand, and objectivity on the other hand, lie.
Since one's starting points cannot be both one's starting point and the conclusion of prior proofs, any attempt to deduce one's starting points through a process of proof would necessarily have to assume their truth, if indeed the knowledge offered as one's starting points is genuinely primary and irreducible. To entertain the notion of a proof of some content, one cannot assume that content in the premises of its proof since this would destroy the process of proof. In normal logical course, this fallacy is known as petitio principii, or, more commonly by the terms begging the question and circularity.
However, at a much more fundamental level in the process of conception, there is a fallacy which eludes most thinkers precisely because their view of concept-formation does not adhere consistently to the principle that knowledge is hierarchical in nature. (That one would even attempt to prove a conclusion by reference to supporting premises acknowledges that he accepts - at least in the context of the proof entertained - that knowledge is hierarchical in nature. More often than not, the fact that knowledge is hierarchical in nature is only observed in such narrow contexts, but is abandoned when it comes to the foundation of knowledge and its units, i.e., concepts.)
Here I refer to the fallacy of the stolen concept, which was first identified in explicit terms by Ayn Rand, and which is defined and discussed in my essay on
For example, in order to entertain the notion that the truth of the statement "A is A" can be proven by a logical proof, one could not incorporate this truth in one's premises, since to do so one would be presupposing the very truth one is hoping to prove. However, to assert any premises that have any conceptual reference to reality, one would have to assert statements made up of concepts, which necessarily reduce to a recognition of the fact that A is A, since concepts refer to existence either directly (e.g., 'chair' or 'mountain') or indirectly (e.g., 'furniture' or 'geography'). And we know that to exist is to have identity (see point 5 below).
According to Objectivism, one's starting point is essentially the data provided by man's senses. It is through man's sensory contact with the world around him (i.e., his contact with existence) that man first begins to experience any awareness at all. Unless one wishes to posit the notions that the conscious experience begins with so-called "innate ideas" or "revelations" which are "injected" into man's consciousness through some alleged supernatural means, or some variant of such mysticism (i.e., to claim some content without reference to reality, which amounts to the claim of "automatic knowledge"), we have no choice but to recognize that man is born tabula rasa and to examine the rôle of the senses in man's cognition. For in sense perception, we identify the means of man's awareness, contrary to alleged alternatives to sense perception, which dispense with any means of awareness.
Many philosophers of the past have either argued that the senses are invalid in man's pursuit of knowledge or that they are somehow flawed or inadequate in such endeavors and must be compensated through some philosophical retrofitting, which amounts usually to some appeal to authority, divine will or other supposed "innate knowledge." All such appeals undermine one's ability to develop an objective understanding of reality.
Objectivism holds that the senses are necessarily valid:
The validity of the senses is not an independent axiom; it is a corollary of the fact of consciousness. . . . If man is conscious of that which is, then his means of awareness are means of awareness, i.e., are valid. One cannot affirm consciousness while denying its primary form, which makes all others possible. Just as any attack on consciousness negates itself, so does any attack on the senses. If the senses are not valid, neither are any concepts, including the ones used in the attack. [
29]Just by reading and contemplating what is written on this page, one assumes the validity of the senses. What is being contemplated? The content of the writing. How does the reader gain awareness of what is written? Through his senses. Even to argue against this fact, as Dr. Peikoff points out, one must employ the senses as being valid in order even to hope to make sense in his argument.
What is important to recognize is the rôle of the senses in providing the very foundations of man's knowledge of reality. Since, as Objectivism holds, man is born tabula rasa, i.e., with no mental content in his mind, there must be some means open to man in order for him to identify reality and acquire knowledge.
Perception also provides man's mind with a model for conception. Just as the perceptual level of consciousness enables the mind to form percepts from the data provided by the senses (allowing Man to perceive entities as units), the conceptual level of consciousness enables the mind to form concepts from the percepts provided by the perceptual level of consciousness. For introductory discussions on this topic, the reader is referred to Ayn Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology [
30], and to Dr. Harry Binswanger's 3-tape lecture The Metaphysics of Consciousness, 1998. Both sources are available at Second Renaissance Books.A contradiction is a violation of the law of identity. The law of contradiction (also known as the law of non-contradiction) states that "the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same respect." [
31] This principle is derived directly from the law of identity. That A cannot be non-A is because A is A.Ayn Rand wrote:
A contradiction cannot exist. An atom is itself, and so is the universe; neither can contradict its own identity; nor can a part contradict the whole. No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the total sum of his knowledge. To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one's thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one's mind and evict oneself from the realm of reality. [
A man committing suicide is not a contradiction, for this does not contradict man's identity. He is a living being, which means that he can - and will - die. He is also a being capable of volitional action, and may act on the decision to terminate his life. But for one to speak of a rock committing suicide is to commit oneself to a contradiction, for to hold to such a notion he must deny the identity of the rock as an inanimate entity incapable of consciousness and volition.
That an entity has its own identity is undeniable and is a consequence of no prior factor save the very fact that it exists. To exist is to be something, and to be something is to be something specific. Be it a pebble, an orange or a skyscraper, an entity is what it is, because that which exists is that which exists, i.e., A is A because A exists.
Attribution of the law of identity and its corollaries to something alleged to be "prior to existence" - such as a universe-ruling consciousness, commits those who assert such a position to the fallacy of the stolen concept, as identified above. For even in such a case would the theist have to posit "God" as an existent, and therefore as an entity with its own identity, as the "explanation" of the law of identity. The very notion that an entity's identity requires a form of consciousness, cosmic or otherwise, to "sustain" it, is completely arbitrary and superfluous. We saw already that the law of identity is a corollary of the fact of existence, that to exist is to be something specific, and that an entity has identity because it exists. The only option open to the panic-stricken apologist at this point is to confuse himself with such questions as: Why does something exist rather than nothing? But even to entertain such a question, one would have to presuppose existence in order to answer such a question (thus defeating the purpose of the question itself). Otherwise, one would have to appeal to non-existence, and non-existence explains nothing and only nothing. This is amazingly similar to the theist's assertion of a universe-ruling consciousness as the agent responsible for all existence - an agency without existence and without means. The presuppositionalist must borrow from reality in order to prove an illusion, as if such a feat could be accomplished.
The fact of existence is directly perceivable to man through his senses. Man's sense perception automatically provides man's consciousness with the raw data of the world around him. Man looks out at the world of existents and perceives them directly through his senses, which are his means of awareness, his means of perception.
A few quotes will serve to illustrate this:
"We directly perceive the facts which the axioms identify." [
"A 'perception' is a group of sensations automatically retained and integrated by the brain of a living organism, which gives it the ability to be aware, not of single stimuli, but of entities, of things." [
34]"It is in the form of percepts that man grasps the evidence of his senses and apprehends reality. When we speak of 'direct perception' or 'direct awareness,' we mean the perceptual level," (as opposed to the sensory and perceptual levels of consciousness). [
35]The connection between man's perception and the formation of axiomatic concepts is resolved by Ayn Rand's identification of implicit knowledge: "Implicit knowledge is passively held material which, to be grasped, requires a special focus of consciousness - a process which an infant learns to perform eventually, but which an animal's consciousness is unable to perform." [
36]
Observe Mr. Smallwood's following argument about proving the existence of a hammer:
Suppose I have a hammer. I can prove that the hammer exists by producing the hammer. This isn't circular. I can prove that the hammer works by using the hammer. This isn't circular. I can prove that the hammer always works by describing the nature of the hammer, or I can assume that the hammer works well now and then argue that because of its nature it has and will always work. This isn't circular. I can prove the origin of the hammer by pointing to the manufacturer's label on the hammer. This isn't circular. Simply because I presuppose certain things about the hammer doesn't necessarily mean that I am being circular when I argue for a certain proposal about the hammer.
The one point which Mr. Smallwood does not articulate explicitly in the context of his example, is: How would he know that the hammer is a hammer?
Mr. Smallwood must assume, in keeping with his chain of reasoning, that those to whom he would "prove" the existence of a hammer by "producing" one, must have awareness of the hammer so produced. By what means is this awareness to be achieved but by perceptual observation? I.e., can one be aware of the existence in the context of Mr. Smallwood's rhetorical exercise through some means other than perception? While this is certainly understood from Mr. Smallwood's argument, he nowhere points it out explicitly, nor does his argument grant the rôle of perception in man's awareness of reality and formation of abstractions any express significance at all. He takes these facts completely for granted.
That Mr. Smallwood recognizes, at least implicitly, but necessarily by inference from his own examples followed by his emphatic "this isn't circular," that reduction of an argument to the perceptual level does not commit itself to fallacious circularity. This implicit recognition on his part will have disastrous implications for the presuppositionalist when he attempts to charge the Objectivist for begging the question when it comes to identifying his starting points and his overall metaphysical doctrines. Even the presuppositionalist must begin with what he perceives in the world as his initial starting point, however this fact is taken completely for granted and given no philosophical importance in the development of his god-belief theories. Indeed, in order to avoid naked fideism and maintain the guise of reason, he cannot grant the role of man's perception in the starting point of cognition. This constitutes a fatal evasion from objectivity, and is the death warrant of presuppositional apologetics.
Man's perception and its rôle in his cognition has been reviled by mystic attacks and rationalistic sabotaging throughout the history of philosophy. "The senses cannot be accurate," they clamor, while expecting their audiences to hear what they're saying. How are they supposed to comprehend what is being said, either verbally or in writing, if one cannot rely on one's senses in order to have the awareness of what is being said? Often the argument takes on a less obvious approach, and insists that senses influence on some level man's perception of existence, thereby tarnishing his view of reality and predisposing his interpretation of what he perceives with some insurmountable bias, tendency or projection, thereby concluding that objectivity is not possible to man. If this were true, then even this assessment of the senses would have to be influenced at some point of such bias, tendency or projection, and therefore it also would not be objective.
One routinely encounters as a summary example of the supposed validity of such attacks on man's ability to perceive reality the famous pencil in a glass of water. When a pencil is stuck into a glass of water, it appears bent. "Aha!" scream the skeptics, mystics, rationalists, or what have you, "you can't trust your senses! For you know the pencil to be straight, but when it's stuck into this glass of water, you clearly see that the pencil appears to be bent." The example necessarily yet implicitly assumes that the pencil is indeed straight, and that both observers are aware of this fact. Thus, the attack is completely dispelled by a simple question, "How did you know the pencil was straight to begin with?" And thus the assault self-destructs under the burden of its own pretenses and evasions.
Incidentally, on 22 June, 2000, a member of the Van Til list who goes by the name of "Jasho", submitted the following response to Mr. Smallwood's argument above:
Good points about non-circularity. Tho this analogy assumes we can produce the actual hammer to the satisfaction of the ahammerist. What we can do is present a handful of nails
Note this amazing predilection in favor of the infinite regress at the expense of objectivity. For Jasho writes, "…this analogy assumes we can produce the actual hammer to the satisfaction of the ahammerist." By the term "ahammerist," we can infer that this author intends to mean someone who does not believe that hammers exist - ostensibly even if hammers are presented for perceptual review. Mr. Smallwood's argument clearly recognizes man's reliance on his sense perception as a final means of proving the existence of a hammer. Jasho's counter-remarks, however, evade this by a-contextualizing man's means of awareness from the task of identifying what is real. For, if one should be rightly called an "ahammerist" in the context of Jasho's message, then we must conclude that the "ahammerist" dispenses with the evidence provided by his senses. And if the "ahammerist" dispenses with the evidence of his senses, then presenting "handful of nails" would be equally unproductive.
Most likely, Jasho did not think this through before posting it, but used the opportunity to draw an analogy between the evidence of the hammer and "ahammerist" who rejects the existence of hammers and the supposed "evidence" of the existence of God and the atheist who is not convinced. This is, of course, were this Jasho's true ambition, an absurdly weak analogy. For one thing, atheists in general are not in the habit of rejecting the evidence of their senses, so the "ahammerist" analogue would not fit. Second, Jasho seems to be under the impression that those who reject the existence of a hammer empirically presented to them would suddenly be convinced of the hammer's existence when presented with "a handful of nails." Jasho never explains in his message how "a handful of nails" will be accepted as proof of the hammer's existence when at the same time the hammer's existence is not accepted, even when provided as evidence of the "ahammerist's" senses.
Seeking Out the Law of Contradiction
Mr. Smallwood continued:
Now, if the subject of what is to be proven is negation, then this is something different. I would say that arguing that the hammer doesn't exist while at the same time using the hammer would be self-defeating. Arguing against LC while presupposing LC would be self-defeating. But I don't see
how simply presupposing LC necessarily concludes in a circular argument when the subject is a positive proposal about LC.
Mr. Smallwood is basically correct in his considerations here, with the following reservations:
The tendency detectable throughout all of Mr. Smallwood's concerns about proving the validity of the law of contradiction is the implicit assumption that one has no business asserting knowledge which he has not proven to be true. In other words, instead of one's starting point being the recognition that existence exists, a recognition readily available to man simply by opening his eyes and looking at the world around him, one's starting point must be the axiom that "all knowledge must be the conclusion of proofs" regardless of any perceptual reference to reality. In other words, such preoccupation strongly suggests rationalism, which is deduction from "internal axioms" which are not grasped perceptually, but are imported into man's consciousness conceptually apart from his sense experience. This fits quite well with the Christian's claim to divine revelation as the believer's alleged starting point, as Mr. Hewins' intimates when he writes:
Since a proof for LC involves using LC, I think we need to seek its authority in theology, and ultimately in revelation. From an non-believing point of view, this makes theology circular too; but we believe the Personal Triune God can break the circle by His speech.
In response to this, Mr. Smallwood asked the following, remarkably frank question:
But I think this is the point that we have to come to grips with. Whom exactly are we trying to convince here? Are we trying to convince the nonbeliever or the believer?
This is where Mr. Smallwood voices his most profoundly insightful question: "Whom exactly are we trying to convince here?" Indeed, just whom is it that the apologist wants to convince? Mr. Smallwood rightly muses, "Are we trying to convince the nonbeliever or the believer?" In other words, "are we trying to convince others, or ourselves" of the apologist's own claims? I have already dealt with this problem in some detail in my essay
Dear Apologist, which I invite readers to review.Mr. Smallwood recognizes:
The non believer argues that LC is based on the existence of the universe. A=~A is false because that "law" describes how things actually exist.
Basically speaking, this is true, and sufficiently so. Existence exists, which may be seen as a contraction of the axiom, that which exists is that which exists. I.e., A is A. This is fundamental. One cannot get "before" existence - just as one cannot get "before" the law of identity, as to do so would eventually end up positing something that "exists" as the solution to whatever is said "to be before existence." In other words, we must bear in mind a starting point of our cognition and an intraversible terminus to our series of foundational inquiries, otherwise we necessarily commit our thoughts to a mercilessly infinite regress by arbitrarily removing a starting point - and a stopping point - to our intellection.
Thus, all thought presupposes the existence of something outside itself, even if what is posited to be outside itself is illegitimate, since to assert a truth is to assert a truth that holds regardless of one's awareness or grasp of it. In essence, to assert knowledge is to assert some mental content which refers to some fact which is assumed to be independent of the one asserting that fact.
Mr. Smallwood asks:
Why do things exist as they exist such that LC is observed to obtain, when things could just as well have not existed?
What justifies Mr. Smallwood's unargued assumption that "things could just as well have not existed"? If Mr. Smallwood insists on using this premise, then clearly he begs the question, since to do so is to assume one of the very premises in dispute, namely, that existence is conditional upon something prior to it, and that prior condition is normally assumed to be some act of consciousness. (This is the doctrine of metaphysical subjectivism.)
Furthermore, the idea that "things could just as well have not existed" commits Mr. Smallwood to yet another stolen concept. In this case, he rips off the concept 'possibility' (including its verbal adjuncts) from the context of existence and implies the possibility that there be no existence whatsoever. But the very concept 'possibility' necessarily presupposes existence, and therefore is hierarchically dependent upon this recognition. Besides, it is an undeniable fact that existence exists, that we are part of reality, and that to exist is to have identity, regardless of what possibilities one dreams up, fallacious or otherwise. Neither Mr. Smallwood nor any other religionist can objectively argue otherwise. So, we see in the final analysis, when the theist throws such empty ideas in the face of those who do not accept his god-beliefs, he simply seeks to evade the most fundamental issues of philosophy, not to identify and grasp them. Were the theist honest to himself and reality at this rudimentary level, he would recognize that all the theorizing and debating will never overturn the fact of existence. The fact of existence does not change.
The notions of the "possibility" that existence does not exist and that at one time existence did not exist (thus requiring a creator) will be discussed in greater detail in the section of this website titled "The Argument from Existence" (coming soon).
Exposure of the stolen concept involved in theistic presumptions is easily obtained. For instance, the theist may essentially ask, "why do things exist as opposed to nothing exists?" But an objective approach to this would-be "problem" of the theist's making, would be: if that things exist requires a maker, then we still posit existence in positing the maker, and we get no further along than the point from where we started. For we still posit existence as primary, and thus a starting point copasetic to the Objectivist paradigm, but incongruent with that of the religious since the primacy of consciousness is preferred. The religionist simply wants to begin with a form of consciousness, and this is invalid.
Mr. Smallwood argues:
The non believer may ultimately have no concrete answer to the question, but simply because she may feel that her view is lacking in this area is not necessarily going to be a cause for her to abandon her entire view.
The nonbeliever is going to be even less compelled by the apologist's god-belief claims if indeed she recognizes that such questions are essentially invalid and only qualify as superfluous debating points at best, not as genuine considerations in the overall scheme of one's life and principles.
The same goes essentially for the Christian. If we ask him, "Why does God exist?" with the expectation that any answer to such a question posits something beyond God to exist, the apologist will retort that God is a self-sufficient primary requiring no such explanation. Usually the apologist will incorporate the analytic-synthetic dichotomy when the non-believer rightly responds that the universe - i.e., existence is a self-sufficient primary. The apologist will claim that the universe is "contingent" - which merely begs the question and assumes the validity of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy. On what basis does he assume this validity? Blank out.
We have to start somewhere in our cognition about reality, if we recognize the hierarchical nature of knowledge. But where do we start? And why? As Dr. Peikoff puts it:
The religious view of the world, though it has been abandoned by most philosophers, is still entrenched in the public mind. Witness the popular question, 'Who created the universe?' - which presupposes that the universe is not eternal, but has a source beyond itself, in some cosmic personality or will. It is useless to object that this question involves an infinite regress, even though it does (if a creator is required to explain existence, then a second creator is required to explain the first, and so on. Typically, the believer will reply: "One cannot ask for an explanation of God. He is an inherently necessary being. After all, one must start somewhere." Such a person does not contest the need of an irreducible starting point, as long as it is a form of consciousness [emphasis Thorn]; what he finds unsatisfactory is the idea of existence as the starting point. Driven by the primacy of consciousness, a person of this mentality refuses to begin with the world (i.e., with existence), which we know to exist; he insists on jumping beyond the world to the unknowable, even though such a procedure explains nothing. The root of this mentality is not rational argument, but the influence of Christianity. In many respects, the West has not recovered from the Middle Ages. [
And thus, we have it in a nutshell. Shall we begin with consciousness without an object, or with existence which can be the object of our consciousness? This is the burning question which must be answered at the outset of our thinking.
Mr. Smallwood notes:
She can certainly "understand" that a Christian world view can answer the question by an appeal to God, but simply because a Christian view can offer an explanation in this area does not necessarily provide a warrant for believing that explanation, much less the entirety of a Christian view.
With all the devastating philosophical errors to which god-belief commits its more consistent defenders, what warrant would one have for believing it? The apologist, like others, have shown no reason to warrant belief.
Can the non believer "understand" this argument? Certainly she can. But does she have a warrant for believing that it is sound? If a Christian world view interprets the world as only providing intelligibility via the existence of God, and if a non theist world view interprets the world as providing intelligibility without a God, what will the non believer have to believe first in order to arrive at the conclusion that her view is false?
To answer such a question, I can only speak for myself, however I suspect the points I will articulate here may be broadly representative of many people's mindset, even if only implicitly. According to my view of reality (and according to Objectivism in general), intelligibility does not depend on or derive from the supernatural. On the contrary, Objectivism holds that intelligibility can only be stifled and crippled by appeals to the supernatural, by the enshrinement of the incomprehensible, and/or by the apotheosis of mystery (i.e., scientific ignorance), to which belief in the supernatural leads.
Various Expressions of the Primacy of Consciousness
Mr. Smallwood asks "what will the non believer have to believe first in order to arrive at the conclusion that her view is false?" This question is quite pointed towards a certain purpose: that of discovering how to acquire argumentative leverage in the minds of nonbelievers. The answer to Mr. Smallwood's question is quite simple: cease on and play up any notion finding its basis in the primacy of consciousness view of reality to which the non believer may ascribe to, particularly if this ascription is unwitting (i.e., an unchecked premise). While apologists in general possess virtually zero astuteness in the area of defining their principals and goals in terms of essentials, their own primacy of consciousness view of reality is readily attracted to other variants of the primacy of consciousness like a magnet to iron. The more commonality which two false worldviews share, the more opportunity for some cohesion and compromise between the two, the compromise usually greater for the weaker strain, the more consistent of the two providing the standard and direction of that compromise.
For instance, take on the one hand a rigorously tutored apologist for a certain structured religious view, such as some variant of Christianity, a view that has been developed and overdeveloped to the point that it virtually collapses under its own oppressive weight. Take on the other hand a glassy-eyed astrologer, whose only philosophical structure is the mood swings he attributes to the movement of planetary bodies and their conjunction, the influence of which is, in his view, incalculably decisive in the lives of human beings, whether they are aware of this force or not. Put the two together. Both ascribe to the primacy of consciousness view of reality.
On the one hand, in Christian theism, you have an explicit, rarefied elaboration of the primacy of consciousness, embellished with vivid mythology posing as history, the express view that some non-corporeal consciousness is responsible for the existence of the universe, rules the universe, and has a divine plan in which every eventual nuance can be interpreted by theological interpolation. On the other hand, you have a more implicit, hazy elaboration of the primacy of consciousness in astrology, the implicit view that the rôle of the planets' movements and "personal" forces throughout the universe hold some significance in the fulfillment of some intergalactic "plan," a plan that exhibits a design just as mystical as that of Christian theism, and just as contradictory to itself and to reality, only on a more implicit, less philosophically developed basis.
Should the two, the Christian and the astrologer (indeed, they may be one and the same!), contend amongst themselves as to which view of the universe is correct, which one will persevere in the long run, assuming a sustained debate? We can grant that, if reason per se is accepted by both parties as a valid exercise in determining the truth of some proposition [
38], then it can be inferred that both parties accept at least on the implicit level that knowledge requires at least some structure. This recognition, that knowledge has a nature that can be described in processes of structure, alignment and hierarchy, is of crucial consequence to the outcome of any sustained debate. If this premise is granted by both parties, the party which is most consistent to this premise will in the end gain an upper hand over its potential rival, and at least in this sense a "victory" of sorts can be declared, once the follow-through has taken place.But the problem facing both sides of this issue, be it the zero-worship of theism or star-chasing evasions of astrology, is that they both find their basis in the same flawed view of existence. And this can be identified once the fundamentals of each view have been identified in terms of explicit essentials. In essence, both views of reality share the same unchecked predisposition to the notion that reality either finds its source in a form of consciousness, or is subject to the will of consciousness. The question, when it comes to evaluating their inter-relational competitive stamina, is: which view is more philosophically developed, and, which view is more consistent with its own foundational principles? That view which can legitimately claim that it is more philosophically developed on a basis consistent with its own foundations, will in the end rule the debate. But this does not mean that such a system is either objective or true. For indeed, in the case of both Christian theism and astrology, each are built on the same flawed premise that consciousness - in whatever form, either implicitly or explicitly, either creatively or prescriptively, or both - holds primacy over existence.
Thus, any debate between a Christian theist and an astrologer, depending on their respective ability and knowledge, will intentionally keep the treatment fundamental issues vague, since both sides square evenly on the same radical view of existence: that existence is a pliant product of a cosmic consciousness.
Mr. Smallwood argues:
If it is true that she is unable to escape the presuppositions of her view and she will interpret all things through the grid of her view (and thus the argument is made that evidentialism cannot be successful because any "evidence" will be interpreted differently), how exactly will she be able to adopt the interpretation that her view is faulty when she supposedly interprets everything through that view?
Note that Mr. Smallwood takes it for granted that all parties in question, both believing and non-believing, will "interpret" something as something other than itself. That Mr. Smallwood has as his premises the ideas that "the Christian interprets X as Z" and that "non theist interprets X as Y," clearly suggests that he generally holds that both Christians and "non theists" do not "interpret" "X" to be "X" (perhaps this does not occur to Mr. Smallwood?), but to interpret "X" to be something other than "X" (e.g., as being or meaning "Y" or "Z" - i.e., X as meaning non-X). If Mr. Smallwood assumes that this is the case for all nonbelievers, he is sorely mistaken. For Objectivism is all about recognizing that A is A, since the fact of existence and its corollary law of identity is recognized to hold primacy over conscious action. Thus, the Objectivist does not "interpret X as Y," as Mr. Smallwood would have it, but X as X, since he understands explicitly at the most rudimentary level of cognition - at his starting points - that to do otherwise would contradict the facts of reality and result in some form of irrationality (e.g., mysticism, rationalism, skepticism, etc.).
The presuppositionalist's untiring preoccupation with the way in which non-believers will interpret certain alleged "evidences" supposedly supporting the theist's god-belief claims, is itself a telling sign of cognitive insecurity and, possibly, the psychological panic that haunts the mind of the zealous believer. Of course, this has much to do with the standards and motivations fostered in a particular view of reality.
For the Christian, the standard of his intellect is the imperceptible, the incomprehensible, the infinite, the imaginary, the non-existent. His standard is essentially a negation of the objective, a standard to which all existence, identity and causality are thought to be metaphysically subordinate, and by which all empirical data must be identified. Truth, for the Christian, is to be shaped by a process he benignly calls 'interpretation' - which is a euphemism for rationalization, not discovered and identified by appealing to the facts of reality.
What is the goal of this interpretation? Philosophically, that goal is to elevate whim above reality by treating the facts of reality as pliant, malleable manifestations of the supernatural, forever subject to divine revision and redefinition. These 'facts' to which the apologist appeals are ultimately assumed to be the product of an act of consciousness; thus reality and knowledge are essentially and inescapably subjective in nature for him. This subjectivity has devastating consequences throughout religious philosophy, resulting in mysticism in epistemology, the ethics of sacrifice, and collectivism and tyranny in government.
Psychologically, the goal cannot be separated from the motivational impulse of religious thought: the elevation of emotion over reason (a result of confusing knowledge and emotion) and the overwhelming emphasis on the acceptance of unearned guilt and the mind-crushing fear of unrelenting punishment for that guilt. For the apologist to deny the strength of these motivating factors, is to deny the essentials of his religion. Introspectively, his goal is to escape the mental torment he experiences as a result of granting these factors validity. In his efforts to engage non-believers, he will pour every effort into steering the course of debate away from uncovering these factors and exposing their genuine nature. Hence the apologist's desperation to focus the thrust of debate onto the non-believer's views.
Mr. Smallwood acknowledges:
This is the framework within which the non believer offers her claim that the presuppositionalist is begging the question.
It is not necessarily the case that the framework described by Mr. Smallwood is the one "within which [she] offers her claim that the presuppositionalist is begging the question." The framework within which the nonbeliever bases her criticism of presuppositionalism in particular and theism in general, may - and should - be the rational system of Objectivism.
For one thing, Objectivism does not predispose itself to an agenda of interpreting X as something other than X, as implicated by Mr. Smallwood's earlier surmising. For the Objectivist, that which exists is that which exists. The identity of an entity does not depend upon the Objectivist's worldview or upon some preset series of dogmatic conclusions into which that entity must be "interpreted" (cf. "creation science"). On the contrary, Objectivism first and foremost concerns itself with the objective identification of reality, for it is only after reality is identified that evaluative interpretations can have any rational feasibility in the first place.
In this way, Objectivism is completely consistent with its foundations and its recognition of the fact that knowledge is hierarchical in nature. One cannot evaluate the moral meaning of an entity, action or circumstance before the identity of that entity, action or circumstance is known, even if only partially. This may seem to be an obvious point, but it is precisely because it is obvious (and thereby commonly taken for granted) that it requires our focused attention and explicit understanding if our reasoning is to be sound. Preoccupation with how something is "interpreted" without attending to the fact that consciousness is primarily man's means of identifying, and secondarily of evaluating, interpreting and assessing, can easily lead one to a reversal of these priorities.
Mr. Smallwood states:
In my opinion, it is self-defeating to maintain that the non theist will interpret information only according to the parameters of his world view, and at the same time argue that he will agree with the presuppositionlist's assessment of his view, which is based on interpretations not necessarily found there (if the non theist is able to interpret the world outside of the framework of his own believed world view, then this opens the previously closed door to traditional evidentialism).
[sic]I think what Mr. Smallwood may want to say here is, "it is self-defeating to maintain that the non theist will interpret information only according to the parameters of his world view, and at the same time argue" with the hope or ambition "that he will agree with the presuppositionalist's assessment of his view." Certainly, Mr. Smallwood is correct in identifying the inconsistency of the wholesale assessment of any non-theistic view as able to "interpret information only according to the parameters of [that] world view" with the belabored activity of apologetics. As Mr. Smallwood indicates, such a view can only sabotage the apologist's own efforts, if this view is to be integrated into his apologetic endeavors.
Of course, this is not the only manner in which the presuppositionalist's apologetic system is inclined to sabotage his apologetic effort. For in
Trial 1 above, we saw Mr. Smallwood confess, after so many apologetic scholars have spilled so much convoluted ink into the development of their "silver bullet" argument, that even the Christian "doesn't believe that Christianity is true based on a series of arguments," but that "an encounter with the Spirit of God" is required in order to recognize "the truth of Christianity."So there are at least two fundamental issues here which conflict with the ostensible goal of the apologist's argumentative effort. The first is the assessment that the non-theist will not be able to "escape" his bedrock assumptions in order to grasp the presuppositionalist's criticism of those assumptions, and the second is the assessment that one does not come to believe by virtue of argument in the first place. If the presuppositionalist holds that these tenets obtain, then essentially he admits he's out of a job! And we must ask: Why then does the apologist argue? [
39]In my essay
Dear Apologist, I argue that his primary intention is not to convince others, but to convince himself. Indeed, if the apologist holds, for at least two reasons, that his efforts to convince non-believers of his god-belief claims, whom else is there to convince but himself? Mr. Smallwood himself indicates that this suspicion is valid when he asks:So again, do we have something that can be offered as a legitimate argument to the non believer, or are we simply involved in fraternal academic exercise? We can surely talk at length about logical form, but if there is no reality that fits that form then what are we really doing?
Mr. Smallwood concludes his message, after offering a well-considered and rightly focused assessment of some general problems which presuppositionalism must ultimately address, with a final question about just how well the apologist of this cloth is equipped to take on those who have no god-belief.
ONCLUSION
For millennia, it is indisputable that much ink has been spilled in the task to prove that a God or universe-ruling consciousness exists, that the supernatural exists, that "reality is not all that meets the eye," but that there is some deeper, mystical dimension, the territory of spirits, the realm of the immaterial, the domain of the incomprehensible. And each generation of believers seems to act on the conviction that theirs is the generation which will finally solve all riddles and answer all questions of god-belief. The presuppositionalist's hunt for a 'magic bullet' apologia is doomed from the very start, and therefore belongs in the same category of all the other failed argument programs intended to support the belief in the supernatural.
I have reviewed in great detail and depth the apologetic of yet another defender of mystical philosophy. My findings are no different essentially from what I've found in reviewing other apologetic attempts. Nowhere does Mr. Smallwood come even close to proving the existence of God, biblical or otherwise. Instead of even trying to do so, he is true to form as a presuppositionalist, assuming what he is called to prove rather than proving it, focusing his apologetic on issues which are taken "after the fact" as if God's existence were already proven. By claiming that "induction presupposes the existence of the triune God of the Bible," the apologist takes God's existence completely for granted, even though this is precisely what he is called to demonstrate for his non-believing audiences. Nowhere does he justify this maneuver. This is nothing more than an attempt to hijack otherwise legitimate philosophical matters and recruiting them into the mind-negating schemes of religious
Furthermore, he objects to the non-Christian's assumption that God does not exist or that induction does not require the alleged "surety" of the "triune God of the Bible." His "challenges" to non-believers to "account for" their non-belief, for the use of their minds, for their reason and their very existence, do not constitute a genuinely motivated debating point intended to enlighten. His purpose is to divorce man from his capacity to reason, just as he seeks to disable man's capacity to enjoy his life according to his own terms. This is subterfuge intended to bamboozle, not argument intended to establish sound philosophical principles.
For the Christian, the poison (e.g., "total depravity" and damnation) and the antidote (e.g., "salvation" and "redemption") are made in the same kitchen. The Christian thinks this kitchen belongs to God. Quite the contrary, the kitchen is god-belief itself and the cuisine is anti-man, anti-rational, and anti-reality.
In philosophy, just as in reality, you get what you deserve. The self-inflicted misery of Christian mysticism is no exception.
[1] The fact that the notion "God" - particularly as defined in Christianity - is incoherent, is well documented and insurmountable for theists who claim that their god-beliefs can be supported by use of reason. See for example philosopher
Theodore M. Drange's essay Incompatible-Properties Arguments: A Survey, which shows how the different alleged characteristics of the Christian God cannot be integrated without contradiction or conflict. In regard to presuppositionalism and its attempt to link inductive reasoning to Christian god-belief, see my analysis of the Christian God's alleged attributes in my response to Mr. Walker's apologetic. For an example of how some of God's supposed characteristics paint an ugly picture of the jealous, wrath-saturated Christian deity, see my anecdote An Unchanging God?Much literature off the worldwide web has spent some energy focusing on the vulnerability of the Christian God's incoherence. For example, see George H. Smith's "The Concept of God," in his book Atheism: The Case Against God, (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1989), pp. 29-46; Michael Martin's "Divine Attributes and Incoherence," from his book Atheism: A Philosophical Justification, (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1990), pp. 287-316; see also various assessments of the Christian God in Ludwig Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity, trans. By George Eliot, (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1989), pp. 197-269, (I encourage readers some caution in considering Feuerbach's psychological assumptions in these assessments); et al.
[2] Presuppositionalists often claim that the attributes of God are necessary for a rational justification of induction. In my review and critique of
Mr. Walker's apologetic, I show how this is untenable.[3] This assumption, so necessary to all active reasoning, is incompatible with arbitrary religious claims which terminate inquiry with the assertion of the eternally mysterious, which is a dead give away of the impotence of faith. Paul himself made appeal to mystery as his 'explanation' for faith when he wrote:
[M]y speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, 'Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him'. (I Corinthians 2:4-9)
So here the model of evasion is set in "scripture" so that all these budding, zealous apologists can appeal to what is mysterious in answer to criticism. The basic "you don't understand" ploy is ready to be unpocketed at a moment's notice, should the apologist face an untiring line of questions. Of course, we are told in I Corinthians 2:14 that the "natural man" (as opposed to the "spiritual man") is incapable of reaching this kind of understanding. This is acceptable for those who consider faith a valid means of knowledge; but it is clearly antithetical to reason, and therefore to induction. This epistemological imbroglio is a consequence of the believer's own identity crisis, and not the fault of the non-believer.
Secular Web's critiques of Christian apologetics.[5] In a future paper I will provide a side-by-side comparison of Christianity and Objectivism.
[6] That Christian presuppositionalist "thinkers" hold that circular reasoning is actually necessary, is a matter of record. See my correspondence piece
Presuppositionalist Circularities.[7] For a more detailed analysis of these issues, I highly recommend Dr. David Kelley's single-tape lecture, "The Primacy of Existence" (1985), available through
Principle Source.[8] In a future paper I will expose how the notion 'miracle' attempts to assert contradictions in reality and that the notion 'omnipotence' refers to the alleged power to contradict the identity of concretes.
[9] "Faith and Force: Destroyers of the Modern World," Philosophy: Who Needs It, (New York: Signet, 1982), pp. 62-63.
The Apologetic Argument by David Snoke, June 1998.[11] For pertinent discussion of these topics, please see my correspondence series
Kicking Against the Pricks, in particular Volley 3: Deconstructing Faith. See also the Tindrbox Files, in particular Post 58 "Just What is Christian Epistemology?" in Session 12, and Posts 67-69, which are follow-ups to Post 58, found in Session 14. In the future I plan to post a more comprehensive treatment of these topics in an essay currently under construction titled, "The Roots of Christian Knowledge."[12] Theistic offshoots of Christianity as well as non-Christian theistic models which posit notions comparable to Christianity's doctrines of creation, miracles, faith, etc., fall by the same arguments respectively.
Atheological Credo for elaboration along these lines.[14] For instance, see Matt. 7:3-5, which has Jesus saying,
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the mean that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, 'Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye'; and, behold, a beam is in thine eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
Were today's apologists to follow this principle more consistently themselves, presuppositionalism would die away rather quickly. For presuppositionalists themselves admit that their system necessarily begs the question (see for example
Presuppositionalist Circularities). In other words, they themselves must commit their doctrines to fallacious foundations while accusing non-believers of doing the same. Indeed, this is a form of hypocrisy, and their own cult personality Jesus warned them against this.[15] Expanded Second Edition; Edited by Harry Binswanger and Leonard Peikoff [New York: Meridian, 1990], 307 pages.
Persuasion or Proof? The Migration of Christian Apologetics from Foundationalism to Language-Games. A Primer on Presuppositionalism.[17] However, one participant in the Van Til Discussion list did submit a post which attempted to critique Objectivism, and I believe my response to this post,
In Defense of Objectivism, soundly refutes that attempted critique.[18] "Philosophy and Sense of Life," The Romantic Manifesto," 2nd Ed., (New York: Signet, 1975), p. 25.
[19] For instance, in the case of Hume, we find that the axioms which anchor reasoning are thought to be nothing more than conventional notions or "community norms," accepted as popular indices. Thus a social primacy of consciousness is necessarily inferred - an error imported from religion and never properly identified or challenged. In addition to such default, Hume argued that knowledge begins with sensation rather than with perception, and this had a drastic affect on his view of identity, causality and, consequently, induction. For more details, I refer the inquisitive reader to Dr. Kelley's two-part lecture noted above.
[20] If the apologist's concern for a genuinely rational justification of induction is sincere, he will eventually stray from Christian theism, or any other form of mysticism for that matter, and seek answers which are dealt with on reality's terms. For a brilliant treatment of the "problem" of induction as resolved by Objectivism, see Dr. David Kelley's two-part lecture, "Universals and Induction," (1988) available through
Principle Source.[21] See apologist Mark McConnell's July 7, 2000 post "Re: uniformity of nature as an axiom."
[24] Furthermore, there are good reasons to conclude that Christian theism as such can only result in the believer's constant uncertainty about the natural world, given his premises, as I show in
A Dialogue on Induction in my Sample Dialogues section.[25] "The Metaphysically Given Versus the Man-Made," Philosophy: Who Needs It (New York: Signet, 1982), p. 24.
[26] The Age of Reason, (New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1995), p. 157; italics in original.
[27] "Introduction to Logic," lecture series (1974), Lecture 9.
[28] However, several non-believing critics of presuppositionalism have attempted to express the essentials of the "transcendental argument for the existence of God" in the form of a logical syllogism. (This has become necessary due to the default of this argument's own advocates.) For instance, see
Theodore Drange's First Rebuttal in his debate with theist Douglas Wilson. Atheologist Michael Martin also attempts to reduce TAG to a simple syllogism in his response to Douglas Jones' essay The Futility of Non-Christian Thought, in the Jones-Parsons-Martin Debate.[29] Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, p. 39.
[30] 2nd ed., New York: Meridian, 1990.
[31] Aristotle, Metaphysics, IV, 3 (W. D. Ross translation); quoted in The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z, ed. Harry Binswanger, p. 107.
[33] David Kelley, The Primacy of Existence.
[34] Ayn Rand, "The Objectivist Ethics," The Virtue of Selfishness, p. 19.
[35] Ayn Rand, "Cognition and Measurement," Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, (2nd Ed.) p. 5.
[36] "Axiomatic Concepts," Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, (2nd Ed.) p. 57.
[37] Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, pg. 21.
[38] Of course, this would also depend on the definition of reason presumed by both parties, as well as on how rigorous and consistent either party honors that definition.
[39] Indeed, one may even draw a third conflict from Mr. Smallwood's admissions here. For the presuppositionalist should ask himself: If he believes that the non-theist cannot escape his set of presuppositions in order to grasp the presuppositionalist's arguments and see that his system is, according to those arguments, incoherent and invalid, what ensures the presuppositionalist the very presuppositional ambidexterity which he denies to the non-theist? For if the non-theist is basically trapped by his presuppositions - since they are one's least negotiable commitments, it stands to reason that the theist is just as trapped by his presuppositional commitments as well, by his own reasoning.
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