Interlocutor asked Steve,
"Further, and I don't mean to but you in a difficult spot with the other contributors and supporters here, how do you feel about people like Paul Manata and Peter Pike/Calvindude who seem to think that TAG is a done deal?"
I might as well say it now, I've rejected the strong modal version of TAG for some time now (or, at least admitted that the case has not been made).
I've debated this back and forth with myself and others for the past 4-5 years. Others that I've had private dialogue with can vouch for this. Recently I included Steve in a group email exchange where I stated my views. All of this was months before these current claims about what my position is, so no one can accuse me of doing this ex post facto. In fact, see this thread where I argue against the strong modal claim (my moniker is "John Calvin").
What's the cash value of all this? Not much. I'm still a presuppositionalist, only a better one (in my opinion). I still have no problem with transcendental arguments, and I employ them. From where I'm standing, one can scale back the claim and argue for a "one and many" God. The problems with the strong modal version cannot be used by the atheist or the Muslim, so they're still stuck yelling from the sidelines. The only threat: thought experiments and made up worldviews which are basically the same as mine.
So, some "right wing" Van Tillians have said that my position is due to "intellectual dishonesty" and "immorality." I just think I'm being intellectually honest. I'm not a "left wing" Van Tillian either. I think I'm moderate. :-)
And so now I'm out of the closet. How liberating! I still use TAs, but now I just use more arguments. I'm a bigger threat. At least that's what I tell myself to make me feel better after I get embarrassed by the stellar arguments atheists put forth.
What's a Moderate VanTillian suppose to look like?
ReplyDeleteJOhn Frame?
What'a LEft VanTillian suppose to look like?
Francis Scaeffar (misspelled)?
What's an example of a right wing VanTillian?
Greg L. Bahnsen?
YOu have much to educate me, Paul Manata!
I have much to learn
I asked a question about that a few days ago (triune vs. half dozen gods), thanks for posting that thread. I've only really seen your interactions with atheists, so it was interesting to see you take on other presuppositionalists.
ReplyDeleteJimmi,
ReplyDeleteIt depends on if you're speaking to their face or behind their back.
If I'm moderate then Frame's a left winger since I think he's wrong about a few things regarding TA's (for example, I think a TA *is* a unique and specific kind of argumen).
But to a "right-winger" I'm a left-winger.
If I talk to Frame to his face I'll call him a "moderate," because who wants to be a left-winger.
Some "right-winger's" who hear my view during our conversation would say, "okay, that's moderate." But when they tell their friends about it they'll call me a "left-winger."
But, I call them a right-winger to their face, hard, radical, or extreme right behind their back.
But then I guess a "righht-winger" might call Frame a "communist" since Frame can be viewed as wanting equal treatment for myriad apologetic arguments.
But to his face they'd never say that.
At any rate, I'd suggest calling everyone else a moderate Van Tillian (unless you're at an SCCCS conference, then you call them heretics) except the right-wingers. They seem to love the extreme and hard right designations. Some people need to feel like their on the outskirts. The constant state-of-war mindset keeps their reflexes quick.
God uses all sorts of means. We need Sgt. Elias' and Staff Sgt. Barnes' As long as no one gets too crazy, we can defeat the NVA.
Hahaha,
ReplyDeletePaul Manata, that's a pretty funny response...
if ever I'm around your area, I wouldn't mind buying you beer (I personally don't drink), and talking about apologetics
But for now, UCLA midterms face me...
Are you still with BTS?
Your description of the NVA gives a whole new meaning to that acronym: NonVanTillian Atheists?
Jimmy,
ReplyDeleteI'd take you up on that beer, especially at a UCLA football game.
I'm not at BTS.
NVA = Nullifidian Village Addle-pate
:-D
What I've found interesting is that "Right-wing" Van Tillians, as you've called them, are willing to admit one's denial TAG is likely (if not certainly) due to immorality. I've had this thrown at me before. It strikes me analogous to J.S. Mill and others who claimed that to even challenge the idea that evils in this world consistitute powerful evidence (in fact) against God's existence is only due to the immorality of the theist. Like Peter van Inwagen has said in response to Mill and company, it seems entirely appropriate to respond to these Right-wing van Tillians, whoever they are, with: "Come off it!"
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDelete"I asked a question about that a few days ago (triune vs. half dozen gods)"
I'm still trying to learn the "ins and outs" of the TAG, but I think I can help. Polytheism is reductionistic, and thus, it doesn't solve the problem of the one and the many. You need a *transcendent* "One" to uphold such things as the laws of logic and the uniformity of nature. Furthermore, if I am not mistaken, the transcendent One must have diversity within the unity of His/its being in order to know anything outside itself. Aristotle's "thought thinking itself" god, who could only know itself (and thus, could not provide a ground for the uniformity of nature and laws of logic outside itself), is the logical conclusion of unitarianism. So, if there were to be "half a dozen gods", there would still have to exist a transcendent Being that gives everything else the grounding for existence itself.
[Note: If I have made any sloppy philosophical errors, it is because I am not a philosopher. I welcome correction.]
Paul,
"The only threat: thought experiments and made up worldviews which are basically the same as mine."
Aren't there sub-arguments that require *Revelation* in order to have epistemology (which would eliminate mere conceptual scheme "copy-cats" of Christianity)?
“What is presuppositionalism without . . . TAG?”
ReplyDeleteHmm . . . the Scripturalism of Gordon Clark.
Thanks for trying to explain it S&S, that explains why quadrune rather than a 4 membered pantheon was being argued.
ReplyDeletehey Sean,
ReplyDeleteGlad to see you're a John Frame fan now, what, after you called him a heretic -n- all.
He isn't a TAGster, but he's a presuppositionalist. Guess you think the anti-hero is a Clarkian now!
Oh, by the way, how do you know that presuppositionalism without TAG is Clarkianism? Can you deduce that from Scripture?
No?
Oh, it must be another one of your unjustified opinions.