Sorry, for this is not directly related to this particular post, but as a nonbeliever I am curious as to something. No offence but I believe this presuppositionalist technique of yours is just a trick to avoid criticism of your religion, and I noticed that you start by forcing your opponent to what you call the denying of a neutral ground, and force him to accept a language of "worldviews" or "paradigms". At this point I want to ask, does your "worldview" talk assume a coherentist epistemology? If so, why are you forcing your opponent to assume coherentism is true before even beginning the debate?
Of the T-bloggers who do the most apologetic writing (Jason, Peter, Paul, and me), we generally pursue a 4-pronged approach: (i) we often answer the unbeliever on his own grounds and (ii) we often challenge the unbeliever to justify his methods and assumptions.
Moreover, we do not simply defect attacks on the Christian faith by raising objections to the unbeliever's own position; rather, we answer objections to our own position quite directly, (i) both in rebutting objections (ii) and in defending our own methods and assumptions.
Furthermore, one doesn't have to be a coherentist to have a worldview or paradigm. Both believers and unbelievers operate with paradigms. That's the point. So it's frequently necessary to examine the presuppositional underpinnings of the unbeliever's argument.
That's not the only arrow in our quiver, but it's a legitimate line of inquiry.
So none of what you've said is an accurate description of what any of the T-bloggers do in our debates with various unbelievers.
I respect your philosophical knowledge, and I see how you exploit problems of philosophy to constantly remind atheists that science is far from being complete and we shouldn't pretend to have found answers to everything.
But don't you think that, by simply attacking naturalism and physicalism you cannot prove Christianity true? Don't you think that in the end you have to argue for Christianity through historical arguments, because the core beliefs of Christianity are historical things that supposedly happened, such as Jesus' resurrection?
Ive been reading posts on Triablogue for quite a while now and the posts range from philosophical, theological, and historical arguments FOR Christianity to philosophical, theological, and historical arguments AGAINST the opposing viewpoints.
When it comes to supporting their beliefs and challenging other worldviews the T-bloggers have done an extensive array of work.
"But don't you think that, by simply attacking naturalism and physicalism you cannot prove Christianity true?"
We don't primarily attack naturalism (and physicalism) to prove that Christianity is true. We primarily attack naturalism to point out problems in naturalism. The fact that, say, naturalism is found wanting in logic and consistency is primarily a problem for naturalists. And the fact that these problems may lead the naturalist to question naturalism and perhaps consider other possibilities is a step towards some of the claims of Christianity (e.g. theism). But my point is that this is an indirect result at best, and not necessarily the main reason we attack naturalism in the first place.
"Don't you think that in the end you have to argue for Christianity through historical arguments, because the core beliefs of Christianity are historical things that supposedly happened, such as Jesus' resurrection?"
As Steve has pointed out, "historical arguments" are not the only line of argument in support of Christianity.
That said, indeed, Christianity is historically true in a way that, for example, other religions are not. Take away Buddha, that is, say he never existed in the first place; it doesn't necessarily take away from Buddhism. According to Muslims, Allah could have revealed the Koran to anyone he chose; he happened to pick Muhammed. However, with Christianity, it is true that the historical claims of Christ's life, death, and resurrection are central to Christianity. Take away Christ and there is no Christianity. The Apostle Paul said as much in 1 Corinthians 15.
But there is a tremendous amount of historical evidence for Christ -- who he was and is, what he came to do, etc.
More to the point, there is a tremendous amount of historical evidence for the reliability of the Bible.
And yes we believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God. But, again, we have reasons for our belief. These reasons include historical arguments as well as philosophical ones and others.
And it goes without saying that the unbeliever must make a case for his system of beliefs, etc.
“I respect your philosophical knowledge, and I see how you exploit problems of philosophy to constantly remind atheists that science is far from being complete and we shouldn't pretend to have found answers to everything.”
To begin with, the problem cuts deeper than that. It isn’t just a question of secular science having incomplete, naturalistic answers:
1.In some cases, like consciousness, we’re dealing with a phenomenon that belongs to a different domain than physical objects. So this will never be reducible to a physical substrate.
2.There are a number of scientists who argue that the scientific evidence we already have runs contrary to naturalism. So it’s not just an issue of insufficient evidence for naturalism, but contrary evidence. Not the mere absence of complete evidence for naturalism, but the presence of positive counterevidence.
3.Secular science operates with certain unprovable and ultimately circular assumptions. So the problem, once again, is not with having an incomplete, naturalistic explanation. Rather, even if you had a globally complete naturalistic explanation, that would still be underdetermined by the evidence since it is only as good as the question-begging, metascientific assumptions that underwrite the construct.
4. Apropos (3), there are metascientific debates over the ontological status of physical “laws,” metascientific debates over the truth-value of scientific theories, and so on. So this isn’t just an issue of incomplete naturalistic explanations.
5.There is also the ancient and perennial issue of the relation between appearance and reality or the veil of perception. The question at issue is not the incomplete state of the evidence, or incomplete reductive explanations, but our indirect and filtered epistemic access to the external world.
“But don't you think that, by simply attacking naturalism and physicalism you cannot prove Christianity true? Don't you think that in the end you have to argue for Christianity through historical arguments, because the core beliefs of Christianity are historical things that supposedly happened, such as Jesus' resurrection?”
i) Just for starters, even if that’s all we did (which it isn’t), showing the inadequacy of the rival positions is still an important step in narrowing the field of viable options.
ii) But we don’t simply attack the opposing position. We do present historical arguments for the Christian faith, such as the Resurrection. I, for one, did a lot of that in my review of The Empty Tomb. This is also one major foci of Jason’s apologetic.
"But don't you think that, by simply attacking naturalism and physicalism you cannot prove Christianity true?"
Hi Mike,
Though this would depend on what you mean by "prove true," quite frequently people can attack, debunk, or argue against an opposing view. This ends up as positive points for the other view for various reasons. Many times in debate, the two debaters are each assuming that thie rrespective worldviews are the only game in town, i.e., naturalism vs. supernaturalism. The naturalist is assuming that Islam isn't true, Mormonism, Zoroastroism, etc. And the Christian assumes the same. Thus the debate would look like this:
A v B
~B
:. A
(that is A or B, not B, therefore A).
And, as has been pointed out above, we do not *simply* attack physicalism and naturalism. We have attacked Islam, Buddhism, Sweddenborgism, and even the Flying Spaghetti Monster. :-)
" Don't you think that in the end you have to argue for Christianity through historical arguments, because the core beliefs of Christianity are historical things that supposedly happened, such as Jesus' resurrection?"
But this is a false dichotomy. Many times the "historical things" said to happen are reject *precisely* because of naturalistic presuppositions. As C.S. Lewis has pointed out (and certainly he's no "presuppositionalist" in any moder, technical sense), the question of the very *possibility* of the miraculous must be settled before an argument or proof of a supernatural event can be accepted. Since the Naturalist rejects, a priori, the very possibility of the supernatural, then the philosophical arguments against naturalism are part and parcel to any historical argument from a miracle. Indeed, Kai Neilson even claimed that if J.P. Morelnad was right about Jesus resurrecting, so what? Maybe there's a naturalistic explanation for this even and in time and with science we will figure this out. Not to say that that's a good position, or argument, it does illustrate what I claimed above.
I'll just add in my $0.02, which after inflation, will cost about $7.83. (By the way, I also think the Triabloguers should get a 10% raise to go with the minimum wage increases suggested by Congress...)
Naturally, I agree with the others that "attacking naturalism" is not the only thing that we do. In fact, I recently provided a positive argument for theism in general based on the acceptance of logic. However, it is true that most of what I write is in response to others, and as such it take the the "negative" approach.
Why do I spend so much time on the negative aspects? Frankly because I'm dealing with atheists. It comes about from my apologetic method before I knew what a "presuppositionalist" was.
I've always enjoyed talking with atheists. Some Christians that I know are "geared" toward others--a lot of my friends enjoy debating Roman Catholics, for instance. I can, and have, done that too. But what I really enjoy is talking with atheists, digging into the presuppositions involved, etc. I've always enjoyed this examination of fundamental principals (perhaps it's why I enjoy geometry with it's systematic proofs and axioms too). And even more fun for me is the simple thought experiments that run along the lines of "What would happen if this were true instead of that?"
So, while still in high school and debating atheists in my class, I began to develop my "technique." If atheist presuppositions were true, what would be the logical result? I would then think it through and see how it "cashed out." While I didn't know it at the time, this was a presuppositional method, refered to by folks like Greg Koukl (who is not a presuppositionalist, but who respects this method) as "taking the roof off" a claim.
Secondly is the fact that atheists often couch their atheism in terms of the negative. Their claim is, "We're not advancing a positive argument; we're simply rejecting your position." However, when someone "takes the roof off" of that claim, you see that the atheist actually is making many positive claims when he denies the existence of God. At it's most simplistic, the atheist is arguing that the natural world must have some of the fundamental attributes that theists say God has (namely: self-existence, omnipotence, omnipresence--see my above-linked post for more on why this necessarily follows). But can the atheist consistently argue that nature does have these "divine" attributes, especially when most atheists never consider what must necessarily be true if there is no God?
This, to me, is a very valid point to press. And no, it doesn't result in "If ~atheism, then Christianity." But ultimately it does result in ~atheism, because the atheist must acknowledge at the bare minimum that the universe itself must have divine traits (which could be as simple as embracing deism).
Naturally, I could argue against deism too; but since atheists are not yet deists that would be putting the cart before the horse.
My apologetic method is a step-wise method. I begin by showing the atheist that his current view is untenable even if it were true. This self-inconsistency would require a rational person to change his views to something other than atheism. At that point, my positive evidence for Christianity becomes relevant. But in most instances, presenting the postive case for Christianity before demonstrating the bankruptcy of the opposing view is less productive (after all, why would the atheist consider the positive view for Christianity if he thought his current viewpoint was valid?).
This is really no different than the position I take. It is certainly possible that another self-consistent worldview that I have never heard of may be out there that could answer all the things that Christianity answers; but why should I reject that which is already consistent and already explains everything, on the bare hope (read: faith) that something else might be out there that would likewise explain it? Such would be irrational. I don't expect the atheist, who is convinced of his atheism, to think differently. He must first see the error of his atheism before he'll look at the positive arguments for Christianity.
Sorry, for this is not directly related to this particular post, but as a nonbeliever I am curious as to something. No offence but I believe this presuppositionalist technique of yours is just a trick to avoid criticism of your religion, and I noticed that you start by forcing your opponent to what you call the denying of a neutral ground, and force him to accept a language of "worldviews" or "paradigms". At this point I want to ask, does your "worldview" talk assume a coherentist epistemology? If so, why are you forcing your opponent to assume coherentism is true before even beginning the debate?
ReplyDelete--Mike
Of the T-bloggers who do the most apologetic writing (Jason, Peter, Paul, and me), we generally pursue a 4-pronged approach: (i) we often answer the unbeliever on his own grounds and (ii) we often challenge the unbeliever to justify his methods and assumptions.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, we do not simply defect attacks on the Christian faith by raising objections to the unbeliever's own position; rather, we answer objections to our own position quite directly, (i) both in rebutting objections (ii) and in defending our own methods and assumptions.
Furthermore, one doesn't have to be a coherentist to have a worldview or paradigm. Both believers and unbelievers operate with paradigms. That's the point. So it's frequently necessary to examine the presuppositional underpinnings of the unbeliever's argument.
That's not the only arrow in our quiver, but it's a legitimate line of inquiry.
So none of what you've said is an accurate description of what any of the T-bloggers do in our debates with various unbelievers.
I respect your philosophical knowledge, and I see how you exploit problems of philosophy to constantly remind atheists that science is far from being complete and we shouldn't pretend to have found answers to everything.
ReplyDeleteBut don't you think that, by simply attacking naturalism and physicalism you cannot prove Christianity true? Don't you think that in the end you have to argue for Christianity through historical arguments, because the core beliefs of Christianity are historical things that supposedly happened, such as Jesus' resurrection?
Ive been reading posts on Triablogue for quite a while now and the posts range from philosophical, theological, and historical arguments FOR Christianity to philosophical, theological, and historical arguments AGAINST the opposing viewpoints.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to supporting their beliefs and challenging other worldviews the T-bloggers have done an extensive array of work.
Mike said:
ReplyDelete"But don't you think that, by simply attacking naturalism and physicalism you cannot prove Christianity true?"
We don't primarily attack naturalism (and physicalism) to prove that Christianity is true. We primarily attack naturalism to point out problems in naturalism. The fact that, say, naturalism is found wanting in logic and consistency is primarily a problem for naturalists. And the fact that these problems may lead the naturalist to question naturalism and perhaps consider other possibilities is a step towards some of the claims of Christianity (e.g. theism). But my point is that this is an indirect result at best, and not necessarily the main reason we attack naturalism in the first place.
"Don't you think that in the end you have to argue for Christianity through historical arguments, because the core beliefs of Christianity are historical things that supposedly happened, such as Jesus' resurrection?"
As Steve has pointed out, "historical arguments" are not the only line of argument in support of Christianity.
That said, indeed, Christianity is historically true in a way that, for example, other religions are not. Take away Buddha, that is, say he never existed in the first place; it doesn't necessarily take away from Buddhism. According to Muslims, Allah could have revealed the Koran to anyone he chose; he happened to pick Muhammed. However, with Christianity, it is true that the historical claims of Christ's life, death, and resurrection are central to Christianity. Take away Christ and there is no Christianity. The Apostle Paul said as much in 1 Corinthians 15.
But there is a tremendous amount of historical evidence for Christ -- who he was and is, what he came to do, etc.
More to the point, there is a tremendous amount of historical evidence for the reliability of the Bible.
And yes we believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God. But, again, we have reasons for our belief. These reasons include historical arguments as well as philosophical ones and others.
And it goes without saying that the unbeliever must make a case for his system of beliefs, etc.
Speaking of which, for starters, you might want to check out Steve's two-part series "Why I Believe": Part 1: A Positive Apologetic and Part 2: I'm Glad You Asked!.
MIKE SAID:
ReplyDelete“I respect your philosophical knowledge, and I see how you exploit problems of philosophy to constantly remind atheists that science is far from being complete and we shouldn't pretend to have found answers to everything.”
To begin with, the problem cuts deeper than that. It isn’t just a question of secular science having incomplete, naturalistic answers:
1.In some cases, like consciousness, we’re dealing with a phenomenon that belongs to a different domain than physical objects. So this will never be reducible to a physical substrate.
2.There are a number of scientists who argue that the scientific evidence we already have runs contrary to naturalism. So it’s not just an issue of insufficient evidence for naturalism, but contrary evidence. Not the mere
absence of complete evidence for naturalism, but the presence of positive counterevidence.
3.Secular science operates with certain unprovable and ultimately circular assumptions. So the problem, once again, is not with having an incomplete, naturalistic explanation. Rather, even if you had a globally complete naturalistic explanation, that would still be underdetermined by the evidence since it is only as good as the question-begging, metascientific assumptions that underwrite the construct.
4. Apropos (3), there are metascientific debates over the ontological status of physical “laws,” metascientific debates over the truth-value of scientific theories, and so on. So this isn’t just an issue of incomplete naturalistic explanations.
5.There is also the ancient and perennial issue of the relation between appearance and reality or the veil of perception. The question at issue is not the incomplete state of the evidence, or incomplete reductive explanations, but our indirect and filtered epistemic access to the external world.
“But don't you think that, by simply attacking naturalism and physicalism you cannot prove Christianity true? Don't you think that in the end you have to argue for Christianity through historical arguments, because the core beliefs of Christianity are historical things that supposedly happened, such as Jesus' resurrection?”
i) Just for starters, even if that’s all we did (which it isn’t), showing the inadequacy of the rival positions is still an important step in narrowing the field of viable options.
ii) But we don’t simply attack the opposing position. We do present historical arguments for the Christian faith, such as the Resurrection. I, for one, did a lot of that in my review of The Empty Tomb. This is also one major foci of Jason’s apologetic.
Hi Mike,
ReplyDelete"But don't you think that, by simply attacking naturalism and physicalism you cannot prove Christianity true?"
Hi Mike,
Though this would depend on what you mean by "prove true," quite frequently people can attack, debunk, or argue against an opposing view. This ends up as positive points for the other view for various reasons. Many times in debate, the two debaters are each assuming that thie rrespective worldviews are the only game in town, i.e., naturalism vs. supernaturalism. The naturalist is assuming that Islam isn't true, Mormonism, Zoroastroism, etc. And the Christian assumes the same. Thus the debate would look like this:
A v B
~B
:. A
(that is A or B, not B, therefore A).
And, as has been pointed out above, we do not *simply* attack physicalism and naturalism. We have attacked Islam, Buddhism, Sweddenborgism, and even the Flying Spaghetti Monster. :-)
" Don't you think that in the end you have to argue for Christianity through historical arguments, because the core beliefs of Christianity are historical things that supposedly happened, such as Jesus' resurrection?"
But this is a false dichotomy. Many times the "historical things" said to happen are reject *precisely* because of naturalistic presuppositions. As C.S. Lewis has pointed out (and certainly he's no "presuppositionalist" in any moder, technical sense), the question of the very *possibility* of the miraculous must be settled before an argument or proof of a supernatural event can be accepted. Since the Naturalist rejects, a priori, the very possibility of the supernatural, then the philosophical arguments against naturalism are part and parcel to any historical argument from a miracle. Indeed, Kai Neilson even claimed that if J.P. Morelnad was right about Jesus resurrecting, so what? Maybe there's a naturalistic explanation for this even and in time and with science we will figure this out. Not to say that that's a good position, or argument, it does illustrate what I claimed above.
I'll just add in my $0.02, which after inflation, will cost about $7.83. (By the way, I also think the Triabloguers should get a 10% raise to go with the minimum wage increases suggested by Congress...)
ReplyDeleteNaturally, I agree with the others that "attacking naturalism" is not the only thing that we do. In fact, I recently provided a positive argument for theism in general based on the acceptance of logic. However, it is true that most of what I write is in response to others, and as such it take the the "negative" approach.
Why do I spend so much time on the negative aspects? Frankly because I'm dealing with atheists. It comes about from my apologetic method before I knew what a "presuppositionalist" was.
I've always enjoyed talking with atheists. Some Christians that I know are "geared" toward others--a lot of my friends enjoy debating Roman Catholics, for instance. I can, and have, done that too. But what I really enjoy is talking with atheists, digging into the presuppositions involved, etc. I've always enjoyed this examination of fundamental principals (perhaps it's why I enjoy geometry with it's systematic proofs and axioms too). And even more fun for me is the simple thought experiments that run along the lines of "What would happen if this were true instead of that?"
So, while still in high school and debating atheists in my class, I began to develop my "technique." If atheist presuppositions were true, what would be the logical result? I would then think it through and see how it "cashed out." While I didn't know it at the time, this was a presuppositional method, refered to by folks like Greg Koukl (who is not a presuppositionalist, but who respects this method) as "taking the roof off" a claim.
Secondly is the fact that atheists often couch their atheism in terms of the negative. Their claim is, "We're not advancing a positive argument; we're simply rejecting your position." However, when someone "takes the roof off" of that claim, you see that the atheist actually is making many positive claims when he denies the existence of God. At it's most simplistic, the atheist is arguing that the natural world must have some of the fundamental attributes that theists say God has (namely: self-existence, omnipotence, omnipresence--see my above-linked post for more on why this necessarily follows). But can the atheist consistently argue that nature does have these "divine" attributes, especially when most atheists never consider what must necessarily be true if there is no God?
This, to me, is a very valid point to press. And no, it doesn't result in "If ~atheism, then Christianity." But ultimately it does result in ~atheism, because the atheist must acknowledge at the bare minimum that the universe itself must have divine traits (which could be as simple as embracing deism).
Naturally, I could argue against deism too; but since atheists are not yet deists that would be putting the cart before the horse.
My apologetic method is a step-wise method. I begin by showing the atheist that his current view is untenable even if it were true. This self-inconsistency would require a rational person to change his views to something other than atheism. At that point, my positive evidence for Christianity becomes relevant. But in most instances, presenting the postive case for Christianity before demonstrating the bankruptcy of the opposing view is less productive (after all, why would the atheist consider the positive view for Christianity if he thought his current viewpoint was valid?).
This is really no different than the position I take. It is certainly possible that another self-consistent worldview that I have never heard of may be out there that could answer all the things that Christianity answers; but why should I reject that which is already consistent and already explains everything, on the bare hope (read: faith) that something else might be out there that would likewise explain it? Such would be irrational. I don't expect the atheist, who is convinced of his atheism, to think differently. He must first see the error of his atheism before he'll look at the positive arguments for Christianity.