Mirror, mirror, on the wall

i) One objection to a timeless Creator is that causes precede effects. But is that necessarily the case? For instance, when I stand in front of a mirror, I cause my reflection to move. But is there a temporal delay between my action and the corresponding image in the mirror? It appears to be simultaneous or instantaneous. 

Perhaps, from the standpoint of physics, there's an indetectable delay in the transmission of light from my body to the reflection. However, I'm not sure if that's the case. Given the speed of light compared to the distance between my body and the mirror, is there a measurable delay?

That raises the question of whether a light beam is a continuously dense stream. Is the transmission of light infinitely divisible into ever smaller intervals? By contrast, what if is light granular, so that below a certain scale or threshold, there are no intervals? This goes to the famous particle/wave duality in physics. Admittedly, in this example, cause and effect both take place in time, so it's not strictly analogous to a timeless Creator, but I'm just addressing the specific objection that causes necessarily precede their effects. 

ii) Parenthetically, this example illustrates the limitations of empiricism. Does the reflection cause me to move or do I cause the reflection to move? Does my shadow cause me to move or do I cause my shadow to move? We intuitively understand that there's a relation of asymmetrical dependence, but that's not given in the phenomenon of reflected motion. To judge by appearances, it might be symmetrical or it might be the case that my shadow causes me to move! 

Imagine a science fiction story in which the motion of the shadow or reflection is primary while your corresponding motion is secondary! You move because the image in the mirror made you move in his direction! The shadow makes you move in tandem with the shadow! 

iii) Although that's backwards in physical reality, there's a sense in which, in relation to predestination, I'm the man in the mirror. What I do is a direct reflection of God's plan. I'm the shadow cast by God's light. 

The guarantor

Commenting on geocentrism, van Inwagen says:

Why did the medievals believe this? Well, because that's how things felt (the earth beneath our feet feels as if it were not moving) and that's how things looked. Today we know that the astronomical system accepted by the medievals–and by the ancient Greeks from whom the medievals inherited it–is wrong. We know that the medievals, and the Greeks before them, were derived by appearances. We know that while the solid earth beneath our feet may seem to be stationary, it in fact rotates on its axis once every twenty-four hours. (Of course, we also know that it resolves around the sun, but let's consider only its rotation on its axis). Now suppose you were standing on a merry-go-round and were wearing a blindfold. Would you be able to tell whether the merry-go-round was turning or stationary? Certainly you would: passengers on a turning merry-go-round feel vibration and the rush of moving air and, in certain circumstances, a hard-to-describe sort of "pulling." (This last will be very evident to someone who tries to walk toward or away from the center of a turning merry-go-round. These effects provide the "cues," other than visual cues, that we employ in everyday life to tell whether we are undergoing some sort of circular motion. The medievals and the ancient Greeks assumed that because they did not experience these cues when they were standing or walking about on the surface of the earth, the earth was therefore not rotating. Today we can see their mistake. "Passengers" on the earth do not experience vibration because the earth is spinning freely in what is essentially a vacuum. When they move about on the surface of the earth, they do not experience the "pulling" referred to above because this effect, though present, is not sufficiently great to be detectable by the unaided senses. And they do not experience a rush of moving air because the air is carried along with the moving surface of the earth and is thus moving relative to them.  

This example shows that it is sometimes possible to "get behind" the appearances the world presents us with and to discover how things really are: we have discovered that the earth is really rotating, despite the fact that it is apparently stationary….We talk about reality only when there is a misleading appearance to be "got behind" or "seen through". P. van Inwagen, Metaphysics (Westview Press, 4th ed, 2015), 2-3.

1. This raises a number of philosophically and theologically significant issues. To begin with, there are different kinds of realism–or should I say, realisms?

For instance, I might be a metaphysical realist about material reality. I believe there's a material reality that's causing my sensations. Yet I might be an epistemological antirealist if I'm skeptical about what can be known regarding the material reality that's causing my sensations. 

Likewise, I might be a metaphysical realist about immaterial reality. I might believe in mental entities, viz. God, angels, souls, abstract objects. (I classify these as mental entities.) And I might be an epistemological realist about what can be know regarding immaterial reality. That's because, if immaterial reality is knowable, the source of knowledge is different than in the case of material reality. In the case of material reality, the source of knowledge is sensory perception, whereas, in the case of immaterial reality, the source of knowledge is reason and revelation. Inference, intuition, and divine disclosure. 

2. Up to a point, I agree with Inwagen. Metaphysically speaking, it isn't appearances all the way down. Something objective is producing the appearances.

In addition, I agree with Inwagen that there can be cues which indicate that appearances don't tell the whole story. That, however, is different from the claim that we can get behind appearances to discover reality. Epistemologically speaking, it may be appearances all the way down.

For instance, a colored object has a different appearance if I'm color blind. Likewise, creatures have different kinds of color vision.

The same physical object (i.e. organism) will have a different appearance if seen by infrared vision. In that case we're seeing heat signatures.

And that's just on the surface. It will have a different appearance if seen through an MRI or electron microscope.

3. Another complication is that Inwagen is using sensory perception to correct sensory perception. That's unavoidable, but it raises the specter of circularity. What makes one set of sensory perceptions the benchmark for assessing another set of sensory perceptions? One justification might be that some sensory perceptions have more explanatory value. They point to an underlying cause or mechanism. 

4. There is, though, perhaps an even deeper issue. Consider an illustration. I can photograph a tree with a (digital) cellphone camera, then send that image to someone else. I don't know the technicalities, but I assume the image is encoded as electronic information, transmitted in that encoded form, then decoded at the other end. There's built-in software that retranslates the encoded image so that the recipient sees the same image as the sender.

Indeed, you could have two people standing side-by-side. They can directly compare the original image with the transmitted image. And the two images exactly match. 

We might say that's analogous to sensory perception, when our mental representation matches the sensible object. Or is it?

Suppose we approach this from the standpoint of naturalism. How is it possible for a mindless, nonpurposive process to create a coded transmission system in which the output matches the input? That's completely unlike my example, in which a camera is designed to produce as accurate visual reproduction. In which technology is designed to produce a matching image at the receiving end of the transmission. In which designers can compare the original with the output to ensure that the translation software decodes the information to yield a matching image. 

5. A naturalist might counter that if there's a mismatch between input and output, then organisms which depend on sensory perception won't survive. If, say, gazelles misperceive leopards, gazelles will become extinct. There are, however, problems with that explanation:

i) According to Darwinism (e.g. David Raup), 99.9% of species that ever existed have, in fact, become extinct. So that appeal seems to be self-defeating.

ii) Even if survival does depend on that correspondence, and even if survival provides evidence for the success of that correspondence, it doesn't follow that this is explicable on naturalistic grounds.

iii) Does survival depend on that correspondence? Consider an illustration. You produce piano music by depressing certain keys on the piano, simultaneously or in a particular sequence. But the music bears no resemblance to the keyboard. 

Rather, there's a causal correlation between depressing certain keys and producing certain sounds. By the same token, what if sensory perception operates on a similar principle? The mental representation might be very different than what produces the mental representation, but so long as these are systematically aligned in a cause/effect relation, an organism might be successfully responsive to its environment. 

6. Finally, who or what is the guarantor that sensory perception is reliable? Without God, there's no presumption that the input and output can even match up or at least correlate (4-5).

An atheist might say that cuts both ways: how can a theist rule out the Cartesian demon?

However, these are asymmetrical alternatives. On the one hand there's the indemonstrable possibility that God designed sensory perception to deceive us. On the other hand there's the demonstrable impossibility that sensory perception is reliable unless God designed it. 

Living dogs and dead lions

4 But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. 5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten (Eccl 9:4-5).

This is a prooftext for annihilationism. But bracketing other objections, a basic problem with that interpretation is that it fails to take the epistemological viewpoint of the narrator into account. A common refrain in Ecclesiastes is the narrator's appeal to what he saw, viz. Eccl 2:13,24; 3:16,22; 4:1,4,7,15; 8:9-10,17; 9:11. So he's speaking from experience. His statements and generalizations are literally observations. 

What he says is true from that perspective. And that accounts for the pessimism and cynicism which pervades the book. If you judge the world by appearances, then reality is pretty depressing. 

But that frame of reference, while true insofar as it goes, has decided limitations. There's more to reality than meets the eye. Existence doesn't begin and end with the physical and sensory dimension of existence. Empirical knowledge is informative and indispensable within the inherent limitations of empirical knowledge. That's just a sample of reality. 

The annihilationist interpretation overlooks the epistemological reference frame of the narrator. Throughout the book, he is speaking from the standpoint of an observer. Judging by appearances. By this life. 

McGrew on Van Til

Timothy McGrew recently raised some fundamental objections to Cornelius Van Til:

In his Christian Theistic Evidences, Van Til spends several chapters critiquing a broadly evidentialist methodology of the kind I endorse, using Butler's Analogy of Religion as a foil:

Hume's empiricism was far more critical and consistent than that of Butler. We proceed to see what happens to the conception of probability on the basis of Hume's empiricism. If all knowledge is based upon experience, and experience is interpreted without the presupposition of the "Author of nature" as Hume claims it is, we cannot expect that one thing rather than another will happen in the future. From the point of view of logic, one thing as well as another might take place in the future.

As for reported miracles, Van Til claims that Hume undermined the credibility of miracle reports chiefly by showing that, on empiricist grounds, "there is no reason to think that a God who could work miracles can be proved to exist." In particular, according to Van Til, Hume demolished the empirical arguments–cosmological and teleological–for the existence of God in his Dialogues concerning Natural Religion…For anyone who, like Van Til, has fallen under the spell of the great Scottish skeptic and acquiesced in these melancholy conclusions, I have good news. Hume was wrong. He was wrong about inductive inference and his critique of induction, influential as it was, displays the poverty of his own understanding of probable inference. He was wrong in the objections he raised against the credibility of reported miracles and was resoundingly refuted on this subject by his own contemporaries, as even some modern agnostics have realized…[Hume] is mired in a deductivist framework... Four Views on Christianity and Philosophy, 108-09.

i) I agree with McGrew that Hume was wrong. However, it seems to me that in this instance, his objection to Van Til rests on a misinterpretation of Van Til. At least to judge by what he quoted, Van Til isn't making a statement about empiricism in general or empiricism per se, but naturalistic empiricism, which reduces everything to contingency. Van Til is remarking on what happens when you take empiricism to a logical extreme after denying the Creator. 

ii) In addition, although I myself affirm sense knowledge, it's dubious whether sensory perception alone is an adequate basis of knowledge. I think sense knowledge has to be supplemented. 

McGrew continues:

When someone starts out on the wrong foot, as I believe Van Til has done by his concessions to Hume, it is not surprising that problems tend to resurface throughout his philosophical system. To pick just one illustration, Oliphint quotes with apparent approval Van Tils' criticism of the non-Christian for whom

the law of contradiction is, like all other laws, something that does not find its ultimate source in the creative activity of God.

I find this sort of radical logical positivism unintelligible. I have no idea what it would even mean for what is logically possible and impossible to be the result of a creative act of God; the very notion of action seems to presuppose distinctions between actor and action that are intelligible only in terms of fundamental principles of logic. Ibid. 109-110.

Here McGrew seems to be on firmer ground. Van Til's statement about logic, in the passage quoted, does indeed appear to be nonsensical. 

McGrew goes on to say:

It is painful to have to point out things like this, since Van Til has inspired so many ardent and loyal disciples. But in my view, deep problems pervade almost every aspect of Van Til's thought–his epistemology, his history of philosophy, his description of the position of non-Christians, and his exegesis of Scripture. It is my considered opinion that there is no point in trying to correct his system pice by piece. One must simply start over on very different principles. Ibid. 110. 

Whether that's true or false would depend on McGrew successfully elaborating his allegations. I myself use different philosophers for different spare parts.

McGrew has his own package. I don't think we have to take it or leave it. We can disassemble the package and select some choice spare parts which we combine with spare parts from other thinkers. 

Sources of knowledge

A correspondent recently asked me some questions about epistemology. Here's the exchange:

I just want to know if you are a coherentist or foundationalist ? Do you believe that the coherent system corresponds to the world?

Coherence applies to a system of internal relations. Where all truths are necessary truths. There are no contingent facts. Nothing which could have been otherwise. 

I don't believe that all relations are internal relations. There are truths of reason and truths of fact. These sometimes intersect, but they don't coincide. 

I don't think the world is reducible to facts entailing other facts, where every fact is logically deducible from other facts. 

Things could have gone differently, had God decreed differently. 

Do you think a Christian with a coherentist view can justify realism? What is your view of bonjour's doxastic presumption popularized by bonjour? What do you think is more biblical and rational internalism o externalism?

i) I'd begin by reframing the discussion. If dualism is true in metaphysics, then it makes sense for dualism to be true in epistemology. If reality consists of abstract objects and concrete objects, then it's logical to have two different sources of knowledge corresponding to their respective objects of knowledge inasmuch as these occupy different domains. Intuition for abstract objects like math, logic, and morals, and sense knowledge for concrete phenomena (i.e. physical objects, events). 

ii) This isn't strictly compartmentalized. To the contrary, they often intersect. To paraphrase Kant, universals without particulars are empty while particulars without universals are blind. Fact and value are mutually interpretive. An example would be counting quarters. Suppose I have six quarters. Unless I have a preconception of numerical relations, I don't see how viewing quarters enables me to bootstrap the concept of six, which I then use to number the quarters. I must have the concept before I can use it. I can't derive the concept from sensibles, then turn right around and apply it to the sensibles. 

So I regard rationalism and empiricism as half-truths. 

iii) I find internalism implausible. To take a stock example, I don't see how a young child can satisfies the conditions of knowledge on that account, like knowing his mother's voice or face. Yet surely he does. 

But perhaps that merely exposes a limitation of internalism. Maybe it's a mistake to demand a single theory of epistemic justification which will cover all cases. 

In general, I find reliablism more plausible. But, of course, philosophy being what it is, none of the available positions escapes criticism. 

iv) I think both internalism and externalism are underdetermined by the witness of Scripture. Scripture clearly affirms sense knowledge (Clarkian exegesis notwithstanding), but that falls short of empiricism. 

As I discussed in my post, I think both internalism or externalism can be made to work within a robust theological framework of meticulous providence. At that level, they may be phenomenologically equivalent. If so, then we lack an objective standpoint or independent evidence to adjudicate which one is true. 

Secular epistemologies, including theories of epistemic justification, omit considering theological factors like revelation and providence. I think these can shore up what's lacking in secular epistemologies.

Of course, in another sense, that pushes the question back a step. How are we warranted in believing revelation? Here I think transcendental theism is helpful. 

Harsh Realm

I’m beginning to wonder if certain SF scenarios aren’t fostering an irrational skepticism among some believers and unbelievers. In SF scenarios like The Matrix, Harsh Realm, and Dark City, most of the human inhabitants are systematically deluded about the real world. Does this mean that you and I can be thoroughly deluded about the external world?

There are several problems with that inference:

i) Even in these SF scenarios, there is a real world. An objective, extramental world outside the subjective illusion.

ii) The ability to imagine delusive thought-experiments doesn’t mean that you can actually be deluded about the external world. Rather, that only means you can imagine yourself to be deluded about the external world.

I can imagine many things. I can imagine that I’m Superman. Does that mean I can be Superman?

iii) Finally, appeal to SF scenarios of this type is too one-sided. Yes, there are SF scenarios in which a person is fed false memories or virtual stimuli. And these are the only memories he ever had. That’s the only “world” he’s ever known.

But as SF buffs surely know, there are also SF scenarios in which we have the opposite phenomenon. For example, we have futuristic espionage scenarios in which an “asset” is kidnapped, sedated, and fed virtual stimuli.

In this virtual world, his actual memories remain intact. However, his actual memories are at odds with his virtual past.

The only way for him to escape is to divulge classified information to virtual characters–who seem utterly real. And the “escape” is, itself, a virtual illusion.

The point of this experiment is to make the asset doubt himself. He begins to question his memories. As a result, he starts to lower his resistance.

He would never voluntarily divulge classified information to an actual interrogator, but within the virtual world he’s no longer sure who he can trust or distrust–because he can no longer trust himself. Or so he thinks.

Although the asset begins to question everything he used to believe, that doesn’t alter the fact that he retains accurate memories of the real world. He doesn’t cease to know what the real world is like just because he begins to harbor doubts. It’s possible to doubt what you know–even though you know it.

Empiricism

Before he died, Gordon Clark published an article The Trinity Review in which he summarized his objections to empiricism.

http://www.trinityfoundation.org/PDF/068a-HowDoesManKnowGod.pdf

Let’s examine his objections:

"The theory of knowledge that presumably accords
best with common sense is the theory that we learn
by experience. We learn that bees sting and
rattlesnakes kill through our perceptions of pain.
We learn that roses are red and violets are blue by
the sensations of sight. All our knowledge comes
through sensations.”

That’s a straw man argument insofar as one doesn’t have to believe the senses are the source of all knowledge to believe the senses are the source of some knowledge. While empiricism entails sense-knowledge, sense-knowledge need not entail empiricism.

This distinction is important to keep in mind since Clarkians constantly conflate sense-knowledge with tabula rasa empiricism, then imagine that by disproving tabula rasa empiricism they thereby disprove sense-knowledge.

But it’s quite possible for a thinker to believe that some knowledge is innate while the senses mediate other kinds of knowledge. Indeed, these can be complementary positions.

For example, we can enumerate concrete objects because we enjoy an innate knowledge of math. At the same time, we don’t enjoy an innate knowledge of the concrete objects we enumerate. So you need both types of knowledge to complete the operation.

“However plausible this theory may be, it raises
some exceedingly difficult questions. For the
moment let us set aside the complexities in trying to
rise from fleeting sensations to the knowledge of the
incorporeal and eternal God. Instead, let us first
attend to the most simple parts of empiricism.”

He doesn’t bother to explain why that’s a problem. However, one of the standard theistic proofs treats what is fleeting as evidence for the need of something that isn’t fleeting to ground what is fleeting. So that’s not a problem belief in God. To the contrary, that’s an argument for God. What is fleeting is contingent. What is contingent is ultimately contingent on something that is necessary.

“Let us start with the red of a rose and the blue of a
violet. First, a description of sensation will show
that it does not give knowledge so readily as
common sense imagines. Not everybody sees roses
as red and violets as blue. There are some people
who we say are color blind, and there are degrees of
color blindness. It is difficult to tell what is color
blindness and what are color illusions. The real
color is very hard to settle upon. The condition of
the organ, the eye, a disease, temporary sickness, a
headache or extreme sensitivity change our color
sensations.”

How would a genetic defect like color blindness prevent color from being an object of knowledge? If you’re color-blind, the color of an object is not an object of knowledge for you, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be an object of knowledge for someone with normal vision.

Why would we delimit the scope of knowledge by reference to a genetic defect? By that token, would we also say the past can’t be an object of knowledge because some people suffer from senile dementia?

“Let me give you one little example. If you would
take a course in art, oil painting, you might take a
square of canvas and put some color paint on the
top half of it and another color on the bottom. It
could be red and blue or any two colors you wish
just so long as they’re different. And then after they
have dried, take a brush full of gray paint and just
bring it down vertically over the two parts of the
square and you will see that that one stroke of brush
has put two different colors on the canvas, the color
of the gray at the top is not the color of the gray at
the bottom half of the canvas. So the color that you
see depends on the background against which you
see it. And since there is always a background, you
never see anything as it is all by itself.”

Why does knowledge of color depend on seeing a color as it is “all by itself”? In the nature of the of the case, color perception involves the appearance of an object.

“I could also mention some optical illusions: the
Texas rancher who was sure he was seeing a mirage
and drove his pick-up truck into a lake.”

How could Clark identify an optical illusion in the first place if the senses are totally unreliable? To detect the difference between a mirage and a lake assumes the basic reliability of sensory perception.

“Some of my friendly opponents try to meet my argument against empiricism by claiming that I merely parrot the
ancient skeptics. I’m afraid of two things: The ancient skeptics didn’t know anything about Texas, and, in the second place, if I am parroting the ancient skeptics, that is not a sufficient answer to their arguments.”

i) True, but I just dealt with his example.

ii) To the extent that a Scripturalist is raising objections to sense-knowledge, he needs to limit himself to Scriptural objections. For a Scripturalist to raise extrascriptural objections to sense-knowledge would be self-defeating.

“Take one thing that certainly the ancients didn’t
know. Get a nice piece of bristle-board cardboard
and paint one-half of it with black India ink. Leave
the other half white and then put little swiggles of
black on the white half. Then get something that
will rotate at about 500 revolutions a minute, and
what color will you see? Will you see black? Will
you see gray? Well, if you haven’t done this
experiment I’m pretty sure you just don’t know. I’ll
tell you: You’ll see purple; you’ll see red; you’ll see
green; you’ll see some sort of brown. You will see
all these colors just from a mixture of black and
white, and this gives you considerable difficulty in
trying to say that you see the color of anything at all
or to paraphrase a little bit from Augustine, there is
nothing given (das Gegebenes, if you know the
German technical term), nothing given in sensation
without intellectual interpretation.”

i) Once again, color perception concerns the appearance of objects. Naturally the appearance of an object varies with the empirical conditions under which it’s viewed (e.g. background, lightening). That, however, doesn’t mean the color of an object can’t be known. Rather, an object will appear one way under certain conditions, and another way under different conditions.

For example, the apparent scale of a mountain is observer-relative. Mountains look smaller at a distance. Would we conclude from this fact that mountains have no objective size?

ii) The appearance of the object is still a determinate object of knowledge. The appearance varies with the determinants, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be known. While color perception has a subjective dimension, it also has an objective dimension. For instance, the composition of the surface will reflect or absorb certain wavelengths of the visible spectrum.

iii) Even at a subjective level, human beings are designed to register certain color qualia. Barring genetic defects (e.g. color-blindness) we share common qualia.

“And just to protect myself from these people who
think I’m as old as the Greek skeptics – I am getting
a little ancient, but I’m not quite 2,000 years old, I
guess I’m about 95 or something like that – but I
was traveling along the road from St. Louis to
Indianapolis on one occasion. This was before the
interstate was there, and as I looked ahead, I saw a
small truck standing by a barn. This was
approximately 1,500 or 2,000 feet ahead of me. And
it wasn’t a passenger car, it was a truck because the
front and the back were both vertical. There was the
truck standing by the barn. Now as we drove along
– and going at 75 m.p.h. you cover a few feet pretty
quickly – this truck suddenly became a mailbox on
a post. Now was it a truck or was it a mailbox?
Well, that depends on how far away from it you are.
And time forbids the multiplication of such
examples. Suffice it to say that they soon become
overwhelming. You have trouble with sensation.”

i) Now Clark is equivocating. He fails to distinguish between sensation and perception. He didn’t see a truck. He saw an ambiguous object–ambiguous due to the lack of visual resolution at that distance. He then interpreted what he saw as a truck. Perception involves an element of expectation.

ii) Moreover, Clark’s illustration is self-defeating since it ultimately depends on his ability to distinguish between what the object appeared to be at a distance, and what the object really was when he saw it close up. The comparison only works if he can distinguish between appearance and reality.

iii) Furthermore, as rational agents, human sensory perception was never meant to operate in isolation to human reason. Reason can correct for misperceptions. For example, M.C. Escher was fond of depicting optical illusions. We know these depictions are physically impossible. That’s part of their charm.

iv) Incidentally, isn’t it unethical for a man who denies sense-knowledge to get behind the wheel of a car? Given his denial of sense-knowledge, does Clark think there’s no difference between driving sober and driving drunk? Does Clark think it makes no difference which side of the road you drive on?

“In the second place, this empirical theory, after
making such a poor beginning with sensation,
requires a theory of images to account for the
retention of knowledge after the sensation has
stopped. When you talk about the sensation, when it
is gone, and you have an image that is retained,
there are other difficulties.”

i) Why that’s a difficulty, Clark doesn’t say. Does he mean reliance on memory is a difficulty, or reliance on remembered mental images in particular?

a) If the former, the rationalist has to rely on his own memory as well. For example, logical inference requires a recollection of the premise.

b) If the latter, what’s the problem? As long as my memory of what I saw (or heard or felt or tasted or smelled) corresponds to what I saw at the time, is there some additional problem?

ii) Why does Clark think empiricism or sense-knowledge depends on mental imagery, per se? It’s possible to remember that you saw something even if you don’t remember what you saw (in the sense of retaining a mental image of the event).

iii) Why does Clark restrict recollective mental representations to imagery? We can also have mental representations of auditory, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory sensations.

“If perception is an inference from sensation, and images follow the perception, how can one determine when the
inference is valid?”

This question is so wide-open that it’s hard to tell where he thinks the problem lies. I spot a snakeskin in my backyard. From this I infer the existence of a skin-shedding snake. What’s wrong with that inference?

“At one time, I inferred that I saw a truck. Another
time, a few minutes later, I inferred that I saw a
mailbox. But how do you tell whether either
inference is valid?”

But Clark himself tells us which is which. And he gives the reason. In this case, relative distance between the observer and the object was the differential factor. It also depends on visual acuity.

“And then in the second place, some people, especially scientists, not artists, but especially scientists, don’t have any images. And that’s a difficulty I don’t see how the empirical philosophy can ever overcome. They seem never to have thought of the existence of such people. Thomas Aquinas and David Hume, best known for their theories of images, just seem to believe that all people have images. But that isn’t so. There are some people, and I know one fairly well, who have no images at all.”

i) How is the absence of a particular sensation a difficulty that empiricism is supposed to overcome? Some men are blind. Some men are deaf. How does the inability of some individual to see or hear because they lack functional sense organs amount to an argument against the possibility of sense-knowledge for percipients who do enjoy normal sight or hearing?

Some males suffer from a birth defect known as aphallia or penile agenesis. Does this condition invalidate the science of andrology?

ii) How does deficient sensation in one sensory organ invalidate sense-knowledge generally? If you’re blind or color-blind, that doesn’t mean you can’t hear or touch or smell. And, as we know, different animals vary in their sensory aptitudes and acuities.

“Now, third, even for people who have visual or
auditory images, the formation of concepts by
abstraction, as Aristotle and Locke require, is
impossible for reasons I won’t go into. And if
Bishop Berkeley did nothing else, at least he clearly
showed that empiricism cannot allow or justify
abstract concepts.”

Since he won’t go into it, there’s nothing to refute.

i) Why can’t empiricism justify abstract concepts? Does he mean empiricism can’t justify abstract universals? But even if enumerative induction can’t justify a universal inference, that doesn’t mean you can’t form an abstract concept on the basis of enumerative induction. There’s a difference between an abstract concept and an abstract universal.

If I hear a clock chime four times in a row, I form the abstract concept that it’s four o’clock. Several elements go into the formation of that concept: memory; auditory perception; a concept of numerical relations.

Now, I happen to think that our knowledge of numerical relations is innate. I don’t think empiricism can account for mathematical knowledge.

But, as I’ve said before, belief in sense-knowledge doesn’t commit you to empiricism.

“My fourth objection to empiricism, and if you’ve
been counting them up, it may be the fortieth,
empiricism cannot produce norms of any kind. It
cannot produce moral and religious norms because
at the very best, empiricism can only tell you what
is. I don’t think it tells you even that little, but that
is all that empiricists can legitimately claim to do.
They cannot tell you what ought to be because you
cannot get an ought out of an is. And this applies
not only to moral and religious norms, but to the
very basic logical norms without which speech and
understanding would be impossible.”

That may well be true, but how is that an objection to sense-knowledge? Even if moral norms are either innate, revealed, or both, we must apply moral norms to sensory objects.

Consider the Biblical prohibition against theft. Suppose I own a red Alpha Romeo. Suppose my neighbor owns a yellow Alpha Romeo.

Differentiating the cars by color is one way of differentiating my property from his property. Suppose we both drive to the store. I park my car next to his.

Would Gordon Clark take the position that when I return from the store, I should pay no attention to the color of the car? If my neighbor left his keys in the car, does it make no moral difference whether I drive away with the yellow Alpha Romeo or the red Alpha Romeo?

Or do I have a moral obligation to distinguish my car from his on the basis of visual cues–like color?

“The argument is that every philosophy must have a
first principle, a first principle laid down
dogmatically. Empiricism itself requires a first non-
empirical principle. This is particularly obvious in
that most extreme form of empiricism called logical
positivism. To say that statements are nonsense
unless verifiable by sensation, is itself a statement
that cannot be verified by sensation. Observation
can never prove the reliability of observation. Since,
therefore, every philosophy must have its first
indemonstrable axiom, the secularists cannot deny
the right of Christianity to choose its own axiom.”

But if a Clarkian says you can’t know something unless you can account for something (i.e. give reasons), then an indemonstrable axiom can’t be known to be true.

If, therefore, we treat the Christian faith as an axiomatic system, we can’t know that it’s true. And there’s no reason to prefer it to a rival axiomatic system.

“The principle is sola Scriptura. This is a repudiation
of the notion that theology has several sources such
as the Bible, tradition, philosophy, science, religion,
or psychology. There is but one source, the
Scriptures. This is where truth is to be found. Under
the word truth there is included, in opposition to
irrationalism, logic and the law of contradiction.
Whatever contradicts itself is not truth. Truth must
be consistent, and it is clear that Scripture does not
both affirm and deny an atonement. God is truth.
Christ is the wisdom and Logos of God. And the
words he has spoken to us are spirit and are life.”

Several problems;

i) Given his denial of sense-knowledge, Clark needs to explain how the Bible can even be an object of knowledge.

ii) I don’t deny that truth excludes contradiction. However, notice that Clark made no attempt to exegete the law of contradiction from the Biblical concept of truth. You can’t simply read that off the occurrence of the word “truth” in Biblical usage. What Clark has really done is to begin with preconceived notion of what truth entails, then map that back onto the occurrence of the word in Scripture. He didn’t get that from Scripture alone.

iii) He also has a bad habit of equating the Greek word “logos” with the concept of “logic.” But that’s not what the word “logos” means in Johannine usage.

“The first passage for exegesis is the first passage in
the Bible. God created man after His image and
likeness. This image cannot be man’s body for two
reasons: First, God is spirit and has no body;
second, animals have bodies but they were not
created in God’s image. Therefore, the body cannot
be the image of God.”

That’s a fallacious inference:

i) An image is a physical representation. The fact that what the image represents may be incorporeal doesn’t mean the image itself is incorporeal.

ii) In context, the imago Dei is a finite manifestation of God’s dominion. Man is God’s representative or vice-regent on earth. The exercise of dominion is something he shares in common with his Maker.

iii) Apropos (i)-(ii), the human body is an instrument of dominion. Man can exercise dominion over the sensible world because he has a body. So his body is a necessary expression of that principle.

iv) This is not to deny that we also need certain mental properties to execute the dominion mandate. But Clark’s interpretation is too narrow to do justice to the passage.

“The divine image then must be man’s spirit, for the two elements which compose man are body and spirit. Genesis says that God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and out of these two elements man became a living soul. If the dust or clay is not God’s image, the breath or spirit must be. There is no other possibility.”

Once again, that’s faulty exegesis:

i) In Hebrew usage, man doesn’t have a “soul”; rather, man is a “soul.” A “living being” is not a synonym for “spirit.”

ii) The “breath of life” simply distinguishes a corpse from a living organism.

I myself subscribe to dualism. But you can’t get dualism from these passages. For that you must look elsewhere.

Ink marks on a page

Sean Gerety did a post a while back entitled “Ink marks on a page.” Normally, when I quote someone, I give the URL. However, an URL would be a sensory object. A string of meaningless numbers and letters. Since Sean denies sense-knowledge, it would be an exercise in futility for me to give the URL.

In his post, Sean attacks the notion that ink marks on a page convey knowledge. To make his case, Sean uses ink marks on a page to prove that ink marks on a page can’t prove anything.

Well, to be more precise, he uses electronically simulated ink marks on a page to prove that ink marks on a page can’t prove anything.

Assuming that Sean’s demonstration is successful, we can safely disregard his entire post, since his entire post consists of ink marks on a page.

Indeed, we can safely disregard his entire blog. Why bother to read his blog when his blog consists of electronically simulated ink marks on a page?

But, for the sake of argument, let’s waive his self-defeating exercise and press ahead.

“Which brings me to what may be the biggest hurdle most people have in coming to grips with Clark’s biblical epistemology and that is his complete rejection of the belief that sensation plays a role in knowledge. Needless to say, the rejection of sensation in the acquisition of knowledge seems counter-intuitive and not at all in accord with so-called ‘common-sense.’ Didn’t God give us sensations and sense organs so that we might come to know Him? Well, not necessarily. After all, and as Clark would say, God gave us stomachs too, but that doesn’t mean that stomachs have an epistemic function…although he was quick to add that it’s hard to study if you don’t eat.”

i) Is that supposed to be an intelligent response? What does that comparison amount to? Is that supposed to be an argument from analogy?

But when the question at issue is sense-knowledge, why think a stomach is analogous to an eye or ear? A stomach is not a sensory organ. It wasn’t designed to perceive the external world.

Gerety might as well say: “Didn’t silversmiths give us steak knives to cut steaks with? Well, not necessarily. After all, and as Clark would say, silversmiths gave us forks and spoons too, but that doesn’t mean you can cut a steak with a spoon.”

Well, suppose you can’t cut a steak with a spoon. Does that also mean you can’t cut a steak with a steak knife? Does that mean a steak knife wasn’t designed to cut steak?

What possesses Gerety to think that Clark’s reply is any sort of counterargument to the issue at hand?

ii) But suppose, for the sake of argument, that we accept the comparison. While a stomach isn’t a sensory organ, per se, a stomach does sense certain things. If you drink a nauseating fluid, the stomach will make you feel nauseous. So even a stomach is a source of sense-knowledge.

“But don’t we have to read the Bible with the eyes in our heads? Clark’s critics routinely argue that even if we accept Clark’s position that knowledge is limited to those things set down in Scripture and their necessary inferences, don’t we first have to read the Bible with our eyes? Or, to put it another way, isn’t knowledge necessarily mediated through the senses? Again, not so fast. Clark would reply, and in good lawyerly fashion, by answering this question with the question: How do you know you even have a Bible in your hands?”

Several problems with that response:

i) Is that a Scriptural objection to sense-knowledge? Does the Bible ever pose that question?

ii) According to the Book of Acts, Paul would go into synagogues and reason with his fellow Jews from the Scriptures. Suppose one of his listeners tried to deflect Paul’s appeal by saying: “Paul, how do you know you even have a scroll of Isaiah in your hands?”

Does Gerety think that would be a sound objection to Paul’s practice? Is Paul begging the question by waiving their own copy of Isaiah in their face? Quoting from the scroll which the synagogue kept in its own library?

Gerety isn’t raising a scriptural objection to sense knowledge. Quite the contrary. Gerety is raising an extrascriptural objection to sense knowledge.

iv) What is more, he’s raising an extrascriptural objection to the scriptures. To the written record of God’s word. When a Christian turns to the Bible to quote a passage of Scripture, Gerety’s response is to say, “How do you know you even have a Bible in your hands?”

How in the world does Gerety think that’s a Christian response to the possibility of sense-knowledge?

v) Answering a question with a question is not an answer: rather, it’s a way of ducking the question.

Clark is trying to shift the burden of proof. But even if his opponent ought to be able to answer Clark’s question, that doesn’t absolve Clark of the corresponding requirement to answer the opponent’s question. And even if his opponent were unable to answer Clark’s question, that doesn’t absolve Clark (or Gerety) of shouldering his own burden of proof.

“To which Clark replied: The substantial question is how do we know the contents of the Bible. If Louis XIV or my wife could be replaced with an imposter twin, then maybe the Bible in my hand is a cunningly devised substitute. Mavrodes lays this on rather heavily, and I am glad that he does. So few people are willing to give the point any serious attention. He also mentions, and I wish he had discussed, solipsism; there are also the skeptical arguments of Carneades and Aenesidemus; and as well Descartes’ omnipotent deceptive demon. In fact, until these arguments are successfully circumvented, no one has a firm basis on which to object to my general position… I must point out that he has not met the issue when he says, ‘Sense experience is required for the derivation of such [Biblical] belief’ and ‘every consistent epistemology which assigns a role to the Bible…must assign a role of equal scope and in precisely the same area to sense perception.’ To make such assertions presupposes satisfactory answers to Aenesidemus and Descartes’ demon. Can it be shown that an imposter twin is impossible? Can we be sure that we have not overlooked a ‘not’ in the sentence? There are even greater empirical scandals than these. How can one prove the reliability of memory? Any test designed to show which memory is true and which is mistaken presupposes that a previous memory is true – and this is the point in question. In large measure the psychological force of my position derives from the impossibility of empiricism.”

Several more problems:

i) Once again, how does citing the objections of Carneades, Aenesidemus, and Descartes to sense-knowledge constitute a Scriptural objection to sense-knowledge? These are secular objections. Extrascriptural objections. Pagan objections!

But, according to Scripturalism, extrascriptural objections wouldn’t be knowledgeable objections. At best they’d be merely opinionated objections, and, at worst, ignorant objections. Moreover, you can’t tell which is which.

So why is a Christian “empiricist” obliged to answer objections to sense-knowledge which, according to Scripturalism, are nothing more than philosophers opining against sense-knowledge? These are merely the opinions of Carneades, Aenesidemus, and Descartes. But unless their arguments are demonstrably true, why is a Christian “empiricist” obligated to refute them?

ii) Suppose a Christian layman can’t circumvent the objections of Carneades and Aenesidemus? So what? Does Scripture require a Christian to be able to refute philosophical objections to sense-knowledge?

iii) Suppose a Christian layman, or even a Christian philosopher, can’t disprove a skeptical thought-experiment? So what? Does Scripture require us to refute skeptical thought-experiments?

For that matter, is it the case that we can’t know anything or justifiably believe anything unless we can refute a skeptical thought-experiment?

Why should we make that artificial demand a precondition of knowledge or warranted belief?

iv) What about solipsism? What about Cartesian demons? These aren’t objections to empiricism, per se. These could just as well be deployed against Scripturalism.

If Scripturalism affirms the existence of the external world while solipsism denies the existence of the external world, then even on Scripturalist assumptions no Christian has a justified true belief in the external world unless he can circumvent solipsism. And a Scripturalist can’t very well invoke the Bible to refute solipsism, for the Bible presupposes the existence of the external world–which is the very thing solipsism denies!

Likewise, Cartesian demons aren’t limited to sensory perception. Cartesian demons can be unleashed to bedevil absolute idealism.

The Scripturalist thinks that Jn 3:16 is a divine promise, but that idea was implanted in his mind by a Cartesian demon. How can Clark or Gerety disprove that hypothetical?

Hypothetically speaking, maybe Jesus had an imposter twin. Maybe his imposter twin was crucified. Maybe his imposter twin rose from the dead. Maybe the apostolic eyewitnesses to the crucifixion and Resurrection were (unbeknownst to them) actually witnessing his imposter twin.

Can Clark or Gerety disprove that hypothetical?

v) What about the possibility of overlooking a negation (“not”) in a sentence? To begin with, Clark expressed his opposition to sense knowledge in the form of sentences.

How can a Scripturalist make a case for Scripturalism without expressing himself in sentences? If you can’t articulate your case for Scripturalism without resorting to linguistic tokens, then the possibility of overlooking a negation vitiates the verbal case for Scripturalism.

vi) What about the reliability of memory? If a Clarkian questions the reliability of memory, that isn’t limited to empiricism. The same skepticism will infect Scripturalism.

Scripturalism equates knowledge with deducing propositions from Scripture. But that involves an act of memory. If you misremember the premise, you don’t know if the conclusion was validly inferred from the premise.

vii) The upshot is that if we take Clark’s skepticism seriously, not only would that prove the impossibility of empiricism, it would also and equally disprove the impossibility of Scripturalism.

Continuing with Gerety:

“For Clark, the acquisition of knowledge is not a sensory process and those who insist on a role for sensation are just begging the question. He argued that it is the Divine Logos ‘which lighteth every man’ and that Christ alone is the sin qua non of knowledge, not sensation.”

i) Clark’s appeal to Jn 1:9 is begging the question unless Clark can account for how he acquired his knowledge of Jn 1:9.

ii) Jn 1:9 was written in Greek. You can’t know Jn 1:9 in the original unless you know Greek. Knowledge of Greek involves a knowledge of comparative Greek usage. That’s inductive.

iii) Clark also misinterprets his prooftext. In context, Jn 1:9 has reference, not to general revelation, but special revelation.

“Clark writes: 'With less literary flourish than Malebranche’s peroration one may summarize by saying that truth concerns Ideas, Ideas are in God, and the mind can perceive them only there. These Ideas are alone the objects of thought. Nor can sensory images in any way be transformed into truth. In the language of antiquity and of modernity, abstract concepts can never be derived from sensory images. Though different human beings may and must have different sensations — for your pain is not mine — there is only one set or world of Ideas. It is the system of God’s mind, and we can see them only there'.”

Several problems:

i) How does Clark access divine ideas? Is Clark divine? If divine ideas inhere in God’s mind, how are they available to Gordon Clark?

He can’t appeal to the scriptures, for these are empirical objects.

ii) How does Clark know that different humans have different sensations? Does he mean that each normal human being has its own set of sense organs? I have a pair of eyes. You have a pair of eyes. Your eyes are different from mine?

If, so, how would Clark know, apart from using his own sensory receptors, that each human has his own set of sensory receptors? And doesn’t that also involve an inductive generalization?
iii) Clark fails to distinguish between raw stimuli and the use of sensory media to encode ideas in the form of sentences. Even if, for the sake of argument, you deny that raw stimuli can’t convey abstract concepts, it doesn’t follow that encoded stimuli can’t convey abstract concepts either.

Indeed, Clark is using encoded stimuli (written words) to transfer abstract concepts from his mind to the mind of the reader.

iv) Furthermore, it isn’t obvious why raw stimuli can’t be a source of abstract concepts. If I count 999 black ravens, then I form an abstract concept on the basis of my observation.

I observe 999 instances. I attach a number to my observations. That’s an abstract concept.

This doesn’t tell me that every raven is black. And I don’t derive my concept of enumeration from seeing a series of black ravens. But as a result of observing 999 ravens, I did form an abstract concept.

Likewise, if I play a game of pool, I observe a correlation between a given action and a given reaction. I don’t observe cause-and-effect. But I do observe a correlation. That’s an abstract concept.

Continuing with Gerety:

“Another way to think of Clark’s view, and one I think most Christians can easily grasp, is found in the Westminster Confession of Faith which states that belief in the truth of Scripture rests ultimately on ‘the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the word in our hearts’.”

This is a bait-and-switch tactic. There’s a fundamental difference between what makes something true or knowable, and what makes something believable. Belief is a relation between the subject of knowledge and the object of knowledge. That’s distinct from whether the object of knowledge is true. Or whether a given truth is an object of knowledge (i.e. knowable).

“As Clark would repeat over and over, the Scriptures are not black ink marks on white pages in a black book. They are the eternal thoughts of God. Ink marks may provide an occasion by which we might come to know some of God’s thoughts, even to the saving of our souls, but the ink marks themselves reveal nothing.”

Is that what Scripture says about itself?

“Dr. W. Gary Crampton in his book, The Scripturalism of Gordon Clark, defends Clark’s position this way: God’s Word is eternal; the printed pages of the Bible are not. The letters or words on the printed page are signs or symbols which signify the eternal truth which is the mind of God, and which is communicated by God directly and immediately to the minds of men…Since all knowledge is propositional, and since the senses interacting with creation yield no propositions, knowledge cannot originate, be conveyed by, or be derived from sensation.”

i) Where does Scripture ever tell us that “the senses interacting with creation yield no propositions, knowledge cannot originate, be conveyed by, or be derived from sensation”?

That is not a Scriptural claim. That’s an extrascriptural claim.

ii) If the word of God is “communicated by God directly and immediately to the minds of men,” then the scriptures are superfluous. Clarkian epistemology represents a full-frontal assault on the Bible.

It’s far more radical than Fosdick or Bultmann or Spong. It’s an attack on the credibility of every single clause in the scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation.

iii) Does God upload the content of Scripture directly into the mind of every Christian? When does this occur, actly? Is this given in regeneration? Is every Christian a walking Bible, with every single verse at his cognitive fingertips?

iv) Or is this some form of occasionalism? If so, that has it’s own problems. To name a few:

a) Where does Scripture teach occasionalism?

b) Which version of the Bible does God upload?

c) Suppose a Christian is reading a unisex version of the Bible, like the TNIV. Does my idea of God’s word correspond to that occasional prop?

d) What if one Christian is reading an edition with the short ending of Mark while another Christian is reading an edition with the long ending of Mark. Does occasionalism upload rival editions?

“Ink marks, various pitched sounds, Braille, Morse code, sinographs, and whatever else that might be used to communicate are arbitrary conventions, and, in and of themselves, are meaningless signs signifying nothing. Black marks are neither true or false and cannot be properly the objects of knowledge for the simple reason that only propositions can be either true or false. Ink marks have meaning only insofar as rational minds assign them meaning.”

So what? There’s a reason why language is called symbolic discourse. The relation between word and object is a social convention.

To say these linguistic tokens are meaningless in and of themselves is irrelevant to the issue at hand.

It’s like a game of cards. By common consent, certain values are assigned to certain cards–from the deuce of clubs to the ace of spades. Same thing with chess.

Clark was reputed to be a fine chess-player. That involves the assignment of a distinctive “power” or set of “powers” to each chess piece. That’s a truth: an analytical truth. Truth by definition.

Analytical truths have their limitations. It’s not a good way to do history or science.

But it’s perfectly appropriate for games and sports and linguistic activities.

As a result, you can make truth-valued statements about a game of cards or a game of chess. Unless that’s possible, Gordon Clark could never win a game of chess. To win at chess, he had to form “justified true beliefs” about the various powers of the various chess pieces.

“Clark argued that if someone thinks there are truths embedded in ink scratches or which can somehow be derived by sensing them should provide some sort of argument to show how, starting with any number of black marks, they can arrive at any universal truth such as, ‘all men are sinners.’ Yet, not one of Clark’s critics even tried to overcome his challenge and to this day Clark’s critics merely beg the question when insisting on a role for sensation in the acquisition of knowledge.”

Is this paragraph true or false? Gerety’s statement is a series of linguistic tokens. Do these linguistic tokens embed truth-valued propositions?

He accuses us of “begging the question.” But “begging the question” is a verbal phrase. So Gerety is begging the question when he uses that verbal phrase to deny the truth-value of linguistic propositions.

Poor little Gerety keeps banging his birdbrain against the same window. He never tires of smashing his avian skull into that window.

A quick note on a quick note

Sean Gerety quotes this passage from John Robbins:

Knowledge is always true. One cannot know that 2 + 2 = 5. Opinions may be true or false. Ignorance is neither true nor false. What distinguishes a true opinion from knowledge is an account of that opinion: It is giving reasons. [Michael] Sudduth dared me to provide any passage of Scripture that so defines knowledge. It seems to me that there are many. For example, “Be ready to give a reason….” “To the Law and to the testimony: If they speak not according to that Word, there is no light in them.” “In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” All, not some. Hidden, not available to discovery by men. The Scripture is both the content and the account on knowledge.

http://godshammer.wordpress.com/2009/05/18/john-robbins-quick-quote-2/

There are several problems with this argument:

1.Robbins cites a mathematical equation as a paradigm-case of knowledge. However, he didn’t get that example from Scripture. Although Scripture uses some numbers, it contains no formal equations. And even if it did contain a few equations, that would only be a tiny sampling of the infinite number of mathematical equations. Hence:

i) Robbins is using an extra scriptural example to illustrate Scripturalism.

ii) Robbins is using induction to illustrate Scripturalism. It’s not as if Robbins is acquainted with the infinite totality of mathematical equations.

2.Apropos (1), Robbins is also using mathematical truth as a paradigm-case of necessary truths or universal truths. But Scripture doesn’t teach that mathematical truths are necessary truths or unnecessary truths. Scripture is entirely silent on that issue. As far as Scripture is concerned, most mathematical truths might as well be contingent truths.

Although I think you can mount a good argument for the necessity and universality of mathematical truths, that’s not an argument that Robbins derived from Scripture.

3.Robbins also quotes some English translations of the Bible. But that creates a problem for Scripturalism:

i) Did Robbins derive his knowledge of the English language from reading the English Bible?

Didn’t Robbins acquire his basic command of the English language from being raised by English-speaking parents? And wasn’t that supplemented by hearing other English speakers and reading other English writers?

ii) Incidentally, does Gerety think we actually know a language? Given the empirical process involved in learning a language, wouldn’t our fluency rank as opinion or ignorance rather than knowledge?

But, in that case, our mastery of the English Bible (or any other Bible) would rank as opinion or ignorance rather than knowledge.

4.In his attempt to Scripturally define knowledge as opinion with an account, he alludes to 1 Pet 3:15. However,

i) This appeal is equivocal. There is more to the Clarkian definition of knowledge than giving an account or giving a reason for your opinion. It has to be the kind of reason or kind of account that falls within the strictures of a Clarkian epistemology. Not just any account will do. Only a certain type of account is permissible.

ii) Apropos 1 Pet 3:15, how did NT Christians account for their faith?

a) One method was their appeal to eyewitness testimony. Yet Gerety recently assured us that eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable.

b) Another method was their appeal to the OT scriptures.

But that assumes an empirical knowledge of the OT scriptures. For example, hearing them read aloud in the synagogue (Acts 15:21).

iii) Elsewhere, Gerety quotes Gary Crampton’s claim that the word of God “is communicated by God directly and immediately to the minds of men.”

http://godshammer.wordpress.com/2009/01/24/ink-marks-on-a-page/

But in that event, why would a Christian ever need to share his faith with an unbeliever? In that event, it would be up to God, and God alone, to evangelize the unbeliever by uploading his word into the mind of the unbeliever.

5.Robbins also alludes to Isa 8:20. However,

i) Isa 8:20 doesn’t restrict all knowledge to the Bible. In context, this is dealing with knowledge of the future. V20 stands in contrast to necromancy (v19). Isaiah’s point is that whatever is knowable about the future is to be found in God’s revelation regarding the future.

That, however, doesn’t restrict all knowledge to Scripture. In the nature of the case, our senses don’t convey to us a knowledge of the future. Our senses can only sense what is present to the senses. We don’t perceive the future because we don’t occupy the future.

This doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t sense the present or remember the past.

ii) Isa 8:20 is, itself, a sensory object. This is a written record of a little speech which the prophet Isaiah delivered to his audience. It presupposes the ability of a listener to learn a truth by hearing the spoken word. It also presupposes the ability of a reader to learn a truth by consulting the written record of the spoken word.

iii) Moreover, Isa refers his audience to spoken and written words: Isaiah “is attesting that a better alternative is available in the true words of God contained in the testimonies and laws (oral and written instructions) God gave the nation,” G. Smith, Isaiah 1–39 (Broadman 2007), 231.

So Isa 8:20 is a sensory object which, in turn, refers the audience to other sensory objects.

iv) Apropos (iii), in referring his audience to both “testimonies” and “laws,” Isaiah doesn’t limit himself to the Scriptures. The “testimonies” are oral communications.

6.Robbins alludes to Col 2:3.

i) Keep in mind that this verse is contained in a letter which Paul wrote to the Christians of Colossae. His letter was meant to be read aloud in church. This method of teaching presupposes the possibility of sense-knowledge.

ii) It was written in Greek. That presupposes a knowledge of the Greek language. Something his audience picked up by living among among Greek speakers. Apart from the possibility of sense-knowledge, this would not be a reliable means of teaching his audience.

iii) It’s ironic to see a Calvinist (Robbins) resort to Arminian hermeneutics (“all, not some”).

iv) Robbins rips 2:3 out of context. In context, the contrast between what is hidden and what is revealed refers back to 1:26, where it denotes the revelation of the Gospel to the Gentiles (cf. Rom 16:25; Eph 1:9; 3:6; 6:19).

So this is not about knowledge in general. Rather, it’s specific to the knowledge of the Gospel, including the place of the Gentiles in God’s redemptive plan.

Notice how often Clarkians indulge in perfunctory prooftexting without making any effort to exegete their proftexts.

John Robbins, Empiricist!

“Let me define a couple terms, and then I will turn to the body of my paper, an examination of Scripture. First, I am not using word proposition in any novel fashion, but in its standard sense.”

http://www.trinityfoundation.org/PDF/240-241-BiblicalViewofTruth.pdf

This modest sounding claim is unintentionally revealing:

1.Scripturalists don’t seem to think you can know something unless you can define your terms. So unless Robbins can define “proposition,” that failure vitiates his whole theory of truth.

2.But it’s not enough to him to define a key term. He must define a key term consistent with his Scripturalist epistemology.

3.Apropos (2), he assures the reader that he’s using the “standard” sense of “proposition.”

And how would you determine the standard sense of a word? That would involve an inductive sampling of linguistic usage. Based on the frequency with which “proposition” is used in a certain sense, that would establish the “standard” sense.

But that procedure commits Robbins to the practical validity of induction. Meaning is determined by usage, and standard usage is determined by common usage–which can only be ascertained by examining a comparative sampling of popular or technical usage.

Yet Scripturalism assures us that induction can never yield knowledge.

4.Moreover, appeal to “standard” usage involves a tacit appeal to sense knowledge. Hearing the spoken word or reading the written word.

You can either take a shortcut by looking up the word in some dictionaries, or you can do what a lexicographer does, which is to conduct your own statistical survey of comparative usage.

Either way, this involves the use of the senses. And it’s based on a partial set of instances, such as period usage or usage by certain authors. A selective sampling.

5.As a result, Robbins must rely on empirical methods to make his case against empiricism. But, in that event, he’s disproven his proof. He can’t get started unless he takes, as his point of departure, a starting point which his conclusion denies.

Like a man trapped in a maze of trick mirrors, the Scripturalist keeps bumping into his own reflection. Every “door” is just another reflective wall. Every exit is just another trick mirror.

The problem of induction

One of the stock objections to sense knowledge which Scripturalists like to raise is the problem of induction. Can we infer the future from the past? Can we predict the future in light of the past? Does the future resemble the past?

The objection goes back to Hume: can enumerative induction justify a universal inference? On the face of it, the answer is no, since the breadth of the inference is underdetermined by the breadth of the evidence.

To take a stock example, if I observe 999 black ravens in a row, that doesn’t mean the 1000th raven I observe will be black.

What are we to make of this objection? I’ll make three brief points:

1.While enumerative induction illustrates the limitations of sense knowledge, it doesn’t begin to demonstrate the impossibility of sense knowledge.

If I observe 999 black ravens, then I’ve learned something: observation has taught me that at least 999 ravens are black.

That doesn’t tell me that all ravens are black, or even that most ravens are black. But it does tell me that some ravels are black. I know something, as a result of observation, that I wouldn’t know absent such observation.

2.I’m typing this sentence on a computer keyboard. I believe that if I depress a particular key, it will probably produce a particular letter. Likewise, I believe that if I depress certain keys in a certain order, it will probably produce a particular sequence of letters.

Why is that? Well, it’s partly a result of experience. In my experience, when I depress a particular key, it produces a particular letter.

But there’s more to it than bare experience. My computer keyboard was designed to function in a particular way. It was designed so that, if I depress a particular key, it will produce a particular letter. It was designed so that, if I depress certain keys in a certain order, it will produce a particular sequence of letters.

My experience of using the keyboard is essentially confirmatory. Before I use the keyboard for the first time, I don’t know if the keyboard suffers from a design flaw. Using it is a way of testing it. Does it do what it was designed to do?

It is, of course, possible for the keyboard to malfunction. It’s possible that in a random number of cases, a keystroke won’t yield the corresponding letter.

However, even in the case of malfunction, that presupposes an underlying design. Proper function.

Unless my keyboard suffers from a design flaw, it’s basically reliable. Indeed, highly reliable.

It’s not totally reliable. It can wear out. Or need to be repaired.

But it’s sufficiently reliable that I can make plans for the future based on my keyboard. I can plan to write something tomorrow, using my keyboard. And most of the time, my confidence is well-placed.

This is analogous to sensory perception or memory. The senses sometimes deceive us. Memories sometimes fail us. But our memories and perceptions are sufficiently reliable that we can use them to plan for the future.

Sometimes our plans fall through. But that’s quite different from a dream world which is so mutable and unpredictable that you can’t make any successful plans.

To a great extent, it’s possible to successfully plan for the future on the basis of induction. For induction, like using my computer keyboard for the first time, need not be the ultimate source of our belief in natural patterns. Rather, it’s confirmatory. Observation is a way to recognize natural patterns. To recognize design.

3.Hume was a secularist. So he doesn’t have anything else to go by beyond induction itself. But in a Christian worldview, the future generally resembles the past because it was designed that way. The reason for causal correlations is that God designed nature such that certain prior events correspond to certain posterior events. If I depress a particular key, that triggers a corresponding outcome.

For a Christian, enumerative induction is grounded in the principle of divine design. God’s plan for the world. Inferences about the future aren’t limited to past samples. They also derive from our belief in a God whomade the world to function in a fairly predictable way. Hence, the past is a generally reliable guide to the future.

This doesn’t even require a particular theory of causation. It doesn’t matter whether or not a particular action actually causes a particular effect. It’s sufficient that God has designed the natural world in such a way that these correlations generally obtain.

There are, of course, exceptions to the rule. Miracles.

But that doesn’t prevent us from successfully planning for the future most of the time. It’s not like a dream world where there’s no connection between what went before and what happens afterwards.

And even miracles are purposeful events. These are not random anomalies.

Christians don’t draw a universal inference from enumerative induction. We only draw a general inference from enumerative induction. And the generality of the inference isn’t based on induction alone.

We don’t subscribe to the uniformity of nature. Rather, we subscribe to ordinary providence (which allows for miracles).

We don’t believe in natural regularities simply because we observe them. Rather, we believe in them because that’s the kind of world which God made for us to inhabit.

The Wrong Odds

Thomas Paine wrote in Age of Reason (on-line source: note, I just Googled the quote so I'm not endorsing anything else on that website!):

If we are to suppose a miracle to be something so entirely out of the course of what is called nature, that she must go out of that course to accomplish it, and we see an account given of such a miracle by the person who said he saw it, it raises a question in the mind very easily decided, which is,--Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course, or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course; but we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time; it is, therefore, at least millions to one, that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie.

This quote has been used by many different atheists (for example, Gordon Stein used it in his debate with Greg Bahnsen), but a simple examination of the quote reveals major flaws in Paine's thinking. First, let us consider this statement: "We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course...." Note that this is directly contradicted by his previous statement, "we see an account given of such a miracle by the person who said he saw it" (emphasis added). Thus, someone is indeed claiming to have seen the very thing that Paine claims "we" have never seen. In other words, Paine is begging the question when he says "We have never seen" miracles; he is ruling all claimed observances as lies and then using that to determine that they are all lies.

But Paine's argument also fails because of the use of the term "we." How does he know what other people have or have not observed? By their testimony. But this is the same testimony that Paine criticizes. If it is indeed true that millions of lies have been told, why is this evidence against some testimony (I have seen a miracle) but not against other testimony (I have not seen a miracle)? Again, Paine is assuming what he needs to prove.

Perhaps, though, Paine was simply using the editorial "we." In such case, his sentence should be read as, "I have never seen, in my time, nature go out of her course..." But, naturally (pun intended), this severely limits the strength of Paine's argument. The argument can only be valid if it has generalized truth behind it. That Paine has never seen a miracle is no proof that no one has ever seen a miracle.

And I'd point out that we must take Paine's word for it that he's never seen a miracle, but Paine's own argument is that there have been millions of lies told. How are we to know Paine is telling the truth here rather than using irony to affirm what he pretends to deny?

This actually gets to the core of the problem with Paine's methods. Just because some people lie a lot and the total number of lies on Earth is vast, doesn't many any particular person at any particular time is telling a lie. This would be like the prosecution stating, "While no one has ever seen the defendant murder the victim, he has claimed not to do so. But we know that during the course of this trial millions of people have told lies. Which is more likely to believe, that the defendant didn't murder his wife or that he told a lie when he said he didn't murder his wife?"

But perhaps a better illustration will help out our atheists friends (to use the editorial we again). We have never observed macroevolution. During the time of our observation, nature has remained steady. But we have reason to believe that during this same time of observation, billions of lies have been told (after all, there are now nearly 7 billion people on Earth, and if each of them only told 1 lie during the time of our observation, we'd have 7 billion right there). Which is more likely then, scientists' claims that macroevolution really happened, or that they are lying?

Seen in this light, Paine's argument is a whiffle bat.