Sorting out presuppositionalism

The silly contest between Josh Rasmussen and SyeTenB demonstrates, once again, the need to do some sorting:

Regarding the YouTube interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zkcs-31PqFg&feature=youtu.be

There are at least three different things flying under the banner of "presuppositionalism"

1. There's the position of SyeTenB. He's a hack with a rabid internet following among a clique of pop Calvinist groupies.

2. That's not to be confused with academic versions of presuppositionalism. For instance:

Greg Welty, “The Conceptualist Argument,” in Colin Ruloff (ed.), Contemporary Arguments in Natural Theology (Bloomsbury Press, forthcoming).

https://www.proginosko.com/docs/The_Lord_of_Non-Contradiction.pdf

https://blog.epsociety.org/2013/09/responses-to-argument-for-god-from-logic.html

3. From another angle is the presuppositionalism of Vern Poythress. For instance:

https://frame-poythress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/ChancePoythress.pdf

4. There are roughly two competing schools of thought that call themselves presuppositionalists:

i) One derives from Cornelius Van Til. Second-generation Van Tilians include John Frame, the late Greg Bahnsen, and Vern Poythress. We might classify James Anderson as a third-generation Van Tilian. 

However, he's been exposed to some other influences, like Plantinga and modal metaphysics.

Theistic conceptual realism belongs to a family of transcendental arguments. It's interesting how that's evolved. Kant's argument is more epistemological, in part because he doesn't have a robust theology to ground it. Kant might even be a closet atheist. And he's skeptical regarding our knowledge of the external world. So he can't say much of anything to back it up in terms of bedrock ontology. 

Although Van Til's version is partly epistemological, he tries to ground it in the metaphysics of Reformed theism.

Greg Welty and James Anderson have done a lot to embed the epistemological side of the argument in modal metaphysics. I think it's a transcendental argument with an epistemological side, but they've done more to model and detail the necessary metaphysical conditions that make it possible. 

ii) The other derives from the late Gordon Clark. Clark as an anti-empiricist. 

Clark's followers make second-order knowledge necessary for first-order knowledge. You don't know anything unless you know how you know it. They make the justification of knowledge a necessary ingredient in knowledge itself. Here are two examples:

http://unapologetica.blogspot.com/2019/11/gordon-clark-and-necessity-of.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/03/more-scripturalist-mumbo-jumbo.html

It's important to keep these two schools of thought separate, even though they both use the same designation. When you're accused of not understanding presuppositionalism, part of the problem is that there are competing schools of thought as well as different exponents with varying views.

I don't think Josh is under any obligation to understand SyeTenB's positionbecause  there's not much there there. 

A map is not enough

Been a while since I discussed Scripturalism. According to standard Scripturalist epistemology, the Bible is the only source of knowledge. All other sources of information are consigned to opinion.

Scripturalism is like giving someone a map. The Bible is the roadmap. That's all you need–or is it? 

Problem is, a map in itself, however accurate and detailed, is useless unless you know where you are in relation to the map. To be able locate your destination, and the route to take, you must be able to locate yourself on the map. But that information is not on the map. The map doesn't show you. So you must be able to compare the map to recognizable street signs or landmarkks to get your bearings. To use the map, you need information outside the map. 

Ryan Hedrich may be able to make the necessary modifications to Scripturalism. We'll see how that goes. 

Revelatory regress

Once again, I'm going to comment on a post by Alex Malpass, an atheist with a doctorate in philosophy. 

https://useofreason.wordpress.com/2016/01/27/the-infinite-regress-for-revelational-epistemology/

Traditionally, it is held that there are two ways of gaining knowledge; either through the senses, or through the use of pure reason...Some presuppositional apologists try to have the best of both worlds, with a third type of epistemological category; revelation. 

False dichotomy. Revelation is a very traditional epistemological category. And not just biblical revelation. The heathen believe in various forms of revelation or divination: dreams from gods, apparitions of dead ancestors, &c. 

Aphantasia

A friend drew my attention to this:

https://www.livescience.com/61183-what-is-aphantasia.html

Has a percentage of the population always suffered from this deficit? I wonder if the younger generation's exposure to so much artificial sensory stimulation prevents the brain or mind/brain interface from developing the capacity to form mental images without an external stimulus, or retain imagery without continuous reinforcement. 

I recall reading something about Gordon Clark which indicates that he may have suffered from aphantasia. If so, that might be one reason he preferred abstractions and propositions to sense knowledge. He didn't have a normal experience of mental imagery. 

Induction and universal generalizations

According to Gordon Clark, induction is a fallacy. To take a stock example, if I see a 1000 black crows, that fails to justify the inference that all crows are black, because the 1001st crow might be white.

But there are some problems with that objection:

i) To begin with, is a white crow a crow, or is it a related species? Two different, closely related species. 

ii) Let's take a different comparison. Suppose I've only seen white rabbits. But that's because I've only seen rabbits in winter. If I saw rabbits in summer, I'd see brown rabbits.

So it would be invalid to infer that all rabbits are white. That's an unrepresentative sample, based on seasonal variations.

Yet once we take seasonal variations into account, then the reason to believe rabbits must either be white or brown is deeper than observing a sample of rabbits. Rather, that involves the principle of camouflage. 

In that event, I wouldn't believe that rabbits are white in winter just because every rabbit I've seen in winter is white. Rather, their pigmentation would be grounded in a principle that's not dependent on counting instances of rabbits.

iii) Take another example: Suppose a 15C American Indian has noticed that solar eclipses only happen at a new moon whereas lunar eclipses only happen at a full moon. What is more, everyone in his tribe has made the same observation. His parents and grandparents have made the same observation. And according to Indian lore, handed down from one generation to the next, that's always been the case. Of course, that, in itself, is insufficient to justify a universal generalization. 

Suppose, by contrast, you ask an astronomer. His reason wouldn't be based on repeated observations. Rather, he'd provide an underlying explanation for that observation, based on the relative position of the sun, moon, and earth during solar and lunar eclipses. 

A similar example would be the observation that the sun always rises in the east and sets in the west. If all you have to go by is observation, then, in principle, the sun could reverse course. But an astronomer has a differ explanation, based on the earth's counterclockwise rotation. 

Scientists observe regularities in nature. But that's just a starting-point. Their belief in the "uniformity of nature" isn't merely based on sampling natural phenomena. Rather, they attempt to go behind the phenomena to discover a mechanism that causes that effect. Therefore, it's simplistic to say inductive logic is fallacious, as if "natural laws" are merely based on repeated observations. 

iv) In addition, exceptions wouldn't invalidate the principle, because natural laws have ceteris paribus clauses. An exception is due to the introduction or interference of an overriding cause. 

Normally, water can't travel uphill. That generalization isn't simply based on the common observation that water normally travels downhill. Rather, it's grounded in the absence of some additional factor to counteract the force of gravity. But sometimes there are natural factors (e.g. storm surge) or technological factors (e.g. water pumps) that exert a countervailing influence. 

In that respect, a white crow is not a real exception to the principle, inasmuch as the generalization is implicitly qualified. All things being equal, all panthers are black, all ravens are black, &c.

Albinism is a genetic condition that produces a different pigmentation. But the generalization allows for differential factors. 

In sum, if a Scripturalist is going to attack the principle of induction, he will need to attack the principle of causation that underlies many scientific explanations. 

Can we know the Bible?

Typically, Scripturalists take the position that the Bible is the only source of knowledge. All other sources of information are relegated to opinion. But there's a basic problem with that: knowledge of the Bible depends on memory, and memory is fallible. So the logic of Scripturalism commits the typical Scripturalist to the position that Christians can't know anything at all. They can't know what they Bible says because their knowledge of infallible Scripture is only as good as their fallible recollection of Scripture. But in that event, their knowledge of Scripture falls short of true knowledge, as conventionally defined by Scripturalism. 

Common grace and paradox

I recently linked toDavid Engelsma's review of a new biography about Gordon Clark:

https://douglasdouma.wordpress.com/2017/03/03/david-engelsma-reviews-the-presbyterian-philosopher/

While I agree with some of what Engelsma says, there are times when his bias clouds his judgment:

i) The CRC has been on the skids for decades, as has Calvin College and Seminary. 

However, at the time of the Clark Controversy, I believe Louis Berkhof was the nemesis of Herman Hoeksema. It would be absurd to suggest that Berkhof doesn't represent authentic Reformed theology. Moreover, the CRC continued to have orthodox representation in later figures like Anthony Hoekema. 

ii) In addition, the OPC, which was founded over 80 years ago, hasn't followed the downward spiral of the CRC. To the contrary, it's maintained an impressive degree of theological stability and conservativism despite changing hands so often.

iii) Although liberals in the OT department at Westminster Seminary were in danger of adulterating the orthodox stance of the seminary, that trend was recently reversed under new administration, and the reversal enjoyed significant support from other departments of the seminary. So Engelsma's predictive trajectory is unreliable. 

iv) Perhaps owing to his age, Engelsma's attack on theological paradox is rather dated. If you're going to attack the principle of theological paradox, a better foil would be the more recent and rigorous formulations by James Anderson. 

I myself don't find Christian theology paradoxical, although it inevitably has dimensions that exceed human comprehension. 

v) Engelsma seems to be oblivious to the fact that Clark's theology became increasingly eccentric in his later years. Flirtations with idealism and occasionalism. Dubious formulations of the Trinity and the hypostatic union. A Sandemanian definition of saving faith. Necessitarianism regarding the creation of the world. 

Moreover, some of these aberrations represent the outworking of his disdain for sense knowledge. 

vi) He fails to mention that Norman Shepherd's views got him fired from Westminster. 

vii) He doesn't bother to explain how the Federal Vision is the logical outworking of theological paradox and/or common grace. 

Invariably, indeed necessarily, the truth being, in fact, rigorously logical, the doctrine of universal, ineffectual grace in the “paradox” drives out the doctrine of particular, sovereign grace.

i) Common grace is not ineffectual. Rather, it serves the purpose for which God intended it.

ii) Common grace is something of a catch-all category, so assessing the claim depends on which elements are included in the package. I prefer the position of Paul Helm and William Young to John Murray in this respect. 

iii) Since, moreover, it denotes something different from saving grace, it's misleading and confusing to use the same designation ("grace") for both. But, unfortunately, that's the standard label.  

Under the influence of Westminster Seminary, the OPC has approved a covenant theology that expressly denies all the doctrines of grace of the Westminster Standards, including justification by faith alone, with special reference to the children of believers.

I'd like to see documentation for that sweeping allegation. 

Engelsma reviews Clark bio

This is a biased review, but worth reading all the same:

https://douglasdouma.wordpress.com/2017/03/03/david-engelsma-reviews-the-presbyterian-philosopher/

Clark biography

http://www.angelfire.com/falcon/ddd_chc82/articles/ThePresbyterianPhilosopher_review.pdf

Look ma, no hands!

This is a sequel to my prior post:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2016/08/scripturalists-in-matrix.html

Sean Gerety8/21/2016 9:23 AM

How does Sean know he has hands?

I don’t. I opine it…

i) So, according to Scripturalist epistemology, we can't even know that we have hands. That's just an "opinion". Even though I can see my hands and feel my hands; even though I can touch one hand with another hand, even though I experience what it's like to use my hands, my belief that I have hands is just an "opinion". I don't know that I have hands. I can't know that.

ii) Given his denial of sense knowledge, how does Sean know (or does he?) what "hands" even mean?  How does he know what the word even means or refers to? 

and unlike Hays, I draw a distinction between knowledge and opinion.

i) And what is Sean's justification for claiming that I deny a distinction between knowledge and opinion? Can he quote me on that? If not, what is his evidence that I deny that distinction? Or is this just another case in which Sean makes uninformed imputations about people who disagree with him?

ii) The question at issue isn't whether there's a distinction between knowledge and opinion, but where to drawn the line. Specifically, are all beliefs based on sensory input nothing more than opinion? 

Does Sean believe we have sensory organs? If so, what's their purpose? What function did God design eyes and ears to perform?

I do believe we have sensory organs…

But since Sean rejects sense knowledge, why does he believe that we even have sensory organs? Isn't belief that we have sensory organs itself the result of sensory perception? We can sense our own senses. 

and it would seem God designed eyes and ears in order for men to better function in the world God created. 

And what function would that be if not, in part, to give us information about the physical world we inhabit? 

Then again, unlike Hays I don’t believe that beliefs alone qualify as knowledge. 

Once again, what is Sean's justification for claiming that I think beliefs alone qualify as knowledge? Can he quote me on that? If not, what is his evidence that I think beliefs alone qualify as knowledge? Or is this yet another case of Sean making uniformed imputations about people who disagree with him? 

Also, unlike Hays, I prefer not to beg the question and conclude that because God designed eyes and ears that they are therefore a means of cognition. 

i) Sean is fond of asserting that it "begs the question" to say sensory perception is a source of knowledge. But what does he mean by that? For instance, if I come home, and the furniture has been rearranged, I infer that someone rearranged the furniture in my absence. The furniture didn't rearrange itself (barring an earthquake).

But in the case of sensory perception, I don't infer that I have hands. I don't infer that there's a physical world. Rather, my senses constantly show me a physical world. That's not something I infer from experience; rather, that's something sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch present to my mind. Isn't that prima facie evidence for the existence of an external world? 

ii) If I have evidence that something is the case, and no evidence to the contrary, how is it begging the question to believe what I have evidence for? 

iii) Since Sean defines opinion as belief that falls short of knowledge, does Sean think some opinions are more reasonable than others? If so, what counts as differential evidence? Does Sean think some opinions are more likely to be true? Of does he think all opinions are equiprobable? 

iv) For instance, it's hypothetically possible that the woman Sean takes to be his wife is really an android. Maybe he married a human woman, but then the government, in a covert experiment, swapped his real wife for an android. The android appears to be his wife. The android's behavior is indistinguishable from his wife. 

Is it begging the question for Sean to believe the woman he lives with is his actual wife, and not an android? Or is Sean warranted in believing that Mrs. Gerety is his wife, absent evidence to the contrary? Likewise, unless I have reason to believe things are not as they seem to be, why is my belief that I typed this sentence using my hands mere opinion rather than knowledge? 

God made stomachs too in order to function in God’s world, but I don’t think stomachs are means to knowledge or that eating is cognitive. 

i) Surely that comparison is counterproductive to Sean's position. Our stomach doesn't show us the world in the way that our eyes and ears show us the world. 

For instance, the five senses bombard me with evidence that I'm not the only person in existence. There are other embodied persons. I can see them, hear them, touch them. 

That's not a function I assign to my sensory organs. Rather, that's feedback which my senses present to my mind. I don't infer that the purpose of my sensory organs is collect information about the physical world. Rather, that's something I directly experience. That's something my senses show me. That's an involuntary, irrepressible deliverance. 

The only alternative explanation is if this is simulated sensory input. That what I take to be the physical world is an illusion–a la idealism or virtual reality. But is it "begging the question" to think that's not the case? Or is there a presumption that what my senses present to me is real absent counterevidence? 

ii) Moreover, Sean missed the point of the analogy. Does Sean believe the function of the heart is to pump blood? Or is that "begging the question"? Does Sean believe the purpose of lungs is to oxygenate blood? Or is that "begging the question"? 

If he admits the vital function of organs like the heart and lungs, then what's the difference between that and the informative function of sensory organs? If he admits that the function of the heart is to pump blood, why does he refuse to believe the function of eyes and ears is to collect information about the physical world? 

iii) As a boy, I had a dog. Sometimes I played a game: as an experiment, I'd hide from my dog. I'd be out of sight. My dog couldn't see me. But my dog always found me. She found me by scent. It's demonstrable that different animals have different sensory acuities. How does Sean account for that if he imagines that there's no more reason to think we acquire knowledge about the world through the senses than the stomach? 

Instead, I believe “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

Of course, that's metaphorical. And the meaning of figurative language is parasitic on literal language. 

What does Sean believe about the world? Does he think our organs and body parts actually exist? Or does he think God feeds delusive input into our minds to simulate the illusion of a physical world with bodies, eyes, ears, &c.?

I believe a lot of things about the world including the reality of hallucinations.

i) Since Sean denies sense knowledge, how does he detect hallucinations? What's his standard of comparison to distinguish veridical sensory perceptions from hallucinations?

ii) Is Sean insinuating that because the senses sometimes deceive us, therefore sensory perception never yields knowledge? If so, then by parity of argument, because reason sometimes deceives us, we can't ever trust our minds. So we can't know anything at all. 

I also believe that God indeed feeds delusive input into the minds of men to simulate all sorts of illusions, including the illusion that there is no God and no judgment. For a list of other delusive input God feeds into the minds of men, I think Hays can find a partial list starting in Romans 1:22ff.

That's equivocal. The question at issue isn't false beliefs about certain ideas, but whether our perception of a physical world is a global illusion. And this isn't about unbelievers in particular, but humans in general, including Christians. 

I would go a bit further and say that God’s word consists of all the propositions God has revealed to include all the necessary inferences as well. This is an important point because propositions are the meanings of a declarative sentences, the message, and while seemingly obvious, only propositions can be true or false. Sensations, whatever they may be, cannot be true or false, so it would seem that “sense knowledge” – a phrase Hays frequently uses – is either begging the question or just nonsense. I’m inclined to think it’s the latter.

i) Sean's objection is confused. To begin with, the question at issue is not whether sensations are true or false, but whether sensations can form the basis of true or false beliefs about the world we perceive. Is Sean unable to grasp that rudimentary distinction? If, say, I see a waitress pour a glass of milk, I believe the glass has milk because I saw her fill the glass. I don't think milk magically appeared in an empty glass. Does Sean think that's "begging the question" or "nonsense" If so, why so? 

ii) Can sensations never be true or false? Take signage. Suppose I see a male or female symbol on a public restroom. Even though that's not a verbal proposition ("declarative sentence"), it has semantic content. 

Take traffic signs. Suppose I see a sign of a deer. The sign is wordless. But it's a warning. It indicates a deer crossing. So even though it's just a "sensation" (rather than a "declarative sentence"), it's a meaningful symbol.

Take a traffic sign that says "one way" inside an arrow, pointing right or left (as the case may be). By itself, that's not true or false. If, however, it's positioned at an intersection, then it is true or false. Suppose the sign is misplaced. It indicates that's a one-way street, but it's actually a two-way street. Then the sign is false. The "sensation" is false. That's because, in this instance, the "sensation" has a semantic context. A semantic frame of reference. 

iii) What about sensations of sentences. That's symbolic discourse. Sensations organized into letters, organized into sentences, are true or false. Sensations can be structured to communicate assertions. Sensations of that kind have true value. So Sean needs to bone up on semiotics. 

Since, however, Sean denies sense knowledge, doesn't that mean he thinks colors are essentially ideas? The color red is just a concept of red?

Not sure what else colors might be other than ideas? I had a friend who couldn’t see any colors at all. Maybe he is the one seeing the world as it really is? How do I know? Unlike Hays, I try not to be so presumptuous concerning things I don’t know.

i) Sean confuses objectivity with relativity. For instance, some people suffer from food allergies. When some people eat certain foods, they have an allergic or anaphylactic reaction. Other people can consume the same food without any allergic or anaphylactic reaction. So that's person-variable. But the fact that it's relative to the person doesn't mean the food in question lacks objective properties which trigger allergic or anaphylactic reactions in some consumers. Likewise, some consumers don't have that reaction because their bodies have objective properties, like a particular enzyme. 

ii) By the same token, some physical things have a particular colorful appearance because the thing has certain objective properties, light has certain objective properties, and the visual processing system has certain objective properties. And that combination generates color. 

iii) A color can be an idea, or at least it can simulate an idea. For instance, I can imagine a red car. I can form the mental image of a red car. Likewise, if I used to own a red car, I can remember what it looked like. I can "see" the red car in my mind. In that respect, a color can be merely mental. Color can be conceptual rather than perceptual in that respect.

However, that's different than actually perceiving a red car in my field of vision. A car that's objective to me. A car that I physically observe. Color perception in that respect isn't merely mental. 

iv) If Sean thinks color is just an idea, does that mean he thinks we project the idea of color onto colorless objects? The difference between a red rose and a white rose is what color I project onto the rose?  

What does Sean make of all those Biblical commands to "write" down God's revelations, viz., Exod 17:14, 34:1,27; Deut 17:18, 27:3,8; 31:19, Isa 30:8; Jer 30:2; 36:2,28; Ezk 24:2; 43:11; Lk 1:3; Rev 1:11,19, 21:5. ? That means committing the word of God to writing. Paper and ink (or papyrus or velum or stone).

I would refer Hays to what he wrote above and that God’s word “isn’t paper and ink, but the message.” 

i) That misses the point. Why does God command prophets to commit his revelations to writing unless written words constitute a source of knowledge regarding what God revealed? If you want to know what God revealed, you need to read (or hear) the sentences. The sentences are physical objects. Perceptual objects. But they convey information to the mind.

Prophets are commanded to write, while their audience is commanded to read, or listen to what's read aloud. That's how people learn what God has said. That's how people know the word of God. By seeing sentences or hearing sentences.  

ii) That's the irony of Scripturalism. Scripturalists don't take Scripture as their point of departure. Their epistemology isn't based on Scripture. No one who began with statements like Lev 24:7; Deut 17:19; Josh 8:34-35; Neh 8:1,3; Mt 12:3,5; Mt 19:4; 21:6,42; 22:31; 24:15; 2 Cor 1:13; Col 4:16; 1 Tim 4:13, and Rev 1:3 would deny the possibility of sense knowledge. 

Parenting tips for Scripturalists

Scripturalists (i.e. disciples of Gordon Clark) reject sense knowledge. This raises some intriguing questions about child-rearing.

Suppose you live in snake country. Timberback rattlesnakes are prevalent in your location. Their skin has patchwork patterns and colorations that blend into the background. That's advantageous for an ambush predator. It also affords them some protection against predators. 

If a Scripturalist was raising curious young boys in snake country, would he warn them about rattlesnakes? Would he show them the different markings that distinguish a King snake from a rattlesnake? 

Scripturalists regard vision as an unreliable source of information. And in the case of camouflage, that's designed to deceive the senses.

Does the fact that camouflage is designed to deceive the senses mean vision is useless is that situation? Or does it mean we need to take special precautions to avoid stepping on a rattlesnake? Is the fact that vision is even less reliable under these conditions than normal conditions reason to be more alert? 

Would you warn your kids not to play in piles of fallen leaves where rattlesnakes might be hiding? Would you warn your kids to be careful about walking over logs, where a rattlesnake might be lurking on the other side? Likewise, would you warn them to be careful about rattlesnakes under the car or under the porch?

If you can't tell the difference between a coiled rope and a coiled snake, would you instruct them to first touch it with a long stick–to stay out of striking range in case it's a rattlesnake? 

Or would you say such precautions are irrational given the "fallacy of induction"? 

Scripturalists in the Matrix

I ran across a clueless comment by Scripturalist Sean Gerety

Sean Gerety It's funny, Hays doesn't explain how he knows he has a bible in his hands? He just assumes the very thing he needs to prove. Further, he thinks the Scriptures are ink marks on a page in a black book. So, how much does justification weigh? What color is propitiation? He tips his hand when he says the Word of God is "embodied in Scripture."
August 3, 2015 at 1:32pm · Like · 4 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/ghc.discussions/permalink/10153518417089570/?comment_id=10153522586644570&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R2%22%7D

Let's review his comment:

It's funny, Hays doesn't explain how he knows he has a bible in his hands? 

How does Sean know he has hands? 

He just assumes the very thing he needs to prove. 

Does Sean believe we have sensory organs? If so, what's their purpose? What function did God design eyes and ears to perform? 

The question isn't confined to sensory organs. Does Sean think lungs were designed to oxygenate blood? Does he think the heart was designed to pump blood? If Sean was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism or coronary artery disease, would he consider surgery, or does that "assume the very thing we need to prove"?

What does Sean believe about the world? Does he think our organs and body parts actually exist? Or does he think God feeds delusive input into our minds to simulate the illusion of a physical world with bodies, eyes, ears, &c.? 

Further, he thinks the Scriptures are ink marks on a page in a black book. 

i) Well, by definition, Scriptures are writings. So Sean's statement is confused. 

ii) However, he attributes to me a position I explicitly deny. I've done so on many occasions. Let's take a recent example:

Here and elsewhere, Ehrman keeps insisting that unless we have the autographa, we no longer have the words of God. But that confuses the medium with the message. That confounds God's word with a record of God's word. The word of God isn't the paper and ink, but the message. A MSS is just a storage and retrieval mechanism–like a CD. The same information, the same word of God, can be instantiated in various media. It can be written. Or spoken. Or digitized. Or memorized. In the latter case, the word of God is mentally rather than materially exemplified. God's word isn't lost whenever a physical record of God's word is lost. 

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2016/03/copies-of-copies.html

Back to Sean:

So, how much does justification weigh? What color is propitiation? 

It's a mistake when people like Sean try to be more clever than they are. 

i) To begin with, his statement piggybacks on imputing to me a position I deny. But that's typical of Sean's uninformed comments about his opponents.

ii) Since, however, Sean denies sense knowledge, doesn't that mean he thinks colors are essentially ideas? The color red is just a concept of red? 

He tips his hand when he says the Word of God is "embodied in Scripture."

What does Sean make of all those Biblical commands to "write" down God's revelations, viz., Exod 17:14, 34:1,27; Deut 17:18, 27:3,8; 31:19, Isa 30:8; Jer 30:2; 36:2,28; Ezk 24:2; 43:11; Lk 1:3; Rev 1:11,19, 21:5. ? That means committing the word of God to writing. Paper and ink (or papyrus or velum or stone). 

The Word of Life

In Greek the first word of 1 John designates the Word of Life, who in verse 4 is identified as Jesus Christ. Since the Epistle and the Gospel have the same author, it is permissible to connect this Word of Life with the Word of John 1:1. And no one should object if we equate this Word with him whom Paul calls “the Power of God” and “the Wisdom of God.” This second person of the Trinity is the subject of John’s declaration. Can this eternal Wisdom be heard with the ears, seen with the eyes, and handled with the hands? Is the second person of the Trinity an object of sense? The word hearing comes first; seeing comes second. This discussion will take them in turn. 

– Gordon Clark

i) I've discussed this before, but now I'd like to make an addition observation. Where could the "Word of Life" destination come from? Here's a clue:

The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life (Jn 6:63) 

Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life (Jn 6:68).

Jesus told the disciples that his spoken words are life. And Peter echoed that statement when he said Jesus had the words of eternal life.

Therefore, it's easy to see why John would use "the Word of Life" as a title for Jesus. And note that this goes back to the Incarnate Son. So, yes, the Incarnate Son could be heard with ears, seen with eyes, and handled with hands. He was visible, audible, and tangible. Indeed, during the course of his ministry, he touched, or was touched by, many people. 

ii) In addition, Clark denies what the text explicitly affirms. The text (1 Jn 1:1-3) explicitly asserts the visible, audible, tangible nature of the subject, which Clark proceeds to flatly deny. The text uses the same type of terminology John's Gospel uses in reference to the Incarnate Son (1:14) and the Risen Son (20:24-29). Clark's anti-Incarnational interpretation is heretical. He dehistoricizes John's forceful affirmation, with its allusions to the Incarnation and Resurrection. Clark reduces this to an idea. 

iii) Clark doesn't begin with Scripture. Rather, he begins with philosophy. He begins with his rationalistic epistemology. No one who took a passage like 1 Jn 1:1-3 as his starting-point would deny the possibility of sense knowledge. Rather, Clark must deny that in spite of the passage. 

Absolute personality

One weakness with Gordon Clark is his lopsided fixation on epistemology. Perhaps his neglect of metaphysics is due in part to his radical skepticism regarding sense knowledge. 

In that regard, Van Til is more balanced. Van Til shares Clark's interest in epistemology, but that's complemented by an interest in metaphysics. Indeed, Van Til attempts to use metaphysics to ground epistemology: the metaphysics of epistemology.

Take his view of God as the Absolute (i.e. absolute personality). That's a metaphysical principle with some epistemological implications. 

Likewise, his belief that the one-over-many problem is harmonized in the Trinity. Admittedly, that's not a conceptual solution. Indeed, he thinks the Trinity is paradoxical. But by the same token, he thinks the Trinity proves the compatibility and equal ultimacy of the one and the many. 

Ironically, Greg Bahsen share's Gordon Clark's overemphasis on epistemology to the neglect of metaphysics. However, Vern Poythress (chance, coincidence, randomness, risk, probability, prediction) as well as James Anderson and Greg Welty (theistic conceptual realism) have been developing transcendental theism in ways that explore and exploit the theistic (indeed, Calvinistic) metaphysical underpinnings of epistemology. In that respect they are doing what Van Til failed to do, which is to turn his programatic suggestions into detailed models. 

Bacardi rum

In Language and Theology, Gordon Clark says: To perceive a thing, these “sensations” must be combined. Note that no one ever sees a dog or a tree. A dog is not just black; he is also soft, fuzzy, and perhaps has an odor. But before one perceives a dog, he must choose black, fuzzy, and odor, combine them, and only then has he the perception of his pet. Yet there is nothing in the single qualities that forces him to select these particular ones and discard the dozens of others he also has at the same time. Why does he not select the fuzzy, the sound B-flat, and the taste of Bacardi rum, all of which he senses at the same moment, and combine them into the perceived object? Is there anything in a person’s fifty or more sensations that compels the selection of these few rather than another few?

On the face of it, this generates a dilemma for Scripturalist epistemology. How can we grasp what Clark's statement even means unless we already know the difference between a a dog, the sound of B-flat, and the taste of Bacardi rum? Clark's examples appear to be self-refuting, because his illustration is premised on knowing something that his conclusion denies. Given his epistemology, how does he know, or come to know, what's a dog or what's Bacardi rum? Surely he didn't deduce Bacardi rum from a Biblical proposition. What proposition would that be? 

Axiomatic opinions

Gary Crampton:
"An important part of the Scripturalist worldview is the epistemological distinction between knowledge and opinion. Throughout the history of Western thought, philosophers such as Parmenides, Plato, and Aristotle, have correctly differentiated between these two. Augustine and Gordon Clark are just two examples of Christian philosophers who have done the same.(36) There is a difference between that which we “know” and that about which we may have opinions…To “opine” something is not to “know” it. Justified truth is found only in the Word of God.

And is the epistemological distinction between knowledge and opinion knowledge or opinion? Is that distinction itself an object of knowledge or opinion? Does a Scripturalist know there's such a distinction, or does he merely opine that there's such a distinction? 

What's noncircular justification for this distinction? How does the Scripturalist come to know or justifiably believe such a distinction exists in the first place? 

The Scripturalist begins with the presupposition that the Bible is the Word of God; this is axiomatic. He then deduces everything else from Scripture.

Aren't axioms unprovable postulates? So if the presupposition that Scripture is the word of God is merely axiomatic, then that axiom would seem to be a matter of opinion rather than knowledge. And if that's just an opinion, so is everything deduced from that opinion. At best, a valid deduction from an axiomatic opinion. 

Given that presupposition, you can deduce other truths, but by what noncircular argument does a Scripturalist establish the given? 

Proving first principles

I'll make another comment on Beisner's case for Carkian apologetics:

http://ecalvinbeisner.com/freearticles/ClassPresup.pdf

Given the centrality of the Bible in Clarkian epistemology, how do Clarkians know and/or show that the Bible is, in fact, the word of God? How do they establish their axiom or first principle? 

1. The Bible claims to be God-breathed.
2. All explanations of the claim other than its truth are untenable.
3. All attempts to refute the claim by pointing to specific errors in the Bible fail.
4. Therefore we are justified in believing that the Bible is true and God-breathed.

Beisner doesn't explain why a Clarkian should accept the self-witness of the Bible, but reject the self-witness or the Koran or Swedenborg's Arcana Cœlestia.

(2) for the truthfulness of the Bible. But he would remind us that particular premises–which are the most that can be established by historical evidence–cannot validly yield universal conclusions, and that therefore the proper use of historical evidence is not to prove that the Bible is the Word of God but to disprove allegations of errors in it. 

So historical evidence doesn't provide positive evidence for the claims of Scripture. Rather, it merely cancels putative evidence to the contrary. 

(3) Indeed, fulfilled prophecy is an example of the logical consistency of the whole Bible. If the Bible contained prophecies that went finally unfulfilled (and we could know of some such because their time horizons have expired), that would entail internal contradiction in the Bible and would be inconsistent with its self- description as the Word of God. But fulfilled prophecies illustrate the Bible’s consistency. 

So fulfilled prophecy doesn't provide positive evidence for the claims of Scripture. It merely illustrates the "consistency" of Scripture. Inconsistency would falsify the claims of Scripture, but consistency falls short of validating the claims of Scripture. Inconsistency would be positive counterevidence, but consistency is consistent with either truth or falsehood. Neutral. 

But if Beisner doesn't think historical evidence, the argument from prophecy, or the argument from miracles furnishes positive evidence for the claims of Scripture, then what's left? He appeals to the witness of the Spirit (WCF 1.5). And up to a point I think that's a legitimate appeal. However:

i) That's not a distinctive of Clarkian epistemology. Different apologetic methodologies can include the witness of the Spirit. Indeed, that's a type of argument from religious experience. 

ii) That appeal would only work for defensive apologetics, not offensive apologetics. Since unbelievers lack that experience, it can't be evidence for them. 

So how would a Clarkian apologist reason with an unbeliever? In typical Clarkian epistemology, there are only two kinds of beliefs: knowledge and unjustified opinion. If, however, the witness of the Spirit is the only way we can know that the Bible is the word of God, if all other lines of evidence reduce to unjustified opinion, then how does a Clarkian apologist enable the unbeliever to bridge the chasm?  

Clark's hammer

I'm going to comment on part of this:

http://ecalvinbeisner.com/freearticles/ClassPresup.pdf

Unlike Van Tilian presuppositionalism, classical presuppositionalism will not argue, “God exists, therefore God exists.” It will not argue, “The Bible is the Word of God, therefore the Bible is the Word of God.”

Can Beisner quote examples of Van Til, Frame, Bahnsen, David Byron, James Anderson et al. who actually argue in that fashion, or is that Beisner's caricature?  

Instead, classical presuppositionalism affirms that logic, or reason (terms it considers synonymous), is simply the structure of God’s thought…

Are reason and logic synonymous? Consider modus ponens:

If P, then Q. P. Therefore, Q.

Is that synonymous with reason? Isn't modus ponens just an abstract rule of logical inference? It's purely general. It has no specific factual content. That, of course, is part of what makes it useful. You can plug so many different things into the formula. 

But isn't there more to divine reason than fact-free laws of logic? For instance, doesn't God know all truths of fact? Particular facts about the actual world–as well as possible worlds? 

1. The Bible claims to be God-breathed.
2. All explanations of the claim other than its truth are untenable.
3. All attempts to refute the claim by pointing to specific errors in the Bible fail.
4. Therefore we are justified in believing that the Bible is true and God-breathed. 

Consider the argument piece by piece. First, the Bible claims to be God-breathed. To note this is not to argue in a circle; it is merely to set aside the hypothetical objection that we are claiming for the Bible what it does not claim for itself. It would after all be rather gratuitous to claim that the Bible was the Word of God if it did not claim to be. “There is no reason for making assertions beyond those that can validly be inferred from the statements of the Bible,” Clark writes. “. . . What the Bible claims about itself is an essential part of the argument. The Christian is well within the boundaries of logic to insist that the first reason for believing in the inspiration of the Bible is that it makes this claim.” Clark cites, among other passages that (explicitly or implicitly) make this claim, 2 Timothy 3:16, John 10:35, 2 Peter 1:20, 21, Romans 3:2, Matthew 11:9-15, Romans 16:25-27, and Ephesians 3:4-5.

i) An obvious gap in Beisner's argument is that books like Matthew, Luke, and Acts don't claim to be inspired. 

ii) Perhaps Beisner would try to close the gap by claiming that they are covered by categorical statements like 2 Tim 3:16. That, however, only pushes the question back a step: if Matthew is Scripture, then Matthew is inspired. But how does Beisner determine that Matthew is Scripture? How does he determine that 2 Tim 3:16 includes Matthew in the scope of its claim?

Provided the Protestant canon of Scripture, suppose Beisner's argument goes through. But how, given Clarkian epistemology, does he determine the canon in the first place? Consider Clarkian demotion of historical evidence and probabilistic reasoning. In making a case for the canon, how does Beisner avoid the methodology of evidentialism? 

Second, all explanations of the claim other than its truth are untenable. Consider three possible alternative explanations. One is that the claim is only occasional and accidental and therefore should not be taken seriously. But a careful inspection of the Biblical data, e.g., as done by Louis Gaussen in his Theopneustia (published in translation as The Divine Inspiration of the Bible) or by Benjamin B. Warfield in The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, demonstrates that the claim is pervasive and crucial to much of the rest of the program of Scripture. It is therefore not accidental and cannot be trivialized or ignored. A second is that the claim is one among many by writers whose other claims provide good grounds for skepticism about their credibility, and therefore the claim lacks a priori credibility. Yet a careful examination of the writings indicates the opposite: that the writers were highly credible on other matters and made this claim in complete awareness of what they were saying, and therefore that the claim’s falsehood is unlikely a priori. A third is that though some other Bible characters might have made the claim, either Jesus did not make it or, if He did, He made it only in accommodation to the prevailing views of his contemporaries, and since Jesus is the most important character in the Bible, His failure to make the claim renders the claim unlikely. But again, careful inspection of the data indicate that Jesus did make the claim, that He did not do it merely as an accommodation to His contemporaries’ prevailing views (Indeed, He was quite in the habit of contradicting prevailing views that He considered wrong!), and that He made the claim in full self-awareness. Therefore, if the claim is false, it becomes an evidence against Jesus’ credibility. Yet Jesus’ credibility is otherwise impeccable. Therefore Jesus’ credibility gives His claim a priori credibility. Perhaps there are other alternative explanations that need examination, and in the appropriate context that could be done. But for the sake of illustrating the method, the consideration of these three is sufficient. If there are four and only four possible explanations of a phenomenon (in this case a claim), and if three of them can be shown untenable, then it follows that the fourth is to be affirmed. Thus, it follows from the failure of alternative explanations of the Bible’s claim to be the Word of God that the Bible is in fact what it claims to be: the Word of God.

Notice the repeated appeal to "credibility." But how is that essentially different from the probabilistic methodology of classical, evidentialist, and cumulative-case apologetics? 

Third, all attempts to refute the claim by pointing to specific errors in the Bible fail. A study of individual examples of alleged contradictions in the Bible, such as John W. Haley’s Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible, demonstrates that none of the allegations proves true. Similarly, a study of individual examples of alleged historical inaccuracies in the Bible, such as we find in Gleason Archer’s Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, demonstrates that none of those allegations proves true.

Once again, doesn't that boil down to probabilistic reasoning? Doesn't that appeal to things like archeological corroboration? How does that distinguish his position from classical, evidentialist, and cumulative-case apologetics? 

Fourth, therefore we are justified in believing that the Bible is true and God-breathed. This follows from the first three premises, and the argument is noncircular.

Even if that's the case, isn't that basically inference-to-the-best explanation? But doesn't that fall well below the exacting standards of Clarikian epistemology?

Frame's presuppositionalism

I'm going to comment on part of this:

http://ecalvinbeisner.com/freearticles/ClassPresup.pdf

In general, Beisner's analysis suffers from the hermeneutic of suspicion. He is so hostile to Van Tilian apologetics that he always assumes the worst interpretation of Frame's statement.

One wonders why Frame capitulates to epistemological relativism with the qualifier “for Christians, faith governs reasoning.” Does faith not govern reasoning for non-Christians? Or, is it true for Christians that faith governs everyone’s reasoning, but not true for non- Christians? Certainly Frame believes neither of these. Yet his statement implies one or the other. But presumably this is to be explained as a careless expression.

I take Frame to mean Christians acknowledge the authority of revelation whereas unbelievers do not. For Christians, revelation consciously governs their reasoning, whereas unbelievers consciously reject revelation, or they are simply ignorant of revelation. 

Frame has an aggravating habit of qualifying what he says but not defining the qualifiers. For instance, he writes over and over again (not only in this essay but also elsewhere) of “human reason” and “human logic”–a habit that he shares with Van Til. “The content of faith, Scripture,” Frame tells us, “may transcend reason in these two senses: (1) it cannot be proved by human reason alone; (2) it contains mysteries, even apparent contradictions, that cannot be fully resolved by human logic. . . .”20 But what purpose does that modifier, human, serve in these statements? Is there some other reason or logic that is not human? Perhaps Frame means not reason or logic in the abstract but the attempt at reasoning by particular persons–though if that is what he means, we might plead with him to say so. But what is reason or logic other than the way God’s mind thinks? The logic humans use includes the law of contradiction; does Frame have in mind some logic that excludes it, a logic that he would describe as “nonhuman logic”? Would that even be logic? Until Frame specifies the axioms of a nonhuman logic, or of a nonhuman reason, his qualifying reason and logic with human is meaningless. 

Yes, there is some other reason that is not human. For instance, there is angelic reason. More to the point, there's divine reason. God's reason is timeless, infinite, and infallible. Man's reason is temporal, finite, and fallible. 

Likewise, there's a difference between "the way God's mind thinks" and human systems of logic. Human systems of logic reflect the human understanding of logic, and that evolves. Consider developments in logic in the 19C and 20C. 

Does Beisner believe Skolem's Paradox is the way God's mind thinks?

I suspect Beisner's antipathy to Frame's distinctions and qualifications goes back to the Clark Controversy. Is it possible for the human understanding of logic to correspond to God's understanding of logic to a degree sufficient that human's can distinguish truth from falsehood? I guess that's what Beisner is getting at. He thinks distinguishing human reason or human logic from divine reason results in skepticism. That may be a legitimate objection to how Van Til formulated his opposition to Clark. However, Beisner is not getting that from Frame's statement. 

Consider Frame’s statement that “[We] should present the biblical God, not merely as the conclusion to an argument, but as the one who makes argument possible.” The apodosis (second half) of the sentence is not properly parallel to the protasis (first half). After reading that we should present God not merely as the conclusion to an argument, we expect to read that we should present Him as the axiom (starting point) of an argument. That is, the first clause focuses on the parts of an argument, not the conditions for one. But Frame tacitly turns from the parts of an argument to a statement about the conditions under which argument can occur. God is not merely the conclusion of an argument, but “the one who makes argument possible.” Now of course the classical or evidential or cumulative case apologist will agree that had God not existed, or had God existed but never created anything, or had God created only nonrational things or only rational things that never erred, no argument could have taken place (unless of course God argued with Himself–in which case the god that existed would not be the God of the Bible). But that is surely not the point Frame wants to make…we might also wonder why, instead of writing the nonparallel sentence “[We] should present the biblical God, not merely as the conclusion to an argument, but as the one who makes argument possible” Frame did not write, “We should present the biblical God, not merely as the conclusion to an argument, but as the major premise as well.” That would balance protasis and apodosis, and it would be precisely what Frame believes. It would be unfair to assume that Frame avoided that clarity because it made the absurdity of his position too obvious, but it is not unfair to notice that the imprecision has the effect of hiding the position’s absurdity, regardless of intent.

I think Beisner misses Frame's point. Frame isn't trying to create a symmetry between the protasis and the apodosis. Rather, he's making the deeper point that if God didn't exist, there'd be no basis for rational argumentation in the first place. God is the source of human rationality. God is the source of necessary truths as well as contingent truths. God's nature is the foundation of logic. This would stand in contrast, to, say, secular Platonic realism. 

It is precisely these challenges that apologetics must answer, and merely reasserting the opposite is no answer, it is again a petitio principi, an argument in a circle. There are more logic problems in them, but my primary purpose in citing these paragraphs was to point out the ambiguity of Frame’s conceding that “There is a kind of circularity here, but the circularity is not vicious.” The careless reader might think that Frame then goes on to define the “kind of circularity” he has in mind. But aside from denying that it is vicious (that is, that it is logically fallacious)–in which he is simply mistaken–Frame never does say what this “kind of circularity” actually is or how an argument can be circular but not vicious. He descends to the same ambiguity when he writes, as I cited once already, “But are we not still forced to say, ‘God exists (presupposition), therefore God exists (conclusion),’ and isn’t that argument clearly circular? Yes, in a way. But that is unavoidable for any system, any worldview” and “One cannot argue for an ultimate standard by appealing to a different standard. That would be inconsistent. [para] So there is a kind of circle here. But even this circle, as I indicated earlier, is linear in a sense.” 

i) To begin with, there's a sense in which circular reasoning is a necessary condition of a valid argument. To be valid, the conclusion must be implicit or contained in the premises. 

ii) Likewise, there's a sense in which many sound arguments beg the question. That's because a sound argument presumes the truth of the premises. A sound argument is not an argument for the truth of the premises, but for the truth of the conclusion. It takes the truth of the premises for granted. That's an unproven presupposition of the syllogism. In that respect, a sound argument assumes what it needs to prove. Given the truth of the premises, the conclusion is true–but unless you grant the truth of the premise, to claim the argument is sound begs the question. 

iii) So what makes some arguments viciously circular and other arguments virtuously circular? There are at least two possible considerations:

a) If the truth of the premise is not in dispute, then the argument doesn't beg the question. Keep in mind that's person-variable. 

b) In a deductive syllogism, the premises are reasons in support of the conclusion. They are intended to warrant the conclusion. So there's supposed to be some logical progression from premises to conclusion. If, however, the conclusion is essentially a restatement of the premises, then all it's done is to reassert the same claim. A disguised, repeated, unjustified assertion.

iv) Truth claims are ultimately circular. An appeal to reason presumes the reliability of reason. An appeal to memory presumes the reliability of memory. An appeal to testimony presumes the reliability of testimony. An appeal to observation presumes the reliability of observation. An appeal to Scripture presumes the reliability of Scripture.

Circular reasoning in that sense doesn't ipso facto mean the appeal is arbitrary. These may be necessary preconditions of knowledge. The alternative is global skepticism–which is self-refuting. Mind you, that, in itself, is a tacit appeal to reason.