Why is the discussion starting here?

One of the most important steps you can take in evaluating the issues that come up in life is to ask what assumptions are being made at the beginning of a discussion. Is the conversation starting where it ought to? Are people beginning their reasoning with some false assumptions, in terms of a false concept of what happened in a certain historical context, false priorities, or whatever else?

For example, when critics of Christianity try to cast doubt on something like the authorship of the gospels or their genre, and they object to how few sources Christians are citing in support of their position or how late the sources are, how does the critic's position compare? How many and how late are the sources supporting his position? If there's an assumption that the skeptic shouldn't be expected to show any support for his positions among the ancient sources, is that a valid assumption?

Or when there's a controversy surrounding a Marian apparition or a paranormal case of some other type, what explanatory options are people starting with? Are they taking the relevant factors into account?

Or when an advocate of baptismal regeneration begins a discussion with a large number of exceptions in mind to the rule of baptismal regeneration that he's advocating (people who lived in the Old Testament era, people who lived during Jesus' public ministry, Cornelius, martyrs who died without being baptized, catechumens who died without being baptized, etc.), should those exceptions be granted without supporting arguments? If supporting arguments are offered, are they adequate? Even if it's popular to allow the advocate of baptismal regeneration to assume a lot of exceptions to the rule without arguing for them, should you be going along with that popular practice?

It's important to think through issues like these. Be cautious about how discussions are framed and how they proceed.

Cartesian doubt

Descartes was an interesting man. A math genius: founder of analytical geometry.

In philosophy, he's known for Cartesian dualism, the Cartesian demon, the Cartesian Circle, the "Cogito, ergo sum," a version of the ontological argument, his rejection of final causes, his rejection of Scholastic empiricism, a quantifiable definition of matter (in contrast to the Aristotelian-Thomistic qualitative definition), and his methodological doubt. 

He's often dubbed the first modern philosopher because he attempted to make a clean break with the past. Make a fresh start. 

I'd like to briefly focus on his methodological skepticism. In a couple of respects, there's a Van Tilian aspect to his methodology.

i) In a sense, his methodological doubt is naive. We can't really abstract ourselves from our social conditioning. We can't avoid being influenced by the history of ideas. 

However, to give his method a more charitable interpretation, this is an exercise in becoming presuppositionally self-conscious. We have many guiding assumptions which may be so engrained that we're not even aware of them. 

It's a useful exercise to take a step back and consider all the things you take for granted without giving it a second thought. 

ii) Apropos (i), it's good to consider how many of your beliefs may be unjustified or unjustifiable. 

Of course, we can't do that with everything we believe, but it can be useful to do that with important beliefs. After all, many beliefs are questionable. 

iii) Conversely, this sifting process can make us more aware of essential beliefs. By process of elimination, what beliefs are indispensable to morality and rationality? Bracketing one or more beliefs, then considering the adjustments that must be made in their absence, is a way of means-testing worldviews.  

Likewise, what kind of world must we live in to ground essential beliefs? What other things must be in place to sustain our essential beliefs? 

Take the typical Christian apostate. They think they can leave God behind without leaving anything else of consequence behind. Indeed, they think that's an improvement. They are so shortsighted.

It's natural for them to continue believing many things they used to believe as Christians, because these are indispensable beliefs. So they don't stop to consider that atheism commits them to dispensing with these beliefs. They don't consider the intellectual cost of atheism. 

iv) Methodological doubt can be taken too far. It's an intellectual exercise. We need to distinguish between paper doubts and real doubts. Just because we have the ability to dream up intellectual traps that we can't escape from doesn't mean doubt is actually warranted in that contrived situation. That reaction confuses imagination with reality.   

Roman Catholic “presuppositions” on the early papacy are in retreat

Galileo: “If I can do it, Bergoglio can do it”

A “presupposition” is an elementary assumption in one’s reasoning or in the process by which opinions are formed… [In the case of Protestant/Catholic discussions], a “presupposition” is not just any assumption in an argument, but a personal commitment that is held at the most basic level of one’s network of beliefs. Presuppositions form a wide-ranging foundational perspective (or starting point) in terms of which everything else is interpreted and evaluated. As such, presuppositions have the greatest authority in one’s thinking, being treated as one’s least negotiable beliefs and being granted the highest immunity to revision. (

That’s a fairly simple and standard definition given by Greg Bahnsen, early on in his work on “Van Til’s Apologetic (Phillipsburg: New Jersey, P&R Publishing, ©1998, pg 2).

Whatever level of “immunity to revision” one’s presuppositions may have, there are simply times and events which force that simply force one to modify one’s presuppositions. Galileo’s study of the solar system was one such occasion, forcing the Roman Catholic Church to modify its own “presuppositions”. (“The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, and they concluded that it could be supported as only a possibility, not an established fact”. Over time, Roman Catholicism later modified these views even further, and in the 20th century, described Galileo as being among the “most audacious heroes of research”).

I believe that historical research into ancient cultures and “Earliest Christianity” is having the effect similar to Galileo’s on Roman Catholic doctrine, especially with respect to the papacy. In 1995, Pope John Paul II issued a statement Ut Unum Sint, in which he was asked (by whom?) “to find a way of exercising the [papal] primacy which … is … open to a new situation”

He positions this search for “a new situation” as “a request made of me”.

I can’t say who made the request, but in the past I have pointed to a growing body of historical literature (and this blog post only touches the surface) – it certainly seems as if this type of work has, in the growing pressure it puts on the papacy over the last century, “made the request”. It is similar to the pressure that Galileo’s work put on Roman Catholicism to change its views on science.

But these changes with respect to “the earliest papacy” have much to do with the “doctrine” of the papacy, which in turn is at the heart of Roman Catholic doctrine and epistemology.

* * *

In turn, this evolution in papal doctrine has a direct bearing in showing precisely how some scientific and historical research is affirming one aspect of Christianity – and affirming some of the presuppositions that some Christians have held – in this case, the development of the canon of the New Testament – while seriously challenging the presuppositions that Roman Catholics hold about the foundations of their own belief something.

Both of these beliefs are held as presuppositions, or “precommitments”, by conservative Protestants and by Roman Catholics, respectively. This was illustrated in a discussion that I had recently: