Is Paul begging the question?

I'll make a few comments about this post:

https://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2019/01/reading-now-cornelius-van-til-the-defense-of-the-faith.html

1. It's anachronistic to read Paul through the prism of Hume. Viewed from a post-Enlightenment context, it may seem like Paul is begging the question, but the thought-world of the 1C Roman Empire was generally very different from the Enlightenment and its secular progeny. (There was, to be sure, the occasional skeptic or atheist.)

2. In addition, Paul is writing to and for Christians. Jewish and Gentile converts to Christianity. The argument from authority is not fallacious if your target audience shares the same paradigm. The implied reader of Paul's letter acknowledged the dim view of pagan idolatry and immorality in OT Judaism. 

3. There's a circular quality to Vallicella's complaint. He doesn't identify as a Christian. He's merely a theist who's "sympathetic" to Christianity. Given his outlook, he naturally rejects Paul's classically Jewish characterization of pagan infidelity. In part, Vallicella is giving us his autobiographical reaction. He doesn't see it the same way as Paul because he's on the other side of the issue. But that carries no presumption that Paul is wrong. Whatever your position, by definition you will disagree with the opposing position. 

Needless to say, Paul's indictment will be unconvincing to someone who doesn't share that outlook. It wasn't meant to be independently persuasive. Rather, it plays an explanatory role in Paul's overall presentation. There's an inner logic to the argument in Romans. So the hermeneutical issue is the role that Rom 1 plays in the larger flow of argument. If God is just but humans are unjust, then that has implications for the nature of salvation. The hermeneutical question is the logical relationship between Rom 1 and the remainder of Romans. How Rom 1 functions in Paul's argumentative strategy, given the task he set for himself. Given the target audience.

4. Of course Paul didn't present a scientific or philosophical defense of God's existence. He doesn't use modal logic or Bayesian probability theory. He doesn't mount a fine-tuning argument based on modern astronomy. That would be anachronistic and unintelligible to his readers. Indeed, that would still be incomprehensible for most modern readers. He isn't writing with a view to modern philosophers and scientists. 

As Vallicella knows, theistic proofs are becoming increasingly technical. And critiques of theistic proofs are becoming increasingly technical. Romans does not and cannot operate at that level. 

Suppose there are conjectures and hypotheses in math that require superhuman intelligence to solve. In principle, there are apodictic proofs or disproofs, but they require superhuman intelligence to understand. Indeed, that's likely the case. The paradox is that we're smart enough to ask questions we're too dumb to answer. 

By the same token, what would a sound argument for God's existence look like? What if an apodictic proof for God's existence would be so technical, so daunting, that it's out of reach of human reason? 

Indeed, that's plausible. Even the smartest human beings have limited intelligence and hit a wall when pushing the boundaries. Although their mind takes them further than average thinkers, they still hit a wall. It's just lies a little further out for them. 

5. However, all of us know many things we don't bother to prove. We know many things it might be impossible to prove. 

6. Van Til doesn't simply accuse the unbeliever of suppressing his natural knowledge of God. Elsewhere, Van Til attempts to mount a transcendental argument for God's existence. His argument is underdeveloped, but he doesn't rest the whole case on appeal to Rom 1. 

7. Vallicella says:

But is the world a divine creation? This is the question, and the answer is not obvious. That the natural world is a divine artifact is not evident to the senses, or to the heart, or to reason. Of course, one can argue for the existence of God from the existence and order of the natural world. I have done it myself. But those who reject theistic arguments, and construct anti-theistic arguments, have their reasons too, and it cannot fairly be said that what animates the best of them is a stubborn and prideful refusal to submit to a truth that is evident. It is simply not objectively evident to the senses or the intellect or the heart that the natural world is a divine artifact. If it were objectively evident, then there would be no explanation of the existence of so many intellectually penetrating, morally upright, and sincere atheists.  Even if the atheisms of Nietzsche, Russell, Sartre, and Hitchens could be dismissed as originating in pride, stubborness, and a willful refusal to recognize any power or authority beyond oneself, or beyond the human, as may well be the case with the foregoing luminaries, it does not follow that the atheism of all has this origin.

There's a lot there to sort out:

i) Are there morally upright atheists? One issue is whether naturalism can justify moral realism. Some atheists are dutiful despite the nihilistic implications of their position. The question is whether their scrupulosity is consistent with the naturalism they espouse. 

ii) In addition, what is moral for an atheist may be immoral for a Christian. Take Peter Singer. He's very moralistic, but his ethical positions are often evil by Christian standards. 

iii) It's not evident to the senses (alone) that a Ferrari is an artifact. We recognize that a Ferrari is an artifact because we place what we see in a larger conceptual framework. 

iv) Philosophy has a long history of saying that what is evidently the case is not the case when we scrutinize it. So I'm unclear on why Vallicella makes what is "evident" the criterion. 

v) Ironically, the most obvious, fundamental truths may be hardest to prove. How do you prove an obvious truth without recourse to something even more obvious? But what if there's nothing more obvious? How do you prove a fundamental truth without recourse to something even more fundamental? But what if there's nothing more fundamental?

Take debates over the nature of time. The A-theory and the B-theory. Metrical conventionalism and metrical objectivism (e.g. Poincaré). Consider subtle arguments by McTaggart and Gödel that time is illusory. Yet nothing is more fundamental or evident in human experience than time. Yet the very fact that we're so conditioned by time makes it difficult to achieve the critical detachment necessary to study time in itself. We must always study time in relation to ourselves. 

By the same token, if God exists, then he's bedrock reality. But that means we shouldn't expect him to be directly evident–precisely because he lies behind everything else. 

Which is not to deny that God may condescend to our level by providing some people with intellectual shortcuts (e.g. the argument from miracles, answered prayer). 

vi) What is evident to one person may be inevident to another person. After doing a physical exam, it may be evident to a medical specialist that a patient has a particular disease. That's not evident to a nonspecialist. Even though the nature of the patient's condition may be inevident to most observers, the medical specialist is right. 

vii) There can, moreover, be moral or intellectual impediments to the recognition of what is or ought to be evident. Consider atrocities that humans commit against other human beings. They treat the victims as subhuman, but is it not evident that the victims are just as human as the perps? Failure to recognize what is or ought to be evident can be culpable. 

viii) In modern western atheism, the foil isn't generally theism in the abstract but some version of Christianity. Christianity isn't based on what's naturally evident, but historical knowledge. How many atheists seriously investigate the evidence for Christianity? 

In my observation, nearly al the most brilliant atheists (e.g. great mathematicians and physicists) assume that Christianity or theism has already been disproven, so they don't even bother to study the evidence. They think that's a settled issue. They make the preliminary snap judgment that there's nothing there to look into.