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Originally Posted by Brian Bosse  Hello John,
Yes, this is my objection. But let me qualify this by saying that I equate “objective, absolute proof” with philosophical certainty. Van Tillians generally claim to have a philosophically certain proof. This is where my objection lies. |
Brian, when you say "philosophical certainty", what exactly do you mean? Again, I don't want to assume that I know the finer details of your argument.
In my mind, philosophical certainty has to do with the correspondence of our perceptions (for want of a better word) to reality. I see lower down that you seem to deny that anyone can attain that kind of certainty. If God is a reality, then you are saying that we can never be 100% sure that He exists. This presents an interesting conundrum for me. How can one then be sure of one's own existence? And more importantly for a Christian, how can you be sure of your salvation? It all seems to descend into relativism.
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No. All I need show is that the apologist never considers all of the possible worldviews. Consider the scientific theory that all electrons repel each other. There are a finite number of electrons; however, we have never observed all of them. The theory is based on an inductive argument. Unless every element is exhausted, then we cannot conclude with deductive certainty that all elements do or do not have some property.
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I want to explore this a little further. It is my opinion that you are making a small category mistake here. Again, maybe it is just my ignorance or misunderstanding of your position, so please don't jump all over me.
The discussion of the existence of God is a second-order discussion, as opposed to the study of electrons, for example, which is a first-order discipline. The study of electrons, or for that matter the large majority of scientific phenomena, is a normative investigation of natural forces. There is no attempt to normalize anything in the discussion of God's existence, in fact, I would argue that it is the exact opposite. I would also venture that your analogy does not work, since you cannot assert that there are an infinite number of worldviews that are contra Christianity. For you to assert as such, you have to establish that there are an infinite number of axioms that can be used as premises for the non-existence of God. The number of contra-arguments will depend on the number of possible logical combinations from those axioms. There may be many, and many more to come, but they do not add up to an infinite number. Currently I am aware of about 22 broad categories of discussion between believers and non-believers, and those have been pretty consistent for the last century. One can continue to invent contra-arguments, but they will all ultimately come back to one of those categories, as well as facing the challenge that any new invented argument should at the very least exhibit some signs of credibility.
We discussed this briefly in the previous exchange, where you agreed that the shorter route will be to evaluate the validity of the contra-argument axioms. You also pointed out that this fails, since there is no philosophically certain argument made that shows that human autonomy cannot provide for sufficient conditions for knowledge.
I have to admit, that somewhat confuses me. In making that statement, are you not assuming the very thing that you are trying to prove? I can even take my confusion one level higher, namely that in your entire argument against Van Til you assume that there is an objective measure, by which you can determine the validity of his argument or not. In making that argument, you either assume Van Tils position, or you assume human autonomy. If it is the first, then you may have proven yourself wrong, or, if it is the second, then you are circular. Again, Brian, this may just be my warped understanding of what you are trying to say, and not anything aimed at your person.
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I find the claim that we can have philosophical certainty to be arrogant and to confuse creature/creator distinction. The only being that has philosophical certainty is God. Again, I do not assert this with philosophical certainty.
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Mmmm, that is an interesting perspective. How do you know that God has philosophical certainty?
Overall, I think you have done an excellent job with this whole series, and it has certainly caused my gray matter to flutter. Thanks for a most interesting conversation so far.