"Arguing about God ’s existence, I hold, is like arguing about air. You may affirm that air exists, and I that it does not. But as we debate the point, we are both breathing air all the time."
Cornelius Van Til
By C.L. Bolt
Non-Christians suppress the truth in unrighteousness, distorting every fact. Unbelievers are both spiritually and intellectually lost, believing themselves to be final authorities with respect to their own intellectual evaluations of the world. Yet in appealing to one’s own authority one appeals to a shifting foundation that certainly does not serve as a norm. Truth itself is relative in this scheme. The standards, purpose, meaning, motivation, etc. for reasoning are completely lost in this assumption of the possibility of thought independent of God. This series has sought to show in some detail how the creaturely mind asserting its independence from God becomes trapped within itself.
One may observe the lack of purpose behind the unbelieving scholar’s work, intelligent men missing obvious points, and people making obvious blunders in reasoning and see these as a result of the noetic effects of sin. Scripture describes in great detail the futility, darkness, ignorance, and hardness of the unbelieving mind, understanding, and heart.
If evidences and facts were clear and the minds and reasoning capabilities of people were everything many want to claim for them then we would expect to find widespread agreement concerning evidences and facts, but we find the opposite. Sometimes people even indulge in their irrationality and take pleasure in error. Reasoning is directly tied to morality and soteriology. There is a desperate human need for salvation not only spiritually but intellectually as well. The person must be viewed as a whole even in discussions of sin and salvation.
Central to the Christian worldview is the Gospel and so central to our apologetic is the thing that every sinner needs; the truth of redemption in Christ Jesus. The Gospel is the preached and received message that Jesus Christ died for our sins, was buried, and was raised again in accordance with the Scriptures. The Gospel of Scripture does not call for changing or adding a few beliefs to one’s worldview, but calls for repentance from sin and faith in Jesus Christ. Conversion includes the entire person and worldview rather than parts of them. In conversion God removes the unbeliever from his sinful, rebellious, allegedly independent presupposition and places him or her onto the Christ-saturated center of the Christian worldview as the ultimate presupposition. The entirety of the Christian worldview must be brought to bear upon the unbeliever through the Word of God. It is only a thoroughly biblical view of the world that makes sense of anything.
The cross of Jesus Christ brings us as believers into a knowledge of God whereby we begin to see God, the world, and ourselves as they truly are. Jesus is our personal Lord and Savior. His work saves us from our corruption and guilt, and this applies even to the intellect which is, again, affected by sin. Were it not for the work of Christ it would not be possible to think as we ought. Apologists have long pointed out the need for redemption in the context of justice. God, if He is just, must punish sin, but apart from a Suffering Servant this means that none of us will go free. The necessity of redemption in this sense has been brought against positions like Islam and Judaism which claim to have a just God and yet have people who get away with their sins. This is an important point, and one which should not be neglected in an apologetic, but the necessity of redemption goes deeper than this.
God did not plan for humanity to find its way to Him on an individual, autonomous basis. God revealed Himself to humanity. There is a necessity to the revelation of God, and it is redemptive in nature. If an apologetic method is to be consistent then it must start with the Bible and plead with sinners not upon the basis of their own authority but upon the authority of the Word of God which defines the unregenerate sinner as created by God in His image and for His glory. We as believers walk now as children of light and have been saved from the futility of our minds, lack of understanding, alienation from God, spiritual deadness, ignorance, and hardness of heart. We are in union with and alive in Christ and no longer stumble through the darkness as we once did. Redemption renders it possible to see things truly. We are saved eternally and epistemologically.
The need for the salvation of the whole self, and hence the mind, is to be emphasized in an evangelistic/apologetic encounter. There is neither hope nor remedy for the sinful state and intellectual folly of the unbelieving worldview apart from the Christ of Scripture. Having the problems of the intellect fixed begins with having the problem of sin fixed and there is only one way that happens – conversion to Christ. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.
By C.L. Bolt
Islam is much more similar to the Christian worldview than atheism or agnosticism. Some varieties of the non-Christian worldview are so much like the Christian worldview that they actually admit to borrowing from the Christian worldview, and Islam is one of these. Islam states that faith is the starting point and Muslims place their faith in the Bible “like” the Christian does (on the surface). When the Bible is claimed as the starting point by an unbelieving system of thought, how might we begin to answer that system?
Many Christians are unaware that Muslims claim that the Bible is from their god Allah. In order to begin to apply this method of apologetics to Islam, the presuppositionalism that drives our argumentation must be brought to the forefront of the discussion. Since Islam claims to accept the authority of the Christian Scriptures there is no need to argue from anything other than the text of Scripture itself. Issues of canon, translation, transmission, history, and other evidences may be brought to bear upon the discussion taking place as well since it involves a parroted Christian frame work upon which the aforementioned issues are to be understood according to the religious position in question. There is nothing involved in this procedure which is not already a part of the covenantal apologetic method. The Muslim is called upon to be consistent with his or her own ultimate authority which just so happens to rightfully belong to Christians. But notice that Islam is inconsistent with Christian theism. Such inconsistency is a finding of internal critique and fits nicely into our argument.
One need not attempt to answer Islam philosophically since it is explicitly borrowing from the Christian worldview and admits to doing as much by claiming faith in the Bible. The Bible can be used to refute Islam. This is not to say that the more philosophical approach cannot be used on Islam; it can be, however Islam claims to get around the question about the starting point of knowledge by sharing our starting point. Muslims then reject that starting point in their various flawed interpretations of and additions to the text, etc. Islam is a Christian heresy. It claims to accept the same starting point for knowledge as Christianity while also rejecting the starting point for knowledge that Christians have when it deviates from Scripture. So there is a problem with the starting point of Islam as it is divided between the Christian and non-Christian starting points of knowledge.
The Muslim claims that the Injil is inspired with Surah 2 and 4 speaking of the books which were sent down before. The Muslim’s own holy book the Quran calls upon the Muslim to believe in these books. Here we have a clear command from Muhammad around 620 AD to believe in these books. The Muslim must know and be able to identify these books in order to continue to obey and believe them. There is no consistent basis upon which the Muslim may reject the inspiration of the New Testament given these beliefs.
Further, the alleged corruption of these texts calls into question Allah’s ability to preserve his holy writing in order that the Muslim may know how to believe and obey. The Muslim arbitrarily trusts one revelation over another when either or both might be corrupt according to Muslim beliefs consistently applied.
The Muslim claims that Christians do not have the Injil without being able to explain exactly what it is. Additionally, there is absolutely no evidence for the Muslim claims of corruption. The Muslim apologist wants to use the Bible as a reliable witness to Jesus while claiming that the Bible is not a reliable witness to Jesus; a contradiction.
Finally, it may be objectively shown that the books sent down before are reliable documents and that they teach that Jesus is very God of very God who was crucified and died for the sins of man; the Injil. While the Muslim is not willing to immediately accept what hasBy C.L. Bolt
Since Romans 1 teaches a universal belief in God, if the Christian world view is true, then agnosticism is contradictory and thus false. But let’s assume for the sake of argument that agnosticism is true, and the agnostic really does not know whether or not God exists:
If God exists, then everyone knows that God exists;
The agnostic does not know that God exists;
Therefore, God does not exist.
The agnostic’s position of agnosticism assumes at the outset that God does not exist. But this is atheism, not agnosticism. For agnosticism to both be agnosticism and not be agnosticism is a contradiction. Agnosticism, if true, entails that it is false. Therefore it is false. The agnostic either knows that God exists, or he knows that God does not exist, so that he cannot rest peacefully on some allegedly neutral agnosticism during the course of his life. Unfortunately, most agnostics find atheism untenable. They must therefore embrace theism.
Contrary to the Christian world view, the implication of agnosticism is that facts, objects, and subjects of knowledge can exist apart from God. Agnostics try to avoid making a positive statement concerning ultimate matters, but simultaneously affirm a universally negative statement. Agnostics have, “already given one of the two possible answers to every question of epistemology that may be asked.” (Van Til) One definite thing the agnostic says about ultimate reality is that God does not exist. Agnosticism is hence not open-minded, but closed-minded on the subject of the existence of God, and thus it is both psychologically and epistemologically self-contradictory. But in order to affirm the self-contradictoriness of agnosticism, the agnostic must prove the non-existence of God. However the agnostic needs every fact prior to proving the non-existence of God, or even commenting concerning the nature of any fact, since one fact may influence others. The agnostic will never get all of these facts in. The agnostic makes mutually-exclusive statements about ultimate reality, being open and closed-minded, but has no basis upon which to understand this contradiction. The agnostic might affirm that contradiction is simply meaningless, but this assumes that there is something other than meaninglessness.
To summarize and complete the argument, agnosticism is self-contradictory because Christianity is true. Agnosticism is self-contradictory if anti-theism is true. Therefore, agnosticism presupposes the existence of God.
By C.L. Bolt
So much work has been done regarding atheism that one hesitates to add much more concerning it in an introduction to covenantal apologetics. The atheist must be pressed for consistency in every area, and her inconsistencies immediately pointed out. The problems of skepticism described in this series are so easily applied to atheism that those new to this method of apologetics sometimes mistakenly think that the method is only applicable to atheism.
The atheist will mockingly demand evidence for the existence of God all the while pretending as though she is neutral with respect to any evidence that is set forth. The Christian cannot allow the atheist to get away with this. Rather, it must be pointed out to the atheist that she carries the burden of proof. She is making the bold and arrogant claim that God does not exist, and should justify her universal negative. This is even more true with respect to the evidence for the existence of God, which she denies exists in any corner of the universe.
Of course, the atheist will scoff and explain to you, you ignorant Christian apologist, that atheism is not the belief or claim that God does not exist, but merely a lack of belief in God. She recognizes the impossible task of proving the universal negative regarding God and the evidence for God and is attempting to lessen the load on herself while increasing it for you. Yet, a hard atheistic stance toward the God of the Bible is implicit in any soft atheism, for the Bible claims that the Christian God is known by every person. If Christianity is true, then the atheist believes in God. The atheist should not assume from the outset that Christianity is false if she does not want to beg the question or carry a burden of proof.
We must ask what the atheist has as an argument against the existence of God, and if anything is produced, show that these arguments already assume that God exists. We must ask what guarantee the atheist has that there is not a shred of evidence in the universe for the existence of God. The atheist certainly does not know everything. Of course, the atheist will fall back again onto something to weaken her case so that she does not have to defend her position. She will do this by citing probability as opposed to certain knowledge, but this move has already been dismissed through pointing out that a hard atheistic stance must be taken. For the atheist, it must not even be possible that a piece of evidence for the existence of God exists. Probability has nothing to do with it.
The atheist must be asked what she means by “evidence” and what she would accept as evidence of the existence of God. It must then be pointed out that both her definition of evidence as well as her silly demand is completely arbitrary. She would exalt herself above God in defining evidence and evaluating whether or not that evidence is sufficient, and this is in and of itself enough for her to hate God when He really does clearly and undeniably reveal Himself to the atheist.
The atheist rules her subjective kingdom in unrighteousness and rejects anything having to do with God as much as she can. This puts the atheist on bad terms with God. The atheist is not neutral with respect to God or evidence of His existence. The atheist hates God and attempts to justify that hatred through arbitrary definitions of and demands for evidence and argument. If the atheist were consistent then she would concede that she does not even have a reason to ask for evidence or argument for a given belief, whether that be belief in God or anything else.
God sets the standard for what is acceptable as evidence of His existence and nature, and He says that the evidence is abundant and plain. The evidence of the existence of God is so abundant and plain, and His nature so clearly perceived by those who claim that they lack belief in Him, that they are without excuse. The atheist attempts to reject the Christian story upon a rationally arbitrary whim; the rejection is first spiritual, then moral, and only then intellectual, although the three are in truth tied very closely together and separated only for emphasis. The atheist must know everything in order to behave the way she does, but she clearly does not know everything. The atheist should, to be consistent, become an agnostic.
By C.L. Bolt
Polytheism posits that there are multiple entities which go by the label “god,” but these entities are often so much like humans that they do not merit the label. Positing all-knowing, all-present, all-powerful gods in the plural results in a number of contradictions between those attributes such that these conceptions typically only possess slightly above and beyond what humans possess in terms of knowledge, presence, and power. They are nothing like the God of the Bible. It is not difficult to see why, given what has been discussed in this series; polytheism fails to provide an account for human intelligibility. Polytheism is, at base, atheism.
By C.L. Bolt
The covenantal apologist should highlight the many fundamental differences between the Christian and deistic positions, for they are not so similar as many would presume in the context of covenantal apologetics. A deist god may of course be posited as solving many of the same problems that the Christian God does insofar as this clock-making god provides an immaterial absolute to ground such things as logic and morality in, but this objection to covenantal apologetics comes mostly as the result of having been trained to think like a classical apologist. Once we take a closer look at this concept of a god it is seen that even logic and morality are not justified by positing its existence.
The entirety of the Christian worldview is presupposed by the Christian by virtue of the one who speaks it. There is no classical case built using every traditional theistic argument built up bit by bit into the concept and existence of the Christian God. When the lines of communication are broken between the alleged deistic god that wound the world up like a clock and then let it free to do whatever it will there is no human knowledge possible. The knowledge of this god is not delivered analogically to humans created in God’s image and redeemed epistemologically by virtue of a communication, and so logic and morality and other such principles of intelligible human experience are at once not any more knowable than they are in the purely atheistic manifestation of the non-Christian worldview.
Recall that the God of the Bible connects every fact to every other, and authoritatively calls everything what it is. The God of the Bible reveals Himself to us, because if He did not do so then we as humans left alone to ourselves would never, ever be capable of reasoning our way to Him. So it is that the deist, if he is to make a case that his god is capable in any way of justifying the knowledge that the deist claims to possess, must prove the existence of his god. Yet if one cannot get to the knowledge of the Christian God who does exist by virtue of traditional proofs or arguments, then it is certain that one cannot get to the knowledge of the deistic god who does not exist by virtue of those same or similar proofs or arguments. The deist then is at once disconnected from his or her god every bit as much as he or she is disconnected from every other fact of existenceBy C.L. Bolt
Once theology and history are separated there are insurmountable problems with the discipline. History cannot speak concerning God once this happens in an epistemology, since God as a supernatural being is not a historical fact in this false system of thought. God is no longer the kind of God who can act in history in any way that we are able to know it. Such a god is not the God of Christian Scripture. The God described in the Christian Scripture has spoken as an authority concerning His great acts in history brought about to finally accomplish the redemption of a people for Himself according to the riches of His glorious grace. In the Christian worldview, everything was created by God and for His glory; every fact of history is included.
The problems with a non-Christian approach to knowledge summarized in this introductory series can, again, be brought to bear upon history as a discipline. There are many problems with a non-Christian view of history. For example, the problem of induction is applicable to the knowability of history as well, since the uniformity of nature is necessary for speaking of currently unobservable events that happened in the past. Possibility and probability have no context to operate in given the non-Christian view of the world, as there is nothing and no one to determine them. Meaning is absent this dark view of the past, and there is certainly nothing to be learned to apply to the future. If skepticism is a problem of connection as discussed throughout this introduction, then skepticism applies especially well here when we consider whether there is any reason to suppose that historical “facts” are related to one another. There is no coincidence in history departments teaching their students that history is unknowable. It is, when one starts from the wrong presuppositions, and even if history can be known, there is no understanding of a purpose to any of its events; there is no reason why anything has happened.
By C.L. Bolt
The presuppositional, transcendental, and skeptical considerations brought out in this introduction are easily applied to particular manifestations of the non-Christian worldview. They can be similarly applied to tools that are heavily relied upon by these particular manifestations of the non-Christian worldview. For example, science rests upon many of the principles brought forth so far in this series, including especially the senses, induction, and the uniformity of nature. When the nonbeliever desires to use an argument against Christianity from the disciplines of science or history (etc.) the Christian apologist can point out that these disciplines require the Christian worldview to be true and so the unbeliever is “standing” upon the Christian worldview in order to even claim, per “argument,” that it is not true. How is this demonstrated? Through brining the arguments discussed earlier in this introduction to bear upon the scientific endeavor. Science is Christian theistic.
Many think it is foolish to have such faith in the Bible as has been presented in this introduction, including some Christians. It angers many that someone should take the Bible to be the final authority, as we do, on faith. What alternative do those raising this supposed objection have to offer? They say that they object based upon what their senses and their reason tells them. Perhaps they claim to take “science” as their authority in matters of truth, even when it comes to judging whether or not the Bible is the Word of God. There is a serious problem with this view. How do we know that science is a reliable guide to truth? We cannot test “science” using science. Even if we could test science in this way, we would just be using science to test science, and the question is whether or not science is reliable in the first place! Those wanting to defend the view in question could say that they have faith in science, but this means that their final authority fails at the most basic level. Having “faith in science” is not scientific at all, and so the position falls under its own weight. The foundation is cracked, and even if it were not, it would not be wide enough. There are many things which cannot be touched by science. Logic is not scientifically testable, nor are moral laws, yet the reality of both of these press upon us every day! Furthermore, how do we know that the universe will continue to work in predictable ways? Should we remain open to new possibilities in scientific discovery, even unpredictable ones? If so, why should we continue in science upon the assumption that things will remain the same?
Christians believe the Bible. God has given us our senses and reason to use in coming to truth. Science is something we are able to do because God made and controls the world. God has made us in such a way that we are able to come to know the world. While there is much to learn, we will never learn anything that overturns a fact which is known and revealed by our all-knowing and loving God. God has revealed Himself to us through His creation and given us reliable tools to know Him more. This we know because the Bible tells us so. We make observations and think about them and come to conclusions. However, in using our faculties we do not take them to be the final authority.
By C.L. Bolt
There are many other features of human experience which are possible only because of the truth of the Christian worldview and the existence of the God of Scripture. Communication, personhood, meaning, and purpose are some examples. The inductive and deductive characteristics of language in addition to the common ground shared by all believers and non-believers in God’s world make communication possible. Having been created in the image of God, we as human beings reflect in our communication that communication which exists between the persons of the tri-une God of Scripture. We are likewise persons who exist in an ultimately personal as opposed to an impersonal contextBy C.L. Bolt
We make qualitative judgments about art and beauty. Some works of art are considered better in some way(s) than other works of art, and some things are considered more beautiful than others. There is a large amount of subjectivity involved in determining whether or not something is beautiful, not to mention a large amount of expertise which is needed to make a better judgment on such issues.
An old cliché claims that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” but few, if any, consider this to be true. Such an account is wholly subjective, meaning that there are no actual standards concerning what is beautiful and what is not aside from the individual, but the individual can hardly be called any sort of standard, especially when it comes to the aesthetic judgments of others. This is what was meant when subjectivity was spoken of a moment ago, only here the theory in question is one of complete subjectivity with respect to art and beauty. The subject, and no one else, determines what is and is not beautiful.
Yet there is widespread agreement concerning what is and is not beautiful. Or, perhaps more obviously, there is widespread agreement concerning some things being more beautiful than others. Aesthetes are those who are able to make such determinations better than the common individual because they are more experienced in different realms of art and beauty, but at this point some sort of objective standard is being assumed. That is, there is a sense in which beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder. It is an experience that takes place on the inside of a person not unlike the experience of a person feeling cold. One person may truly claim that it is cold in a room while another disagrees and truly says that it is not, but the truth of the statements here are purely subjective. There is a point at which the two people will agree that it is cold, and there can be agreements about one place being colder than another by comparison and standards of measurement like temperature, but there are not typically considered to be anything like measurements of temperature with respect to the beauty of a piece of art or something else.
If we are going to say that there is something to beauty – something more than wholly subjective opinion – then we are going to have to say that beauty is in more than just the eye of the beholder. To claim that judgments about beauty are only in the eyes of beholders – intersubjective – is only to push the problem back a step. Beauty is surely in the eye of the beholder, but not only in the eye of the beholder; God has the final say on what is and is not beautiful, and we agree with Him in our aesthetic experiences or else pervert the truth. There is, of course, a great deal more that could be said on this subject.
By C.L. Bolt
Something that is widely agreed upon across different views concerning the world is that there is an element of knowledge called “justification” or “warrant.” Broadly conceived, it is that element of knowledge pertaining to the basis, reason, evidence, etc. that we have for believing that something is true. There is also widespread disagreement as to what exactly constitutes justification or warrant, but most do agree that there is something like this necessary for knowledge. If there are those who do not believe that this is an element of knowledge then they have a radically different understanding of what knowledge is and should be asked how they understand or define knowledge.
To say that a person has warrant for his or her belief is to say that a person holds a belief in the right way. However, holding a belief in a right way assumes that there is a normative component to knowledge; there are particular things we ought to believe and other things we ought not to believe based upon the warrant we enjoy or lack with respect to them. Knowledge itself then requires there to be some sort of moral standard, or something analogous to – very close to – moral standard. When this realization is plugged back into the arguments concerning morality in the Christian and non-Christian worldviews the result is that knowledge itself is a serious problem for unbelievers because of its normative element.
By C.L. Bolt
It follows from what has been written regarding morality that a consistent unbeliever is unable to account for evil. Yet the existence of evil is one of the most used objections to the existence of the good and powerful Christian God. The consistent unbeliever is unable to account for the problem of evil when it comes to moral evil, but cannot raise the problem of evil through natural evil either. In this sense evil becomes a real problem for the non-Christian worldview, not the Christian worldview. The non-Christian cannot account for evil within his or her own worldview. No doubt this is the reason that people have actually attempted to deny that evil exists, but to say that evil does not exist or is merely an illusion as some religious and philosophical positions profess is to leave the pragmatic force of evil in place. Even if evil is an illusion, the illusion still carries the same pragmatic end results of evil as typically conceived and it is an illusion which must be accounted for. We do not pretend to have answered the problem of evil here, but note that if the problem is to be answered, it will need to be answered from within the Christian worldview, as that worldview is the only one capable of making it possible to raise the question or objection in the first place.
God wants something more than to prevent evil. A good candidate for this “something more” is the glory of God since the Bible presents God as valuing His glory above all else. God’s wrath is displayed and His mercy contrasted with it for His own glory. God has a morally sufficient reason for there to be evil in His creation. What this means in particular contexts and situations is a matter of proper application of the general principle offered here. Finally, our sin is the source of evil, and God provided for the forgiveness of our sins in Christ Jesus on the cross.
By C.L. Bolt
Moral values, rules, laws, principles, standards, etc. cannot be seen, smelt, touched, heard, or tasted. They are not empirically verifiable entities. They are not part of the material or physical realm, or so most would hold. Still, people will believe that morality exists and will believe this even more strongly than they do that other empirically verifiable entities exist. Even those who deny that morality of any kind exists tend to behave in ways that contradict this claim, if they do not outright reject the claim through other claims and assumptions found elsewhere in their thought. Good and bad, we want to say, are real.
Within the Christian worldview are many entities that are not empirically verifiable. The God of Christianity is one such entity. He is a personal God who created and controls the world. The Bible presents God as a rational being who has thought and words. He is a God of love and of judgment. Humanity is held accountable to Him. God is all-powerful and absolute. He not only is capable of enforcing moral standards, but is revealed in Scripture as doing so through reward and punishment. There is no one who is free from the morally binding nature and will of God. God is an absolute and personal standard for moral good. In the Christian worldview there are such things as absolute moral values or standards. They are outside of us, are obligatory for everyone to follow, and do not change depending upon how people feel or what their opinion is of these laws.
Note that when the non-Christian denies God, a host of worries await him. A problem rather similar to the is-ought problem discussed earlier in this introduction results from denying the ultimately personal nature of things. If everything is ultimately impersonal then there is no real moral obligation no matter how central this tenet is to our lives. People possess no moral obligation toward entities that are impersonal. People are obligated to persons, not things.
Denying the absolute found in God is likewise problematic in that everything becomes relative or subjective. Here too moral obligation is removed from one’s view of things. Moral indignation then exists only because of personal choice or feeling, but then one might simply eliminate every problem of moral indignation by changing his or her opinion or conditioning the emotions to respond differently than they do. There are no more objective moral judgments, and morality becomes a rather arbitrary matter. Some may suggest that we arbitrate through some internalized sense of right and wrong, but then the question becomes who’s alleged “standards” one should internalize if not one’s own, and aside from this, there is certainly no objective moral reason to follow the person who wishes to say we must internalize morality. If what is morally good or bad is to be determined by individuals then we would never be able to make identical judgments about good and bad for the reason that one person could take, for example, murder to be wrong along with another person, but both individuals have completely different individualistic reasons behind thinking that this is the case.
There have of course been many theories of ethics set forth to try and solve these types of problems. An immediate attempt at a solution is to take morality to be whatever the majority says about it. Unfortunately for the non-Christian, this only pushes the aforementioned problems of relativism and subjectivism back a step. It should be submitted as well that good and bad exist independently of what majorities say about them. Moving from descriptions of statistics concerning positions held about morality is hardly offering a way out of the problems already mentioned.
Some have suggested that moral good and bad are to be determined by looking at consequences, but a problem here is that we do not know all of the consequences of an action. We also need something by which we are to judge whether or not the consequences themselves would be good or bad. Others have suggested that happiness for the greatest number of people is a good thing and the end of our meta-ethical theorizing, but then there appears to be the trouble of putting the minority in any given case down while exalting the majority position. Non-Christians are ultimately unable to give consistent reasons for adhering to absolute moral principles.
By C.L. Bolt
Ethics and morality are tied up in an understanding of human dignity, worth, or value. Unbelievers have difficulties making sense of human dignity and hence lose their ability to appeal to morality in the context of debate or everyday life. A consistent non-Christian worldview will posit that humans are not superior in value to any non-human animal. Lest we think that superiority in terms of value is due to the potential and actual higher reasoning capabilities that humans possess we should remember that even some of the lowest animals are better suited to find their way about in the world than some human infants. Such non-human animals would thus be superior to some infant humans, but we are not really concerned with these kind of opinions about reasoning capabilities and the like. Rather, we are concerned about dignity, worth, or value. Humans are no doubt extremely biased when it comes to this subject, as they tend to view themselves as superior in all of the aforementioned categories, but again, this is inconsistent with the non-Christian story. Some more consistent unbelievers have likened this tendency to exalt humans above non-human animals in terms of dignity, worth, and value to a form of racism, or specieism.
This view may come across as intuitively odd but given the non-Christian worldview separating humans from animals as possessing more value is inconsistent. Non-human animals have the same value as human animals given a more consistent non-Christian worldview. If life in general has value then it should also be respected so that even plants are considered as valuable as people. Thus the distinctions between humans and other living things break down and assumptions concerning human dignity become rather arbitrary. The perplexing question becomes why humans or anything else should be considered to have dignity in the first place given its arbitrary assignment to different entities. If everything possesses dignity then everything is on par with everything else in terms of value, but then why assume that there is any such thing as dignity or value in the first place?
By C.L. Bolt
In terms of ethics and morality, people are obligated to persons, not to impersonal objects. It is problematic to try and get moral principles from impersonal objects. Some have even called this attempt a violation of logic. According to the Christian worldview God is personal, and moral principles are derived from the revelation of His nature to us. In the non-Christian worldview there is no such personal and absolute source of morality to appeal to, but only the impersonal and non-absolute or relative. Forced accounts of ethics in an ultimately impersonal universe run into a serious problem when it comes to attempting to derive an “ought” from an “is.” It is impossible to deduce ought from is.
By “is” we are simply referring to factual observations. Of course we have noted many problems with the non-Christian account of factual observations already, but assuming that there are such things which correspond to the world, etc. we merely get an account of the world as it is. We get a descriptive account of the universe. But the way that the universe is tells us nothing about what the world ought to be. A description of the universe does not tell us anything prescriptive about it. Starting with premises concerning what the world is like, we cannot deduce conclusions concerning what people ought to do.
By “ought” we are alluding to an overarching metaethical scheme; a scheme that tells us what is right and wrong and how people should think and behave in accordance with the principles of that scheme. We can derive no such system of obligatory principles or laws from mere observations of facts about the world. For example, seeing a man murdering another man might be something which we can factually report, but this fact tells us nothing about whether this man ought or ought not to have murdered the other. We cannot move from description to prescription or confuse the two. When we go to speak about what someone ought or ought not to do we are bringing something new into the discussion. This new element is not derived from an impersonal state of affairs. It is difficult to see how we might justify this new element in the context of an ultimately impersonal universe. It is arbitrary and inconsistent. Ought cannot be a deduction from the is which is wholly different from it. To call attention to this point is to address a non-Christian account of ethics and morality. The distinction between what is right and wrong is not something we can gather from our experience of the impersonal universe"Make careful choice of the books which you read: let the holy scriptures ever have the pre-eminence, and, next to them, those solid, lively, heavenly treatises which best expound and apply the scriptures, and next, credible histories, especially of the Church . . . but take heed of false teachers who would corrupt your understandings."
1. As there is a more excellent appearance of the Spirit of God in the holy scripture, than in any other book whatever, so it has more power and fitness to convey the Spirit, and make us spiritual, by imprinting itself upon our hearts. As there is more of God in it, so it will acquaint us more with God, and bring us nearer Him, and make the reader more reverent, serious and divine. Let scripture be first and most in your hearts and hands and other books be used as subservient to it. The endeavours of the devil and papists to keep it from you, doth shew that it is most necessary and desirable to you.
2. The writings of divines are nothing else but a preaching of the gospel to the eye, as the voice preaches it to the ear. Vocal preaching has the pre-eminence in moving the affections, and being diversified according to the state of the congregation which attend it: this way the milk comes warmest from the breast. But books have the advantage in many other respects: you may read an able preacher when you have but a average one to hear. Every congregation cannot hear the most judicious or powerful preachers: but every single person may read the books of the most powerful and judicious; preachers may be silenced or banished, when books may be at hand: books may be kept at a smaller charge than preachers: we may choose books which treat of that, very subject which we desire to hear of; but we cannot choose what subject the preacher shall treat of. Books we may have at hand every day. and hour; when we can have sermons but seldom, and at set times. If sermons be forgotten, they are gone; but a book we may read over and over, till we remember it: and if we forget it, may again peruse it at our pleasure, or at our leisure. So that good books are a very great mercy to the world: the Holy Ghost chose the way of writing, to preserve His doctrine and laws to the 'Church, as knowing how easy and sure a way it is of keeping it safe to all generations, in comparison of mere verbal traditions.
3. You have need of a judicious teacher at hand, to direct you what books to use or to refuse: for among good books there are some very good that are sound and lively; and some good, but mediocre, and weak and somewhat dull; and some are very good in part, but have mixtures of error, or else of incautious, injudicious expressions, fitter to puzzle than edify the weak.
Baxter's Guide To The Value Of A Book
While reading ask oneself:
1. Could I spend this time no better?
2. Are there better books that would edify me more?
3. Are the lovers of such a book as this the greatest lovers of the Book of God and of a holy life?
4. Does this book increase my love to the Word of God, kill my sin, and prepare me for the life to come?
Adopted from “Advice On Reading, by Richard Baxter,” in Fire and Ice: Puritan and Reformed Writings, http://www.puritansermons.com/baxter/baxter30.htm
By C.L. Bolt
The Christian believes that God has created the world, controls it, and wants us to have knowledge concerning it. God has established an order in the cosmos that is representative of His own character. God has revealed to us general and specific claims that there is a uniformity of nature. Certainly there have been occasional signs (miracles) in history which were caused by God as a part of His revelatory acts and interpreted by Him, but the abnormality of these signs supposes that there is and will be norms in place, else they would not have possessed the odd character that they did. As we have already discussed, there is not an absolute uniformity of nature, but there is uniformity of nature according to the Christian worldview.
There are a number of similar ways to describe the uniformity of nature; nature is uniform, nature exhibits regularities, the future will be like the past, there is order in nature, there are patterns, things tend to behave in the same ways that they always have, entities act in accord with their own natures and properties, laws of nature, physical laws, etc.
We have looked at a number of examples of responses to the problem of induction and noted that they all rely in some way upon the assumption of the uniformity of nature. The uniformity of nature is proposed as a means of connecting premises to one another for the sake of establishing an inductive conclusion in order to go beyond present experience. We can weaken our inductive conclusions to being probable, but here too we rely upon the uniformity of nature to establish that the premises are related to the conclusion to establish its probably being true. To say that induction will continue to work beyond our present experience of it working likewise assumes the uniformity of nature. Finally, to ditch induction for an approach which essentially starts with the conclusion and then attempts to disprove it assumes a uniformity of nature especially with respect to that which has already been tested. In some way then, each of these rather different attempted answers to the problem of induction relies upon the uniformity of nature.
We started with an overview of induction and answered some surface level concerns about the practice. We then presented the problem of induction as a problem of connection which calls into question the possibility of rationality and knowledge through induction and then looked at a number of popular responses to the problem. Finally, we noted that each of these responses, though operating differently, assumes the uniformity of nature. As mentioned before, the uniformity of nature fits in and follows from the Christian worldview. Can the unbeliever say the same thing about his worldview? We’ve made the entirety of induction to rest upon the uniformity of nature, but what reason is there for assuming the uniformity of nature?
One argument we might make for the uniformity of nature is that in past experience, the uniformity of nature has held. Since the uniformity of nature has held in past experience, it will continue to do so in future experience. But note that this argument also assumes the uniformity of nature! The argument assumes something about future experience based upon prior experience. But we can only say things about future experience based upon past experience if the future resembles the past, and we do not know yet that it does.
A response to this might be to say that while we do not know that there is uniformity of nature, we have no reason to assume that there is not. Maybe we don’t know that the future will resemble the past, but why should we assume that it won’t? Unfortunately, there is a significant problem with this response. We can grant that there is no reason to assume that the future will not be like the past, but this is simply missing the point of our concern. We want to know why we should assume that the future will be like the past. Without the uniformity of nature, the whole of our practice of induction and all of the disciplines that rely upon induction are either irrational, do not give us any knowledge, or both. So while it may or may not be true that there is no reason to assume the opposite of the uniformity of nature, there has not been anything provided yet by way of reason for evidence for assuming it either. In fact there is just as much reason for assuming that future experience will not resemble past experience as there is for assuming that it will, and that is a serious problem!
One last ditch effort might be made in order to justify the uniformity of knowledge and save induction. It is just plain common sense that since things have tended to behave in the same way in past experience, they will do so in future experience as well. Unfortunately, this does not provide us with any additional reason beyond what we have already looked at to assume the uniformity of nature. One might say also that the natures and properties of things ensures that there is such a thing as the uniformity of nature, but unless someone has examined every instance of everything and can exclude every factor that might work against the uniformity of nature there is simply no basis upon which to make such a bold claim. Only God has that sort of knowledge, and we do not, but He has revealed much to us, and something He has revealed to us is that this is His world that He governs and intends for us to knowBy C.L. Bolt
By induction we refer to singular and general predictive inferences. When humans think, they do not limit themselves to thinking only about what is immediately apparent to them. In fact, we often go beyond what is currently present to our senses, memories, and reasoning and make inferences; we infer things from what we have experienced in the past or are currently experiencing. For example, if we ate bread on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and found that it nourished us, then we would at least expect that bread will nourish us on Thursday as well. We may even go so far as to say that we know that bread will nourish us on Thursday. To predict that the bread will nourish us on Thursday is a singular predictive inference.
We might go even further than this and claim that bread in general nourishes us! To predict that bread will nourish us in general is a general predictive inference. Some have argued that if we are going to expect bread to nourish us at any single point (like Thursday) then we already have an expectation that bread in general will nourish us.
Unfortunately the use of “predictive” can confuse what we are actually doing in these instances, because induction is not always performed strictly with respect to what will happen in the future. It may even be better to speak of moving beyond experience. So for example, a person who has been in over a hundred fields that were all full of black crows has experienced black crows, but when asked, “What color are crows?” he will move beyond his experience in answering, “Crows are black.” He has not experienced all crows; he may not have even experienced half of all crows, but the man feels warranted in stating that crows are black. For the sake of our example, he means either that all crows are black, or that crows in general are black.
Or take the nature of rock. Think of the rocks you have experienced. You may have formed a belief that rocks are hard. Now, there may be some rocks that are not hard, but if that actually is the case, then it is some rather strange rock! At any rate, you can concede that some rocks may not be hard, and still state that rocks in general are hard. You may want to stick with all rocks being hard though. Rocks, by nature, are hard. And if it is the case that rocks are hard by their very nature, then a particular rock will likewise be hard.
When people go to toast something for breakfast, they will likely choose the bread over some gravel from their driveway. Why? Well, bread nourishes, and rocks are hard. We might even say that a person who chooses the gravel over the bread has something terribly wrong with him. He is very confused, or worse, he is insane. At any rate, people act as though they know something about things they have not experienced, whether that is bread, crows, gravel, or any number of hundreds of thousands of other entities and events. We are not claiming that anyone “knows the future” in the popular sense of the phrase, but certainly people act as though they know something about the future. The future is merely one example of something beyond present experience. We are talking about the future in the case of the bread, but we are not necessarily talking about the future in the case of the crows and rocks, unless we are just referring to our future experience of them.
One worry that is already lingering in the backs of the minds of quicker readers concerns sample size. If we pick out one or two sheep that are white, we might infer that all sheep are white, but this would be a false conclusion, and a bad inference. Why? Because the size of the sample we selected to draw an inference from was much too small to be representative of the total number of sheep. With a better sample size we may have run across a few black sheep even if they did not have three bags full of wool. But what we are discussing here is different from concerns about sample size. What we are drawing attention to is that even with a fair sample size, we as humans move in our thoughts and behavior from what we presently experience to expectations or knowledge based upon that which we do not presently experience. For example, we obtain an acceptable sample of sheep and make knowledge claims about particular sheep, or sheep in general, or all sheep. It is this aspect of induction that we will be focusing upon here.
Another concern is that if we make some universal claim with respect to any kind of entity or type of event we may find ourselves easily proven wrong. For example, we may want to say that all bread nourishes, but it may be the case that the next piece of bread you eat makes you sick for some reason! Universal claims – claims about everything in some given case (like bread, every piece of bread) – are usually not made through induction, but we do not necessarily want to say that they cannot be. What we do want to say is that all that it takes to overturn a universal claim is one counterexample. So with respect to induction, most people do not want to claim anything like certainty with respect to an inductive conclusion, since they believe it is at least possible that some counterexample will turn up, and in many cases we do know of counterexamples from previous experience. For example, we may observe that deer are brown and believe deer to be brown until we find an albino, but we consider the albino an exception rather than a norm. From this we might say that the next deer you encounter will probably be brown, or that deer in general are brown. Here we have weakened an inductive conclusion to allow for exceptions to a regularity.
There is a difficult question that comes up when we think about induction. We have seen some potential problems with induction in the examples of sample size and overstated inductive conclusions, but these are hardly fatal problems. These types of problems are more like concerns, and they are concerns which simply lead us to be cautious in our use of induction. We can fix them and have only briefly alluded to how we can (and do) fix them.
However, there is a potentially fatal problem for induction. It is not found in sample size or an overstated conclusion. Instead, it is found in the premises of an inductive argument. More specifically, it is found, or not found, between the premises of an inductive argument and between those premises and the conclusion. We have discussed skepticism as a problem of connection. What we are asking now is what connects the premises and conclusion of an inductive argument or line of reasoning together. What is it that ensures us that particular experiences are related to one another and especially to whatever experience we have not had but are reasoning about? What is it that allows us to move from our present experience to something outside of present experience? For example, we said that the bread nourished us on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. But what is it that connects these individual experiences together? Perhaps they are independent from one another. If they are, then there is certainly no reason to conclude that the bread will nourish us on Thursday. And if these individual experiences are connected together by something else so that we can reason from them to the conclusion that we have not yet experienced, then what is this something else?
Now we are beginning to encounter a famous skeptical problem known as the problem of induction. We need to take a moment to clarify what the problem of induction is not before moving on to describe what it is in more detail. First, the problem of induction is not a problem concerning sample size, for the problem of induction still applies even when a sample is acceptably representative. Second, the problem of induction is not a problem concerning our lack of certainty regarding inductive conclusions, for the problem of induction still applies even when we fix overstated conclusions by weakening them. Third, the problem of induction is not a problem concerning whether or not we should initially or should continue to use induction, for it seems clear that people do in fact use induction by force of habit or custom whether it is in the end rationally justifiable or not, and this takes us into our discussion of the problem itself.
The problem of induction can be stated in different ways. Some have taken the problem of induction to call into question human rationality due to the use of induction by humans, some have taken the problem of induction to call into question our ability to know anything through induction, and others have taken both of these or something similar to them as constituting the problem of induction. What exactly is the problem? Again, it is a problem of connection. Or if you prefer, we can think about this as another instance of the problem of the one-and-many, because we have a plurality of premises that do not even probably establish a conclusion if there is no unity between those premises. If there is no such unity or connection between the premises themselves or the premises and the conclusion, then there is no way for us to move beyond our present experience in terms of expectation or knowledge. We are stuck, in other words, with whatever is present to the senses, memories, and reasoning. We cannot make singular or general predictive inferences at all. Or at least, we do not have any reason for doing so. However, we continue to do so in every day experience. Some have looked at our predicament and believe us to be irrational since we attempt to move beyond present experience without any reason or justification for doing so. Some say that the lack of this justificatory element of knowledge means that we cannot have any knowledge of anything that is not a part of our present experience. Some say both. There have been some popular and noteworthy attempts to solve this problem.
An initial response to the problem of induction is to exclaim that it is clearly the case that people “cannot know the future.” But this response misses the point, as has already been discussed. We are not speaking of the future per se, but of future experience. We do not even necessarily need to use this language. Next, a response is offered that there is something connecting the premises to one another and it is obvious what it is! Since we have experienced the same things happening over, and over, and over again in the past, it is completely reasonable to assume that these same sorts of things will continue to happen in the future. We might say that “the future will be like the past;” at least in the relevant sense. For example, gravity has held us in the past, and so it is reasonable to think that it will do so in the future. Another similar response is to say that particular entities have particular natures and properties. For example, rocks are hard. To sum these two responses up we can say that nature exhibits regularities; there is such a thing as the uniformity of nature. Therein do we find our unifying principle for the many particulars of experience.
Of course, we don’t want to say that this uniformity of nature is some sort of absolute uniformity to which there are no exceptions, because then we would run into our previous problem of rendering our inductive conclusions too strong and making them subject to swift refutation through even one counterexample. We might nevertheless say that nature exhibits regularities; things tend to be the same as they always have been even if there are exceptions here and there. This premise of the argument would be sufficient to connect the other premises together so that they are no longer independent. Instead, they are tied together because they are part of nature, and there is a uniformity of nature. While this uniformity of nature is not absolute, it is enough for us to arrive at a probable conclusion. So then, bread nourished me on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and the future resembles the past, so bread will nourish me on Thursday as well. In fact, bread is generally nourishing. Or, every rock I have ever come across is hard, and there is a uniformity of nature, so the next rock I come across, and probably every other rock I ever come across, will be hard also. It seems that we have solved our supposedly fatal problem of induction. Not only can we definitely hold onto our inductive expectations, but we can know things through induction and are rational in our use of induction.
It should be added that some have said that induction is at least pragmatically justified. By this is meant that induction works. There are some problems with this position. For example, what do we mean by “works”? What does induction work for? If it is irrational or we cannot know anything through it, then it certainly does not work in those respects. There are many things that people have believed work and have continued to rely upon them because of this belief even though the beliefs or activities “justified” pragmatically in this way have nothing to do with what is actually occurring. For example, an ancient civilization might have sacrificed a virgin annually so that the sun would continue to appear for the remainder of the year. What do you know, the virgins were sacrificed, and the sun continued to rise! So the pragmatic approach to the problem of induction has some other worries that we will now set aside. For now, note that the uniformity of nature is being assumed here in this pragmatic response, since it is taken to be the case that induction worked in past experience and will continue to do so in future experience.
Others have said that we as humans do not use induction anyway, or that if we do, it is not really that important since knowledge does not come through induction and because we can sidestep the problem of induction by using deduction. In this theory someone will think up and believe a proposition which will then be tested in order to try and disprove it. Once the proposition in question has been tested, it is rational to continue to hold onto it. It should be noted that there are some problems with this view as well, and many of them are too involved to go into in this short introduction. For example, one should notice that we cannot ever come to know the truth through this method, since we have not inductively gathered data in an effort to establish a conclusion directly and initially based upon that data. Also, the proposition in question could always be refuted by the next attempt to disprove it. Those who defend this view are trying to say that it is rational to hold these beliefs anyway, so long as they actually describe something about the world and have been tested to make sure that they do not immediately fail. However, this method also assumes a uniformity of nature because it assumes that those things already tested will remain as they were when they were tested.
Each of the above examples of responses to the problem of induction relies in some way or another upon the uniformity of nature. The uniformity of nature is proposed as a means of connecting the premises to one another for the sake of establishing inductive conclusion. Through adding this premise into induction we are able to go beyond present experience in order to have expectations about that which we have not experienced and even to have knowledge about it. We noted that we can weaken our inductive conclusions to being probable, but here too we rely upon the uniformity of nature to establish that the premises are related to the conclusion to establish its probably being true. To say that induction will continue to work beyond our present experience of it working likewise assumes the uniformity of nature. Finally, to ditch induction for an approach which essentially starts with the conclusion and then attempts to disprove it assumes a uniformity of nature especially with respect to that which has already been tested. In some way then, each of these rather different attempted answers to the problem of induction relies in some way upon the uniformity of nature. It is to this topic that we turn next.
By C.L. Bolt
The Bible teaches the doctrine of the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity very briefly stated is that there is one God who is three persons and each person is fully God. Although the Bible never uses the term “Trinity” each of the parts of the doctrine are clearly set down for us in Scripture and have been summed up as already mentioned with the label “Trinity” being applied to them. God is ultimately one (there is one God). God is ultimately three (God is three persons). Neither the one-ness nor the three-ness of God is ontologically superior to the other. When we talk about “ontology” we are talking about “being”. However, both the one-ness and the three-ness of God are ultimate in a metaphysical sense. When we talk about “metaphysics” we are talking about what is real and what is not, and what real things are like. God exists singularly, simply, and a se. He does not depend upon anything else outside of Himself for His existence (or necessary existence for that matter). God – all that He essentially is – is not metaphysically contingent upon anything else. By “contingent” here we just mean dependent upon. Both the one-ness and three-ness of God are essential to who He is. Again, they are not superior one to the other nor do they depend upon anything outside of themselves and thus they might be described as metaphysically co-ultimate. The Christian worldview includes a long list of metaphysical claims. One such claim is that there is a Creator/creature distinction. Everything that exists is either Creator or created; there is no in-between. We have just seen another claim that stems from a Christian understanding of metaphysics. One-ness and three-ness are ontologically co-ultimate. Derivative of this is the following claim which we will momentarily see as being of the utmost importance for epistemology: unity and plurality are ontologically co-ultimate.
The Triune God of Scripture is unity and plurality and understands Himself comprehensively, coherently, and perfectly. God reveals Himself in that He has created everything that exists apart from Himself by divine decree and has set all facts in relation to other facts in an elaborate scheme which exhibits unity and plurality throughout and hence reflects in a created fashion the very nature of God in His unity and plurality. God alone has perfect understanding of the comprehensive relations that obtain between that which He has created in all of their unity and plurality and has revealed the foundational epistemological principles of unity and plurality to us in creating us in His image, creating the world around us, and giving us His Word. Our epistemological starting point is what God has revealed to us. Implicit and explicit in this presupposition is the ontological co-ultimacy of unity and plurality. Metaphysics and epistemology are intimately tied up in each other as may be especially seen here. The ontological co-ultimacy of unity and plurality in God (as may be observed since finitely displayed on a derivative creaturely level) makes human epistemology possible as a result of God’s nature and knowing. The reason that we are able to make sense of the world is because the Triune God of Scripture exists. The Christian worldview is sufficient to account for human intelligibility at least with respect to unity and plurality. Now we are in a position to complete our argument.
The non-Christian worldview does not share a metaphysic or epistemology with Christianity with respect to unity and plurality. Some non-Christians are emphatic about the ontological one-ness or unity of everything to the exclusion of any plurality. If it is the case that ultimately everything is ontologically unity then the plurality (e.g. two, many, distinctions, otherness, etc.) that might be assumed with respect to things is principally unintelligible. The reason for this is that if reality is ultimately “one” then distinctions of any sort are impossible – which is absurd. Alternatively if plurality is ontologically ultimate then there can be no relations between anything. Epistemology is rendered impossible again. The non-Christian who wants to affirm anything is stuck on the philosophical problem of the “one and many.” In order to be consistent with the non-Christian worldview the non-Christian must deny the Christian’s epistemological answer to the “problem,” leaving no solution from within the non-Christian worldview. Yet this denial of ontologically co-ultimate unity and plurality is not consistent with the implicit acceptance of the same throughout the non-Christian’s epistemology and so a contradiction results.
The problem of unity and plurality, or the “one-and-many,” is another problem of connection. The Christian apologist can exploit this problem to its fullest as the truest expression of the problem of connection for the non-Christian worldview and the coherence of the Christian worldview found in the unique doctrine of the Trinity. Not only does the problem of unity and plurality come up with respect to most anything that assumes some sort of relationship, but it is an alternative way to understand more complex philosophical problems of skepticism. For example, in the previous part of this introduction we discussed logic. Logic can be thought of as consisting of unifying principles, and the contingent realm or external world that we use logic to describe and otherwise think about as plurality exhibited through particularity and change. Or, we might think of the so-called “problem of induction” as requiring some type of regularity, connection, or unity between the plurality of events or entities. We will discuss this problem in more detail in the next part of this introduction.
By C.L. Bolt
We have discussed a number of skeptical arguments illustrating the impossibility of the contrary. One of the more popular arguments for the impossibility of the contrary in presuppositional apologetics is based upon concerns in the philosophy of logic. Traditionally the topic of logic comes up almost immediately, often because the Christian finds it particularly rhetorically powerful to ask the non-Christian difficult questions about a perhaps mysterious topic that calls into question the very foundation of the non-Christian’s entire thought and presentation. However, the philosophy of logic is a difficult area and its discussions can become complex quickly (so quickly that I hesitate to write this part of this introduction). In my opinion, it is unfortunate that arguments from the philosophy of logic are so quickly employed by the apologist to the neglect of so many of the other illustrations of the impossibility of the contrary that we have been considering and will continue to consider. Nevertheless, the non-Christian can no more account for logic then she can for anything else.
Those who have become accustomed to responding to this argument ask, “What are the laws of logic?” By this they offer either a semantic quibble, or a misunderstanding of the argument. By offering a semantic quibble, I mean that whether we make reference to the “laws of logic” or “principles of logic” or “rules of inference” or whatever else that we are still essentially asking the same sorts of questions from the non-Christian. Perhaps to be fair and clear we should speak of “logic”. We do not limit our understanding of logic to particular laws of logic or classical logic anymore than the non-Christian does, and here is where the misunderstanding of the argument comes in. When the non-Christian asks, “What are the laws of logic?” and is not engaging in semantic quibbling, then the non-Christian has overlooked the very point in question. The non-Christian is being asked about or challenged on the answer to this question. Philosophy of logic pertains to the nature of logic itself. What is logic? The Christian and the non-Christian should ultimately have very different answers to this question.
In a Christian worldview logic reflects the thinking of God. God is our standard for everything including reasoning itself, and God expects us to think in particular ways that may be expressed through logic. Through appealing to logic understood within the context of the Christian worldview we demonstrate that we have answers to general questions concerning universal, invariant, abstract entities such as particular laws of logic like the law of non-contradiction. If we are to be like God in the obligatory rather than sinful sense, then we are to have the same sort of consistency and coherence in our thought that is in God’s. We are, as the popular phrase goes, to “think God’s thoughts after Him.”
Logic does not serve as a sort of otherworldly, divine mediator between God and the world. Rather, human logic belongs to the created order. It may be helpful to think of logic as analogous to morality (which we will discuss later). Morality is revealed with respect to the creature. Similarly, logic is normative; it is binding with respect to creaturely human thought. We may be further helped through this analogy by considering logic as decreed in accordance with the nature of God as it is with moral law. God knows propositions truly such that consistency exists between them. Logic is created upon the whole of the sets of relationships of the aforementioned consistency. God exists apart from His creation, and there is no inconsistency within God. Hence it is a mistake to suggest as some have that God might exist and not exist at the same time and in the same respect if the law of non-contradiction is a part of the created order.
It follows from what we have said that logic, just like morality, is inherently personal in the Christian view. The non-Christian will no doubt cringe at the thought of having even her most abstract thoughts inextricably tied to the personal God. We may also now consider logic in another sense. Logic, like love, justice, righteousness, wrath, and all of the other attributes of God, is related to God as an attribute best understood through the doctrine of Divine Simplicity. We should nevertheless take care to draw the distinction between the thoughts of God and our own thoughts. There is a Creator/creature distinction even with respect to what we as Christians mean by logic.
Now that we have given a brief account of an understanding of logic from the Christian worldview, we must turn our attention back to what was supposed to be the topic of this discussion, namely, the non-Christian understanding of and justification for logic. If what we have provided above is an understanding of logic available to the Christian, then the non-Christian will, as already mentioned, have an exceedingly different understanding of logic.
Of course we are already mistaken if we think that there will be only one different understanding of logic on the non-Christian view, for there are many different understandings of it. This point is not stated in lieu of or as constituting an argument in and of itself, but rather in order to emphasize for subsequent discussion that there is no one universally agreed upon understanding of what logic is. If the non-Christian wants to reject that she has anything like logic in her worldview, then we might just assume that she is saying that she does. If she wants to talk about her own view of logic, then we are on to something, for then we can begin to illustrate the impossibility of the contrary through the unbelieving rejection of the Christian worldview and its resulting problems concerning logic.
When we ask the non-Christian about logic then, we are not attempting to critique the non-Christian worldview through imposing our own understanding of logic upon it. We are, rather, performing an internal critique based upon the information provided by the non-Christian about this foundational feature of human reasoning and intelligibility. What is logic, and how is it justified?
It is readily apparent to most that a materialist view will not allow for an account of logic given that logic is not material. To merge logic with the material realm by making the two one in the same is to render logic contingent; ever changing, particular, and descriptive rather than invariant, universal, and normative. When we think of something being “contingent” we should think of something that is not necessary; it is ever changing and dependent upon other entities. If logic were material then it would constantly change, come into, and go out of existence as frequently as other material entities. There would be no sense in which logic would serve us in terms of our reasoning. Moreover, a particular principle of logic sitting on the branch of a tree might pertain to something near the tree but would have nothing to say about the man on the submarine. If the tree were trimmed we might even lose the excluded middle if that were the logical principle sitting upon the branch. Finally, the law of non-contradiction would cease to be a law at all, since we are in no way obligated to impersonal material entities like we would have on this view. For these and other reasons not mentioned here, we simply cannot accept a materialist position concerning logic.
We have spoken of the problem of skepticism as a problem of connection. It is no different when we come to logic. The worry of the philosopher of logic is to bring logic into contact with the contingent, material realm without sacrificing the law-like nature of logic or its applicability to the contingent realm. Already people will disagree with me here, but this is to be expected. There are consequences for rejecting this understanding of the matter, and one must learn to exploit these consequences to the full. We have looked at materialism as a first example of attempting to bring logic into conversation with the contingent realm, and found that making logic a part of that contingent realm results in rather absurd consequences.
The type of evidence that is brought to bear upon the truth value of some proposition concerning logic will be determined by one’s view of logic, and as we emphasized before so we will emphasize again that there is no one universally agreed upon understanding of what logic is. Different types of truths are justified in different ways, and logic is certainly no exception. Even the given of the differences between the different sciences serves to corroborate our point, since practitioners of these disciplines cannot perform in fields that they have not been trained in to the same extent that they can in their respective fields. We must ask ourselves not only what evidence a person has for believing some particular point or view about logic, but what kind of evidence it is, and if it fits in with that individual’s worldview as a whole. A person who believes that logic consists of inferences that are conceptual judgments will view these matters differently from a person who thinks logic is merely a term given to particular brain activity. When features of logic like universality, abstractness, and invariance are sacrificed to the presuppositions one holds as an integral part of a worldview there are consequences which follow with respect to the worldview and the apologetic discussion itself which must be taken into account and sifted through to test for consistency.
For example, if logic is justified apart from experience (a priori) then we must still ask why logic applies at all in the contingent realm of experience. There is a problem of connection. While in the Christian worldview God imposes logic upon the contingent realm there is no such imposition of order or norm in a non-Christian or non-theistic view. Even if the connection were there the question would immediately be raised as to why some unchanging a priori truths like those of logic continue to apply in an area where everything is in constant change.
As another example, suppose that logic is allegedly justified by appealing to experiential and observational data so that we experience some phenomenon over and over again and then make general statements on the basis of this repeated experience. Unfortunately it is difficult to imagine how this might play out in actuality. Learning or creating logic by way of “experiencing” it in its particular manifestations in the contingent realm of experience is problematic, and the complexity of some logical relations makes it dubitable that logic of this nature has ever been experienced in this manner at all. This potential worry aside, note that tying logic to contingent experience contextualizes logic to the extent that it cannot be applied to anything which has not been experienced. Again, there is a problem of connection. Most notably, logic is no longer taken to apply to the future or the past, much less to “possible worlds” where there is no contingent experience. On this view logic is no longer necessary, universal, or invariant, and deeper considerations of these consequences render the view unusable and harmless in a context like the apologetic encounter.
An increasingly popular view concerning logic is that it is merely conventional. This view is immediately non-intuitive and suggests that there could be many various conventions upon which or within which we find particular logics. Again we may point out analogous problems with a conventional understanding of ethics. For example, if logic is merely convention, then surely it is also culturally relative, much like what some people have suggested concerning morality. But then all of the problems of moral relativism, which will be discussed later on in this introduction, come into the picture and create problems for the advocate of a conventional account of logic. Completely contradictory systems (whatever that means!) of logic might be considered equally valid, sound, rational, etc. Of course it also follows that logic is largely if not completely arbitrary and stipulative. But even setting these aside, if logic is merely conventional, then one must ask by what right we ever think they could or should be applied to our contingent realm of experience.
While arguments pertaining to logic and the non-Christian worldview can in some encounters be helpful, fruitful, and successful, the apologist must take care to describe his own position in a consistent manner while representing the contrary position fairly and making sure that his critiques of that position do not fall back on his own. In my opinion, this is extremely difficult and better left up to those more familiar with the philosophy of religion and the philosophy of logic, but at the very least we have shown that things are not always so simple and straightforward with respect to the nature and justification of logic as people sometimes think, and hence there is plenty of room for the covenantal apologist to go to work concerning those topics that may have provoked a “matter-of-fact” appeal to logic in the form of an objection from an unbeliever. Finally, it is often the case that inconsistencies and errors regarding logic and the non-Christian worldview are immediately knowable, and it is best not to let such inconsistency and error remain unaddressed.
By C.L. Bolt
There appears to be no universal consent on any fact of existence. Facts do not speak for themselves but they must be interpreted. If this were not the case then everyone would agree, but we have noted already that they do not.
Individuals have made mistakes before concerning the interpretation of facts. Why not again? How does someone know that she is not making a mistake even now? There are things that people feel extremely certain of, then a new fact comes along and overturns everything that is believed so strongly. What is to guarantee that there is no fact out there which you have not discovered and never will which would completely overturn everything you currently believe to be true?
In order to know anything on a model for knowing which starts with the subject, the subject must know everything. Omniscience, that is, the knowledge of everything, does not give us hope regarding merely certainty, but regarding the possibility of knowledge itself per our concerns above. Hence the appeal of both skepticism and subjectivism. The skeptic rejects omniscience and admits that we know nothing and admits that we do not even know that we know nothing. The subjectivist claims to know everything, defining himself as omniscient. We see here the consistency of both skepticism and subjectivism if one is to begin with the subject of knowledge rather than with God. Both of these positions are nonetheless self-defeating, and since there is no such thing as a self-consistent skeptic or subjectivist, both are likewise, in the end, self-refuting.
God possesses omniscience; God possesses the knowledge of everything. God alone sees how all of the facts to be known are related and how we as the subjects of knowledge are related to those facts. God not only knows, but has created and controls. We have discussed this before. However, God also reveals His knowledge in His Word.
The Global Positioning Sensor (GPS) in your car understands the relationships between the roads wherever you may venture. You do not. Suppose you boldly venture out onto 75 South when you should have remained on 64 East to get home. Once you have started out on the wrong road you will find other roads and signs and land markers that look similar enough to the ones you would have found on the correct route. You may proceed to drive in the completely wrong direction for an hour or more before you finally realize that you are lost. Now you will have to take a parkway leading you through coal mines into an eleven hour trip when you could have made the trip in seven!
Some people are lost and never realize it. Some people do realize that they are lost, but they refuse to rely upon their GPS to get out of the predicament. Others want nothing to do with a GPS. One quick and easy turn is all that it takes to send someone in a completely wrong direction without that person ever turning back, realizing the mistake, or being able to know current location. The unbeliever threw the GPS away at the start of the trip and is lost in a never ending web of winding roads. The unbeliever should be willing to admit this like the skeptic and the subjectivist; he rarely does.
The Christian has the Word of God to provide the first principles for predication. God created, controls, and knows the mountain paths and city highways and has told us enough about them in His Word that we need not fear getting started off on 75 when we should have remained on 64. We know the Word of God and derive things from the Word of God in a manner sufficient for knowledge. We need not know everything in order to know anything, because God knows everything and has revealed some of it to us. God cannot get it wrong; God knows how all of the facts are related to one another.
But here we see a massive assumption that has run throughout our argument. The Christian claims that the facts – the objects of knowledge – are related to one another because the Christian claims to know God. The non-Christian does not, and so there is no reason to assume that the objects of knowledge are related to one another. For the sake of our argument from the necessity of omniscience for knowledge we start with the assumption that facts are related such that even one newly discovered fact can overturn our previously held knowledge of others, but even granting this assumption is granting more than the non-Christian can rightfully claim.
It is no doubt amazing that the Christian is ever asked incessantly for “evidence” for the Christian faith when the non-Christian has never yet established that there would be any relation at all between any evidence and the truth of the Christian worldview. Why should we assume that evidence is related to truth claims, or that evidence relates to other evidence? Why should we assume that any fact is related to any other fact at all? The non-Christian has a long way to go before he can begin to move in the first place. We will push forward to look at some more specific examples of the problem of connection between the objects of knowledge in the non-Christian worldview.
By C.L. Bolt
We have spent a fair amount of time and space concerning ourselves with the subject of knowledge. We have shown that the subject cannot really be labeled the subject of knowledge at all when the Christian worldview is rejected and we attempt to erect an epistemology starting with the self. We mentioned that the problem of skepticism might be construed in terms of the problem of connection, and this is no less true with respect to the subject as we have already seen. However, we have not considered that this problem will go so deep as to swallow up the self itself. When we take a closer look at the connections within the subject in terms of the self itself, we find that there is no reason to assume that they exist, and there is no way to distinguish the subject from anything else. There is no way to even determine that there is some enduring entity of self.
We have done a good deal of thinking as subjects, so something appears to be there. But why should we assume that the thinking which goes on in a subject corresponds to an “I” or the “self”? The thinking may correspond to nothing at all. Aside from this it is not known or explained what thinking is, it is just assumed that it is something caused by a being, both the cause and the being constituting large assumptions themselves. There is also a comparison being made between present and past moments and states with an assumption that some sort of connection exists, but this has never been shown. Perhaps the subject is merely a collection of experiences (we know not from where). Even here we have no reason to speak of a “collection,” because once again we have established no connection. Upon close inspection, the subject dissolves.
