Anderson Lectures

A book recommendation, for James N. Anderson's new apologetics book recently released, plus a link to some of his lectures here.

How to Answer the Fool: A Presuppositional Defense Of The Faith

Sye wanted a review that made criticisms of the DVD so here is my feeble attempt to do just that.

Everyone can use a reminder of something important. And everyone can be taught more than he/she knows. Sye Ten Bruggencate has done a synthesis of both reminding Christians Christ is the ultimate source and treasure of knowledge plus wisdom; and it is this teaching that must be central in apologetics.

I do not want to rehearse the material in the DVD here, but I strongly recommend every church and Christian get a copy. It effectively answers both the "why" and "how" presuppositional apologetics should be done in a down to earth level. Buy it HERE  

Constructive Criticism 

1. Sye's questions that he asks unbelievers could be developed to interact with contemporary religious epistemology (RE). Sye portrays justification of beliefs as though they always lead to an infinite regress. This may not be the case if we acknowledge one can aquire a properly basic belief by a reliable belief forming process or mechanism which may be unknown to the person that acquired the belief. Sye seems to make justification of beliefs internal to the believer in such a way he/she must be able to identify the reasons that justify his belief, whereas one could argue the believer gains a properly basic belief by a reliable belief forming process or mechanism which may be unknown in some way to the believer. For example, percisely how does God regenerate a person? He changes him, right? But by what process? Honestly we have to say its a mystery. What's the point? The unbeliever can take up a form of RE that may not be so easy to defeat.

2. Rene Decartes pointed out that if a person deceives us once it leaves us in doubt of if the person can be trusted. The same goes with our 5 senses. If they have deceived us once, how can we trust them to give us truth? Sye argues Christians possess certain knowledge from God. This entails Christians have infallible knowledge. But how can Christians have infallible knowledge from God by fallible means via the 5 senses? Sye overcomes this problem, though I don't think successfully, by arguing God can use fallible means to bring about infallible results. But logically how can this be? In my judgment, the concept of infallible cannot be mixed with the fallible. Why? What do these concepts state? Infallible means "always without error" or consistently 'error-free.' Fallible means always with error or consistently 'error-prone.'  So what follows logically then is one cannot get infallible knowledge from a fallible means. Unless of course God makes one's 5 senses infallible. But this seems logically incredible. That would be like saying God created a person with a beginning but then chose to create the person with no beginning. God created humans with the capacity to error but then overcame that capacity and made them from beginning to end without the capacity to error. This would have to be the case because infallibility requires from beginning to end no room for error. Thus mere reliablism will not do the job.

I think a more consistent position would be like Vincent Cheungs' as advocated in his essay entitled, "The Fatal Maneuver."[1] However, I disagree with this position for reasons as AquaScum articulates. 

3. Presuppositionalism is inductive and not deductive, therefore it cannot provide a transcendental proof that yields a certain and necessary conclusion. [2] It goes from the concrete to the conceptual  on the basis of the concrete without establishing either as logically certain or necessary. This is why I am more inclined to argue for presuppositionalism from the heart as John Frame, and James Anderson. 

I think these criticisms can be answered. Sye has said some things that help answer criticism (2) and (3) HERE




[1] Vincent Cheung. Captive to Reason. http://www.vincentcheung.com/books/captivereason2009.pdf p.38
[2] Brian Bosse. http://www.christianlogic.com/images/uploads/Critique-VanTil.pdf
Steve Hays. http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/04/more-on-tag-and-certainity_05.html

John Frame and Presuppositional Apologetics

Dr. James Anderson has written a wonderful exposition of John Frame's thought; but more importantly, he gives us a practical example of how to apply presuppositional apologetics. Here  Start at page 451 to see presuppositionalism applied to naturalism.

Meta-apologetics and Apologetics

I must say Steve Hays has done it again! He has written a post that is true and most thought provoking about debate within presuppositional apologetics Here. Many presuppositional apologists focus too much arguing for the presuppositional method and little time explaining its application. The serious problem is that those presuppositionalists that actually apply the method often get criticized by those that want to focus strictly on the purity of the method. Hays makes it clear this is how apologetics becomes fruitless. Check out his post!  

Mulvihill's Lecture on TAG

Joe Mulvihill gave a lecture on the Transcendental Argument for God's existence Here.

I wish to comment on Mulvihill’s lecture. First, Mulvihill, by his articulation of the Transcendental Argument for God’s existence (TAG), seems to mistake Cornelius Van Til for Gordan Clark and/or Edward John Carnell. Since he wrongly claims TAG is properly understood as a reductio or abductive argument. Despite what Mulvihill may think, Van Til in fact taught that TAG is an argument for the impossible of the contrary. It is an indirect argument that demonstrates Christianity is true by presupposing its contradiction, (tokens of the same type) Non-Christianity. Non-Christianity is shown to be impossible, and therefore, it proves the contrary, namely, Christianity is true. “In other words, the structure of the argument is a disjunctive syllogism. Either A or ~A,~~A, therefore, A.”[1]

Mulvihill as a side comment says Van Til might not even be rightly considered a philosopher. Mulvihill seems to follow the footsteps of his colleague William Lane Craig to take such a stance about Van Til. The trouble is both man show their ignorance of Van til; if only they would have bothered to look at Van Til’s dissertation on Hegel’s Absolute, they would not make such inaccurate claims.

Mulvihill’s criticisms of TAG can be summarized as follows:

1. It is an indirect argument.
2. It is complex.
3. It is not unique.

Certainly TAG is indirect but it does not exclude giving positive answers directly. The main concern with TAG is to uphold biblical authority. Man cannot have a positive argument if man thinks it gives him the right to judge God.

TAG can be formulated in different ways both for the academic and student. So it can be simple or complex. To illustrate watch this simple use of TAG by Sye Ten Bruggencate.

  

         

TAG is unique; the problem lies with a misunderstanding of the structure of TAG. Michael Butler's comments would be helpful here. Butler explains,  

"But Bahnsen makes the further point is that this criticism misses the thrust of TAG altogether.  TAG argues for the impossibility of the contrary (the non-Christian worldview) and not the impossibility of an infinite number of possible worldviews.  TAG does not establish the necessity of Christianity by inductively refuting each and every possible non-Christian worldview (as finite proponents of TAG, this is an impossible task), but rather contends that the contrary of Christianity (any view that denies the Christian view of God) is shown to be impossible.  And if the negation of Christianity is false, Christianity is proved true.  In other words, the structure of the argument is a disjunctive syllogism.  Either A or -A, -- A, therefore, A.

At this point the clever opponent will simply deny the first premise.  He will contend that it should not be construed as a disjunction of a contradiction, but a simple disjunction.  The argument should thus be restated along the following lines: A or B, -B, therefore, A.  And once this move is made he will then contend that while the argument is valid, the first premise involves a false dilemma.  That is, he will grant that given A or B and the negation of B, A does indeed follow, but nevertheless maintain that the argument is unsound because the first premise (A or B) is not true.  The reason being that there are more possibilities than just A and B.  Given a true first premise, A or B or C or D ... n, the negation of B merely entails that A along with the disjunction of other propositions besides B (C, D,...n) follows.

In order for this to be successful, it is incumbent upon the opponent of TAG to defend two claims.  First, he must defend the contention that the original first premise is not the disjunction of a contradiction and, second, he must show that there are other possible disjuncts besides B (what we can call the view that is opposed to the Christian worldview)."[3]

I strongly suggest Mulvihill and anyone interested in learning a correct presentation of the Transcendental Argument for God's Existence (TAG) to listen to Dr. Greg Bahnsen's lectures Here and Michael Butler (Bahnsen's former student) Here 

[1] Butler, Michael. The Standard Bearer: A Festschrift for Greg L. Bahnsen (Covenant Media Press: Nacogdoches, 2002) p.85. www.butler-harris.org/tag/

[2] Butler, Michael. ;www.butler-harris.org/tag/;