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Underlying Presuppositions

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  • #31
    Originally posted by seer View Post
    Yes and in Acts Paul just declares who this God is, he does not use apologetics to demonstrate God, and yes in Romans he makes the case that all men intuitively already know God, but that they suppress that knowledge. But I will ask you Adrift - what can be more powerful than the word of God for converting the soul?
    The Holy Spirit.

    Comment


    • #32
      Originally posted by Sparko View Post
      The Holy Spirit.
      Right, applying the Word of God...
      Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

      Comment


      • #33
        Originally posted by seer View Post
        Right, applying the Word of God...
        He IS God.

        Comment


        • #34
          Originally posted by seer View Post
          Yes and in Acts Paul just declares who this God is, he does not apologetics to demonstrate God,
          Yes he does. He bridges a gap between their unknown god and the God of the Bible. That's classic apologetics. That's not something they just innately knew. He had to find an approach that would make reasonable and logical sense to his audience.

          Originally posted by seer View Post
          and yes in Romans he makes the case that all men intuitively already know God, but that they suppress that knowledge.
          Eh, I don't think that's a completely correct interpretation of Romans 1. Ben Witherington argues that the Greek word gnōston in verse 19 is not the same thing as being intuitively revealed, but of something that is made evident only after examination. That said, in either case, if the truth is suppressed then it is up to the evangelist to help find ways of unsuppressing it, and apologetics is a great starting point.

          Originally posted by seer View Post
          Bit I will ask you Adrift - what can be more powerful than the word of God for converting the soul?
          Lots of things. The word of God isn't magic. If you start reading a Bible over a baby, the baby doesn't magically become a Christian. If someone doesn't believe in God, you can read them the Bible till you're blue in your face...you're unlikely to make headway until you get them to at least agree with you that the existence of a god is even feasible. That will take apologetics. And that's only the start. And apologetics isn't just getting people to believe in God. For instance, Paul makes an apologetic case for the resurrection in 1 Corinthians where he discusses the witnesses of the resurrection, and the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.

          Comment


          • #35
            Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
            I didn't say that these things were not learned, or based on experience. . . . snip . . .
            Then how are they different from learning that God is truth? Because you did not come to this conclusion through your learning and experience does not remove them from the list of valid presuppositions.
            Micah 6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

            Comment


            • #36
              Originally posted by Adrift View Post
              Yes he does. He bridges a gap between their unknown god and the God of the Bible. That's classic apologetics. That's not something they just innately knew. He had to find an approach that would make reasonable and logical sense to his audience.
              Yes, he squares the circle, not be arguing but by declaring... It's not that I have a problem with classic Apologetics, I particularly like the moral argument (as you have probably noticed).



              Eh, I don't think that's a completely correct interpretation of Romans 1. Ben Witherington argues that the Greek word gnōston in verse 19 is not the same thing as being intuitively revealed, but of something that is made evident only after examination. That said, in either case, if the truth is suppressed then it is up to the evangelist to help find ways of unsuppressing it, and apologetics is a great starting point.
              For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

              Seems pretty straightforward to me...

              Lots of things. The word of God isn't magic. If you start reading a Bible over a baby, the baby doesn't magically become a Christian. If someone doesn't believe in God, you can read them the Bible till you're blue in your face...you're unlikely to make headway until you get them to at least agree with you that the existence of a god is even feasible. That will take apologetics. And that's only the start. And apologetics isn't just getting people to believe in God. For instance, Paul makes an apologetic case for the resurrection in 1 Corinthians where he discusses the witnesses of the resurrection, and the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.
              Yet he is making that case to Christians. Really Adrift, you will have to look far and wide to find Apologetics like we generally use in Scripture (you may call Paul's testimony in front of King Agrippa an Apologetic). And God's word will not come back void, until it accomplishes what He pleases...
              Last edited by seer; 02-08-2018, 03:24 PM.
              Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

              Comment


              • #37
                Originally posted by seer View Post
                Right and my belief that the Bible is the Word of God is a fundamental principle that I take as true - a priori...
                Then since this is a belief held without a need for evidence - it is "foundational truth" for you, then there is essentially no basis for discussion about it. It would be as if you asked me to prove to you that the law of identity is true. For me - the bible is a collection of books written by men, and someone would need to provide evidence that it is divinely inspired and to be trusted as a source of "truth." Because you believe this is true a priori - you cannot answer that question. A priori truths can only be asserted - not defended. Indeed, the question itself would make no sense to you.

                Originally posted by seer View Post
                Good, then you can understand my foundational belief (though you may not agree with it)... Unless you are suggesting that you get to have a priori beliefs but I don't.
                No, we all get a priori beliefs. But we disagree on what those ARE. I do not believe "the bible is the word of god" is an a priori truth. Indeed, there is nothing about that statement that seems a priori to me. You might as well say "the geometric theorem of congruent triangles is a priori true." That theorem is derived from other principles that are apriori - but it is not itself a priori. We might both agree that the fundamental principles of mathematics and logic are a priori truths, but we disagree that the bible being the word of god or the very existence of god are one of them.

                Originally posted by seer View Post
                I think I made that clear in our last discussion, that was why I kept refusing to abandon my worldview and adopt yours.
                At no point in our discussion was it ever made clear (perhaps because you didn't say it, perhaps because I missed it) that you considered "god is" and "the bible is the word of god" a priori truths - foundational truths not dependent on evidence/proof. If that had been clear, we would have ended the discussion much earlier. From my perspective, you have added two a priori truths to the list that are not actually a priori true - so you have locked yourself into your worldview. Because they ARE a priori true to you, you will not see it that way.

                I do not see how meaningful conversation could proceed concerning the existence of god and the role of the bible.

                Note, however, that I do not beleive all Christians take this (somewhat extreme) view. Most Christians I have chatted with share a common set of a priori/foundational beliefs with me, but differ in how to reason from those to conclusions about god and the bible. We start from the same place, but accept different evidence in different ways, and end up with different conclusions about god and the bible. I have never actually encountered someone who declared that "god is" and "the bible is the word of god" were true a priori - without recourse to supporting evidence. So I never imagined you were taking that position in our discussions.
                Last edited by carpedm9587; 02-08-2018, 04:05 PM.
                The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

                I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

                Comment


                • #38
                  Originally posted by Jedidiah View Post
                  Then how are they different from learning that God is truth? Because you did not come to this conclusion through your learning and experience does not remove them from the list of valid presuppositions.
                  Again - I distinguish between "foundational" or "a priori" truths - truths that are self-evident once the mind has matured enough to grasp them, and derived conclusions, which depend on reasoning from foundational truths or other derived conclusions.

                  COnsider it this way. In mathematics, we have a priori principles that are simply "evidently" true. The principle of identity (a = a) is an example. Then we have derived theorems (e.g., Pythagorean Theorem). We have to combine a priori mathematical principles and derive a proof to show that the Pythagorean Theorem is true. It doe snot make it less true - but it is not a priori true.

                  I would take "my senses provide me with a reasonable grasp of reality" to be an a priori truth. I cannot prove it to you. It is true to me on the basis of my experience of reality. The same is true of laws of mathematics, logic, the universe being intelligible, etc. When someone says to me "the bible is the word of god is an a priori truth," I cannot agree. There is nothing about that statement that is "self-evident." It is a conclusion I may (or may not) reach by combining a collection of evidence and reasoning to the likely truth of the proposition. If it were truly a priori true, you would see a far more universal level of acceptance in the human population than we do.

                  Am I making any sense at all?
                  The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

                  I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

                  Comment


                  • #39
                    Originally posted by seer
                    Give me evidence that what goes on in your mind corresponds to reality...
                    Again, not to rag on you seer, but I don't think that's a strong line of attack. You're not attacking his pressuppositions, you're asking him for something neither he nor anyone can give you. Solipsism, that is the complete denial of knowledge of the external reality (or complete despair of obtaining it), is every bit as self-consistent as theism. Its unliveable, and no one holds to it, but its perfectly self-consistent. Therefore presuppositional apologetics, the good parts, can't really interact with that. There's nothing to challenge such a person on.

                    All Carped has to say to you is that he believes that there's an external reality, and he can experience it using his senses. No more need be said. He doesn't have to justify this belief, as its foundational to his worldview.

                    And the challenges in presuppositional apologetics aren't merely of the form "what's your basis for X", its more like "given what you believe you should reject X". C.S Lewis did this when he questioned whether a materialist worldview, with its mechanistic and completely deterministic physics would result in us not being able to reliably know the truth. Plantinga's argument follows this line as well. In fact just about any presuppositional line of argument attacks exactly the ability to reason, and what needs to be true for this to be the case.

                    Plantinga's argument is quite a powerful version. I highly recommend it, if you wanna pursue this line of argumentation.
                    Last edited by Leonhard; 02-08-2018, 04:47 PM.

                    Comment


                    • #40
                      Originally posted by Leonhard View Post
                      Again, not to rag on you seer, but I don't think that's a strong line of attack. You're not attacking his pressuppositions, you're asking him for something neither he nor anyone can give you. Solipsism, that is the complete denial of knowledge of the external reality (or complete despair of obtaining it), is every bit as self-consistent as theism. Its unliveable, and no one holds to it, but its perfectly self-consistent. Therefore presuppositional apologetics, the good parts, can't really interact with that. There's nothing to challenge such a person on.
                      That is not my point Leonhard, I don't hold to Solipsism - I'm just referring to the fact that we all begin with unprovable assumptions, at the most basic level. Most atheists attempt to take the logical high ground - they can't.

                      All Carped has to say to you is that he believes that there's an external reality, and he can experience it using his senses. No more need be said. He doesn't have to justify this belief, as its foundational to his worldview.
                      I agree, just as the Bible being the Word of God is foundational to my worldview, and I too need not justify it.

                      And the challenges in presuppositional apologetics aren't merely of the form "what's your basis for X", its more like "given what you believe you should reject X". C.S Lewis did this when he questioned whether a materialist worldview, with its mechanistic and completely deterministic physics would result in us not being able to reliably know the truth. Plantinga's argument follows this line as well. In fact just about any presuppositional line of argument attacks exactly the ability to reason, and what needs to be true for this to be the case.
                      Agreed... Here is quote by Lewis you may like:

                      “Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It's like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can't trust my own thinking, of course I can't trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God.”
                      Plantinga's argument is quite a powerful version. I highly recommend it, if you wanna pursue this line of argumentation.
                      I have read his argument again naturalism a number of times.
                      Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                      Comment


                      • #41
                        Much as I love C.S. Lewis, and the rest of his Inkling brethern, this would be my reply to C.S. Lewis, to what I beleive is his flaw in this quote:

                        “Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It's like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can't trust my own thinking, of course I can't trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God.”


                        Dear Mr. Lewis:

                        We can come to trust our own thinking to be true in a fairly simple way: that it can reliably be counted on to anticipate outcomes. If the mind were truly random, and disconnected from reality, then any decision I make would be entirely random, and the probability that I would chose X and die would be equal to the probability that I choose X and live. Few individuals would survive beyond a few moments in such a universe. The luckiest might survive a few hours, perhaps as much as a day. But this is not what we find. Indeed, we find that our ability to observe the universe around us, and to make choices that enhance our ability to survive, is fairly consistent. We can survive decades based on nothing more than our senses and our ability to reason.

                        This can only happen as consistently as it does if a) our senses can be (mostly) trusted, and b) our ability to reason on that information can likewise be trusted. I do not need a god for that. Evolution is enough to weed out those who do not have senses/thought connected to reality.
                        Last edited by carpedm9587; 02-08-2018, 06:03 PM.
                        The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

                        I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

                        Comment


                        • #42
                          Originally posted by Leonhard View Post
                          Solipsism, that is the complete denial of knowledge of the external reality (or complete despair of obtaining it), is every bit as self-consistent as theism. Its unliveable, and no one holds to it, but its perfectly self-consistent. Therefore presuppositional apologetics, the good parts, can't really interact with that. There's nothing to challenge such a person on.
                          Possible solipsist checking in.

                          Does my preferred view of "the world is a virtual reality computer game that we're all in" (Sim World, or The Matrix if you will) count as solipsism to you? If I add that I'm really not sure about it, and there are lots of other possibilities many of which include the lack of reality of the perceive world, do I get bonus solipsism points? (If you want to give me a medal for solipsism, I can doubt the existence of said medal for you)
                          "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                          "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                          "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                          Comment


                          • #43
                            Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                            Possible solipsist checking in.

                            Does my preferred view of "the world is a virtual reality computer game that we're all in" (Sim World, or The Matrix if you will) count as solipsism to you? If I add that I'm really not sure about it, and there are lots of other possibilities many of which include the lack of reality of the perceive world, do I get bonus solipsism points? (If you want to give me a medal for solipsism, I can doubt the existence of said medal for you)
                            I have to admit to having a love/hate relationship with solipsism. On one hand, I have to acknowkedge that "Cogito Ergo Sum" has a certian truth to it as a starting point, and there really is no way for me to "prove" that the outside would I experience is "real." I could be a self-aware computer construct, and I can prove I am or am not.

                            On the other hand, my experience of "reality" is simply too "real" to ignore. The idea that I might be a computer-based AI just seems too "out there" to accept as a real possibility. Knowing what I know about computers, the demands it would place on a computing system to craft reality down to the sub-nano level as we experience would be mind-boggling. It's not clear to me it is even possible, never mind likely.

                            So it's a fun idea - but I don't take it all that seriously.
                            The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

                            I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

                            Comment


                            • #44
                              Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
                              I have to admit to having a love/hate relationship with solipsism.
                              I can relate.

                              I could be a self-aware computer construct, and I can prove I am or am not.

                              On the other hand, my experience of "reality" is simply too "real" to ignore. The idea that I might be a computer-based AI just seems too "out there" to accept as a real possibility.
                              This sounds like Elon Musk's "simulation" hypothesis (okay he didn't invent it, he's just a famous proponent of it) rather than my own "computer game" hypothesis (okay, so the 'brain in vat' hypothesis is hundreds of years old, and isn't strictly 'mine', but I choose to take credit for rebranding it in my posts as a computer game). In Musk's hypothesis, a technologically advanced species such as ourselves will eventually develop sufficient computing power (which is still doubling every year or so and has been for decades - Moore's Law) that some scientists in the civilization will eventually deem it Worthwhile and Interesting to run a computationally-intensive full-blown computer simulation of a universe, in order to see how that universe develops and works, and they will likely repeat that process a dozen or more times to see how universes can differ from each other and see what is repeatable and what is not.

                              So, given that scenario, the total number of universes that exist will be 1 (the real universe) + ~12 (or however many times the scientists of a given species see fit to run a simulation) * number of species in the universe (>=1) + any universes simulated by species in those sub-universes and sub-subuniverses. So the number of total universes, simulated or real, will be somewhere in the range of 13 to hundreds or thousands or millions. So given we find ourselves in a universe, what are the chances it is the real universe and not a simulated one? Somewhere in the 0.000000000001% to 8% range.

                              However, I do agree with your view that if we were to run such a simulation on our computers, then any lifeforms they simulated would not be conscious. Those life forms would not have a first-person subjective experience of conscious life. So for that reason, I too, reject Elon Musk's simulation hypothesis: Not because I think doing a computer simulation of a universe is implausible (I think it's actually inevitable) but because of my views on the nature of consciousness / mind-body dualism.

                              Knowing what I know about computers, the demands it would place on a computing system to craft reality down to the sub-nano level as we experience would be mind-boggling.
                              It seems inevitable that some scientists will eventually try and use as much computing power as they can get their hands on to do a simulation as big as they can (I ran a lot of simulations on supercomputers, which were annoyingly never powerful enough for my wants, in my PhD research, though I wasn't trying to simulate the entire universe). Obviously the universe they simulate will not be able to be as big as our own universe because otherwise it wouldn't 'fit' inside the computer in the sense of the computer wouldn't have enough data capacity to handle it (unless we have major paradigm breakthroughs in computing of course, and are able to move to analog computing rather than digital and have infinite bits in our computers).


                              But in all those respects, Musk's Simulation hypothesis differs significantly from my own Computer Game hypothesis. If this universe is a virtual reality computer game which we enter into in order to play, then our existence and our consciousness are not products of this universe they exist in the real/parent universe are merely been fed sensory data that mimics a universe. In the computer game hypothesis we existed before we were born into this universe, and will exist after we die in this universe - and that is quite different to the Simulation hypothesis where we are byproducts of the simulation (and will cease to exist instantly if the simulation is turned off by its creators) and are AI entities that exist only within the computer that is simulating the universe. The computer game hypothesis is also not remotely as resource-intensive because it need only simulate the sensory data it is feeding to the players and it can take all sorts of short-cuts as games typically do to save on computational resources - a tree falling in the woods need not exist if no one is there to hear it, so the computer game need not track the state of the tree until a player returns to that location (and then it needs to 'collapse the wavefunction' and do some calculations about what the state of the tree is in order to feed sensory data to the player).

                              We can run the same probabilistic argument as for the simulation argument... How many fully-immersive virtual reality computer games are likely to be created by our species in the future (answer: a lot), and how many times are they likely to be placed (answer: a lot)? So of all 'lives' lived, both real and in-fully-immersive-games, what is the ratio between real lives and in-game lives? Answer: The number of in-game lives lived is likely to be many orders of magnitude greater than the number of real lives lived. So if we find ourselves living a life, probabilistically it is exceedingly likely to be an in-game one.
                              "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                              "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                              "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                              Comment


                              • #45
                                Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
                                Again - I distinguish between "foundational" or "a priori" truths - truths that are self-evident once the mind has matured enough to grasp them, and derived conclusions, which depend on reasoning from foundational truths or other derived conclusions.

                                COnsider it this way. In mathematics, we have a priori principles that are simply "evidently" true. The principle of identity (a = a) is an example. Then we have derived theorems (e.g., Pythagorean Theorem). We have to combine a priori mathematical principles and derive a proof to show that the Pythagorean Theorem is true. It doe snot make it less true - but it is not a priori true.

                                I would take "my senses provide me with a reasonable grasp of reality" to be an a priori truth. I cannot prove it to you. It is true to me on the basis of my experience of reality. The same is true of laws of mathematics, logic, the universe being intelligible, etc. When someone says to me "the bible is the word of god is an a priori truth," I cannot agree. There is nothing about that statement that is "self-evident." It is a conclusion I may (or may not) reach by combining a collection of evidence and reasoning to the likely truth of the proposition. If it were truly a priori true, you would see a far more universal level of acceptance in the human population than we do.

                                Am I making any sense at all?
                                The vast majority of people who live, and have lived on the planet, believed in gods. The fact that the minority do not is no different in theory (not fact) than the minority who believe in a flat earth, or that the sun revolves about the earth. You have not shown me a reason to eliminate a confident belief in the existence of the Creator.
                                Micah 6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

                                Comment

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