Showing posts with label Bahnsen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bahnsen. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Should Christians Study Philosophy?
Here is one (and I believe the right) answer to that question. The article is by Dr. Greg Bahnsen, whose life was sufficient proof that one can have an encyclopedic understanding of the history and practice of philosophy while maintaining utter fidelity to the Wisdom of God, Christ Jesus. In fact, Dr. Bahnsen would argue, that the history of philosophy provided some of the strongest evidence for the necessary existence of God. This was not because of the philosophers’ successes, but their striking failure to provide, apart from the biblical God, the necessary precondition for knowledge and meaning.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Right Reasoning, pt. VII, The Transcendental Argument
VII. The Transcendental Argument (TA hereafter)
A.1. Formally stated:
1. In order for phenomenon P to be the case, Q must also be the case, since Q is the necessary precondition of P.
2. P is the case.
3. Therefore, Q is necessarily the case.
A.2. Defined:
“[A TA is] an argument that elucidates the conditions for the possibility of some fundamental phenomenon whose existence is unchallenged or uncontroversial in the philosophical context in which the argument is propounded. Such an argument proceeds deductively, from a premise asserting the existence of some basic phenomenon (such as meaningful discourse, conceptualization of objective states of affairs, or the practice of making promises), to a conclusion asserting the existence of some interesting, substantive enabling conditions for that phenomenon” (The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 925).
“Transcendental arguments seek to answer scepticism by showing that the things doubted by the sceptic are in fact preconditions for the skepticism to make sense. Hence the skepticism is either meaningless or false. A transcendental argument works by finding the preconditions of meaningful thought or judgment. For example, scepticism about other minds suggests that only the thinker themselves might have sensations. A transcendental argument which answered this scepticism would show that a precondition for thinking oneself to have sensations is that others do so as well. Expressing the scepticism involves thinking oneself to have sensations; and the argument shows that if this thought is expressible, then it is also false” (Ross Harrison, “Transcendental Arguments,” in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 9:452).
A word on TAs and the Van Tilian presuppositional apologetic by Dr. Gregory Bahnsen:
“The term “transcendental” should not be confused with the similar sounding word “transcendent” (an adjective for whatever goes beyond human experience). Transcendental reasoning is concerned to discover what general conditions must be fulfilled for any particular instance of knowledge to be possible; it has been central to thinkers such as Aristotle and Kant, and it has become a matter of inquiry in contemporary, analytically minded philosophy. [Cornelius] Van Til asks what view of man, truth, language and the world is necessarily presupposed by our conception of knowledge and our methods of pursuing it. For him, the transcendental answer is supplied at the very first step of man’s reasoning—not by autonomous philosophical speculation, but by transcendent revelation from God” (Van Til’s Apologetic, 5—6, n10).
B. 1. Illustrated form the pedestrian example of necessary conditions—fire:
i. In order for this (P) house fire to have occurred, there necessarily had to have been (Q) an ignition source.
ii. (P) the house fire did occur.
iii. Therefore, (Q) there was necessarily an ignition source (as oxygen, fuel, and ignition are individually necessary conditions for fire; taken together, they provide the sufficient condition).
B. 2. Illustrated from Logic:
(Granting the mislogical atmosphere of the spirit of our age, this example, which dates back to Aristotle, is quite practical.)
i. In order for our (P) debate over the laws of logic to be possible, the (Q) law of non-contradiction, a most fundamental logical law, must necessarily exist, since its denial makes debate unintelligible.
ii. It is the case (P) that we are debating.
iii. Therefore, (Q) the law of non-contradiction, the precondition of debate, must also exist, and exist necessarily.
B. 3. Illustrated from the three-word heart of Van Til’s thought—“Antitheism presupposes theism”:
i. In order for (P) an objective, universal standard of morality to exist—one in which Christianity’s critics could use to judge the God’s dealings with the nations of Canaan—(Q) the God of Christian theism must exist necessarily, since he alone provides the precondition of objective, universal standard of morality.
ii. The antitheists insist upon (P) just such a standard of morality.
iii. In so doing, therefore, (Q) the God of Christian theism is presupposed as the necessary condition of the very criticisms that the antitheist would invoke to argue that God doesn’t exist.
This concludes our series on valid arguments. It is our prayer that you’ve been blessed by this cursory summary, and thereby you will be better equipped to serve, love and glorify God in Christ with all you mind!
Blessings on the you, the people of the living God!
A.1. Formally stated:
1. In order for phenomenon P to be the case, Q must also be the case, since Q is the necessary precondition of P.
2. P is the case.
3. Therefore, Q is necessarily the case.
A.2. Defined:
“[A TA is] an argument that elucidates the conditions for the possibility of some fundamental phenomenon whose existence is unchallenged or uncontroversial in the philosophical context in which the argument is propounded. Such an argument proceeds deductively, from a premise asserting the existence of some basic phenomenon (such as meaningful discourse, conceptualization of objective states of affairs, or the practice of making promises), to a conclusion asserting the existence of some interesting, substantive enabling conditions for that phenomenon” (The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 925).
“Transcendental arguments seek to answer scepticism by showing that the things doubted by the sceptic are in fact preconditions for the skepticism to make sense. Hence the skepticism is either meaningless or false. A transcendental argument works by finding the preconditions of meaningful thought or judgment. For example, scepticism about other minds suggests that only the thinker themselves might have sensations. A transcendental argument which answered this scepticism would show that a precondition for thinking oneself to have sensations is that others do so as well. Expressing the scepticism involves thinking oneself to have sensations; and the argument shows that if this thought is expressible, then it is also false” (Ross Harrison, “Transcendental Arguments,” in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 9:452).
A word on TAs and the Van Tilian presuppositional apologetic by Dr. Gregory Bahnsen:
“The term “transcendental” should not be confused with the similar sounding word “transcendent” (an adjective for whatever goes beyond human experience). Transcendental reasoning is concerned to discover what general conditions must be fulfilled for any particular instance of knowledge to be possible; it has been central to thinkers such as Aristotle and Kant, and it has become a matter of inquiry in contemporary, analytically minded philosophy. [Cornelius] Van Til asks what view of man, truth, language and the world is necessarily presupposed by our conception of knowledge and our methods of pursuing it. For him, the transcendental answer is supplied at the very first step of man’s reasoning—not by autonomous philosophical speculation, but by transcendent revelation from God” (Van Til’s Apologetic, 5—6, n10).
B. 1. Illustrated form the pedestrian example of necessary conditions—fire:
i. In order for this (P) house fire to have occurred, there necessarily had to have been (Q) an ignition source.
ii. (P) the house fire did occur.
iii. Therefore, (Q) there was necessarily an ignition source (as oxygen, fuel, and ignition are individually necessary conditions for fire; taken together, they provide the sufficient condition).
B. 2. Illustrated from Logic:
(Granting the mislogical atmosphere of the spirit of our age, this example, which dates back to Aristotle, is quite practical.)
i. In order for our (P) debate over the laws of logic to be possible, the (Q) law of non-contradiction, a most fundamental logical law, must necessarily exist, since its denial makes debate unintelligible.
ii. It is the case (P) that we are debating.
iii. Therefore, (Q) the law of non-contradiction, the precondition of debate, must also exist, and exist necessarily.
B. 3. Illustrated from the three-word heart of Van Til’s thought—“Antitheism presupposes theism”:
i. In order for (P) an objective, universal standard of morality to exist—one in which Christianity’s critics could use to judge the God’s dealings with the nations of Canaan—(Q) the God of Christian theism must exist necessarily, since he alone provides the precondition of objective, universal standard of morality.
ii. The antitheists insist upon (P) just such a standard of morality.
iii. In so doing, therefore, (Q) the God of Christian theism is presupposed as the necessary condition of the very criticisms that the antitheist would invoke to argue that God doesn’t exist.
This concludes our series on valid arguments. It is our prayer that you’ve been blessed by this cursory summary, and thereby you will be better equipped to serve, love and glorify God in Christ with all you mind!
Blessings on the you, the people of the living God!
Saturday, January 23, 2010
AVOIDING PRESUPPOSITIONALISM
“Therefore I still contend with you, declares Yahweh, and with you children’s children I will contend. For cross to the coasts of Cyprus and see, or send to Kedar and examine with care; see if there has been such a thing. Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares Yahweh” (Jer 2:9—12).
With these words, Yahweh is wondering at the fact that the nations, who worship non-Gods, are incorrigibly faithful to their non-God idols, while Israel, a spectacle in ‘comparative religions,’ is seemingly predisposed to abandoning the Rock of their refuge and hope, Yahweh. Geerhardus Vos makes the following observation in Biblical Theology:
“Jeremiah complains that Israel is more inclined to change its God than the heathen nations. It is not difficult to explain this. The pagan nations had no desire to change, because their religion was the natural expression of their disposition. Israel persistently struggled to throw off the yoke of Jehovah’s service, because the old pagan nature of Israel felt it as a yoke” (1983, 62).
Are we today decidedly immune from Jeremiah’s marveling? Does our “old pagan nature” cause us to throw of the Lordship of Christ’s rule, while the actual pagans are thoroughly consistent and staunch in their ultimate commitments? Sadly, at times, especially when discussing apologetics, we must answer yes.
The archetypical sin of our first parents in the garden was based on the assumption that humans can reason rightly and interpret reality properly independent of God’s verbal revelation. They believed under the influence of the serpent, that God’s Word was unclear and his knowledge of things was indeterminate, for the whole question was whether or not the judgment of death would actually follow their snatching the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Disregarding the Creator-creature relationship, they decided to conduct an empirical analysis of the claims of the Creator; they held God’s knowledge and creaturely knowledge to be co-equal. Thus, it was believed that, man could reason according to logical laws and empirical observations and come to a true knowledge of God, themselves and their world, all-independent of the Word of God.
This, as we well know, both propositionally and experientially, had disastrous, cosmic, and eternal results. If this were the case when man was in a state of righteousness—in need of God’s revelation for proper reinterpretation of things and that reasoning independent of God’s Word brings ruinous consequences—how much more now, east of Eden, being radically depraved?
Presuppositionalists aptly describe this independence from God, particularly in the area of epistemology, as striving for autonomy. Bahnsen defines the term autonomy thus: “’Autonomy’ refers to being a law unto oneself, so that one’s thinking is independent of any outside authority, including God’s. Autonomous reasoning takes itself philosophically as the final reference and interpretation, the ultimate court of intellectual appeal; it presumes to be self-governing, self-determinative, and self-directing” (Van Til’s Apologetic, 1 fn. 2).
We see, then, that traditional apologists must delineate their apologetic method from their theological conclusions. As far as their theology is biblically faithful and historically orthodox, their apologetical assumptions are inconsistent with their theology. On the one hand, they would affirm that all that’s bound up in Bahnsen’s definition of autonomy could be appropriately ascribed to God alone. In apologetic practice, however, traditional methods afford and even foster the non-Christians in their fallen desire and struggle for autonomy. Traditionalists seek to satisfy the non-Christian’s struggle for autonomy by feeding their insatiable insistence for scientific evidences, philosophical and logical proofs, and demonstrations of the Bible’s ethics that fit their own sinful emotivism. Submitting one’s thinking, in faith, to the Lordship of Christ as the Light that gives us light to see anything aright (Ps 36:9), is, for them, something that comes at the end of the apologetic encounter; this act of repentance is seen strictly as evangelistic and posterior to apologetics.
Herein lays the analogy to Jeremiah’s charge: The adherents of non-Christian systems of thought are more faithful to their epistemological authorities, since these are merely an expressed manifestation of their commitment to their own autonomy. But Christ’s people are quick to exchange their glory—i.e., Christ’s epistemological Lordship—for that which does not profit, the futile, darkened epistemological autonomy of man.
Presuppositionalism doesn’t make any clear distinctions between apologetics and evangelism, for this apologetic is hardly more than a relentless challenge to the non-Christian’s sinful, white-knuckled claim to intellectual autonomy, and seeking to see this taken captive to obey Christ. Furthermore, presuppositionalists are willing confessors of Christ: that their believing obedience to him rests not in some linear, valid line of reason; their submission to Christ is the result of the Holy Spirit graciously regenerating them so that they proudly stand under the gentle-light yoke of Christ’s rule over them, especially their minds. They contend that, since surrender to God and his wisdom is the beginning, not the end, of knowledge (Prov 1:7), and that the unbeliever’s mind is at enmity with God, there must therefore be a frontal assault on the unbeliever’s epistemological autonomy, and at once an appeal to repentance from their idols of a depraved mind. Autonomous reason can never lead one to Christ; it must be recognized for what it really is—the very sin that is in constant rebellion to God and refuses to surrender to the Savior.
With Jeremiah, the presuppositionalist wonders at the traditional apologetic, how it exchanges the glory of Christ’s epistemic Lordship for the unprofitable would-be authority of autonomous human reason. With Tertullian, we agree, “It must...be added, that no solution may be found by any man, but such as is learned from God; and that which is learned of God is the sum and substance of the whole thing” (On the Soul, II). And finally, with the Master himself, who declares that, no one can serve two masters (Matt 6:24).
Presuppositionalism strips human reason of its would-be autonomy; our old nature still struggles (or oftimes surrenders to) for its autonomy. Perhaps this, then, is one of the main reasons for avoiding presuppositional apologetics.
For an example of APPLYING PRESUPPOSITIONALISM click here.
With these words, Yahweh is wondering at the fact that the nations, who worship non-Gods, are incorrigibly faithful to their non-God idols, while Israel, a spectacle in ‘comparative religions,’ is seemingly predisposed to abandoning the Rock of their refuge and hope, Yahweh. Geerhardus Vos makes the following observation in Biblical Theology:
“Jeremiah complains that Israel is more inclined to change its God than the heathen nations. It is not difficult to explain this. The pagan nations had no desire to change, because their religion was the natural expression of their disposition. Israel persistently struggled to throw off the yoke of Jehovah’s service, because the old pagan nature of Israel felt it as a yoke” (1983, 62).
Are we today decidedly immune from Jeremiah’s marveling? Does our “old pagan nature” cause us to throw of the Lordship of Christ’s rule, while the actual pagans are thoroughly consistent and staunch in their ultimate commitments? Sadly, at times, especially when discussing apologetics, we must answer yes.
The archetypical sin of our first parents in the garden was based on the assumption that humans can reason rightly and interpret reality properly independent of God’s verbal revelation. They believed under the influence of the serpent, that God’s Word was unclear and his knowledge of things was indeterminate, for the whole question was whether or not the judgment of death would actually follow their snatching the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Disregarding the Creator-creature relationship, they decided to conduct an empirical analysis of the claims of the Creator; they held God’s knowledge and creaturely knowledge to be co-equal. Thus, it was believed that, man could reason according to logical laws and empirical observations and come to a true knowledge of God, themselves and their world, all-independent of the Word of God.
This, as we well know, both propositionally and experientially, had disastrous, cosmic, and eternal results. If this were the case when man was in a state of righteousness—in need of God’s revelation for proper reinterpretation of things and that reasoning independent of God’s Word brings ruinous consequences—how much more now, east of Eden, being radically depraved?
Presuppositionalists aptly describe this independence from God, particularly in the area of epistemology, as striving for autonomy. Bahnsen defines the term autonomy thus: “’Autonomy’ refers to being a law unto oneself, so that one’s thinking is independent of any outside authority, including God’s. Autonomous reasoning takes itself philosophically as the final reference and interpretation, the ultimate court of intellectual appeal; it presumes to be self-governing, self-determinative, and self-directing” (Van Til’s Apologetic, 1 fn. 2).
We see, then, that traditional apologists must delineate their apologetic method from their theological conclusions. As far as their theology is biblically faithful and historically orthodox, their apologetical assumptions are inconsistent with their theology. On the one hand, they would affirm that all that’s bound up in Bahnsen’s definition of autonomy could be appropriately ascribed to God alone. In apologetic practice, however, traditional methods afford and even foster the non-Christians in their fallen desire and struggle for autonomy. Traditionalists seek to satisfy the non-Christian’s struggle for autonomy by feeding their insatiable insistence for scientific evidences, philosophical and logical proofs, and demonstrations of the Bible’s ethics that fit their own sinful emotivism. Submitting one’s thinking, in faith, to the Lordship of Christ as the Light that gives us light to see anything aright (Ps 36:9), is, for them, something that comes at the end of the apologetic encounter; this act of repentance is seen strictly as evangelistic and posterior to apologetics.
Herein lays the analogy to Jeremiah’s charge: The adherents of non-Christian systems of thought are more faithful to their epistemological authorities, since these are merely an expressed manifestation of their commitment to their own autonomy. But Christ’s people are quick to exchange their glory—i.e., Christ’s epistemological Lordship—for that which does not profit, the futile, darkened epistemological autonomy of man.
Presuppositionalism doesn’t make any clear distinctions between apologetics and evangelism, for this apologetic is hardly more than a relentless challenge to the non-Christian’s sinful, white-knuckled claim to intellectual autonomy, and seeking to see this taken captive to obey Christ. Furthermore, presuppositionalists are willing confessors of Christ: that their believing obedience to him rests not in some linear, valid line of reason; their submission to Christ is the result of the Holy Spirit graciously regenerating them so that they proudly stand under the gentle-light yoke of Christ’s rule over them, especially their minds. They contend that, since surrender to God and his wisdom is the beginning, not the end, of knowledge (Prov 1:7), and that the unbeliever’s mind is at enmity with God, there must therefore be a frontal assault on the unbeliever’s epistemological autonomy, and at once an appeal to repentance from their idols of a depraved mind. Autonomous reason can never lead one to Christ; it must be recognized for what it really is—the very sin that is in constant rebellion to God and refuses to surrender to the Savior.
With Jeremiah, the presuppositionalist wonders at the traditional apologetic, how it exchanges the glory of Christ’s epistemic Lordship for the unprofitable would-be authority of autonomous human reason. With Tertullian, we agree, “It must...be added, that no solution may be found by any man, but such as is learned from God; and that which is learned of God is the sum and substance of the whole thing” (On the Soul, II). And finally, with the Master himself, who declares that, no one can serve two masters (Matt 6:24).
Presuppositionalism strips human reason of its would-be autonomy; our old nature still struggles (or oftimes surrenders to) for its autonomy. Perhaps this, then, is one of the main reasons for avoiding presuppositional apologetics.
For an example of APPLYING PRESUPPOSITIONALISM click here.
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