Here, I'll break presup down for you... "Either you agree with me or you have to provide an answer to hard solipsism that I will accept, and your answer must meet my proprietary and arbitrary set of questions, standards, and qualities, _and_ it must be the specific version of the biblical gawd I believe in."
Brilliant, Alex! You have single handedly completely unpacked this presup argument and laid it to complete and utter waste. You're a freaking rock star!
The move Alex makes at about an hour and one min. is very cool. It's his hypothetical story demonstrating the need to be an atheist for anything to make sense. Just when i thought that i kind of finally saw what jimmy was doing, Alex also saw and countered it right away. Fun stuff.
He seems to be asking a question of the form "how can you entertain the possibility that x isn't true when part of x's definition is that it is *true*."
It's easy to do when your conversation is with someone civil and charitable. Thanks to God for being blessed with these opportunities, and thanks to Malpass for his kindness.
Thank you Alex for posting your videos. I was initially taken aback by the presup argument. Now, because of how you have laid it out here and in other videos, I can clearly see how this argument doesn't work.
Alex, I very much appreciate you posting these videos. It's a pleasure to watch your patience and demonstration of clear-thinking. And I like Jimmy, I think he's a smart, educated, decent person - but it seems like he just refuses to acknowledge the one flaw that makes his argument crumble... but I think he's close. ;)
Hi Alex. Christianity is actually baked with two ingredients: orthodoxy, right dogma and orthopraxy, right (correct) conduct. The former is responsible for thousands of sects that are divided along various theological lines like selective salvation and mass salvation. The latter is responsible for thousands of sects that are divided along lines like adult baptism vs. infant baptism.
40:26 Jimmy: "The part where we actually start debating about whether christian theism is true is after accepting "ok, everybody is already committed to it's truth or falsity." By the very nature of the case, either I have this world view, and that's how I operate, or I have a different world view and I operate according to that system. [...] But I don't think that can even get of the ground if we're not accepting the fact that I just presuppose Christian theism is what makes these conversations possible, but you don't... and in virtue of not presupposing it, you're saying it's not transcendentally necessary." Alex: "I'm not saying it's not transcendentally necessary." Alex explained this numerous times, but why does +Jimmy Stephens keep bringing this up? Even his quote at the beginning of the hangout talked about 3 options. Either you believe Christian theism is the necessary precondition, you believe its a mystery... or you have a non christian explanation. Why is Jimmy forgetting the 'mystery' option? This is clearly Alex's position. He's saying Jimmy's theism 'could' be correct, or it might not be.
Around 56:00 the conversation turns to distinguishing between metaphysical necessity and an epistemic, "for all I know" necessity. It seems to me that a similar distinction (or ignoring thereof) lies at the centre of the ontological argument; which in fact WLC does use, so I guess even though he does not argue presuppositionalism, he at the very least agrees that God is necessary. In any case, I think WLC tries to cash in on the fact that if you say "For all I know, it is possible that God exists" (the epistemic possibility), it therefore commits you to agree that Goes in fact exist because you have affirmed the metaphysical possibility (and therefore also necessity). Gah, even typing this makes my head hurt.
nietzschevsgod, I'm a never-finished philosophy major. I spent most of my life training to be a studio drummer. When I had a crisis at age 15, I accidentally came across Descartes and got into philosophy. When I set off for Biola University, I was a hardcore idealistic panentheist, but the Biblical training there shredded a lot of my philosophic pretenses, and turned me back to my Reformed routes. All-in-all, there's nothing very special about my education, just the God I worship.
jimmy, so i just want to clarify. your argument for the existence of god using presupps is trivial now? As Alex demonstrated, he can place anything in the "x" category and it would still be sufficient. correct?
No, I think that issue was sufficiently hashed out in the original video, but here's a quick summary again: _Anyone,_ for _anything,_ can argue transcendentally. Transcendental argumentation can be used for whatever, just as deductions and inductions and retroductions and abductions can. However, it is the _content_ as much as the form of an argument that makes it sound. The point is that a transcendental argument by the nature of its _form_ precludes neutrality toward its _content._
Jimmy Stephens the content makes it sound but isn’t validity based solely on the form. Alex seems to show that the argument is not valid due to form. If that’s the case, isn’t it’s soundness irrelevant?
Alex, this is off topic, but I had a question. If I could read any three philosophers, which would you recommend, and which of their respective works would you recommend?
So I've heard he first 20 odd minutes where AP asks, why granting that it would be sufficient, is God the necessary explanation, and I think the next response for the Christian is that there is no adequate alternative explanation on the table. It is not logic in that the claim is not of the form 'Creation if and only if God'. It is an argument to the best explanation on the basis of the claim that it is the only sufficient explanation on the table. It goes: 1. If God then Creation; 2. There is no other adequate explanation for Creation except God; therefore 3. accept the God explanation. The interlocutor is supposed to attack premise 2. That seems to me to be the dialectical situation, but AP is a smart guy, so maybe I'm missing something.
Very interesting conversation. Jimmy is not Matt Slick in so very many ways and there is merit in "opening the bonnet" further. Matt's a lost cause I reckon. He's maybe put too many years in and had too many dollars out to change horses now. The notion that we all know we're ultimately "fucked" and all the religion/music/poetry/art are all forms of self delusion and distraction was particularly resonant with my thoughts and I now gather - many others aside. Bravo for what you are doing, Alex. You are not a "fuckwit" despite what the grouchy Scot layperson says. Time for a Patreon, perhaps?
Alex, do you know anything about the field of Fuzzy Logic (as opposed to Boolean or Crisp Logic)? It's quite useful in AI, control systems, math, etc., but I've been wondering if it's found any use in philosophy.
sup alex, will hangout III ever happen or what? i'd love to hear you go in for the kill and argue for a necessity of autonomy. it'd be like the inverse of bahnsen's tripartite response to the skeptic applied to presup; pt 1 a negative defense, pt 2 a positive defense, pt 3 an offensive attack (both pt 2 & pt 3 relying on both internal & external critique). bring it home, man.complete the trilogy.
Could someone please explain where my “argument” below is any worse than what Jimmy Stephens is offering here, or where Jimmy has a better argument? Where am I going wrong here? Belief in Garden Fairies is “fundamental” to my “worldview.” Let me explain. You see, Garden Fairies are not just responsible for the flowers in my garden. In fact, they are responsible for photosynthesis, and for the existence of all plants and photosynthetic organisms. Actually, without Garden Fairies, no life as we know it would exist on our planet because life depends on photosynthesis for its existence. Moreover, Garden Fairies never lie, as will be "demonstrated" below (see point 2). Since all life on Earth owes its existence to Garden Fairies, I owe my very existence to Garden Fairies; and (assuming you’re alive) so do you. If you don’t believe in Garden Fairies, you have a diametrically opposing “worldview” from mine, where you believe that they don’t exist. But with this Afairist “worldview” of yours, you’re contradicting yourself, because you couldn’t draw a single breath, let alone think or produce logical statements, if it weren’t for Garden Fairies to begin with. Therefore, your Afairist “worldview” is self-contradicting. Any such Afairist philosophical “worldview” that doesn’t believe in the existence of Garden Fairies is likewise self-refuted at the outset by the impossibility of the contrary of my diametrically-opposing Fairist “worldview.” The existence of Garden Fairies (and my Fairist “worldview” which presupposes the irrefutable fact of their existence) are self-authenticating and coherent because: 1) They (Garden Fairies, and my “worldview”) have changed my life, and I feel their truth in my “heart.” 2) I have an ancient Book where Garden Fairies inspired men (who happened to belong to an Iron-Age superstitious and mostly illiterate society, but never mind that) to write the truth about Garden Fairies and this Book says that this Book possesses perfect truth, and therefore the Book must be telling the truth, because, after all, Garden Fairies never lie, because, ultimately, the Book possesses perfect truth. 3) When arguing about the existence of Garden Fairies, I use big philosophical words, and I cherry-pick a bunch of philosophers and “fairylogians," some well-known and some obscure. Otherwise, I cherry-pick from the Book itself which, ultimately, possesses perfect truth. 4) Any apparent contradictions in the ancient Book are just that: “apparent.” You can always weasel out of these inconvenient contradictions by calling them "misreadings" or “metaphors,” pointing to “hermeneutics,” “historiography,” or “textual and contextual analysis” and pretending that these are exact sciences, but only when recruited to the service of establishing the ultimate perfection and truth of the Book, never to point out likely forgeries or “pseudoepigraphies,” let alone contradictions. In those cases they would depend on “your philosophy of” textual or contextual analysis or “your philosophy of” historiography, or “your philosophy of” hermeneutics, etc… In other words, it’s just your opinion within your incoherent “worldview,” not mine. 5) If you don’t believe in Garden Fairies, you ultimately negate your own existence, and therefore you negate anything you argue, including your doubt in the existence of (and therefore your insistence in the nonexistence of) Garden Fairies. The only other option left is that Garden Fairies exist. Your “worldview” is incoherent because you can’t pull your epistemology up by its own bootstraps (you can't possess knowledge, offer argumentation, use logic, or anything else if you're not alive to think; now try doing that without photosynthesis, which comes from Garden Fairies). On the other hand, my “worldview” is coherent because I can bootstrap the whole thing up (see 1 through 5 above!). Therefore, my Fairist “worldview” is valid and your Afairist “worldview” isn’t.
HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!... I cannot believe there exists an individual (and a philosophy student at that) who is so bereft of the sense of where the conversation is and what Alex is asking him!... I keep rewinding over and over this bit about christianity being absolutely necessary and Alex keeps pressing for the justification of this claim. Seriously, is there anyone who can explain what Jimmy might be thinking in his explanations beginning from about 16:00 up an throughout 27:00??... I'm honestly wondering if he's not just pretending and deliberately dodging what Alex is trying to get at
Jimmy, would you agree that we first need to determine ourselves what constitutes God's Word, i.e. his canon? For scripture isn't self-attesting in a way that it can tell us which books are to be constituted as inspired and which are not. That is to say, you would need to decide for yourself that the Canon the reformed tradition utilizes is superior to the Roman Catholic tradition, for instance.
Great question. I would not agree. I stand with Bavinck who said about canonicity: *"The recognition of these writings in the churches occurred automatically, without any formal agreement. With only a few exceptions, the Old Testament and the New Testament writings were immediately, from the time of their origin and in total, accepted without doubt or protest as holy, divine writings. . **_.The canonicity of the Bible books is rooted in their existence._** They have authority of themselves, by their own right, because they exist"* [emphasis mine]. This makes more sense in light of what I believe the Bible _is,_ what is the nature of the Christian Scriptures. An easy summary is just to point to Revelational Epistemology, that God's acts of self-disclosure (broadly) comprise the basis of human intellectual life, and that the Bible is a species of this larger genus which alone accounts for content necessary to be saved by the Christ.
Jimmy, just to make sure I understand your point here, are you claiming that the canon of scripture is self-evident? That is, that which books are to be considered as part of scripture is in need of no justification and is self-evident? If this is indeed the claim you're making then it seems blatantly false since many writings in the old/new testament as well as other writings were considered, contemplated, and debated as inspired for many decades. Moreover, if my memory serves me correctly, the Eastern Orthodox canon precedes, and continues to outlast, the reformed canon. Are the eastern Orthodox churches simply suppressing the self-evident fact of what really constitutes scripture? (If you are not in fact making the claim above, then disregard this paragraph.)
Steven Garmon, to be clear, my view is that _all_ God's revelation is self-evident, so long as we mean by self-evident something that provides justification for belief in and of itself. Since the canon of Scripture is a subset of God's revelation, yes, it is self-evident. A human being recognizes the author and the essential truth of His words as soon as the Bible is heard/understood. You said, *"If this is indeed the claim you're making then it seems blatantly false since many writings in the old/new testament as well as other writings were considered, contemplated, and debated as inspired for many decades."* I don't think that's historically accurate. In the case of both Testaments, almost all the debate consisted of apologetics on the part of the church against foreign teachings (e.g., the proto-gnostic and Gnostic writings). Moreover, illumination (on the part of the Spirit) is progressive, so that Christians can read a Biblical passage and only come to have some kind of understanding after decades. The short answer is we have a perfect Gospel for imperfect minds, and the renewal it speaks of is neither total nor immediate in this life, but the essentials are ever-present. Concerning later controversy between Rome, Eastern Orthodoxy, and protestants, the main issues were idolatry, poor theology (inconsistent with the Bible they accept), and powermongers instituting Biblical illiteracy. Was suppression involved? In part. Both Rome and EO suffer from poor doctrines of prima scriptura or the deuterocanonical tradition, which put congregational authority on par with God's revelation, thought to give them the right to legitimize the canon. In short, yes, sin was involved, but so were many other factors.
Alex, have you ever read something by Gordon H. Clark? I would highly recommend that to you to get a broader view on what christian presuppositionalism has to offer. Cornelius Van Til was a teacher at an influential presbyterian seminary and reached therefore a lot of students who spread his version of apologetics. Gordon H. Clark didn't get that attention, one reason being that he was disparaged by Van Til as a heretic of some sort. That's one reason, Van Tilians won't mention very often that he existed and actually offered a different, competing approach to christian philosophy/apologetics/epistemology than their own. Interestingly enough, Van Til's student John Frame described Clark as the true presuppositionalist in contrast to Van Til who retained many of the classical arguments for God's existence in his system. Clark's view summarized: Truth is propositional. Knowledge can be obtained only by valid deduction of biblical propositions. So, biblical revelation is the axiom of his system. One characteristics of God is his eternal mind which contains the full amout of knowledge. If man knows a true proposition, there in an overlap between man's mind and God's mind. Logic isn't created, but is another characteristic of God. Clark provokes with the statement: "In the beginning was logic and logic was with God and God was logic." According to Clark, you can disprove other worldviews in showing their self-contradictory nature or in demonstrating how they ultimately lead to scepticism (reductio ad absurdum). He thought that the TAG was invalid because you don't have to justify your axiom (if that were the case, it wouldn't be your axiom in the first place). Christianity is to be presented as a worldview that answers the fundamental questions of life adequately and is internally coherent. That's not a proof, that's only a hint in the right direction. As Van Til, Clark believes that everyone knows that there is a God what is suppressed by the sinner whose heart has to be changed in order to submit his life under God's authority.
40:00 so if anyone can make that type of transcendental argument than what is unique about the claim of Christianity that it is the only thing that can account for it?
How many times must Alex repeat the same question and listen to Jimmy's unwillingness to understand it? It's ridiculous. "God" in the presupp model could be substituted with X (anything). I could make the same arguments for Ju-Ju at the bottom of the sea or whatever with precisely the same justification. This is simply a logical word game. Coherence and soundness is not the same thing. Alex vs Jimmy 10-0 (since this is a game).
Seems to me young Jimmy forgot to study Agrippa the skeptic, the munchhausen trilemma, & the KK principle in his epistemic journey(s). It is rather dishonest to ask your interlocutor to justfy their Presuppositions. One *CANNOT* justify their axioms ( i.e. starting points) without arguing in a circle. Jimmy is smuggling in an unstated premise, (i.e. we must do ontology with or prior to) epistemology. The only justification I've heard hitherto is for him to just ask questions. This is woefully sophomoric. Asking for an internalist justification for an external process is absurd! He wants to justify his epistemology with his ontology; whilst commanding his interlocutor to justify his epistemology with his epistemology. He argues like an externalist foundationalist, but wants to jump around & argue like something else when it is convenient for him. This is inconsistent, hypocritical and contradictory.
Interesting that in virtually any atheist/theist debate the theist position is consistently flawed and the atheist position isn't. Why can't the theists see this?
Romans 1!!! Romans 1: 19-21 is the real killer to Christianity, at least when brought up to someone who doesn’t already believe in a deity of some kind. To an athiest, these verses confirm that the Bible is false, because the only way around what the verse claims, is for the claimant to know the beliefs of the atheist better than the atheist themselves. But this reduces Paul to a mere salesman…which, he is.
I just don't understand how anyone could be so confident that anything written in the bible is actually true without relying on faith. For instance half of Paul's letters that claim to be written by Paul were probably forged.
truckcompany, I suppose I find these conspiracy-theory-level speculations as amazing. One's philosophy of history and hermeneutic are the determinants whether you believe there are forgeries in the Biblical canon, and I have yet to come across one such philosophy which manages to retain coherence.
This has little or nothing to do with "philosophy of history," and everything to do with textual criticism, literary analysis, style critique, historiography, etc. There are well-established methods by which to determine authorship of ancient and more contemporary texts; they are used routinely, without direct appeals to philosophy. Putting the words “your philosophy of” in front of these fields does nothing to discredit them or make them any less valid. Many of the methods are straight-forward statistical and linguistic tools that have been demonstrated to have authorship discriminating power, like: average differences in the length of sentences between authenticated works by the author and the alleged defrauder's work, usage of different vocabulary words between the author and the potential fraudster, number of historical anachronisms used by the potential fraudster, etc. Others are a bit more subtle but still effective, like analysis of style differences between the author and the alleged fraudster, sociopolitical/religious agenda differences expressed by the potential fraudster and the real author, differences in inferred educational levels between the author and the potential fraudster, differences in knowledge of historical events and/or geographical locations between the alleged defrauder and the author, presence of fraudster tricks like exaggerated attempts to preempt skeptical dismissals, etc. I don't mean to sound harsh, but from where I stand, it seems to me that you have your one-trick "philosophy fly-swatter" and everything looks like a "fly" to you. Unfortunately, you couldn't chop down a tree with a fly-swatter any more than a biologist could describe an ecosystem using particle physics. Philosophy (whether of your apologetical presuppositionalist variety, or not) has little or nothing to do with evidence-based claims into authorship authenticity. These are not "conspiracy theories" (i.e., wild assertions or unsupported hypotheses) dependent on "your opinion" or "your philosophy," but evidentially-supported hypotheses that stand or fall on the evidence. There are several Pauline letters that are deemed by the vast majority of experts in the field (including most conservative ones) as fraudulent or, to be charitable, "pseudoepigraphical.” This should not be surprising, given that there was a great deal of confusion, many different cults or sects, and many (many!) more "Pauline" letters (and Gospels) circulating around in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, which were then whittled down to the few "canons" that we have today (yes there are more than one even today). This canonization was done by 3rd century Church bishops who were: (1) politicized and agenda-driven, (2) breathtakingly superstitious and ignorant compared to scholars today, and (3) unable to (and, even if they could, likely uninterested in) availing themselves of the scientific and evidence-based methodologies (many of which would not be discovered or invented for many centuries) that scholars have available today to make determinations of authorship and authenticity. There is little reason to presuppose that the Iron-Age canonizers got everything right, and much evidence to infer that they didn't get everything right. If you have evidence to the contrary, please provide it, instead of just asserting it. If you’re going to claim that these methods work fine to sort out the authorship of any other documents besides the Bible because you presuppose so, you’re committing the fallacy of special pleading (one of the two fallacies that Alex has already cornered you into half admitting in this video and the previous one). If you're claiming that these methods are not valid approaches to sort out textual authenticity or authorship, you have taken on the entire field of historiography, textual analysis, comparative literature, etc. and you need to provide your reasons as to why these fields are not valid. Good luck with that. Having said all this, I commend you for your willingness to have a cordial and respectful public conversation with someone who doesn’t share your “worldview.”
The term "ONE's" in your statement implies arbitrariness therefore subjectiveness. Could you clarify please?. Let me point to many of those who challenge the authenticity of several books of the NT, not only some of Paul's letters, are the same ones and applying the same criterion for evaluating and selecting the extant manuscripts witnesses for composing the actual greek base text from which ALL todays translations are made of, and from which theologians and philosophers derive their arguments. Hermeneutics are contingent on the veracity of the text, any text, no the other way around.
@Jimmy Stephens .By the way. I could agree that the concept of the trinity not necessarily leads to a contradiction, since it is a paradox, but I think there's a proper internal critique, taking scripture to face value for the sake of argument, that leads at minimum to controversial conclusions either way. God want to save everyone and it is not the case that God want to save everyone. Would you agree this is at least a fair representation. As many pointed out, thanks for your willingness to have a civil conversation.
Santiago de Lassaletta, permit me to jump to the end and then backtrack. You said, *"Hermeneutics are contingent on the veracity of the text, any text, no the other way around."* What text is that hermeneutic principle (itself) based on? See the problem? The "one's" in my comment doesn't say one way or another about subjectivity. I'm was merely noting the all-encompassing affects of our ideology on our practice of interpretation. Particularly, what you believe about the nature, direction, purpose or significance of history and what you believe about semiotics and human sociology is going to have _huge_ repercussions on the way you interpret a text. The issue at hand is that none of the Pauline authorship skeptics have produced a sound argument (many of them fail even to produce a valid one), and the reason is their faulty philosophies of history as well as an incoherent hermeneutic. Take Ehrman as one example: he assumes (1) methodological doubt, (2) the principle of analogy, and (3) human primacy in history. Given his assumptions it's no wonder his doubts about the Christian faith prevail. But then, given his assumptions, neither is his view a cogent one.
as I see it the most glaring disconnect is the pressupositionalist imports their internal standards onto others when critiquing them for consistency. it's not inconsistent for Alex to hold agnostic veiws from his "worldview", it is inconsistent with Jimmy's worldview but since Jimmy's worldview says you are beholden to his standards Jimmy thinks the other is being inconsistent. We are being inconsistent only with your worldview and the same could be said of your stance within Alex's.
Ganesh' s stepbrother 7193, I believe I anticipated and countered this objection with the multiple religious examples I've provided: Islam, Mormonism, Hegelianism, and the fictitious Green Apple.
Jimmy Stephens here is an example; During your discussion the topic of epistemic/transcendental necessity arose. You where asked to explain why Alex should accept a necessary deity exists. (you actually never answered why God is necessary but rather shifted the burden but that's a different subject) The conversation converged on agnostism towards belief in a necessary god. Alex said either god is necessary or god is not necessary and without having warrant to believe either he would take an agnostic veiw. You countered by saying you cannot be agnostic because the subject of discussion was on the very nature of the communication, logic itself being pressuposed. The problem arises when you made the assertion that him using logic was only possible due to what you believed was the case. Let's say arguendo that logic is the very nature of the universe or there are other possible causes for logic. Since the agnostic considers those as possible your demanding the foundation of communication being your claim are moot. It seems to me you do not realize you are putting your pressupposition onto the agnostics veiw and then claiming they are not actually being agnostic but instead have made a choice by default. In other words the agnostic does not reject or accept your claim based on the fact they use logic or anything else. That's your pressupposition being injected into his view by you.
Ganesh' s stepbrother 7193, where did I ever bring up Malpass's use of logic or communication as presupposing Christian Theism? I agree that would be a fair example of transcendental argumentation, but I don't think I ever used it. What I pointed out in this video is that when Alex asks for reasons why he should believe Christian Theism, he's either posing a skeptical challenge or he's asking for clarification. Now, we came to agreement in the discussion that the latter was not the case. Malpass was making the challenge of the skeptic: "Well, I don't believe this - why should I?" The problem is that the questioner is not being self-conscious of his precommitments. To think that it's possible to abstain from intellectual commitment to the truth of Christian Theism _just is_ is the principle of autonomy, _just is_ what is being questioned by Christians such as myself. Malpass believes it is possible to rationally doubt Christian Theism. I do not. Any question which would assume the former would be question begging. I'm a little confused as this issue seemed to become wrapped up by the end of mine and Malpass's discourse.
Jimmy Stephens Perhaps you don't recall but my perception was you specifically pointed to the communication as your example towards the end of your speaking of the rose example. If I say "I'm agnostic to theism being the necessary cause for logic", what question do I beg within my "worldview"? Also, think you conflate rejecting the proposition with not accepting the proposition. I can not accept the idea that your God is the necessary cause of logic without rejecting it's possibility of being so. You seem to believe by merely asserting your strong belief of its necessity therefore any non acceptance is equal to rejection. That is simply not what the agnostic is doing. The agnostic holds the agent is potentially possible where as you hold transcendental claims have no potential possibility but are rather somehow automatically necessary by definition. That is where you smuggle your veiws into their "worldview". So the questiona are what question does the agnostic beg and what "pre-commitments" do you think they hold. PS I know when I say "potentially possible" that's a bit sloppy but it seems to express a nuance of my veiw you may be not seeing.
Ganesh' s stepbrother 7193, I'm going to steer clear of using logic as an example because it neither came up in the conversation, nor do I find it to be a clear. Instead, I'm going to refer to knowledge predicates and transcendental necessity. This is very simple. Christian Theism has a view of God and in that view God acts throughout time-and-space history to reveal himself to all men. This revealed content comes in a general form and in a specific redemptive form inscripturated. Either way, Christian theology posits a God who makes it impossible for anyone to lack full awareness of His being and character. Moreover, Reformed apologists like myself are wont to point out that our acquaintance with God in His revelation not only gaurantees us knowledge, but that knowledge acts as the basis of all our intellectual operations. And so, if Christian Theism is true, it is impossible not to know the Christian God. If Christian Theism is true, agnosticism is impossible. Therefore, agnosticism is only possible given that Christian Theism is false. Additionally, the notion that one can have thoughts, beliefs, or that one can form skeptical challenges against Christian Theism rationally *assumes independence from God's revelation.* Therefore, it assumes the falsity of Christian Theism - a view which, _again,_ concieves of God as a Revelator and of man as a recipient machine fueled by God's revelation. Christian Theism contains both predicates of knowledge (that its God is known if existent) and its doctrines of revelation include transcendental necessity (that man cannot function apart from invoking God's revelation). And so, it is impossible to be agnostic with respect to Christian Theism. This is where your first comment comes into play and why I pointed out my anticipatory counterexamples. At this point, nothing about this state of affairs is unique to Christian Theism (and I pointed this out in the recorded conversation). Agnosticism is incoherent with respect to Christian Theism _because of its theology and claims to transcendental necessity._ But anyone _can_ and _many views _*_do_* provoke the same antithesis against agnosticism. Let's give an abstract formula. Let's define _x_ as an object which implies knowledge of itself in all men and which acts as the precondition of human functioning in virtue of the knowledge (of itself) granted. You _can not_ be agnostic with respect to _x._ Whatever it is - be it Allah, Mormon Father-God, Hegel's absolute Spirit, or Brahman. It doesn't matter - the impossibility of agnosticism with respect to _x_ has *nothing to do with me fallaciously shoehorning Christian doctrines on other worldviews.* It applies for Zathustra's Mazda or Abraham's Yahweh. In conclusion, both your objections are confusing the actual issue. Your first comment was to mistake _antithesis_ for Christian shoehorning; to misunderstand the inescapable impossibility of neutrality with respect to a claim to transcendental necessity (Christian or not). Your recent comment falls back on a total failure to understand the implications of Christian theology 101: men know God and suppress the truth in unrighteousness, and therefore, genuine agnostics do not exist. None of this is meant to be rude or short. It's difficult not to write a ten-page essay in these comments sometimes, and so I am trying to be as brief as possible. Hope you're having a good day.
Jimmy seems like a nice guy, but he is basically making the same argument that all philosophically ignorant presuppers make. If Christianity is true, then it is true. Christianity is true. Therefore, Christianity is true.
I find it hilarious that Jimmy tries so hard to only answer Alex's questions within his worldview. He didn't take that approach to his philosophy classes and pass them I can tell you that much. Lol. Like "please let me answer your question about how I know god is necessary by assuming that God exists. And please Alex will you play along?" 😝
Alex you should do more of these more often. Thanks for taking your time to do these!
10:30 [Bahnsen] Presuppositionalism summed up in one sentence: ***All Bahnsen is saying is “Either you agree with me or YOU explain it.”*** Thank you
+
Karen S burden shifting is their way to "justify" Christianity. Lol
Here, I'll break presup down for you...
"Either you agree with me or you have to provide an answer to hard solipsism that I will accept, and your answer must meet my proprietary and arbitrary set of questions, standards, and qualities, _and_ it must be the specific version of the biblical gawd I believe in."
Brilliant, Alex! You have single handedly completely unpacked this presup argument and laid it to complete and utter waste. You're a freaking rock star!
instablaster.
16:20 Excellent explanation of _sufficient_ versus _necessary_ for "if a god exists..."
The move Alex makes at about an hour and one min. is very cool. It's his hypothetical story demonstrating the need to be an atheist for anything to make sense. Just when i thought that i kind of finally saw what jimmy was doing, Alex also saw and countered it right away. Fun stuff.
Thank you to both Alex and jimmy for this great discussion.
Love these talks Alex I am consistently envious of your clarity of thought. Amazing work
He seems to be asking a question of the form "how can you entertain the possibility that x isn't true when part of x's definition is that it is *true*."
That’s exactly what he’s doing. It’s a trash argument.
Props to Jimmy for staying calm and kind
It's easy to do when your conversation is with someone civil and charitable. Thanks to God for being blessed with these opportunities, and thanks to Malpass for his kindness.
; ) Surely you're too familiar with human history to say that, Jo Vonn.
Jimmy Stephens are you on the Bible thumping wing nut Facebook group?
pixdav, I am not.
So basically, Jimmy doesn't have an argument why god explanation is the necessary one.
In other words, grass grows.
Thank you Alex for posting your videos. I was initially taken aback by the presup argument. Now, because of how you have laid it out here and in other videos, I can clearly see how this argument doesn't work.
I am such a Malpass fanboy. It hurts.
based
Alex Malpass I've never seen a more charitable arguer. Kudos. I guess that's what happens when you really know ur shit.
Alex, I very much appreciate you posting these videos. It's a pleasure to watch your patience and demonstration of clear-thinking. And I like Jimmy, I think he's a smart, educated, decent person - but it seems like he just refuses to acknowledge the one flaw that makes his argument crumble... but I think he's close. ;)
I'd love to see a part III to this....
Hi Alex. Christianity is actually baked with two ingredients: orthodoxy, right dogma and orthopraxy, right (correct) conduct. The former is responsible for thousands of sects that are divided along various theological lines like selective salvation and mass salvation. The latter is responsible for thousands of sects that are divided along lines like adult baptism vs. infant baptism.
40:26
Jimmy: "The part where we actually start debating about whether christian theism is true is after accepting "ok, everybody is already committed to it's truth or falsity." By the very nature of the case, either I have this world view, and that's how I operate, or I have a different world view and I operate according to that system. [...] But I don't think that can even get of the ground if we're not accepting the fact that I just presuppose Christian theism is what makes these conversations possible, but you don't... and in virtue of not presupposing it, you're saying it's not transcendentally necessary."
Alex: "I'm not saying it's not transcendentally necessary."
Alex explained this numerous times, but why does +Jimmy Stephens keep bringing this up? Even his quote at the beginning of the hangout talked about 3 options. Either you believe Christian theism is the necessary precondition, you believe its a mystery... or you have a non christian explanation. Why is Jimmy forgetting the 'mystery' option? This is clearly Alex's position. He's saying Jimmy's theism 'could' be correct, or it might not be.
Around 56:00 the conversation turns to distinguishing between metaphysical necessity and an epistemic, "for all I know" necessity. It seems to me that a similar distinction (or ignoring thereof) lies at the centre of the ontological argument; which in fact WLC does use, so I guess even though he does not argue presuppositionalism, he at the very least agrees that God is necessary. In any case, I think WLC tries to cash in on the fact that if you say "For all I know, it is possible that God exists" (the epistemic possibility), it therefore commits you to agree that Goes in fact exist because you have affirmed the metaphysical possibility (and therefore also necessity).
Gah, even typing this makes my head hurt.
That's it! I'm converting to Green Applism. Hail Granny Smith!
It's impossible to convert to Green Applism because everyone already believes in Green Applism...
Heretics!! There is only one true green apple, and that's the Bramley.
My awareness is ripening apace.
A cartoon seems inevitable here... a worm emerging, singing "in thee we live and move and have our being".
Alex Malpass has the eyebrows of a God.
Can anybody show the educational background of Jimmy Stephens, He is very well educated in Philosophy,,, He is no Matt Slick
nietzschevsgod, I'm a never-finished philosophy major. I spent most of my life training to be a studio drummer. When I had a crisis at age 15, I accidentally came across Descartes and got into philosophy. When I set off for Biola University, I was a hardcore idealistic panentheist, but the Biblical training there shredded a lot of my philosophic pretenses, and turned me back to my Reformed routes. All-in-all, there's nothing very special about my education, just the God I worship.
jimmy, so i just want to clarify. your argument for the existence of god using presupps is trivial now? As Alex demonstrated, he can place anything in the "x" category and it would still be sufficient. correct?
No, I think that issue was sufficiently hashed out in the original video, but here's a quick summary again:
_Anyone,_ for _anything,_ can argue transcendentally. Transcendental argumentation can be used for whatever, just as deductions and inductions and retroductions and abductions can. However, it is the _content_ as much as the form of an argument that makes it sound. The point is that a transcendental argument by the nature of its _form_ precludes neutrality toward its _content._
+Jimmy Stephens
Jimmy....I'm curious if you have moved from your position, at all?
Jimmy Stephens the content makes it sound but isn’t validity based solely on the form. Alex seems to show that the argument is not valid due to form. If that’s the case, isn’t it’s soundness irrelevant?
a switch can be on, off or neither on nor off. there are three choices not just two. it doesn't seem that hard.
Alex, this is off topic, but I had a question. If I could read any three philosophers, which would you recommend, and which of their respective works would you recommend?
So I've heard he first 20 odd minutes where AP asks, why granting that it would be sufficient, is God the necessary explanation, and I think the next response for the Christian is that there is no adequate alternative explanation on the table. It is not logic in that the claim is not of the form 'Creation if and only if God'. It is an argument to the best explanation on the basis of the claim that it is the only sufficient explanation on the table. It goes: 1. If God then Creation; 2. There is no other adequate explanation for Creation except God; therefore 3. accept the God explanation. The interlocutor is supposed to attack premise 2. That seems to me to be the dialectical situation, but AP is a smart guy, so maybe I'm missing something.
Very interesting conversation. Jimmy is not Matt Slick in so very many ways and there is merit in "opening the bonnet" further. Matt's a lost cause I reckon. He's maybe put too many years in and had too many dollars out to change horses now.
The notion that we all know we're ultimately "fucked" and all the religion/music/poetry/art are all forms of self delusion and distraction was particularly resonant with my thoughts and I now gather - many others aside.
Bravo for what you are doing, Alex. You are not a "fuckwit" despite what the grouchy Scot layperson says. Time for a Patreon, perhaps?
i would support a patreon for +Alex Malpass.
Alex, do you know anything about the field of Fuzzy Logic (as opposed to Boolean or Crisp Logic)? It's quite useful in AI, control systems, math, etc., but I've been wondering if it's found any use in philosophy.
sup alex, will hangout III ever happen or what? i'd love to hear you go in for the kill and argue for a necessity of autonomy.
it'd be like the inverse of bahnsen's tripartite response to the skeptic applied to presup; pt 1 a negative defense, pt 2 a positive defense, pt 3 an offensive attack (both pt 2 & pt 3 relying on both internal & external critique). bring it home, man.complete the trilogy.
Could someone please explain where my “argument” below is any worse than what Jimmy Stephens is offering here, or where Jimmy has a better argument? Where am I going wrong here?
Belief in Garden Fairies is “fundamental” to my “worldview.” Let me explain. You see, Garden Fairies are not just responsible for the flowers in my garden. In fact, they are responsible for photosynthesis, and for the existence of all plants and photosynthetic organisms. Actually, without Garden Fairies, no life as we know it would exist on our planet because life depends on photosynthesis for its existence. Moreover, Garden Fairies never lie, as will be "demonstrated" below (see point 2).
Since all life on Earth owes its existence to Garden Fairies, I owe my very existence to Garden Fairies; and (assuming you’re alive) so do you.
If you don’t believe in Garden Fairies, you have a diametrically opposing “worldview” from mine, where you believe that they don’t exist. But with this Afairist “worldview” of yours, you’re contradicting yourself, because you couldn’t draw a single breath, let alone think or produce logical statements, if it weren’t for Garden Fairies to begin with. Therefore, your Afairist “worldview” is self-contradicting. Any such Afairist philosophical “worldview” that doesn’t believe in the existence of Garden Fairies is likewise self-refuted at the outset by the impossibility of the contrary of my diametrically-opposing Fairist “worldview.”
The existence of Garden Fairies (and my Fairist “worldview” which presupposes the irrefutable fact of their existence) are self-authenticating and coherent because:
1) They (Garden Fairies, and my “worldview”) have changed my life, and I feel their truth in my “heart.”
2) I have an ancient Book where Garden Fairies inspired men (who happened to belong to an Iron-Age superstitious and mostly illiterate society, but never mind that) to write the truth about Garden Fairies and this Book says that this Book possesses perfect truth, and therefore the Book must be telling the truth, because, after all, Garden Fairies never lie, because, ultimately, the Book possesses perfect truth.
3) When arguing about the existence of Garden Fairies, I use big philosophical words, and I cherry-pick a bunch of philosophers and “fairylogians," some well-known and some obscure. Otherwise, I cherry-pick from the Book itself which, ultimately, possesses perfect truth.
4) Any apparent contradictions in the ancient Book are just that: “apparent.” You can always weasel out of these inconvenient contradictions by calling them "misreadings" or “metaphors,” pointing to “hermeneutics,” “historiography,” or “textual and contextual analysis” and pretending that these are exact sciences, but only when recruited to the service of establishing the ultimate perfection and truth of the Book, never to point out likely forgeries or “pseudoepigraphies,” let alone contradictions. In those cases they would depend on “your philosophy of” textual or contextual analysis or “your philosophy of” historiography, or “your philosophy of” hermeneutics, etc… In other words, it’s just your opinion within your incoherent “worldview,” not mine.
5) If you don’t believe in Garden Fairies, you ultimately negate your own existence, and therefore you negate anything you argue, including your doubt in the existence of (and therefore your insistence in the nonexistence of) Garden Fairies. The only other option left is that Garden Fairies exist.
Your “worldview” is incoherent because you can’t pull your epistemology up by its own bootstraps (you can't possess knowledge, offer argumentation, use logic, or anything else if you're not alive to think; now try doing that without photosynthesis, which comes from Garden Fairies). On the other hand, my “worldview” is coherent because I can bootstrap the whole thing up (see 1 through 5 above!).
Therefore, my Fairist “worldview” is valid and your Afairist “worldview” isn’t.
HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!... I cannot believe there exists an individual (and a philosophy student at that) who is so bereft of the sense of where the conversation is and what Alex is asking him!... I keep rewinding over and over this bit about christianity being absolutely necessary and Alex keeps pressing for the justification of this claim.
Seriously, is there anyone who can explain what Jimmy might be thinking in his explanations beginning from about 16:00 up an throughout 27:00??... I'm honestly wondering if he's not just pretending and deliberately dodging what Alex is trying to get at
Jimmy, would you agree that we first need to determine ourselves what constitutes God's Word, i.e. his canon? For scripture isn't self-attesting in a way that it can tell us which books are to be constituted as inspired and which are not. That is to say, you would need to decide for yourself that the Canon the reformed tradition utilizes is superior to the Roman Catholic tradition, for instance.
Great question. I would not agree. I stand with Bavinck who said about canonicity: *"The recognition of these writings in the churches occurred automatically, without any formal agreement. With only a few exceptions, the Old Testament and the New Testament writings were immediately, from the time of their origin and in total, accepted without doubt or protest as holy, divine writings. . **_.The canonicity of the Bible books is rooted in their existence._** They have authority of themselves, by their own right, because they exist"* [emphasis mine]. This makes more sense in light of what I believe the Bible _is,_ what is the nature of the Christian Scriptures. An easy summary is just to point to Revelational Epistemology, that God's acts of self-disclosure (broadly) comprise the basis of human intellectual life, and that the Bible is a species of this larger genus which alone accounts for content necessary to be saved by the Christ.
Jimmy, just to make sure I understand your point here, are you claiming that the canon of scripture is self-evident? That is, that which books are to be considered as part of scripture is in need of no justification and is self-evident?
If this is indeed the claim you're making then it seems blatantly false since many writings in the old/new testament as well as other writings were considered, contemplated, and debated as inspired for many decades. Moreover, if my memory serves me correctly, the Eastern Orthodox canon precedes, and continues to outlast, the reformed canon. Are the eastern Orthodox churches simply suppressing the self-evident fact of what really constitutes scripture? (If you are not in fact making the claim above, then disregard this paragraph.)
Steven Garmon, to be clear, my view is that _all_ God's revelation is self-evident, so long as we mean by self-evident something that provides justification for belief in and of itself. Since the canon of Scripture is a subset of God's revelation, yes, it is self-evident. A human being recognizes the author and the essential truth of His words as soon as the Bible is heard/understood.
You said, *"If this is indeed the claim you're making then it seems blatantly false since many writings in the old/new testament as well as other writings were considered, contemplated, and debated as inspired for many decades."* I don't think that's historically accurate. In the case of both Testaments, almost all the debate consisted of apologetics on the part of the church against foreign teachings (e.g., the proto-gnostic and Gnostic writings). Moreover, illumination (on the part of the Spirit) is progressive, so that Christians can read a Biblical passage and only come to have some kind of understanding after decades. The short answer is we have a perfect Gospel for imperfect minds, and the renewal it speaks of is neither total nor immediate in this life, but the essentials are ever-present.
Concerning later controversy between Rome, Eastern Orthodoxy, and protestants, the main issues were idolatry, poor theology (inconsistent with the Bible they accept), and powermongers instituting Biblical illiteracy. Was suppression involved? In part. Both Rome and EO suffer from poor doctrines of prima scriptura or the deuterocanonical tradition, which put congregational authority on par with God's revelation, thought to give them the right to legitimize the canon. In short, yes, sin was involved, but so were many other factors.
Neutrality doesn't exist if you are a presuppositionalist it seems.
Alex, have you ever read something by Gordon H. Clark? I would highly recommend that to you to get a broader view on what christian presuppositionalism has to offer. Cornelius Van Til was a teacher at an influential presbyterian seminary and reached therefore a lot of students who spread his version of apologetics. Gordon H. Clark didn't get that attention, one reason being that he was disparaged by Van Til as a heretic of some sort. That's one reason, Van Tilians won't mention very often that he existed and actually offered a different, competing approach to christian philosophy/apologetics/epistemology than their own. Interestingly enough, Van Til's student John Frame described Clark as the true presuppositionalist in contrast to Van Til who retained many of the classical arguments for God's existence in his system.
Clark's view summarized:
Truth is propositional. Knowledge can be obtained only by valid deduction of biblical propositions. So, biblical revelation is the axiom of his system. One characteristics of God is his eternal mind which contains the full amout of knowledge. If man knows a true proposition, there in an overlap between man's mind and God's mind. Logic isn't created, but is another characteristic of God. Clark provokes with the statement: "In the beginning was logic and logic was with God and God was logic." According to Clark, you can disprove other worldviews in showing their self-contradictory nature or in demonstrating how they ultimately lead to scepticism (reductio ad absurdum). He thought that the TAG was invalid because you don't have to justify your axiom (if that were the case, it wouldn't be your axiom in the first place). Christianity is to be presented as a worldview that answers the fundamental questions of life adequately and is internally coherent. That's not a proof, that's only a hint in the right direction. As Van Til, Clark believes that everyone knows that there is a God what is suppressed by the sinner whose heart has to be changed in order to submit his life under God's authority.
40:00 so if anyone can make that type of transcendental argument than what is unique about the claim of Christianity that it is the only thing that can account for it?
Alex- how would you feel about discussing dialetheism sometime?
I'm not an expert on it, but I would be happy to talk it over for sure
How many times must Alex repeat the same question and listen to Jimmy's unwillingness to understand it? It's ridiculous. "God" in the presupp model could be substituted with X (anything). I could make the same arguments for Ju-Ju at the bottom of the sea or whatever with precisely the same justification. This is simply a logical word game. Coherence and soundness is not the same thing.
Alex vs Jimmy 10-0 (since this is a game).
Ask a pre-supper why a God with four natures (rather than a triune nature) is not able to account for everything.
Seems to me young Jimmy forgot to study Agrippa the skeptic, the munchhausen trilemma, & the KK principle in his epistemic journey(s). It is rather dishonest to ask your interlocutor to justfy their Presuppositions. One *CANNOT* justify their axioms ( i.e. starting points) without arguing in a circle.
Jimmy is smuggling in an unstated premise, (i.e. we must do ontology with or prior to) epistemology. The only justification I've heard hitherto is for him to just ask questions. This is woefully sophomoric. Asking for an internalist justification for an external process is absurd! He wants to justify his epistemology with his ontology; whilst commanding his interlocutor to justify his epistemology with his epistemology. He argues like an externalist foundationalist, but wants to jump around & argue like something else when it is convenient for him. This is inconsistent, hypocritical and contradictory.
Interesting that in virtually any atheist/theist debate the theist position is consistently flawed and the atheist position isn't. Why can't the theists see this?
Greetings Alex. Do you think theism violates the primacy of existence?
Alex boils it down. 1:12:55
Romans 1!!! Romans 1: 19-21 is the real killer to Christianity, at least when brought up to someone who doesn’t already believe in a deity of some kind. To an athiest, these verses confirm that the Bible is false, because the only way around what the verse claims, is for the claimant to know the beliefs of the atheist better than the atheist themselves. But this reduces Paul to a mere salesman…which, he is.
I just don't understand how anyone could be so confident that anything written in the bible is actually true without relying on faith. For instance half of Paul's letters that claim to be written by Paul were probably forged.
truckcompany, I suppose I find these conspiracy-theory-level speculations as amazing. One's philosophy of history and hermeneutic are the determinants whether you believe there are forgeries in the Biblical canon, and I have yet to come across one such philosophy which manages to retain coherence.
This has little or nothing to do with "philosophy of history," and everything to do with textual criticism, literary analysis, style critique, historiography, etc. There are well-established methods by which to determine authorship of ancient and more contemporary texts; they are used routinely, without direct appeals to philosophy. Putting the words “your philosophy of” in front of these fields does nothing to discredit them or make them any less valid.
Many of the methods are straight-forward statistical and linguistic tools that have been demonstrated to have authorship discriminating power, like: average differences in the length of sentences between authenticated works by the author and the alleged defrauder's work, usage of different vocabulary words between the author and the potential fraudster, number of historical anachronisms used by the potential fraudster, etc. Others are a bit more subtle but still effective, like analysis of style differences between the author and the alleged fraudster, sociopolitical/religious agenda differences expressed by the potential fraudster and the real author, differences in inferred educational levels between the author and the potential fraudster, differences in knowledge of historical events and/or geographical locations between the alleged defrauder and the author, presence of fraudster tricks like exaggerated attempts to preempt skeptical dismissals, etc.
I don't mean to sound harsh, but from where I stand, it seems to me that you have your one-trick "philosophy fly-swatter" and everything looks like a "fly" to you. Unfortunately, you couldn't chop down a tree with a fly-swatter any more than a biologist could describe an ecosystem using particle physics. Philosophy (whether of your apologetical presuppositionalist variety, or not) has little or nothing to do with evidence-based claims into authorship authenticity.
These are not "conspiracy theories" (i.e., wild assertions or unsupported hypotheses) dependent on "your opinion" or "your philosophy," but evidentially-supported hypotheses that stand or fall on the evidence. There are several Pauline letters that are deemed by the vast majority of experts in the field (including most conservative ones) as fraudulent or, to be charitable, "pseudoepigraphical.”
This should not be surprising, given that there was a great deal of confusion, many different cults or sects, and many (many!) more "Pauline" letters (and Gospels) circulating around in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, which were then whittled down to the few "canons" that we have today (yes there are more than one even today).
This canonization was done by 3rd century Church bishops who were:
(1) politicized and agenda-driven,
(2) breathtakingly superstitious and ignorant compared to scholars today, and
(3) unable to (and, even if they could, likely uninterested in) availing themselves of the scientific and evidence-based methodologies (many of which would not be discovered or invented for many centuries) that scholars have available today to make determinations of authorship and authenticity.
There is little reason to presuppose that the Iron-Age canonizers got everything right, and much evidence to infer that they didn't get everything right. If you have evidence to the contrary, please provide it, instead of just asserting it.
If you’re going to claim that these methods work fine to sort out the authorship of any other documents besides the Bible because you presuppose so, you’re committing the fallacy of special pleading (one of the two fallacies that Alex has already cornered you into half admitting in this video and the previous one). If you're claiming that these methods are not valid approaches to sort out textual authenticity or authorship, you have taken on the entire field of historiography, textual analysis, comparative literature, etc. and you need to provide your reasons as to why these fields are not valid. Good luck with that.
Having said all this, I commend you for your willingness to have a cordial and respectful public conversation with someone who doesn’t share your “worldview.”
The term "ONE's" in your statement implies arbitrariness therefore subjectiveness. Could you clarify please?. Let me point to many of those who challenge the authenticity of several books of the NT, not only some of Paul's letters, are the same ones and applying the same criterion for evaluating and selecting the extant manuscripts witnesses for composing the actual greek base text from which ALL todays translations are made of, and from which theologians and philosophers derive their arguments. Hermeneutics are contingent on the veracity of the text, any text, no the other way around.
@Jimmy Stephens .By the way. I could agree that the concept of the trinity not necessarily leads to a contradiction, since it is a paradox, but I think there's a proper internal critique, taking scripture to face value for the sake of argument, that leads at minimum to controversial conclusions either way. God want to save everyone and it is not the case that God want to save everyone. Would you agree this is at least a fair representation. As many pointed out, thanks for your willingness to have a civil conversation.
Santiago de Lassaletta, permit me to jump to the end and then backtrack. You said, *"Hermeneutics are contingent on the veracity of the text, any text, no the other way around."* What text is that hermeneutic principle (itself) based on? See the problem?
The "one's" in my comment doesn't say one way or another about subjectivity. I'm was merely noting the all-encompassing affects of our ideology on our practice of interpretation. Particularly, what you believe about the nature, direction, purpose or significance of history and what you believe about semiotics and human sociology is going to have _huge_ repercussions on the way you interpret a text.
The issue at hand is that none of the Pauline authorship skeptics have produced a sound argument (many of them fail even to produce a valid one), and the reason is their faulty philosophies of history as well as an incoherent hermeneutic. Take Ehrman as one example: he assumes (1) methodological doubt, (2) the principle of analogy, and (3) human primacy in history. Given his assumptions it's no wonder his doubts about the Christian faith prevail. But then, given his assumptions, neither is his view a cogent one.
as I see it the most glaring disconnect is the pressupositionalist imports their internal standards onto others when critiquing them for consistency.
it's not inconsistent for Alex to hold agnostic veiws from his "worldview", it is inconsistent with Jimmy's worldview but since Jimmy's worldview says you are beholden to his standards Jimmy thinks the other is being inconsistent.
We are being inconsistent only with your worldview and the same could be said of your stance within Alex's.
Ganesh' s stepbrother 7193, I believe I anticipated and countered this objection with the multiple religious examples I've provided: Islam, Mormonism, Hegelianism, and the fictitious Green Apple.
Jimmy Stephens
here is an example;
During your discussion the topic of epistemic/transcendental necessity arose.
You where asked to explain why Alex should accept a necessary deity exists.
(you actually never answered why God is necessary but rather shifted the burden but that's a different subject)
The conversation converged on agnostism towards belief in a necessary god.
Alex said either god is necessary or god is not necessary and without having warrant to believe either he would take an agnostic veiw.
You countered by saying you cannot be agnostic because the subject of discussion was on the very nature of the communication, logic itself being pressuposed.
The problem arises when you made the assertion that him using logic was only possible due to what you believed was the case.
Let's say arguendo that logic is the very nature of the universe or there are other possible causes for logic. Since the agnostic considers those as possible your demanding the foundation of communication being your claim are moot.
It seems to me you do not realize you are putting your pressupposition onto the agnostics veiw and then claiming they are not actually being agnostic but instead have made a choice by default.
In other words the agnostic does not reject or accept your claim based on the fact they use logic or anything else. That's your pressupposition being injected into his view by you.
Ganesh' s stepbrother 7193, where did I ever bring up Malpass's use of logic or communication as presupposing Christian Theism? I agree that would be a fair example of transcendental argumentation, but I don't think I ever used it.
What I pointed out in this video is that when Alex asks for reasons why he should believe Christian Theism, he's either posing a skeptical challenge or he's asking for clarification. Now, we came to agreement in the discussion that the latter was not the case. Malpass was making the challenge of the skeptic: "Well, I don't believe this - why should I?"
The problem is that the questioner is not being self-conscious of his precommitments. To think that it's possible to abstain from intellectual commitment to the truth of Christian Theism _just is_ is the principle of autonomy, _just is_ what is being questioned by Christians such as myself.
Malpass believes it is possible to rationally doubt Christian Theism. I do not. Any question which would assume the former would be question begging.
I'm a little confused as this issue seemed to become wrapped up by the end of mine and Malpass's discourse.
Jimmy Stephens
Perhaps you don't recall but my perception was you specifically pointed to the communication as your example towards the end of your speaking of the rose example.
If I say "I'm agnostic to theism being the necessary cause for logic", what question do I beg within my "worldview"?
Also, think you conflate rejecting the proposition with not accepting the proposition.
I can not accept the idea that your God is the necessary cause of logic without rejecting it's possibility of being so.
You seem to believe by merely asserting your strong belief of its necessity therefore any non acceptance is equal to rejection.
That is simply not what the agnostic is doing.
The agnostic holds the agent is potentially possible where as you hold transcendental claims have no potential possibility but are rather somehow automatically necessary by definition.
That is where you smuggle your veiws into their "worldview".
So the questiona are what question does the agnostic beg and what "pre-commitments" do you think they hold.
PS
I know when I say "potentially possible" that's a bit sloppy but it seems to express a nuance of my veiw you may be not seeing.
Ganesh' s stepbrother 7193, I'm going to steer clear of using logic as an example because it neither came up in the conversation, nor do I find it to be a clear. Instead, I'm going to refer to knowledge predicates and transcendental necessity.
This is very simple. Christian Theism has a view of God and in that view God acts throughout time-and-space history to reveal himself to all men. This revealed content comes in a general form and in a specific redemptive form inscripturated. Either way, Christian theology posits a God who makes it impossible for anyone to lack full awareness of His being and character. Moreover, Reformed apologists like myself are wont to point out that our acquaintance with God in His revelation not only gaurantees us knowledge, but that knowledge acts as the basis of all our intellectual operations.
And so, if Christian Theism is true, it is impossible not to know the Christian God. If Christian Theism is true, agnosticism is impossible. Therefore, agnosticism is only possible given that Christian Theism is false. Additionally, the notion that one can have thoughts, beliefs, or that one can form skeptical challenges against Christian Theism rationally *assumes independence from God's revelation.* Therefore, it assumes the falsity of Christian Theism - a view which, _again,_ concieves of God as a Revelator and of man as a recipient machine fueled by God's revelation. Christian Theism contains both predicates of knowledge (that its God is known if existent) and its doctrines of revelation include transcendental necessity (that man cannot function apart from invoking God's revelation).
And so, it is impossible to be agnostic with respect to Christian Theism. This is where your first comment comes into play and why I pointed out my anticipatory counterexamples.
At this point, nothing about this state of affairs is unique to Christian Theism (and I pointed this out in the recorded conversation). Agnosticism is incoherent with respect to Christian Theism _because of its theology and claims to transcendental necessity._ But anyone _can_ and _many views _*_do_* provoke the same antithesis against agnosticism. Let's give an abstract formula.
Let's define _x_ as an object which implies knowledge of itself in all men and which acts as the precondition of human functioning in virtue of the knowledge (of itself) granted. You _can not_ be agnostic with respect to _x._ Whatever it is - be it Allah, Mormon Father-God, Hegel's absolute Spirit, or Brahman. It doesn't matter - the impossibility of agnosticism with respect to _x_ has *nothing to do with me fallaciously shoehorning Christian doctrines on other worldviews.* It applies for Zathustra's Mazda or Abraham's Yahweh.
In conclusion, both your objections are confusing the actual issue. Your first comment was to mistake _antithesis_ for Christian shoehorning; to misunderstand the inescapable impossibility of neutrality with respect to a claim to transcendental necessity (Christian or not). Your recent comment falls back on a total failure to understand the implications of Christian theology 101: men know God and suppress the truth in unrighteousness, and therefore, genuine agnostics do not exist.
None of this is meant to be rude or short. It's difficult not to write a ten-page essay in these comments sometimes, and so I am trying to be as brief as possible. Hope you're having a good day.
Jimmy seems like a nice guy, but he is basically making the same argument that all philosophically ignorant presuppers make.
If Christianity is true, then it is true.
Christianity is true.
Therefore, Christianity is true.
I didn't find this helpful in many ways. Seemed like Hope vs the Inert, for 60ish minutes (1.5ish speed).
I find it hilarious that Jimmy tries so hard to only answer Alex's questions within his worldview. He didn't take that approach to his philosophy classes and pass them I can tell you that much. Lol. Like "please let me answer your question about how I know god is necessary by assuming that God exists. And please Alex will you play along?" 😝
Is Jimmy’s house like really cold or something? First the scarf, then this hat? Just turn up the heater already.