You may find the first ever Choosing Hats Podcast Praxis Presup Praxis Presup 1 here.
Praxis Presup
Episode 1 – April 6, 2010
Chris Bolt and Mike Berhow
Chris Bolt and Mike Berhow discuss Bertrand Russell’s Celestial Teapot. Some of the points that are covered include arguments used by the so-called “New Atheists”, the nature of evidence and the burden of proof.
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Can your podcast be subscribed to on iTunes?
Probably not because I am technologically impaired. 🙂
But I will mention it to the others so that we can take care of that somehow. Thanks!
We’re working on that for the near future.
Lots of people don’t believe in Zeus because they were raised to believe in Jesus. I think that qualifies as a good reason. 🙂
“Perhaps you think that the only real reason I have for believing in God is the fact that I was taught to do so in my early days…
“Shall we say then that in my early life I was conditioned to believe in God, while you were left free to develop your own judgment as you pleased? But that will hardly do. You know as well as I that every child is conditioned by its environment. You were as thoroughly conditioned not to believe in God as I was to believe in God. So let us not call each other names. If you want to say that belief was poured down my throat, I shall retort by saying that unbelief was poured down your throat. That will get us set for our argument…
“You know pretty clearly now what sort of God it is of which I am speaking to you. If my God exists it was He who was back of my parents and teachers. It was He who conditioned all that conditioned me in my early life. But then it was He also who conditioned everything that conditioned you in your early life. God, the God of Christianity, is the All-Conditioner!
“As the All-Conditioner, God is the All-Conscious One. A God Who is to control all things must control them “by the counsel of His will.” If He did not do this, He would himself be conditioned. So then I hold that my belief in Him and your disbelief in Him are alike meaningless except for Him…
“So you see when I was young I was conditioned on every side; I could not help believing in God. Now that I am older I still cannot help believing in God. I believe in God now because unless I have Him as the All-Conditioner, life is Chaos.
“I shall not convert you at the end of my argument. I think the argument is sound. I hold that belief in God is not merely as reasonable as other belief, or even a little or infinitely more probably true than other belief; I hold rather that unless you believe in God you can logically believe in nothing else. But since I believe in such a God, a God who has conditioned you as well as me, I know that you can to your own satisfaction, by the help of the biologists, the psychologists, the logicians, and the Bible critics reduce everything I have said this afternoon and evening to the circular meanderings of a hopeless authoritarian. Well, my meanderings have, to be sure, been circular; they have made everything turn on God. So now I shall leave you with Him, and with His mercy.”
-CVT, “Why I Believe in God”
Hey guys,
I really enjoyed the podcast. I’ve got a basic question. When working with someone and you ask, “Is ultimate reality impersonal or personal?,” why couldn’t they say that it’s impersonal, but personality emerged? I know it seems rather impossible that personality, rationality, morality, etc. could emerge from impersonal, irrational, nonmoral existence, but isn’t this basically the standard atheist response?
By the way, I like your question because I think it’s John Frame who argues that God is “ultimate personality” in DKG or DoG.
Because an emerging “ultimate” is an oxymoron. Because an “emerging” ultimate is neither ultimate, nor emerging.
It is incomplete. It is imperfect. It is non-eternal. It is mutable.
Scripture says that God is NOT all of the above. God is none of the above. God is sufficient in Himself. God is perfect. God is eternal. God is immutable.
Never, ever, take a hypothetical as “possibly” true. Make them show it from the Scriptures. That’s the only revelation of true ultimacy.
“Never, ever, take a hypothetical as “possibly” true. Make them show it from the Scriptures.”
Couldn’t Jesus’ parables be taken as hypotheticals, in a sense?
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