Apologetics to the Glory of God

Reasonable Doubts About Presuppositional Apologetics

Paul Baird was kind enough to point me toward a comment he made here – http://freethoughtblogs.com/reasonabledoubts/2012/02/09/episode-97-presuppositional-apologetics-part-1/#comment-6876 – on the Reasonable Doubts site. The podcast on that page pertains to presuppositional apologetics. The first episode on the topic attempts to summarize the method and the next podcast will critique it. My time is very limited but I did offer some thoughts in a comment:

“If you do want to interact with a ‘sane’ Presuppositionalist then I’d recommend Chris Bolt of Choosinghats.com”

They can start with this 6 part series critiquing Justin Scheiber who is one of the hosts on the program above.

Praxis Presup: Episode 6

Praxis Presup: Episode 7

Praxis Presup: Episode 8

Praxis Presup: Episode 9

Praxis Presup: Episode 10

Praxis Presup: Episode 11

Justin told me that he was not pleased with his performance during this exchange. His arguments were essentially the same as those he used in his lecture to an atheist meet-up on the topic of presuppositionalism and likewise similar to those he used on Gene Cook’s Unchained Radio.

I appreciate that the hosts of this program are attempting to provide a reasonable critique of the presuppositional method of apologetics, however I am only five minutes in and am already disappointed by some of the mistakes that are being made. So, for example, even the post above claims, “Gods existence  cannot be proven,” but this is not the claim generally made by traditional presuppositionalists. In fact, they generally make the opposite claim that God’s existence *can* be proven. (Interestingly, Justin S. should be familiar with Sye T. since he has interacted with him at length. Sye’s URL is “www.proofthatgodexists.org”!) Or, another example, self-deception is automatically conflated with outright lying, when it is not necessarily the case that they are the same thing. Self-deception is nothing new in philosophical thought. Neither are presuppositions or transcendental arguments for that matter.

In any event, I look forward to finishing this episode, and hearing the critique in the next one. But I do hope Justin has improved upon said critique, as at least one host at the beginning of the program admits that he is ignorant of presuppositionalism, and Justin appears to be doing most of the talking!

 

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