Search results for: “possibility”
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Responding to the Argument for the Possibility of Foreknowledge from Transcendence (By Brian Knapp, Founder/Contributor Emeritus)
If God foreknows person P will make choice C at time T, then it is not possible for this choice to not be made. After all, if P does not choose C at T, then God’s foreknowledge was incorrect, in which case God actually did not foreknow this choice would occur at all as truth is a necessary component of foreknowledge. Stated differently, if it is not true that P chooses C at T, then God could not have foreknown that they would. So, when we say that God foreknows that P will choose C at T, there is no …
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When Possibility is Impossible: Answering a Rawlsian Ruse with Radical Retortion
In 1971 John Rawls wrote his famous A Theory of Justice in which he presented what is known as ‘The Original Position.’ The OP is a hypothetical state of affairs in which an individual operates from behind a ‘Veil of Ignorance’ in order to establish principles of justice for society apart from considerations of ethnicity, class, gender, and the like. This thought experiment stems from the radical autonomy present in Immanuel Kant’s work.
Enough about Rawls. Cornelius Van Til was a Christian apologist who likewise drew from Kant’s work, taking the transcendental method developed by Kant (and many others before …
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What is the Impossibility of the Contrary? (IotC)
It is impossible, or absurd, to say that one can both not exist and affirm one’s non-existence; the one affirming non-existence would have to exist in order to affirm one’s non-existence. Likewise, we may argue for logic by the impossibility of the contrary or absurdity of the opposite; in denying logic one is affirming it.
By “contrary” here we simply mean the denial of whatever is in view. Contrary is being used in an informal and conversational way, and not in its philosophical sense. In the philosophical or logical sense contraries cannot both be true but they can both be …
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Pat Mefford on Multi-Valued Logic as an Objection to the Impossibility of the Contrary
Introduction
I will be responding to this post – http://servileconformist.typepad.com/servile-conformist/2012/12/can-presuppositional-apologists-account-for-logic-.html#
Atheist Pat Mefford offers a rather ingenious means of getting around the transcendental method as used in covenantal apologetics. Now, I know Pat, so let me begin with a bit of friendly ad hominem. The argument of Pat’s post strikes me as illustrating the dangers of familiarity with a little bit of philosophy and a lot more sin. Pat proposes non-classical views of logic (in some cases held by an extreme minority of philosophers) in an attempt to overturn a presuppositional apologetic argument. Frankly, if that is the best …
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Pat Mefford’s Question about the Impossibility of the Contrary
Atheist Pat Mefford asked a strange question in the context of a discussion about the impossibility of the contrary. I would love to try and answer it. However, Pat is a smart guy, and I need him to dumb it down for me.
What if I insisted on a multi-value logic? Such as Kleene’s 3-valued logic that has a third value that is an intermediate between true and false?
Is Pat claiming A v ~A is false? Or that it is undefined? I’m not sure. Comments are welcome.…
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The Arrogance of the “Impossibility of the Contrary”
A lot of people have problems with the “impossibility of the contrary” claim often made as part and parcel of the covenantal or presuppositional apologetic method. A lot of people. And they have problems with it for very different reasons. I will address only two of them here.
The first is exclusivity. To say that anything contrary to some given position is impossible is to make a very bold claim to exclusivity. I am not going to enter into the various senses in which the covenantal apologist might be using the term “impossibility” here. But it will suffice to …
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Some Thoughts About the Impossibility of the Contrary
…Introduction
The “Transcendental Argument for God” (TAG) is typically understood as resting upon the “Impossibility of the Contrary.” We may be in a better position apologetically if we think about the Impossibility of the Contrary (IoC) in terms of three aspects of the IoC. These three aspects of the IoC are definition, dogma, and demonstration.
Definition
What is the IoC?
“Impossibility” refers to the impossibility of predication upon the presuppositions of some position. We might also take the impossibility in view to refer to the impossibility of the truth of some position, the impossibility of the rationality