Search results for: “"transcendental argument"”
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Ben Wallis on Van Tilian Presuppositionalism (Updated)
UPDATE: Ben Wallis has edited his post to reflect his take on my concerns. See here – http://benwallis.blogspot.com/2012/02/reasonable-doubtcasters-on-van-tilian.html?showComment=1330427431782#c5897980217578008803
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I like Ben Wallis, and he takes some really interesting angles in philosophical discussions, but I fear we often talk past one another.
Perhaps I am missing something in Ben’s most recent post, but his comments there appear less than fair. You may read the post in its entirety here – http://benwallis.blogspot.com/2012/02/reasonable-doubtcasters-on-van-tilian.html.
In that post, Wallis praises the recent work of the Reasonable Doubts podcast that pertains to presuppositional apologetics. Essentially, the hosts there appealed to Michael Martin’s TANG, Mitch …
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We’ve Got Mail: What about various other worldviews?
Matt B writes:
Hello, I’m a Christian and am very fond of presuppositional apologetics, but I’m wondering if you could help me a bit. I feel I can confidently articulate the basic premise of Van Til’s apologetic, and the implications of it for atheistic/polytheistic worldviews, but could you help me explain why this particular apologetic is only applicable to the God of Christianity, rather than various other worldviews (e.g. open theism, deism, agnosticism, etc.)? Thank you, your answer will be much appreciated.
Open theism may be dealt with philosophically, but since open theists make a claim to our God and …
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Reasonable Doubts About Non-Christian Excuses
The most recent podcasts, and hence comments, at Reasonable Doubts are focused upon presuppositional apologetics. The gentlemen at the aforementioned site are apparently impressed by the comment of one Andrew EC:
…- Andrew EC says:
It seems to me that the fundamental weaknesses of the presuppositionalist position are as follows:
1. There’s no analysis as to what it means to give “an account” of something. Philosophically, something only counts as an explanation if it is what Kant would call an analytic statement; that is, a proposition whose conclusion is not contained within its predicate.
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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
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Reasonable Doubts About Overload Objections
…Keith says:
Great podcast, guys.
One possible approach to presuppositionalism is to make your own, conflicting presupposition using your own invented God.
Imagine how taken aback a presuppositionalist would be in a debate if you said the following:
“I have a confession to make: I am not an atheist. I believe in the god Drusba*. And he inspired me to write down his only gospel. This gospel says that everyone knows deep down inside who Drusba is, and that no understanding of the world is possible without him. Drusba is the giver of
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Reasonable Doubts About Atheist Counter-Apologetics
…kantalope says:
You will probably cover this in the next podcast – but the things that occurred to me while listening:
I am no Bible scholar but I don’t recall any big discussion of logic principles in the sermon on the mount or anywhere for that matter. So how come the big logic scholars were Greek and worshipped a whole nother set of gods? Seems like the supposition we should arrive at is that things are comprehensible because of Zeus and the titans and not the Hebrew god.
And the point of the
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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
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Van Til’s Argument Part II
In our last post, we dealt with the claims made over at The Gospel Coalition Blog that Van Til did not make an argument while setting forth his methodology. “Roberto G” made that claim, and we dealt with that sufficiently for the time being. Now, we will deal with Doug Perry’s assertion that Van Til’s “legacy” has “given us the school [of] circular reasoning held by most presuppositionalists”. His sentence is rather garbled, and none too clear, but it seems to be saying that transcendental argumentation is circular, as far as I can tell. Now, even if this isn’t precisely …
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Van Til’s Argument Part I
In the comment section of Justin Taylor’s post, we have already seen perhaps the most common claims made by opponents of the covenantal apologetic. By “Roberto G”, we have the claim that Van Til didn’t make an argument; and by Doug Perry, we have the claim that the argument is circular. To head off any claims that I misunderstand what they have to say, let me quote the two gentlemen in question on the specified topics, and then I’ll deal with their comments as a whole in later posts, as I’ve decided to make this a short series, to …
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FAQ
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