Tag: bad arguments
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Three Very Different Philosophers: Necessity of Epistemic Circularity
…“But don’t the doctrines of the imago dei (the image of God), and the purpose of human creation already presuppose that we can have substantive knowledge of God? They seem clearly to do this, and if so, then they cannot be appealed to in a noncircular argument for this theological optimism as a conclusion.
First, it must be pointed out that the possibility of any kind of basic knowledge cannot be demonstrated by means of noncircular, nonquestion-begging arguments, by arguments that do not in any way already presume to some extent that to which they intend to lend some support.
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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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“Atheists Are Moral People!”
Just not this atheist:
…People like Sye, Eric, Joe, Chris, and all the rest of the reality denying crowd, deserve nothing but ridicule for their witlessness. They seem to be getting upset that they aren’t treated with reverence and respect either here, or on the podcast, but you know what? They don’t DESERVE reverence or respect for their idiocy, if anything they deserve even more ridicule. For the ******** they peddle, often for money, they should be laughed out of town, they should be hounded by angry townsfolk armed with pitchforks and flaming torches. They should be confronted by the
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On Speaking to Brick Walls
Paul Baird responded. He still doesn’t get it. (Surprise, suprise.)
I wonder when they are going to learn that it takes an argument to respond to an argument?
Paul asks “Where’s the beef?” – Which, of course, leads me immediately to ask “Would you know it if you saw it?” He addresses nothing whatsoever that I said. Nothing at all. Further, if he wants to know why I turned the comments off, he can look at our site rules to find out.
Here is his assertion. “It seems to me that the Pagan worldview I put up stands undefeated …
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Why Shouldn’t Paul Baird Choose Hats?
Paul Baird has given us his opinion in the case of the use of worldviews he does not adhere to.
This is a common complaint ie why argue a worldview that you do not hold ? The answer is the tallest child in the playground argument ie I do not have to be the tallest child in the playground to point out that you are not the tallest child in the playground – I can point out that individual (in this instance it would be a child of equal size).
Paul’s understanding here doesn’t really deal with the problem being …
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Adventures in Missing the Antithesis
Paul Baird recently addressed what he seems to think is the “philosophy that underpins the Christian Presuppositional Apologetics.” He’s wrong, of course, but let us show him why, shall we? He cites Chris’ citation of an argument tucked away in the appendix of PA:S&D as that supposed “underpinning.” Interestingly, he goes on to ask why “do Presuppositional Apologists not start with this explanation that PA is about establishing the need for a unique self sufficient knower and identifying that self sufficient knower exclusively as the Christian god?” Well, that is readily apparent – because we don’t believe that to be …