Apologetics to the Glory of God

Tag: Induction

  • Knapp’s “Induction and the Unbeliever”

    Recently the “Bahnsen Burner” Dawson Bethrick took a swing at  Choosing Hats founder and administrator Brian Knapp’s contribution to The Portable Presuppositionalist as a part of his ongoing attempt to provide an answer to the Problem of Induction from within the confines of the Objectivist worldview. Mr. Bethrick quotes from page 124 of Knapp’s “Induction and the Unbeliever” in The Portable Presuppostionalist where Knapp asks, “Why do you believe nature is uniform, and how is that belief rationally justified?” Bethrick begins to provide an answer early in his post as follows:

    [N]ature is uniform on its own, independent of

    …

  • David Hume Is Rolling In His Grave

    The “Bahnsen Burner” Dawson Bethrick is busy writing a number of posts concerning the Problem of Induction that I discussed with him some time ago. In his most recent post Mr. Bethrick repeats where he thinks David Hume went wrong on induction thus allegedly setting himself up for a future post on how Objectivism rids itself of the so-called “problem” of induction. Setting aside a number of mistakes in his exegesis of Hume Mr. Bethrick shows that his last thread of hope in the area of induction will not hold the weight he wants to place on it.

    Objectivists constantly …

  • Science Is Not That Simple (Part 3)

    Part 1
    Part 2

    Chalmers also challenges the idea that facts provide a firm and reliable foundation for scientific knowledge. This argument falls in line with the other arguments.

    Further difficulties concerning the reliability of the observational basis of science arise from some of the ways in which judgments about the adequacy of observation statements draw on presupposed knowledge in a way that renders those judgments fallible.1

    Chalmers uses the example of Aristotle’s idea that fire is a substance. Fire was observed, and it could be seen rising into the air so that it seemed accurate to say that fire …

  • Science Is Not That Simple (Part 2)

    (For the first part of Science Is Not That Simple click here.)

    Chalmers argues against the common idea that facts precede and are separate from theory. Chalmers starts his argument out against this common idea by explaining the ambiguity of the term “fact”.

    It can refer to a statement that expresses the fact and it can also refer to the state of affairs referred to by such a statement.  For example, it is a fact that there are mountains and craters on the moon.  Here the fact can be taken as referring to the mountains or craters themselves.  Alternatively,

    …

  • An Objection That Does Not Count

    Non-Christians can and do engage in activities using logic, science, and morality. Christians do as well. Presuppositionalists claim that these two groups can do so only because the world is what God says it is.

    The argument advanced for this claim begins with one of the accepted activities mentioned above (logic, science, or morality) and illustrates how this activity is possible if the world is what God says it is. Then the accepted activity is shown to be inconsistent with what anyone else other than God says the world is.

    While it might be said that the non-Christian cannot and …

  • A Brief Word On The Transcendental Argument For The Existence Of God

    Immanuel Kant is known for having coined a term and utilized an argument which is now referred to as transcendental, though it may be traced back even further, having been used in some sense by Aristotle (as one example). Cornelius Van Til, writing from the Continental Tradition in Philosophy, wrote extensively concerning a transcendental argument which is utilized to prove Christianity. Greg L. Bahnsen, a student of Van Til, is best known for having brought the argument, or at least something very much like the argument, into the realm of public debate and for having attempted to clarify it …

  • Tu Quoque Argument Advanced as a Primer for the Presuppositionalist Response to Evidentialist Critiques of Method

    Arguments which cut both ways are not always self-refuting, but are significantly weakened by their hypocritical nature. The activities of traditional non-presuppositionalist apologists almost always fall prey to the same objections the proponents of the traditional method advance in their critiques of presuppositionalism.

    Just today I heard a professional apologist and philosopher argue that the Transcendental Argument for God, an argument utilized within the presuppositional method of apologetics, may more or less be dismissed because an unbeliever might quite easily claim that logic is something other than what the presuppositionalist needs to portray logic as in order to make his …

  • Possibility In Objectivism

    Rule

    “If there is no evidence for a proposition, there is no need to take it seriously.” – Objectivist Dawson Bethrick of www.bahnsenburner.blogspot.com

    This was written recently in the midst of what has proven to be a lengthy dispute between the author and me over topics like induction and presuppositionalism. I felt this statement in particular worthy of commenting upon. One may encounter a similar statement asserted by any number of other people regardless of whether or not they are Objectivists. There are a number of concerns to be had about the statement.

    First, there needs to be a definition …

  • God Is Not Whacky

    As presuppositionalists we take the whole of the Christian worldview and set it against those positions which are opposed to it. Claims must be understood within the contexts of the views from which they originate. For the Christian this means, among other things, that he or she should be familiar with Scripture. Our apologetic is based upon our theology, not the other way around. An example of the necessity of familiarity with Scripture for the apologetic endeavor may be seen in instances where an unbeliever makes the argument that the Christian has no reason for thinking that future experiences will …

  • The failure of unbelief with respect to induction illustrated by Mitch LeBlanc.

    Mitch LeBlanc continues to espouse his inconsistencies regarding induction in his most recent post found here – http://urbanphilosophy.net/philosophy/further-thoughts-and-clarifications-on-induction-and-the-christian-god/

    Mitch Admits His Problem

    He writes, “…I simply mean to suggest that one should be as skeptical about the problem of induction as the problem is skeptical of inductive reasoning itself.”
    With this he begs the question. I pointed out that he did so in his previous post and he continues to do so now. The existence of debate regarding a given topic does not entail skepticism. If he is unsure of whether or not there is a Problem of Induction then …