PRESUPPOSITIONAL APOLOGETICS

[steven84]

Presuppositional apologetics is relatively new in my vocabulary. I never really understood how it worked but after watching this clip I saw just how effective it could be.

I then got to thinking, why doesn't someone like William Lane Craig implement this style of apologetic?

Does anyone know of any mainstream apologist using this technique?
What are the "ins" and "outs" to this argument? Are there any weaknesses in it or does it really work as well as things seemed to turn out in the clip?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA-aZVu2v0s

[theopoesis]

But seriously, tremendous thanks for your thoughtful, detailed and downright generous response. I have no interest in debating you on this, but rather I do have an enormous interest in discussing more.
I'll need some time to digest. But I look forward to posting a serious reply and asking some questions.
Just great man, thanks again. Back to you soon.

I'm not terribly interested in debate either, but I do hope this conversation can continue for a good while. I'm really enjoying it.

PS: In the meantime, can I impose upon you to elaborate a bit simply on the meaning of synchronic and diachronic. I get the gist, but I confess my ignorance, and wiktionary ain't helping.

I believe the synchronic/diachronic distinction originates in Ferdinand de Saussure. If you read his linguistic ideas or google him, it might be helpful in terms of the history of the ideas.

In brief, though, synchronic and diachronic refer to the way that one relates an idea to time. Etymologically, I believe the roots are Greek. Syn-chronic is from the Greek for "with time." Diachronic is from the Greek for "through time." In a sense, to take something synchronically is to look at it as a present phenomena that transcends time and whose meaning persists with time (or despite the actions of time). Conversely, to take something diachronically is to look at is as a temporal phenomena that changes through time and as a result of time.

When I say that evidentialism is synchronic, I am pointing out that it claims to be able to universalize the meaning of the "evidence" apart from any particular historical embeddedness. In other words, to study evidence synchronically is to assume that the fact that I am a white, American, male, speaking English, educated in theology at Duke, raised after the advent of postmodernism, exposed at a young age to Augustinianism, prone to conflict with my father and other authority figures, (etc.) has nothing whatsoever to do with my ability to interpret the evidence. As an interpreter, if I assume synchronicity, I assume the ability to escape all of these factors to view the evidence objectively.

To view the matter diachronically, however, is to assume that my culture, language, education, psychology, history, and political orientation (in actually, my life in history as an entirety) is vitally linked to my analysis of any "evidence." My analysis can only be seen as one step in the process of the historical unfolding of my life. I look at a logical decision as part of a grand movement of the mind through time. As such, presuppositionalism says what matters is not so much the evidence as the nature of the history within which one abides. If I abide within secular modernity, my conclusions will be more secular and modern. If I abide within redemption history, my conclusions will (theoretically) be Christian. And from within the (or a) Christian paradigm, this makes the presupposition or the participation in ecclesial and Christological history to be the most important element in reaching Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. As a subject, subjectivity is inescapable. The question is really which subjectivity you are a part of.

Does that help?

[Zzyzx]

.

But seriously, tremendous thanks for your thoughtful, detailed and downright generous response. I have no interest in debating you on this, but rather I do have an enormous interest in discussing more.

I'll need some time to digest. But I look forward to posting a serious reply and asking some questions.

Just great man, thanks again. Back to you soon.

I'm not terribly interested in debate either, but I do hope this conversation can continue for a good while. I'm really enjoying it.

I also hope the conversation continues for a good while.

Although I am quite interested in debate, I read your excellent presentations with pleasure but do not post because you folks are a bit beyond me in the philosophical.

[JoeyKnothead]

.

But seriously, tremendous thanks for your thoughtful, detailed and downright generous response. I have no interest in debating you on this, but rather I do have an enormous interest in discussing more.

I'll need some time to digest. But I look forward to posting a serious reply and asking some questions.

Just great man, thanks again. Back to you soon.

I'm not terribly interested in debate either, but I do hope this conversation can continue for a good while. I'm really enjoying it.

I also hope the conversation continues for a good while.

Although I am quite interested in debate, I read your excellent presentations with pleasure but do not post because you folks are a bit beyond me in the philosophical.

All y'all didn't think I'd second Zzyzx here just hop on off the intarwebz.

Good work by theopoesis and Slopeshoulder.

[Slopeshoulder]

.

But seriously, tremendous thanks for your thoughtful, detailed and downright generous response. I have no interest in debating you on this, but rather I do have an enormous interest in discussing more.

I'll need some time to digest. But I look forward to posting a serious reply and asking some questions.

Just great man, thanks again. Back to you soon.

I'm not terribly interested in debate either, but I do hope this conversation can continue for a good while. I'm really enjoying it.

I also hope the conversation continues for a good while.

Although I am quite interested in debate, I read your excellent presentations with pleasure but do not post because you folks are a bit beyond me in the philosophical.

All y'all didn't think I'd second Zzyzx here just hop on off the intarwebz.

Good work by theopoesis and Slopeshoulder.

I plan to disappoint everyone with my heartfelft but lame input tonight while i watch the election returns.

[Slopeshoulder]

But seriously, tremendous thanks for your thoughtful, detailed and downright generous response. I have no interest in debating you on this, but rather I do have an enormous interest in discussing more.
I'll need some time to digest. But I look forward to posting a serious reply and asking some questions.
Just great man, thanks again. Back to you soon.

I'm not terribly interested in debate either, but I do hope this conversation can continue for a good while. I'm really enjoying it.

PS: In the meantime, can I impose upon you to elaborate a bit simply on the meaning of synchronic and diachronic. I get the gist, but I confess my ignorance, and wiktionary ain't helping.

I believe the synchronic/diachronic distinction originates in Ferdinand de Saussure. If you read his linguistic ideas or google him, it might be helpful in terms of the history of the ideas.

In brief, though, synchronic and diachronic refer to the way that one relates an idea to time. Etymologically, I believe the roots are Greek. Syn-chronic is from the Greek for "with time." Diachronic is from the Greek for "through time." In a sense, to take something synchronically is to look at it as a present phenomena that transcends time and whose meaning persists with time (or despite the actions of time). Conversely, to take something diachronically is to look at is as a temporal phenomena that changes through time and as a result of time.

When I say that evidentialism is synchronic, I am pointing out that it claims to be able to universalize the meaning of the "evidence" apart from any particular historical embeddedness. In other words, to study evidence synchronically is to assume that the fact that I am a white, American, male, speaking English, educated in theology at Duke, raised after the advent of postmodernism, exposed at a young age to Augustinianism, prone to conflict with my father and other authority figures, (etc.) has nothing whatsoever to do with my ability to interpret the evidence. As an interpreter, if I assume synchronicity, I assume the ability to escape all of these factors to view the evidence objectively.

To view the matter diachronically, however, is to assume that my culture, language, education, psychology, history, and political orientation (in actually, my life in history as an entirety) is vitally linked to my analysis of any "evidence." My analysis can only be seen as one step in the process of the historical unfolding of my life. I look at a logical decision as part of a grand movement of the mind through time. As such, presuppositionalism says what matters is not so much the evidence as the nature of the history within which one abides. If I abide within secular modernity, my conclusions will be more secular and modern. If I abide within redemption history, my conclusions will (theoretically) be Christian. And from within the (or a) Christian paradigm, this makes the presupposition or the participation in ecclesial and Christological history to be the most important element in reaching Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. As a subject, subjectivity is inescapable. The question is really which subjectivity you are a part of.

Does that help?

Yes! Got it. Check. The words are new, but the postmodern themes are familiar. I'll place any comments I have in the broader response in a post below.

[Slopeshoulder]

First, three caveats:
- It's been nearly a quarter century since I graduated div. school, so I'm more than a little rusty. After all, these days I'm a management consultant and a guitar player.
- In the intervening years I have reverted to simple, colloquial English as my primary language, so I will use it. Sometimes by choice, sometimes by necessity.
- The topics contained in this exchange deserve a book, and theopoesis deserves a more able partner should he ever wish to write that book.
- Net, we'll have a nice little chat between friends, not a foodfight. Mostly I'll offer questions, concerns, and observations or suggestions.

OK jackass, bring it! KIDDING!!

As a general introduction to the idea of presuppositionalism vs. evidentialism, I merely wish to point out that presuppositionalism does us credit to point to our historical embeddedness. Whereas evidentialism is synchronic, presuppositionalism is diachronic, recognizing that all thought systems are founded in prior historical, cultural, and philosophical developments which have unfolded through time into a priori intellectual foundations. The presuppositionalist takes seriously the mind's historical embeddedness in a particular human being within a particular culture and epoch and asks the observer to question the arbitrary nature of our sitz en leben so to speak, whereas evidentialism seems to ignore the fact that human beings think and operate within historical reality, instead conjecturing a transcendental mind able to clearly observe the world, society, and self as "other" without itself being drawn into the temporality (and even historicity) of existence itself.

I acknowledge and accept the distinction. But I ask you to consider a few points, with apologies if this would get me laughed out of a seminar at Duke or Yale these days:

1) I've bolded a few phrases that make me wonder if they reveal a certain bias on your part, privileging one that "takes seriously" vs. another that "ignores." By this I mean to suggest that you present an either-or with a preferred option vs. an equal pair of tendencies. I am responding not to your choice, but only to your framing. I'm sure you'd honestly admit to that bias as a valid if necessarily arbitrary choice. But is it? Do you not choose one vs. the other at this fundamental or paradigmatic level for "rational" reasons? I suggest that your dismissal of evidentialism is not arbitrary or aesthetic, but rather considered. Be clear: I'm not trying to launch a reductio here, a gotcha, but rather I'm starting to set up a take on modernity vs. postmodernity that I think can be dialectical and positive.

2) While I understand that it is not logically possible to be evidentialist/modern/synchronic and /presuppositionalist/postmodern/diachronic simultaneously (as they do seek to devour each other, to use your carnivorous imagery from below), but I wonder if they can co-exist existentially, as tendencies, that form a dialectic that in real matters can inform us during our short and contemporary lifetimes. After all, we have these carnivores on leashes that we hold.

3) I find I have forward in my mind the catholic idea of the "well-formed conscience." Perhaps this presents a middle way, or third option, between the stranglehold of diachronic culture on one side and the naivete or impossibility of a synchronic transcendental objective self on the other. By this I mean to suggest that this (Christian) idea of conscience provides a certain wisdom or sensibility that allows us to transcend our sitz in leben to a degree, acknowledging the limitations that inhere within it that are recognized by postmodernism, while also not being forced to depend on upon a transcendental objective modern epistemology. (How's that simple english thing goin' for ya?). I know this raises all kind of issues that might have me sliding against my will down a slippery slope into natural law thinking, but I find the idea intruguing. What is at stake for me is a desire not to set up mutually carniverous paradigms, but rather a healthy dialogue between interpenetrating paradigms. This is consistent with my desire to de-center, but not destroy, modernity. So perhaps the sensibility we call conscience has a role here.

Is it more dishonest to consider a presupposition truth while admitting its presuppositional nature, or to assume the mind's ability to transcend history in determining truth, and thereby failing to even admit the existence of the historically determined presupposition?

I take your point. And I agree.
My only concern is that presuppositions, and the traditions they source and support, do not occur in a vacuum. And part of the oxygenated environment includes the dialogue between paradigms, including multiple religions and secularisms. And so again, I find it is my conscience that tells me that if we de-center, but do not dismiss, the good faith deliberations over centuries known as modernity (including many christians among its participants), we are called to choose presuppositions that not only support an internally coherent worldview (say Christianity), but must also be said to be simply reasonable by a reasonable preponderance of people of good faith. I know you will state that as a postmodern fideist who is honest about the presuppositional nature of presuppositions, your chosen beliefs are self-validating. And they are. But few others are as learned and honest. In absence of the role of conscience and a measure of respect for reasonableness and the common sense (vs. the activist-violent) understanding modern discourse, I must ask: do we invite kooky beliefs, often confused with spurious understandings and examples of facts? Do we, perhaps as an unintended consequence, risk creating a nation of people like the street apologist in the clip in the OP? Just a thought, because paradigms have consequences.

I say dishonesty is a plague around here if we judge dishonesty by the scale offered in previous posts. But why point fingers and call names? Such are merely the consequences of a psyche responding to the other-ness of a distinct presuppositional matrix.

Yes.
But while incivility is ugly, I'm not sure all rationalities should be tolerated as part of suppositional matrixes. (I gather you don't either, hence the reductio method). But I am concerned about some religious beliefs. Some are just wrong. They smell wrong. And while we shouldn't have to establish or defend an absolute modern evidentiary paradigm to call BS by its name, nor do we get to hide behind presuppositions if we are religious. Specifically, I remain concerned that the worst religious kooks (I'm partial to american fundamentalists, but let's say the Taliban), in the vacuum left by a teetering and retreating modernity, will seek cover behind claims of christian/religious presuppositions. Can you imagine a Taliban Van Til?Again, I invoke conscience as a middle way to bring to bear in these cases.

That being said, I greatly appreciate Slopeshoulder's comments, and wish to continue a conversation which began in private on this thread.

Thanks. I'm doing my best with sweaty hands!

I've been thinking a bit every day about presuppositional apologetics, ever since theopoesis was kind enough to tell me about it recently. And while it is well known that I take post-modernity seriously, I cannot get past the stumbling block that it is circular.

I noticed on another post a few weeks back (personal matters have kept me away from the forum for a while) that you'd read some presuppositionalists.

Nope, just some google for an evening. I try to be a quick study.

Had I known you'd take my ideas so seriously,

Of course I take you seriously baby!

I would have warned you that Van Til, though the origin of my thinking, is also a terribly angry man who I wouldn't necessarily recommend reading to anyone. He lashes out quite frequently. Given the bitterness of the Princeton Seminary battles, I can understand his nature with a degree with sympathy.

I find the reductio in the service of a trumphalist Christianity to be fundamentally and inherently violent in intent. So I see van Til's method and his project as one big lashing out. Although I suppose in other hands it might be done somewat more civilly. But I have my doubts. My conscience tells me that God loves a lot more people in their present beliefs and form of life than a triumphalist take on orthodoxy allows.

I acknowledge that it can support a decision to choose a religious affilaition, for emotional, aesthetic, or cultural reasons, on the grounds that it is internally coherent.

But I have four top of mind problems with it:

- when speaking to anyone outside the circle of faith-participation, it is circular.

This is necessarily so. You are astute to recognize this, but I think (with some digging) the same objection can be made to any robust epistemology or paradigm of another nature.

Thanks for acknowledging. Perhaps I made too much of this circularity. But some concerns about circularity do remain. Even the church fathers celebrated by old orthodoxy and radical orthodoxy were working in a hellenistic context which I imagine included prescriptions against circularity. I'm open minded to presuppositionalism as a postmodern method, but I worry about the broader applications and implications of this circularity, for reasons I've already mentioned.
And yes, the postmodern epistemology of suspicion can be brought against any paradigm. But where does this leave us? Fideism, yes. But again, it seems to me that few circular apologists are postmodern fideists, but rather something less honest and more sinister. That concern aside, I like it and I'm with ya. Works for me, works for you. But...them?

- Its very circularity defines and reinforces its apart-ness and sectarian dimension, making broadly intelligible human discourse more difficult, even as we admit that universal foundations may be unavailable. It seems like a giving-up. So it smells of nihilism, as far as I can tell, insofar as it not only merely decenters the modern evidentiary-postivist-empiricist paradigm, but seeks to take a second step and claim that all rationalities, even highly subjective and arbitrary rationalities, are equally valid if internally consistent. I don't have the expertise to attack that notion thoroughly, but it seems to be a bridge too far and doesn't pass the sniff test. One can imagine a horrific ideology that is internally coherent. Do we just hope that people pick God and not Hitler, scientific rationalism or democracy and not al-qaeda, with no foundations for rational choice, not even humbled foundations? Are we limited to aesthetic, emotional, and evolutionary-determinist factors alone? I'm probably missing something, but this is a concern.

In my opinion "broadly intelligible human discourse" is only possible through the conquest of other discourses by a more powerful discourse. (In this statement I do not intend to equate power with truthfullness).

I respect your intention, but I fear it has the result of de-centering modernity and centering violence. When I was in div school, I surprised myself with a conservative moment (yes, me) when I rebelled against the Marxian and broadly postmodern focus on the culturally embedded influence on thinking/opinion/cognition. I accept that our location in history, culture, and various indicators of power like race and gender certainly do influence and vex us, but I reject the idea that our cognition is overcome by them. I call the alternative Cognitive Balkanization. Like the Balkans, it divides us, diminishes us, and invites a new form of otherising (("It's a _____ (your identity politics here) thing, you wouldn't understand." Really? Not even if I tried?)) and violence. So post-modernity does not escape violence either. It may make things worse.

We see this everywhere. E. O. Wilson's Conscillience is a perfect example. In it, Wilson attempts to explain as much of human existence and culture as possible in scientific terms. Wilson begins with a commitment to science and then circularly performs this presuppositional commitment to demonstrate the scientific nature of everything. Similarly, economists of late have attempted to explain all things in terms of utility and desire and free action and exchange within a market, reducing religion, culture, and so forth to economic epiphenomena. Political science has begun making similar moves (I am thinking particularly of rational choice theorists), whereby all human action is interpreted as the consequence of a rational, self-interested individual in pursuit of power. Now these theories are not just verbal attempts at conquest of other metanarratives, they are performed in various ways throughout society. Whereas Science is more peaceful at present through scientism's gradual conquest of other field's methodologies, leading to the primacy of experimentation and mathematical analysis in all fields of academia, capitalist economics offers a much more forceful conquest through globalization and the incessant drive to open markets and create consumers. As such, science explains all because all becomes committed to scientific methodology, and as such economics explains all in terms of consumption because it first turns all individuals into consumers.

I agree completely. This kind of triumphalist, arrogant, naive, and carnivorous modern secularism is violent. It is a terrible reductionism that I have argued against consistently for decades. Debunking and undermining this cartoon is a hallmark and glory of postmodernity. Bring on the reductio's! We have no disagreement here.

I find your analogy of Nihilism to be very interesting. Personally, I love the writings of Neitzsche because I consider his work to be a metanarrative on metanarratives (I'm even confusing myself here to a degree).

Then just imagine what you're doing to tired old me!

For Neitzsche, the slave morality can only be conquered through the sheer will to power. The battlefield between paradigms is seen as the battlefield of one power over another. This is the inevitable conclusion of many paradigms, but I believe Christianity can offer a strong counterbalance to this metanarrative as power schema. Might Christianity be perhaps a liberative power? Gutierrez suggests this much to me at the least. If the exertion of power by Christianity over others is inevitable, let us direct that power toward freeing bodies and souls, seeking justice and redemption.

This is a beautiful thought, beautifully expressed. It resonates deeply with me and is as good a "defense" of religious faith/commitment/affiliation as I know. This is in itself a sufficient grounds for "choosing" religion.
But I must ask, can we expand it to include all healthy religions? Can we expand it to all people of good faith, of meaning-seeking, and of healing intent, regardless of whether or not they have a faith, and so opening it up now to productive secularism? Can we even extend it to the people who brought us modernity, insofar as they worked with an intention to bring us all benefits?

I can come no where close to demonstrating it, but I often consider the alternatives to be Neitszche/nihilism and Christ/fideism. But I think I have gotten ahead of myself. Back to trying to outline the nature of a response to your objection...

If we are historically embodied individuals, "Broadly intelligible human discourse" requires first a broadly united historical embodiment (if we are to take the diachronic claims of presuppositionalism seriously). The subtext here is the elimination of diversity and diverse cultures (i.e. humanities) into a single "human" with a single "history" whose singularity is in fact the performance of that metanarrative which claims to clearly define the human as such. In other words, you are quite astute to recognize the arbitrariness in the selection of paradigms.

Thanks for the compliment. And while I know that what you write here is coherent and consistent, it's just a tad too continental for my taste (for my conscience?). In other words, I'm not sure that common sense, some kind of assumptions-to-date in the human story, requires or implies a monolithic paradigm or meta-narrative. I'm sure many Frenchmen would disagree, but that's my story (and I choose that word carefully) and I'm stickin' to it.

Now, if I understand correctly, what presuppositionalism demonstrates to us is that the only rational way to critique a particular rationality is through a reductio ad absurdam, i.e. through showing how that system's presuppositions do not support it's conclusions. Insofar as that system's rationality is the manifestation of a particular diachronic reality, the rationality is distinct and protected from other rationalities until either (1) that historical determinant is changed, or (2) that rationality is demonstrated to be invalidly circular. Note that method #1 is not rational per se, as much as it is historical. Human action is still important, but reason itself may not be as vital as praxis in the battle between metanarratives.

Good point re: the primacy of praxis, if meta-narratives must be in battle, which I have questioned (we're not all John Milbamk vs. E.O. Wilson after all; perhaps the rest of us draw upon multiple meta-narratives, guided by what i am calling conscience?)

Can I ask, how do you distinguish between invalid circularity and valid circularity? Is it a matter of simple honesty regarding the circularity?

I do not advocate that we just "hope" people do not pick Hitler. I am simply saying that in the effort to dissuade people from picking Hitler, it would be more effective to ameliorate the historical realities from which Nazism arose (post WWI debt, a rhetoric of self-determination, anti-Jewish actions, colonial conquests) rather than to attack the rationality of Nazism itself. Such attacks will be incomprehensible to the Nazi except wherein the Nazi's own logic can be seen as self-defeating. Praxis is the battlefield of culture more often than reason.

Good point. So first we try a reducio, then we try praxis, and then we resort to war if necessary? With nazi's, taliban, and domestic fascistic theocrats, these seem like the choices. What of a legislature? Do reason or suasion have a role to play, or is it inherently a power discourse masquerading as deliberation? Have we been duped? Is democracy itself a fantasy and an impossibility?

- I question the value and intent of its project. I utterly reject the triumphalism and exclusivism that presumes that any one religion has it all figured out and possesses the only full, coherent, reliable truth. This strikes me as the intellectual equivalent of pulling open one's trenchcoat and masturbating assertively within sight of all passersby. It is onanistic and disrespectful. It makes an idol of one's thought pattern, in this case, christianity. I find it striking that other religions don't seem to feel the need to do this, and so politely and humbly keep their coats closed.

I like your metaphor here. I also admit to the arrogance of particular Christians and at time of myself.

I believe there are several points to be made here. First, if my painting of things above is correct, all metanarratives are carnivorous. Only some represent themselves as such. The late modernist metanarrative is one example of a paradigm that is carnivorous and yet which displays itself as open to all others.

Agreed.

Second, I think it is possible and dangerous to idolize one's paradigm. There are countless examples from history of individuals doing this, to their and (at times) to society's destruction. Van Til certainly was more triumphalistic than I would prefer.

Whew, and agreed.

On the other hand, one need not say that the presuppositionalist approach necessarily leads to such triumphalism. Anselm's "faith seeking understanding" comes to mind. If our knowledge is historically determined and particular, and if the Christian presupposes that knowledge to be divinely guided through whatever theological tenet - election, redemption history, pneumatology - then to suddenly idolize one's intellectual paradigm is to divorce oneself from the diachronic nature of reason, thereby separating oneself from the election, providence, redemption history, guidance of the Holy Spirit, and creatio continua of the Triune Christian God. In other words, insofar as Van Til saw his project as completed and finally true, he left his own presuppositionalistic paradigm itself for a syncrhonic one. Or, perhaps, I am taking my views which are influenced by Van Til and projecting them back onto Van Til himself.

I'm having a little trouble following this, but I'm gonna go with...I agree!

- It is associated with and provides cover for far right wing, ultra-orthodox forms of Christianity. Van Til and more recently Plantinga etc might be nice people (putting aside their tendency toward totalizing triumphalism and onanism), but it is curious to me that only neo-calvinists are doing this work. And when it passes to and through people like RJ Rushdoony and Francis Shaeffer, it provides the intellectual gloss for extremists. Its almost exclusive association with these extreme anti-modern, irrational, reactionary, exclusivist, and theocratic movements speaks poorly of it; we are to some degree responsible for our children. 50 nice academics and 50 million wingnuts is not a good situation. So it doesn't seem enough to say that all rationalities are equal and that 1. internal coherence is all that matters and 2. only christianty is internally coherent, not when the Christine O'Donnel's and Sharron Angle's of this world are close to taking power and would force rape victime, incest victims and people (like my wife) whose life is threatened by pregnancy to undergo birthing for the glory of their (small and peurile) god.

I won't pretend to have the ability to address many of the issues in this section. It seems that there are many personal matters within, and so I will only say to much of your post that I am sorry for any personal grief that more conservative Christians may have caused you and your wife through her pregnancy. As a conservative Christian, I am partly responsible.

Hey bub, are you saying I have issues? Actually, I was a bit hysterical here. I do have personal baggage, and I was still puking after watching the jerk in the OP's video clip. But, as above, I am concerned about what perhaps is the misuse of presuppositionalism by..well, by everyone other than you! And maybe Millbank.

That being said, I would like to mention that presuppositionalism began with Van Til and the conservatives, but it has found its counterpart in radical orthodoxy. Read John Milbank's Theology and Social Theory and you will find a theologian attempting to do many of the same things that Van Til was doing, in a much clearer way (and at other times a much more obscure way). Perhaps Milbank is also triumphalistic, but he is certainly no neo-calvinist.

Understood. I had mistakenly associated it only with places like Calvin College and Westminster. I stand corrected. In the meantime, I've had my head spin through the ceiling reading about Millbank. He could demand a lifetime adequetely to digest, critique, and accept or reject, and frankly I'll probably spend my time getting better at guitar. But he CANNOT be dismissed.

You say, "Its almost exclusive association with these extreme anti-modern, irrational, reactionary, exclusivist, and theocratic movements speaks poorly of it." I say, what is so wrong with being anti-modern? I, for one, am anti-modern. Modernity brought about the advent of many good things (medicine, film, transportation, women's rights, sewer systems, online religion forums, etc.) but it has also created many deep problems (pollution and climate change, social alienation evident in such phenomena as the hikikomoro, unprecidented international violence, nuclear bombs, a vacuous moral system, existential isolation, depersonalization and deconstruction of the community, globalization and the resulting destruction of cultures and peoples).

I think every era, time, culture, or paradigm has flaws, downsides, costs, and horrors. To use Christian language, this is the reality of sin (human imperfection). Modernity has huge ones, perhaps as a result of its technological power. The list you mentioned was also recited by Cornel West in his opening lecture on what was then called "post-analytic" philosophy. But modernity was not a conspiracy to to devour anything per se. One person had an idea. Many people responded to it with approval, including many christians. Then it snowballed, from renaissance humansim through enlightenment reason, right up to E.O Wilson. They meant well, it felt like progress. Now it is being eclipsed, and some of its great defenders haven't got the memo. But I can't bring myself be "anti" modern, because to be so is to be anti-human, anti-life, and possbily anti-spirit. It just is, and we can use it. Perhaps in the ways I suggested above. But yes, it is de-centered, eclipsed. And that is a good thing for those of us interested in the good things relgion can do.

There are many presuppositionalist Christians who are poor moral individuals, but there are also individuals who work with the homeless, practice medicine, donate heavily to charity, combat AIDS, etc. etc. It is a complex thing to analyze the proponents of an ideology in a unitary fashion.

I agree, and I'm sorry if I did that or appeared to do that.

It reminds me of the circular, totalizing, and self-validating ideology that we last saw in Stalinism, where to question the inevitable logic of history was to be deemed mentally ill and outside the human community. I can imagine sanitoriums where non-extremist dissenters are reprogrammed to accept presuppositional apologetics and then recite the nicene creed or face hard labor (supported by some OT bible quotes I'd guess). Am I drawing a possible line connecting presuppositional apologetics and a possible emerging genocidal totalitarian theocracy waiting to happen, stoppable ony by a second civil war? A second set of religious wars lasting 200 years, but this time in America? Yes. I'd admire the academics more of they supported moderation; instead they seem to be building god's army and acting naively about it.

Interesting perspective.

HA!! That is the wisest and best response you could have given. More hysteria on my part, and more directed to the jerk in the video than to any participant in thoughtful discourse.

Lastly, in studying for two degrees in religion, including studying with the founders of right-leaning theological post-liberalism, and in over 20 years since, I never even heard of presuppositional apologetics until recently. That is suggestive that is was fringe, so that it is now redefining the center is concerning.

Is this a testament to the fringe nature of presuppositionalism, or a testament to the closed nature of most education, wherein study is reserved only for those authors who either (1) fit within the dominant paradigm or (2) serve as easy foils for the dominant paradigm?

The latter. And I retract. It's really about me being ignorant of more recent and IMO more compelling and responsible developments since Van Til/Rushdoony/Schaeffer. I may disagree with Millbank, but he's a different thing altogether.

I, for one, have often considered asking for my money back from Duke. In some ways, my education was a joke. Thank God they had a large library. Half of what I know I just read on my own.

You're a better man than me; at Yale it was all I could do to read what I was supposed to read.

I also thank God that you are an individual who seems to have made good use of your own library (or perhaps even libraries).

Consider yourself and God bamboozled. Most of what I offer is through a haze of dim memory, some googling, and a whole lot of shooting from the hip. I read maybe one book a year about this stuff.

It's always a pleasure to talk with you.

SAME HERE!!

You offer very real critiques of presuppositionalism, which converts to very real challenges to my own thinking, which in turn converts into very real growth in my own thinking, understanding, and faith.

When I'm not being hysterical. I do my best. You honor me with your attention and time.
You, and others here, do the same for me, making me think. This forum has REALLY made me refine my views (I know, I have a long way to go!)

Take care, Slopeshoulder.

You too my friend. I can hardly think of a better way to spend 4 hours writing and days of thinking (most of which I forgot when I actually sat down to type this).

So where does this leave us? I'd like to close with a few thoughts.

First, maybe there is something to this idea of well-formed conscience having a role to play epistemologically or whatever I mean it to be doing. I just made it up tonight. Maybe it'll be my philosophy for the rest of my life. Maybe I am nuts, confused, stupid, or demonically possessed. Too early to tell, but until someone convinces me that one of those afflictions is at work, I find it intriguing.

Second, with lingering concerns, I find presuppositional thinking, in the hands of a smart and honest postmodernist, to be very intriguing. It demands a lot of attention and consideration if one is to be intellectually honest and au courant. But I'd like to offer this:
It seems that the major religious choices in a postmodern context are to affirm a type of orthodoxy (original, paleo, radical), or to affirm a type of emerging conversation (emerging church, emergant church or movement), or closely related to this, to take a everything-is-religion-and-god-is-everywhere pluralist and possibly panentheist approach, or to adopt a post-cognitive mysticism of sorts. Of these, I incline toward the latter three. Theopoesis, do you find these options legitimate, or do they invite the reductio at the hands of orthodoxy?

All the best,

SS

[theopoesis]

First, three caveats:
- It's been nearly a quarter century since I graduated div. school, so I'm more than a little rusty. After all, these days I'm a management consultant and a guitar player.
- In the intervening years I have reverted to simple, colloquial English as my primary language, so I will use it. Sometimes by choice, sometimes by necessity.
- The topics contained in this exchange deserve a book, and theopoesis deserves a more able partner should he ever wish to write that book.
- Net, we'll have a nice little chat between friends, not a foodfight. Mostly I'll offer questions, concerns, and observations or suggestions.

Quite the humble introduction. Your subsequent words establish your knowledge and expertise. I can only wonder what such a conversation would have looked like a quarter century ago when you weren't rusty. Of course, I was not yet speaking, so perhaps it is best we dialogue now, despite any rust.

I ask you to consider a few points, with apologies if this would get me laughed out of a seminar at Duke or Yale these days:

1) I've bolded a few phrases that make me wonder if they reveal a certain bias on your part, privileging one that "takes seriously" vs. another that "ignores." By this I mean to suggest that you present an either-or with a preferred option vs. an equal pair of tendencies. I am responding not to your choice, but only to your framing. I'm sure you'd honestly admit to that bias as a valid if necessarily arbitrary choice. But is it? Do you not choose one vs. the other at this fundamental or paradigmatic level for "rational" reasons? I suggest that your dismissal of evidentialism is not arbitrary or aesthetic, but rather considered. Be clear: I'm not trying to launch a reductio here, a gotcha, but rather I'm starting to set up a take on modernity vs. postmodernity that I think can be dialectical and positive.

I see your point and admit to a bias. My words betray me.

In terms of a response, I suppose the answer must be yes and no. Yes I have rational reasons for my choice of presuppositionalism over evidentialism. Though my language betrays a bias, beneath the bias lies a concrete argument as to the synchronic and diachronic nature of evidentialism and presuppositionalism. Insofar as I have intellectual reasons for my choice, my choice can be construed as rational.

On the other hand, I must admit the degree to which my rationality is itself suspect and is itself subject to circularity. When I became a Christian, my transformation began largely as a result of independently reading several patristic authors: Augustine, Tatian, Justin Martyr, etc. What was the second non-patristic Christian book that I read (after Mere Christianity)? Cornelius Van Til's Defense of the Faith. I had a friend my senior year in high school whose father was a pastor. My friend read Van Til and loaned me a copy of the book. At that point, I had no philosophical or theological framework to speak of, merely data. The coincidence of my early encounter with Van Til decisively shaped the majority of my subsequent thought.

I do not intend to depict cognition as deterministic. Rationality contains both external and internal factors which shape its course. In the example of my life and presuppositionalism, I believe presuppositionalism on a rational and pre-rational level. Rationally, I have arguments that I believe reinforce the validity of a presuppositionalist perspective. Pre-rational determinants affect (or perhaps even cause) my ability to make such rational claims. Had contingency not been a factor I would not write this today. First, I had to have been born after Van Til wrote. Second, I had to have been introduced to Van Til. Third, I had to speak a language that would allow me to understand Van Til. Fourth, I had to have a paradigm that was sufficiently pliant to accept Van Til.

In regards to this fourth point, I think we have an entry for evidentialism. Thomas Kuhn differentiates between "normal science" and "revolutionary science." Debates about the validity of these scientific categories aside (I believe Popper and Lakatos had their reservations), the point is that during a normal period, evidence is conformed to the paradigm (a.k.a. the presuppositions). However, when a "crisis" emerges, that is to say when the "normal" no longer seems to justify the rationality which proceeds from the axiomatic pre-rational elements, reason itself is in crisis leading to "revolutionary" development. This crisis might be brought about (in my mind, not Kuhn's) by external factors such as an experience or it might be brought about internally by reason's uncovering the weak foundations of its own paradigm. Regardless, after the crisis is reached, a paradigm may be abandoned. A new paradigm is selected by reason, but we must not reduce this selection completely to evidentialism. After all, two things are true: (1) the rejected presupposition still shapes thought negatively - that is to say my reason is now driven by non-A rather than by A. The West is still driven intellectually by rejection of or response to Descartes centuries after the crisis point of his thought emerged amid the empiricists like Hume. Conversely, Descartes himself might be interpreted as a crisis point in late scholasticism or humanism. The point is, a contingent pre-rational move, once made, still shapes the direction of discourse once rejected. (2) Not all presuppositions are typically rejected simultaneously. The paradigm shift is not total, but is still determined by other pre-rational tenets.

All this to say, there is slightly more room for reason than I earlier indicated, but even this reason seems shaped by presuppositions. Further, the crisis point of "revolutionary" thought is quite uncommon.

2) While I understand that it is not logically possible to be evidentialist/modern/synchronic and /presuppositionalist/postmodern/diachronic simultaneously (as they do seek to devour each other, to use your carnivorous imagery from below), but I wonder if they can co-exist existentially, as tendencies, that form a dialectic that in real matters can inform us during our short and contemporary lifetimes. After all, we have these carnivores on leashes that we hold.

You do have a point. To the extent that the human being is not exclusively a rational being, the human can maintain intellectual inconsistency through exertion of will, as a result of emotional commitment, or even through the limits of that individual's intellect itself (and therefor limits to the ability to recognize the carnivorous nature of thought). This certainly gives me something to consider.

This would seem to be true on an individual level. Societally, culturally, and in the academy, I believe such tensions are much less feasible. It seems to me that group normativity, majority influence, and sociology's recognition of the tendency to radicalize when in groups would all limit the moderate view. Perhaps if we viewed society as a whole, we can say that the prolonged simultaneous existence of two carnivorous paradigms is itself an existential tension for humanity as a species.

3) I find I have forward in my mind the catholic idea of the "well-formed conscience." Perhaps this presents a middle way, or third option, between the stranglehold of diachronic culture on one side and the naivete or impossibility of a synchronic transcendental objective self on the other. By this I mean to suggest that this (Christian) idea of conscience provides a certain wisdom or sensibility that allows us to transcend our sitz in leben to a degree, acknowledging the limitations that inhere within it that are recognized by postmodernism, while also not being forced to depend on upon a transcendental objective modern epistemology. (How's that simple english thing goin' for ya?). I know this raises all kind of issues that might have me sliding against my will down a slippery slope into natural law thinking, but I find the idea intruguing. What is at stake for me is a desire not to set up mutually carniverous paradigms, but rather a healthy dialogue between interpenetrating paradigms. This is consistent with my desire to de-center, but not destroy, modernity. So perhaps the sensibility we call conscience has a role here.

Excellent idea here. I'm considering it. Is conscience a non-rational entity here? (something like an innate moral sense?) Or is it a component of rationality?

Perhaps we should define rationality. For me there is a divide between rationality and cognition. Cognition is the mind's ability to think, and it can do so rationally, irrationally, and non-rationally. Rationality is, in my mind, not intrinsic to the mind but is a set of rules, a heuristic, or guiding patterns of thought which shape particular varieties of discourse and which lead to particular forms of inter-human relationship. Rationality is, by definition, constrained by the set of rules, the heuristic, or the patterns of thought themselves. Thus, rationality proper would seem to have no room for transcendence of those things which make it up (and which are determined largely by the sitz in leben). Conversely, cognition itself would have the ability in my definitions to operate outside of a particular rationality. This indicates the possibility of transcending the diachronic nature of rationality. What this "transcendence" maintains of modernity, I am not sure.

Of course, insofar as cognition outside of rationality is linguistic (and not simply pictorial or experiential) it would still have a degree of external influence.

My only concern is that presuppositions, and the traditions they source and support, do not occur in a vacuum. And part of the oxygenated environment includes the dialogue between paradigms, including multiple religions and secularisms. And so again, I find it is my conscience that tells me that if we de-center, but do not dismiss, the good faith deliberations over centuries known as modernity (including many christians among its participants), we are called to choose presuppositions that not only support an internally coherent worldview (say Christianity), but must also be said to be simply reasonable by a reasonable preponderance of people of good faith. I know you will state that as a postmodern fideist who is honest about the presuppositional nature of presuppositions, your chosen beliefs are self-validating. And they are. But few others are as learned and honest. In absence of the role of conscience and a measure of respect for reasonableness and the common sense (vs. the activist-violent) understanding modern discourse, I must ask: do we invite kooky beliefs, often confused with spurious understandings and examples of facts? Do we, perhaps as an unintended consequence, risk creating a nation of people like the street apologist in the clip in the OP? Just a thought, because paradigms have consequences.

Quite the astute point. The ethical consequences of paradigms aren't well known to me. I need to think through this.

But while incivility is ugly, I'm not sure all rationalities should be tolerated as part of suppositional matrixes. (I gather you don't either, hence the reductio method). But I am concerned about some religious beliefs. Some are just wrong. They smell wrong. And while we shouldn't have to establish or defend an absolute modern evidentiary paradigm to call BS by its name, nor do we get to hide behind presuppositions if we are religious. Specifically, I remain concerned that the worst religious kooks (I'm partial to american fundamentalists, but let's say the Taliban), in the vacuum left by a teetering and retreating modernity, will seek cover behind claims of christian/religious presuppositions. Can you imagine a Taliban Van Til?Again, I invoke conscience as a middle way to bring to bear in these cases.

I think we can draw an important divide between necessary and possible conclusions. There are particular outcomes of certain presuppositions that would seem to inevitably come to pass. There are other possible conclusions, which themselves are shaped by the presuppositional, pre-rational paradigm but which themselves are but one of several options which might logically proceed from the presupposition. Within a particular paradigm are resources for combatting some possibilities. The combat need not be external to the paradigm, and indeed might be more effective within it. On the other hand, conscience as a non-rational element could also be a valid means of combating Osama ben Til.

Conversely, we must note that modernity itself, as a presuppositional matrix, also has its own variety of necessary and possible conclusions. Amid the possible were Fascism, imperialism, Nazism, and countless others. When speaking of a paradigm as broad as "modernity" such variation is much larger. Note that these Taliban-esque movements emerged within even a modernist paradigm. To me, this suggests that retaining a degree of transcendence (even if conscience) will not guarantee the elimination of radicalism. Such is the neccesary result of the Fall.

That being said, I greatly appreciate Slopeshoulder's comments, and wish to continue a conversation which began in private on this thread.

Thanks. I'm doing my best with sweaty hands!

Note to self: avoid touching Slopeshoulder's keyboard.

I find the reductio in the service of a trumphalist Christianity to be fundamentally and inherently violent in intent. So I see van Til's method and his project as one big lashing out. Although I suppose in other hands it might be done somewat more civilly. But I have my doubts. My conscience tells me that God loves a lot more people in their present beliefs and form of life than a triumphalist take on orthodoxy allows.

Certainly. The question is not one of love, but one of escaping the selfcreated (and God-permitted) destruction of humanity through sin, the turning away from being, goodness, and truth. Insofar as orthdoxy leads to relation with God, creation of the community of God, and production of virtue, it is characteristic of those who are saved, but not of those who are loved by God.

Of course, we can debate the role of orthodoxy (and I suspect we will discuss it below).

Even the church fathers celebrated by old orthodoxy and radical orthodoxy were working in a hellenistic context which I imagine included prescriptions against circularity. I'm open minded to presuppositionalism as a postmodern method, but I worry about the broader applications and implications of this circularity, for reasons I've already mentioned.
And yes, the postmodern epistemology of suspicion can be brought against any paradigm. But where does this leave us? Fideism, yes. But again, it seems to me that few circular apologists are postmodern fideists, but rather something less honest and more sinister. That concern aside, I like it and I'm with ya. Works for me, works for you. But...them?

These are legitimate worries, and important to keep at the forefront.

In my opinion "broadly intelligible human discourse" is only possible through the conquest of other discourses by a more powerful discourse. (In this statement I do not intend to equate power with truthfullness).

I respect your intention, but I fear it has the result of de-centering modernity and centering violence. When I was in div school, I surprised myself with a conservative moment (yes, me) when I rebelled against the Marxian and broadly postmodern focus on the culturally embedded influence on thinking/opinion/cognition. I accept that our location in history, culture, and various indicators of power like race and gender certainly do influence and vex us, but I reject the idea that our cognition is overcome by them. I call the alternative Cognitive Balkanization. Like the Balkans, it divides us, diminishes us, and invites a new form of otherising (("It's a _____ (your identity politics here) thing, you wouldn't understand." Really? Not even if I tried?)) and violence. So post-modernity does not escape violence either. It may make things worse.

I do not think that post-modernity escapes violence. I am reading modernity through a postmodern lens as itself a violent instantiation of presuppositionality. There are ways to mitigate violence, but suggesting black experience=nicaraguan refugee experience=privileged white experience is not the way to do so. Rather, social justice efforts that ensure that blacks, nicaraguans, and whites have equal access to power, wealth, and political participation is a means of reducing violence between racially determined paradigms. Then, the incommunicable aspects of race/culture become sources of awe (encountering artwork, music, or holidays that are not understood) rather than sources of tension.

For Neitzsche, the slave morality can only be conquered through the sheer will to power. The battlefield between paradigms is seen as the battlefield of one power over another. This is the inevitable conclusion of many paradigms, but I believe Christianity can offer a strong counterbalance to this metanarrative as power schema. Might Christianity be perhaps a liberative power? Gutierrez suggests this much to me at the least. If the exertion of power by Christianity over others is inevitable, let us direct that power toward freeing bodies and souls, seeking justice and redemption.

This is a beautiful thought, beautifully expressed. It resonates deeply with me and is as good a "defense" of religious faith/commitment/affiliation as I know. This is in itself a sufficient grounds for "choosing" religion.
But I must ask, can we expand it to include all healthy religions? Can we expand it to all people of good faith, of meaning-seeking, and of healing intent, regardless of whether or not they have a faith, and so opening it up now to productive secularism? Can we even extend it to the people who brought us modernity, insofar as they worked with an intention to bring us all benefits?

I can extend the liberating power to other religions and secularists. One need not look far to find positive moral acts undertaken by people of any persuasion.

However, within my paradigm, I must categorically differentiate between temporal and eternal liberation. For all the good that others do, I still believe that the solution to the eternal problem of separation from God is through God's own diachronic act in Israel, Jesus Christ of Israel, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Israel. Of course, Jesus takes primacy.

Though my reading of scripture, doctrine, tradition, and philosophy suggest this is the case, I'll add that I am a hopeful universality. I do hope I am completely wrong and would love to be proven so. I just don't have the intellectual capacity for accepting it yet.

Good point re: the primacy of praxis, if meta-narratives must be in battle, which I have questioned (we're not all John Milbamk vs. E.O. Wilson after all; perhaps the rest of us draw upon multiple meta-narratives, guided by what i am calling conscience?)

Can I ask, how do you distinguish between invalid circularity and valid circularity? Is it a matter of simple honesty regarding the circularity?

I just misspoke. when I say "invalidly circular" I meant not circular, but rather when the conclusion undermines the assumption.

Good point. So first we try a reducio, then we try praxis, and then we resort to war if necessary? With nazi's, taliban, and domestic fascistic theocrats, these seem like the choices. What of a legislature? Do reason or suasion have a role to play, or is it inherently a power discourse masquerading as deliberation? Have we been duped? Is democracy itself a fantasy and an impossibility?

First is a reductio, second is praxis, and war is debatable. My pacifist leanings are against it, but i'm not fully pacifist. In some cases, I might fight against a paradigm.

Democracy has its perks, but I think its value is overstated. After all, Germany voted for Hitler. Democracy is itself an expression of the will of the majority (except in instances of proportional representation, etc.). If the majority paradigm is peaceful (they often are as a result of their majoritarianism) it won't be so bad. If, however, the majority is not, violence will result. The democratic vote is just the expression of the aspirations of a particular viewpoint.

Amy Chua's World on Fire is an interesting political analysis of this. Might be worth checking out.

That being said, I would like to mention that presuppositionalism began with Van Til and the conservatives, but it has found its counterpart in radical orthodoxy. Read John Milbank's Theology and Social Theory and you will find a theologian attempting to do many of the same things that Van Til was doing, in a much clearer way (and at other times a much more obscure way). Perhaps Milbank is also triumphalistic, but he is certainly no neo-calvinist.

Understood. I had mistakenly associated it only with places like Calvin College and Westminster. I stand corrected. In the meantime, I've had my head spin through the ceiling reading about Millbank. He could demand a lifetime adequetely to digest, critique, and accept or reject, and frankly I'll probably spend my time getting better at guitar. But he CANNOT be dismissed.

Yes, when I first read Milbank my head almost exploded. I'll not say I fully understand him, but I do like him. Guitar is likely a better use of time.

I think every era, time, culture, or paradigm has flaws, downsides, costs, and horrors. To use Christian language, this is the reality of sin (human imperfection). Modernity has huge ones, perhaps as a result of its technological power. The list you mentioned was also recited by Cornel West in his opening lecture on what was then called "post-analytic" philosophy. But modernity was not a conspiracy to to devour anything per se. One person had an idea. Many people responded to it with approval, including many christians. Then it snowballed, from renaissance humansim through enlightenment reason, right up to E.O Wilson. They meant well, it felt like progress. Now it is being eclipsed, and some of its great defenders haven't got the memo. But I can't bring myself be "anti" modern, because to be so is to be anti-human, anti-life, and possbily anti-spirit. It just is, and we can use it. Perhaps in the ways I suggested above. But yes, it is de-centered, eclipsed. And that is a good thing for those of us interested in the good things relgion can do.

I'm not sure I understand how to be "anti-modern" is to be "anti-human", but otherwise I find this a beautiful summary.

There are many presuppositionalist Christians who are poor moral individuals, but there are also individuals who work with the homeless, practice medicine, donate heavily to charity, combat AIDS, etc. etc. It is a complex thing to analyze the proponents of an ideology in a unitary fashion.

I agree, and I'm sorry if I did that or appeared to do that.

It's ok. It was an ambiguous read. I posted that as much for the outside person reading as for you. I know you aren't like that (except, perhaps, when enraged by arrogant apologists). Is it bad that I never even watched the video? I just assumed I'd not like it, and since I am familiar with presuppositionalism I piped in.

I, for one, have often considered asking for my money back from Duke. In some ways, my education was a joke. Thank God they had a large library. Half of what I know I just read on my own.

You're a better man than me; at Yale it was all I could do to read what I was supposed to read.

Who said anything about reading what I was supposed to read? I got tired of the same reiterations of MacIntyre, Aquinas, and Hauerwas so began to skim. That frees up plenty of time to read as you wish.

You offer very real critiques of presuppositionalism, which converts to very real challenges to my own thinking, which in turn converts into very real growth in my own thinking, understanding, and faith.

When I'm not being hysterical. I do my best. You honor me with your attention and time.
You, and others here, do the same for me, making me think. This forum has REALLY made me refine my views (I know, I have a long way to go!)

That's the nice thing about the internet. Now the only down side is that we all live so far away. It would be nice to sit around a nice dinner and talk with you, ZZyzx, Scourge99, EduChris, Jagella, Murad, and some of the others with whom I have enjoyed discussing things here. Admittedly, one or two of them might not really want to eat with me, but it would be nice to have the option. For now, the internet will suffice until modernity hurries up and invents teleportation.

So where does this leave us? I'd like to close with a few thoughts.

First, maybe there is something to this idea of well-formed conscience having a role to play epistemologically or whatever I mean it to be doing. I just made it up tonight. Maybe it'll be my philosophy for the rest of my life. Maybe I am nuts, confused, stupid, or demonically possessed. Too early to tell, but until someone convinces me that one of those afflictions is at work, I find it intriguing.

Second, with lingering concerns, I find presuppositional thinking, in the hands of a smart and honest postmodernist, to be very intriguing. It demands a lot of attention and consideration if one is to be intellectually honest and au courant.

I like your idea of a well-formed conscience. I think there is a lot of room there for pneumatology to come into play. I hope we keep developing it.

But I'd like to offer this:
It seems that the major religious choices in a postmodern context are to affirm a type of orthodoxy (original, paleo, radical), or to affirm a type of emerging conversation (emerging church, emergant church or movement), or closely related to this, to take a everything-is-religion-and-god-is-everywhere pluralist and possibly panentheist approach, or to adopt a post-cognitive mysticism of sorts. Of these, I incline toward the latter three. Theopoesis, do you find these options legitimate, or do they invite the reductio at the hands of orthodoxy?

All the best,

SS

I'm not sure about a reductio. I can, however, tell you why I pursue a form of orthodoxy:

(1) Rationality is necessarily propositional or linguistic. Orthodoxy is the set of propositions and the language which I take as axiomatic guides to my rationality. I think that the post-cognitive mystic and the panenthiestic universalist have difficulty insofar as they speak and yet deny a doctrinal element to their utterances. Where, then, does the language on which the rationality is based originate? I always interpret the panenthiest and mystic as having their own nascent doctrine. The variety determines whether it is "orthodox" or "heterodox."

(2) There need not be mutual exclusion between orthodoxy and mysticism. Mysticism as an experiential element has been vital to my own life through my conversion, personal devotion, and individual repentance. I have not been able to make the connect between these experiences and my reason, but neither have I been able to reason away the mystical. I maintain both. My reservations with mysticism at the exclusion of orthodoxy relate largely to the other points.

(3) There is something to be said for the benefits of criticism. Propositional content leads to the possibility of internal criticism, the refining of doctrine, and therefore the growth of knowledge. Orthodoxy offers a paradigm which can grow. (Of course, the question becomes is progress a lingering myth of modernity, or is it inherent to a system concerned with sanctification). Without orthodoxy (or a linguistic substitute), I am curious as to how a paradigm might sustain growth.

(4) If a paradigm is diachronic, I wish to be in the one which has been diachronicaly guided by God's actions through history. I believe orthodoxy has a claim to such guidance (albeit one that cannot be proven). I do not see how mysticism or panentheism offer the same through the particularity of Christ in whom the Synchronic One becomes diachronic.

Does that help?

It's been a pleasure, as usual. I look forward to talking with you more. Sorry for the delayed response, but I needed time to think through all of your comments.