A Blow at Presuppositionalism

[Dimmesdale]

Some Christians (presuppositionalists) believe that knowledge can only be justified with recourse to God, and even then the Christian God. If we resort to other means of obtaining knowledge, we cannot justify it because, for example, in a naturalistic worldview blind chance and evolution could not furnish us with logical facts, but only meaningless electrical signals firing in our brains that we have no reason to trust. Or, there could only be some demon existing who feeds impulses to a brain in a vat, and thus we have no reason to believe in an external world, etc (obviously the possibilities are legion…). However, if the Christian Creator is real, then we would expect both order and trustworthiness to inhere in his perfect creation, thus forestalling and exploding these alternative hypotheses. Our concepts could then “map onto� reality in a way that’s meaningful and hence the correspondence theory of truth would be as tangible as my left thumb. The God who would do this could not be the Muslim god because the Muslim god can lie. But, if God cannot lie, then he would not hand us a deceptive revelation. And so, if one takes knowledge seriously, and really wants to make the claim that the things he knows he *really* knows, he would have to borrow from Christianity because no other worldview can philosophically sustain such a stance. Or so it seems.

I would not want to dismiss this position outright as I can grasp its logic and have to acknowledge also my own thirst for certainty regarding knowledge. I do not know how to refute it beyond saying that it’s circular. But even though it is circular, at rock bottom any philosophical claim is circular whether one resorts to “God� or “brute facts.� What I think I can do is undercut it, and render it more or less valueless, by showing that the knowledge of the things we hold dear, is still practically relevant for us even if we can’t grasp how we know the things we know. I say we know some things in a sense even were they to be proven wrong. This may sound contradictory, even ridiculous, but let me explain.

Let us say we want something to be real. Ice cream, Santa Claus, whatever. What is it in us that points to such things being true? The Christian may point and say “you can’t even appeal to an objective reason if you deny Christianity!� Alright. Then what is wrong with taking the subjective stance? Without the subject there can be no knowledge at all, no? Subjectivity is a key ingredient. Perhaps the most primal fact of existence, if there be none other, is “I.�

“I� cannot be denied. Perhaps there are those who deny that “I� can be denied. I would simply disagree with them. “I� is self-authenticating, and it is upon this rock that I base my whole epistemological framework. Moreover, on this rock I also base all my loving relationships with everyone whom I would like to preserve as “real� and “there.� I would say there is a sense of communion, of commonality between all existent things and my own personal psyche. I would call this existential knowledge, rather than theoretical knowledge, and I would also like to add that, this is the only type of knowledge that has any ultimate value and which anyone should ultimately concern himself with. Some things we may never be able to ascertain. But what we can ascertain, at least once removed from their “absolutized form� is that self and others have value – and the way we know this is by empathy and knowing both ourselves and others. That which is secondary to these things may be useful and supportive, but not to be elevated to the same level of “ultimate� concern....

But what if humans and everything else are a dream in a solipsist’s mind after all? Well, I’ll bite the bullet here, and admit that that may be the case – theoretically. But one is still concerned. And that concern in and of itself produces a type of certainty – that conscious beings have value, as well as the fact one cares. This value is a type of knowledge, and it points to something. That something is the reality of who and what we are. By implication, the rest of the world is also included though not as important. There is a sense that these things are. If this are-ness of things is illusory, it must be the reflection of some other reality that nevertheless still is.

I can only begin with myself. Myself and my own existential knowledge. Knowledge of what is. My family and friends and the world all partake of this existential knowledge. If I am mistaken, and all the things around me are an elaborate dream, then they would still partake of existential knowledge, because this knowledge is first within me, and matches onto worthwhile beings and relationships around me. It is by virtue of my Self that all other things have value. And the Self cannot be denied. Hence, knowledge is safeguarded in some existential sense. If I sense only an illusioned matrix of relationships, they still remain relationships and, at least, have an intimating, "shadow-cast" value because they point to something real, in that they COULD have value, would they be real.... The Self, the I AM, augments all of Reality, and hence preserves it, even were it entirely unmanifest. This is because the I AM seen as diversified, is an expression, begotten of the One Unity that lasts forever.

Perhaps I have failed in my endeavor to render presuppositionalism moot, but I think I’ve played my best hand at least….

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 10 by Overcomer]

If you look at it in context, you can see that it is talking about the end times, when there will be people who reject God's truth and choose to follow the man of lawlessness. God, knowing that they will not return to him, confirms their choice by adding to their delusion.

It's rather like what he did with the Egyptian Pharaoh who had hardened his heart. God hardens the man's heart further to expedite his plan to deliver the Israelites. In the same way, God hastens his plan to deal with evil once and or all and supports the desires of the wicked to believe the devil's lies rather than the truth

You're just agreeing with me here. You're still describing a God who lies, who cannot be trusted. What you are not saying is anything like "God does not lie" or "God can be trusted" or "God does not manipulate minds like a Goa'uld from Stargate SG-1".

Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done

People make bad choices. He knows they will never come to him in humility. He confirms their choices.

Still agreeing with me...still describing God as someone who can't be trusted...

So God did not lie in 2 Thessalonians.

So what did you mean by "add to their delusion"? How can that mean something other than as a synonym for lying?

It's the devil who lies and who is the father of lies (John 8:44).

According to the anonymous author of Gospel John...what does the devil himself have to say? Several years ago, I challenged a former user of this website to read not just the 'propaganda' of God/Jesus, but to hear what the other side has to say, if they are supposed to be working for one side in a cosmic war of good versus evil.

Paul calls him"the god of this age" who "has blinded the minds of those who do not believe so they would not see the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God. (2 Cor. 4:4).

Explain for me please which happens first, the people not believing or them not seeing the light of Christ? Explain to me why God is apparently not dealing with what you and Paul are claiming the devil is doing here?
Think about it. If your child is being told by a third party that you are an evil man, wouldn't you want to correct the child? If your response is to double down on the 'delusion', to not even correct the misinformation...how is it that you are on the side of right, truth, light and goodness?

In the end times, God will give up the wicked to Satan's lies as a punishment to them. That's what the verses in 2 Thessalonians mean.

So those who are deceived are to be punished by a God who could correct the lie...but who won't. Who will instead let them believe something that is false.

Overcomer, the god you have described is a God I cannot trust. You have spent effort to describe a god who will lie to me, who continues to lie to me and who apparently will not correct lies told by others.