Presup Refuted? A Response to David Pallmann

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala and today We are going to be covering a debate that happened

I suppose a few weeks ago, maybe a week ago something like that between David Pallman and Seth Bloomsburg, I think

I've got his name Correct there And of course those who have been following David Pallman's stuff on YouTube You'll notice that he has just released a around an hour long video

Critiquing presuppositionalism and so this particular episode that we're gonna be having today is not going to cover his video

But his opening statement in various parts of the debate he had with Seth which if you've watched his video kind of covers

Sort of the same things and so we want to cover some points that I think are important to talk about This is not going to be exhausted by any means but definitely will be helpful

In understanding where where we as presuppositionalist myself and dr. Bolt see where where David has has gone wrong in terms of Properly critiquing and bringing up relevant relevant points, so we'll get into the details of that I do want to wait for more people to kind of jump in the room here

I'm sure we'll be having a lot of folks listening in so Super excited about that if you're new to revealed apologetics

You just stumbled on this channel or you saw me kind of flood the the interwebs with a bunch of short videos

I think I released like Six or seven of them in like three days or something like that But you happen to see one of my videos pop up if you like the content subscribe

You can subscribe to the YouTube channel There is a revealed apologetics Podcast and also have a website and a blog revealed apologetics comm if you have any questions about Presuppositional apologetics in particular apologetics in general or you would like me to interview someone that perhaps

I haven't thought of You could email me at revealed apologetics at gmail .com

all right, so Definitely looking forward for Having dr.

Chris bolt on in this episode. I Definitely appreciate his his work and just the way he is able to Explain, you know presuppositionalism very well.

He's definitely more Philosophically inclined than I am I'm people say

I'm very well -spoken, but don't get it twisted I I there's a lot that I do not know and I have a lot to learn and so I'm looking forward

To hearing what dr. Bolt has to say and I've appreciated what? David Polman has had to say with respect to his his attempted

I'm gonna say attempted because I don't think he's successful But we'll see his attempted Reputation of presuppositional ism.

So with that said let me invite dr. Bolt on and I'm not gonna call him Dr. Bolt for the rest of the night.

I'm just gonna call him Chris, but just to let you know, he's got a PhD in plumbing so Topic is is

Hopefully your your area of expertise is hopefully relevant to to what we're gonna be talking about today.

So All right, well, dr. Bolt, why don't you tell folks who you are very briefly and and then we'll jump right in Yeah, well,

I have the cliche biography, I guess right husband father father for pastor author

Professor all of that fun stuff and apparently internet apologists because you guys keep trying to drag me out of retirement.

So Here I am Well, I'm glad we could Draw you out of retirement.

By the way, speaking of that you haven't done a lot online in the past recent years But when

I when I was finally able to successfully drag you out You admitted and I agree

The discussion that we had was probably one of the the best discussions that we've had on the topic of presuppositional ism

Transcendental arguments. Is that right? well The first one that I had with you where we're just bubbles and I'm not on the on the screen

That was probably my favorite, yeah Well, that is awesome and it is truly an honor and it was very helpful by the way the questions

I was asking was actually coming from a genuine desire to know what your thoughts were

They weren't kind of preset So I liked how it was very organic but very in -depth and so folks can definitely check that out

All right. Well before we get into the specifics, I do want to tip my hat off to David Pullman who?

Has great animosity He's not a fan of presuppositional apologetics, but That said what

I do appreciate and I'm sure Chris can appreciate this as well Is that in the end of the day while we disagree with him?

He has Tried to do his homework and to properly represent the presuppositional is Perspective so that he could not his desire was not to set up straw man

And so for that, I appreciate and and in his debate with Seth He communicated with me before that debate just trying to make sure that he got things, right?

and so I do appreciate that but that said there is a disagreement at the end of the day and so Just looking forward for Chris to lightning bolt

The arguments and zap them out of existence. I don't know. That's it. That's it's very cheesy. But at any rate, okay

So the debate on gospel truth, okay, we are going to play that debate here and the proposition in the debate is let me put this on the screen is

Human reasoning autonomous and of course Seth is going to take the negative. It is not autonomous and This might jar folks who aren't interested are not into these discussions

But David Paulman a Christian believes the Bible is arguing that human reasoning is autonomous

That's actually sounds odd when we think in terms of who God is who we are as derivative creatures and things like that But let's let's hear him out and see where he's coming from.

I do believe he is a Christian. He's a believer He loves the Lord, but this is an area where obviously we're gonna disagree

So I'm going to play and pause whenever Chris sees fit to pause it and then we'll we'll interact.

Okay. How's that sound? All right

The very principles of rationality upon which all argumentation depends cannot themselves be explained or justified apart from the

Christian worldview There are many points of contention between pre suppositionalists and evidentialists

But in this debate, we will zero in on what I see as our foundational difference the autonomy of reason

I intend to defend the thesis that human reasoning is autonomous It seems to me that denial of man's ability to reason autonomously is the key distinctive claim of presuppositionalism

If this idea is false, then the entire edifice of presuppositionalism collapses Let me begin in what

I mean by autonomy There's a very obvious senses in which human reasoning is not autonomous

So I must emphasize from the start that I am using the definition that presuppositionalists themselves use

For example Greg Bonson defines it this way By epistemological autonomy is meant the ability to attain to knowledge independent of God's revelation and existence

The person who rejects the Word of God feels that he can find truth in his own powers of exploration

Examination and explanation to reject Revelational epistemology then is to commit yourself to the truth of autonomous epistemology in short

Then I'm defending the proposition that human beings can attain knowledge Without in any way depending upon special revelation from God now

This is not to say that we can gain all knowledge independently of God Because certainly there are some truths that God reveals to us which we could not discover on our own

I only intend to defend an epistemological model Which is consistent with the proposition that all knowledge does not depend upon divine revelation or theistic presuppositions

In order to gain a clear understanding of what exactly a defense of autonomous human reasoning should look like It will be beneficial to examine why exactly

Bonson claims one must presuppose Christian theism The crux of his argument is that without presupposing the truth of Christian or sorry the truth of God's revelation

One cannot justify their belief in the so -called preconditions of intelligibility Now these are taken to be things that are necessary for one to have knowledge at all

And Bonson's favorite examples are the laws of logic and belief in the regularity of nature now

Bonson Bonson's argument here presents a serious challenge for my position Because after all other than abduction we have only two forms of reasoning deduction and induction if our belief in deduction and induction is

Unjustified then Bonson is quite correct when he says that autonomous human reasoning is impossible

One could of course point out that Bonson is in the same boat He must arbitrarily suppose that the revelation contained in scripture is true without independent justification

But this observation does nothing to salvage autonomous human reasoning Thus I see no way forward other than to argue that belief in deduction and induction are indeed justifiable All right.

I want to stop right there. But by the way, I'm assuming that when you desire to stop you're saying something so There is there is an error that again perhaps assuming the inability or success of the

Transcendental argument right? He says something to the effect that well, you know Bonson has to do the same thing

And what is that same thing? He has to arbitrarily assume You have anything to say to speak to that.

Is that what Bonson is doing? Does he arbitrarily assume? Anything when he's presenting his his presuppositional transcendental argument.

Yeah. I mean, I certainly don't think so. I don't know why Why we would think that I think that's probably going to come up more as he progresses and gets into the issue of circularity

Okay, but as far as the autonomy issue this debate was a little bit confusing to me

Because I know that the presuppositional list offered it in the sense of a distinction between believer and unbeliever

Which seemed to me to grant part of the the proposition of the debate.

It was it was odd in that sense and then also with with David's presentation here.

I think that he's probably right. I think that this is This is a good place.

Maybe to focus in on for the difference between the different methodologies in theory

Then again, you run into classical apologists You run into evidentialists and others who will insist that they are not reasoning in an autonomous fashion even as they use their methodologies and their arguments and that sort of thing so you know, there's a lot that we can that we can work through and work out here even with regard to Something as simple as this issue of human autonomous reasoning or would -be autonomous reasoning

I think another thing that came up in the debate. There was this issue of ultimate and proximate

I know we didn't play this part, but I was in the opening statement for the other side, I believe And and the words were an ultimate and proximate

Authority, I'm not really sure that I don't know that van Til even uses that language He does use the language of ultimate and proximate starting points of knowledge

So these are like epistemological starting points So for example in the Reformed tradition, you've got this with the interpretation of Scripture Scripture is

Magisterial so the divine revelation of God is magisterial It is the ultimate authority and then your human reasoning is ministerial

So we're not denying human reasoning, right? So the presupposition list is going to extend that out even into like general revelation in a sense or at least analogously.

So It's not as though the presupposition list is saying no we start from a God's eye view like we don't right

We're finite. So we we do in a sense start with ourselves as approximate

Starting point of knowledge. The issue is where do we find the ultimate starting point of knowledge in terms of?

Authority and this comes down to you know that authority claim. It's going to be the authority claim of God Versus the authority claim of the individual human being and so as presuppositions, we certainly want to side

With God on that, right? So yes, I think that that I think that does kind of boil the debate down to where we need it to be

So, I don't know if David thought of this topic or not, but I think that's probably insightful

To start at this point and talk about that some I'm trying to think if there's anything else that I found

Objectionable or not. There are some things I'm going to bring out concerning DEDUCT. Well, one thing you mentioned was deduction and induction.

Okay. So yes deductive logic is a type of reasoning and argumentation Induction is a type of reasoning and argumentation.

Now, there are others. I mean, there's abduction. There's inference to best explanation There are debates about where those fall

I would I think classify those under induction the ones that I just mentioned in addition to the two that he mentioned

You know, there's also pragmatism, which I know strictly speaking is not an approach to knowledge.

It's not an epistemic Sort of thing and but there's also transcendental Reasoning which

I think is distinct from deduction and induction not that it jettisons them

It depends on what we're talking about when we're talking about transcendental reasoning or justification but I do think that that's distinct at least insofar as we can draw distinctions between these different categories of say inference the best

Explanation or abduction and induction and that sort of thing. Sure I think it's important to recognize too that this comes up a lot when we say

And I know RC Sproul has brought this up as well a Lot of people will be quick to point out that it really doesn't make sense to say that you must start with God And then they'll bring this out.

I've heard a friend of mine Eric Hernandez when he had an interaction with site and Bruggen Kate They brought this up.

So you don't just don't start with God You must start with yourself and many folks will bring this up as though this is something the presuppositional is never considered

Oh, oh, wait a minute. That's right. I I have to start with myself before I do all this isn't new

I mean as you said Van Til mentions it Extensively Bonson addresses it extensively.

So before people are quick to kind of say, ah, look at this You have to start with yourself and not with God. That doesn't make sense

You need to be familiar with the discussions here. Okay, you need to know the context of the broader this broader

This broader topic. There is background music going on in which a lot of these things are are addressed

And so before people start waving the victory flag and oh look how quickly we've you know

Shown that for example, the presuppositional is confuses ontology and epistemology, you know Oh, no, we've never you know, we've never considered that before.

Oh, yes we have So it's important to kind of dig a little a little deeper there But let's let's say to I don't know if David was able to listen tonight or not

But we're not criticizing David with these observations We're just kind of setting, you know playing the groundwork here.

That's right. That's right. All right, let's continue This is false, but even if it were true, but it be noted that even if circular reasoning is unavoidable

This does nothing to indicate that it can be justificatory Like there's an implicit is off fallacy here when presuppositional let's try to argue that circular reasoning is okay

Just because everyone does it it simply doesn't follow from the fact that because all reasoning is circular

All right, I want to stop there I apologize for jumping the gun I mean

I Don't know if he says more on circularity or not, but that's a good spot. Yes. Yeah.

I mean, is that what we're is that what we're doing when you when someone reads a

Presuppositional author Bonson VanTale in context. Is that what we're really in for even frame? Is that what we're really saying?

Well because everyone Engages in circular reasoning at that foundational level. It's unavoidable. And so therefore it's okay.

Is that really what we're saying Chris? That's not what I'm saying You know,

I I think when you had me on the show before I may I was on somebody's show I may have mentioned, you know,

I'm not sure frame gets this exactly right particularly in the five views book on apologetics

It seems to me if I remember correctly that he offers an argument that does look to me to be logically circular

It's not something that I would offer In my apologetic argumentation that I'm aware of So, I think what's happening here is perhaps a very narrow focus and this is probably owing to the language of some

Presuppositionalists, I think it's a very narrow focus here on this issue of justification

And so if you're thinking about justification as an internalist with regard to knowledge

So they're externalists their internalists and internalists with regard to the issue of knowledge is thinking about knowledge as justified true belief and so when we bring up this this key term here of justification

What the mind immediately jumps to is justification in a narrow sense an internalistic sense

And what the presuppositionalist is saying is you cannot have justified true belief now is the presuppositionalist saying that yes

But the presuppositionalist is saying more than that The presuppositionalist is addressing this at the world view level not just at the level of individual

Justifications for this or that fact or you know this or that belief or this or that knowledge claim and that sort of thing

And I think that honestly, I think that that's kind of where this debate kind of heads off in the wrong direction from the get -go because What well we'll get into that more when we get to to how he offers his own justification, but no

I don't think that we're offering circularity as a type of Justification we're not offering logical circularity in terms of an argument with premises and there's a

Circularity there in a fallacious sense at least not so consciously what presuppositionalist are referring to with circularity

Typically is a broad Sometimes it's called virtuous. I'm not crazy about that van

Til would convict me on that but It's a broad epistemic circularity. This is found all over the place

This is found outside of Van Til for sure Thomas Morris talks about this William Austin talks about this and many many others just off the top of my head

AC Grayley Grayling talks about this. So these are reputable scholars in philosophy who talk about this issue and say yeah

We can't escape this epistemic circularity. There's a sense in which we can't escape it simply because of what we noted earlier

That is that we are finite, right? And so we even just admitted didn't we we conceded that we start as the proximate starting points of knowledge

Even though we're putting those beliefs or those knowledge claims up against that ultimate

Starting point of knowledge, which is the authority of God and divine revelation, right?

Your your podcast is called revealed apologetics. The one that I'm on with Brian Knapp is called Revelationary apologetics is faith.

It's focused on the revelation of God, you know My new podcast is called Christ or chaos because it's starting with the authority of Christ or you run off into chaos

But no, I don't think we're offering Circularity as a justification in a narrow internalist approach to knowledge

We're simply pointing out that there is a circularity that people cannot escape

That's a problem for the rationalist and that's a problem for the empiricist and that's a problem for the pragmatist

Because their systems do not first of all want to allow such circularity as something that they can accept

Whereas in our system we can say no we start with the frank acceptance of the

Word of God the Divine revelation of God we start upon the frank acceptance of that in order then to have a philosophy

That's consistent with itself and in a philosophical system that's consistent with itself

You're always going to be coming back to those same points because it demonstrates an internal consistency

However, this is not a coherent ISM. This is not a coherent ISM worldview

We're not offering coherent ISM as a way to solve for example, the infinite regress problem in Epistemology the last thing

I want to say on that and I'll give it back to you Is is that we're not even saying that everybody's circle is the same if we're claiming that we have consistency

We're denying that other people do I think I spoke with you earlier about this at one point

The same thing with faith, you know, we talk about faith Well, when we talk about faith in the

Christian worldview and starting with the divine revelation of God We have in mind a completely different concept than what we have in mind for say the unbeliever who uses some sort of leap of Faith, you know a blind faith some existentialist project or something to that effect

Those people are not placing their faith in the divine revelation of God They're simply having faith for faith's sake which we believe is

Completely irrational and will not give them knowledge or justification these sorts of things what

I appreciated of the fact that you placed that in context when you when you mentioned virtuous circularity and Vicious circularity and I would agree with you.

I don't like that terminology, but you've quoted some some philosophers that Agree with that analysis maybe they wouldn't use that language which goes to show and it was one of the questions that I received from I Think it was an atheist who was in the comments

They were saying, you know is is vicious and virtuous circularity just something presuppositional is made up so that we could give an excuse

To say hey, it's okay to be circular and and no again as I said before these concepts have a broader

Philosophical context and if you're not aware of that then yeah, you're gonna say ignorant things like that So the the presupposition list is not some, you know weirdo in the woods making up his own philosophy, you know in a vacuum

There's a context to this and I think it's important for folks to be familiar with that context All right. I mean, maybe maybe the presupposition list is the weirdo making the philosophy

But you know a person like Cornelius Van Till or a person like Greg Bonson I mean they were there were philosophically trained at the academic.

I mean they have reputable Degrees Greg Bonson studied under the same person as JP.

Moreland, you know, Dallas Willard at out in California for his PhD in philosophy the same thing with Cornelius Van Till and and he studied under I believe it's pronounced

Jell -O Yeah wrong on that not at Calvin which is the same person that Alvin Plantinga studied under now that was at the undergraduate level

Van Till went on to Princeton and all of that, but That's only to say these guys are not people just to sneeze at you can't do that You can't be dismissive in that way and say well, they must be nuts and just making all of this up You know off the cuff.

They actually were conversant with the philosophical literature of their times That's why Van Till wrote using a lot of so -called idealist language

That's why Bonson wrote using the contemporary philosophy of his time.

And so that doesn't mean they're right I understand that but they're not people just to be dismissed either which by the way,

I'll give that to Paulman as well You know, he mentions. Hey, I have respect for Bonson, you know,

I hate his method, right? But but I have respect for Bonson and I understand that because there are plenty of people I have respect for who are great thinkers and and even great defenders of the faith

Nevertheless, I would disagree with them. I'll think sure. Absolutely. All right, let's continue The only way a belief can be justified is by means of an argument

However, this assumption is simply wrong if beliefs can only be justified through arguments then this would lead to an infinite regress

Every premise of every argument would need an argument in support of it in each premise of these supporting arguments

But likewise need supporting arguments and so on infinitely Consequently, we need a working theory of premise acceptability.

We need premises that have unmediated justification Here we face the regress problem

Most of our beliefs are justified on the basis of other beliefs and these beliefs on the basis of still others

Where does it end? I propose that classical foundationalism provides the best solution to this problem

According to foundationalism all beliefs come in one of two types inferential and non -inferential

Every justified inferential belief ultimately owes its justification to a justified non -inferential belief

These justified non -inferential beliefs are thought to be foundational because all other knowledge is built upon them

Clearly if such beliefs exist and are justified then they serve to terminate the regress

But how are these beliefs justified if not by other beliefs? I think the more promising account of non -inferential justification is the theory of direct acquaintance

Now according to this theory non -inferential justification consists of three distinct acquaintances

First direct acquaintance with a thought that would be a truth bearer second direct acquaintance with a fact that would be a truth maker and third direct acquaintance with the correspondence that obtains between the thought and the fact

The direct acquaintance with correspondence between truth bearer and truth maker ensures that the belief is justified and infallibly so Thus these three acquaintances taken in conjunction constitute a sufficient account of non -inferential justification

And everything that is constitutive of a thoughts being true is immediately before consciousness There is nothing more one could want or need to justify a belief

Direct acquaintance is not itself a belief but it relates the subject to a fact in such a way that the subject is aware of the

Correspondence between his thought and the fact that makes it true. This is how beliefs can be justified immediately without appealing to further beliefs

All of that may seem a little complicated, but the basic idea is rather simple. Should I stop or keep going?

The same point extends to any experience what you see hear feel smell or taste is all justified through your direct

Acquaintance with the relevant facts. So having set forth a working theory of non -inferential justification Let's turn to defend methods of inference.

Let's begin with the laws of logic Greg Bonson asks what just All right, so let's let's address that issue of direct acquaintance do you think his argument for direct acquaintance works in terms of the point he's trying to make with respect to Holding a belief without justification.

Is that what he was saying? So let's say that it works in theory, right? So let's grant that for a moment

You know, what? He's trying to do is stop the infinite regress problem He's he's trying I think in another sense to respond to the skeptic to respond to the skeptic of knowledge

And so this is a fine way to do it to say no we have non -inferential Non -inferentially justified beliefs.

This is where everybody has to go in some sense. Can you say that again? So it's a non inferential non -inferentially justified beliefs

In other words our beliefs at the foundation are not based upon other beliefs

They're not inferred from other beliefs The question is what do we base them upon and this is where everybody has to go, right?

So the classical foundationalist has to have something that they stop at and same thing with the you know

The reformed epistemologist is going to stop somewhere in this this hierarchy of knowledge as it were

Same thing with the presupposition list what the presupposition list is saying is hey

We presuppose the Christian worldview, which by the way again I mean,

I don't mean to be like mean or something about it, but people talk about circularity I mean I offer lots of arguments that are perfectly linear

When I do apologetics and philosophy and thinking and these sorts of things, right the transcendental argument itself

I know that there are other people who would disagree with me and say that it's circular There is a sense in which transcendental reasoning as a project may be circular

But I fail to see exactly how a transcendental argument at least in principle is circular or has to be circular

There are ways to write these things out. There are ways to look at the formulation of them There are ways to just understand the basic transcendental direction of an argument whether it's stated deductively or whatever

And you can you can construe those in such a way that I don't see where they're circular whether they're certainly not epistemically circular in that sense because we're not talking about just a month, you know epistemic circularity we're talking about a

Logical argument and so they're not logically circular either in principle, right? So There's there's that that you know, we're

The circularity things great and there are like lengthy I think there's a thesis written about this from Westminster at some point, you know dealing with Van Til's approach to circularity

And they're saying look we we have to have circularity if you're trying to get out of circularity You're trying to get out of Christian faith that sort of thing

What we're saying there is simply this we start based upon the frank acceptance of the

Christian worldview And it's not merely an epistemology that we're presupposing It is a worldview like in its fullness that involves the metaphysical claims that involves the epistemology that involves the ethics that involves all of it and that's important because We need an internal consistency to that worldview or else

We don't believe that it is going to provide us with something like knowledge There's something that Paulman said at the very beginning

In his debate opening he mentioned that he believes that there are certain types of knowledge that we do need special revelation for if I understood him correctly.

I Suppose he'd have in mind here something like, you know, salvific beliefs etiological beliefs, you know

How can we be saved you have to hear Jesus that sort of thing from the Word of God? But also

I think the Trinity is usually the the main example here of something that we need the Bible to Explicitly affirm for us in that way.

You can't get to the Trinity through natural theology and The issue then is if you have a worldview that's lacking in that special revelation

Well now you've got a worldview that can't at some point it cannot provide for knowledge Oh, you may have knowledge of you know a snowball or something

But that's not going to give you the knowledge that that completes that worldview and makes it a consistent approach

To knowledge as it were and metaphysics and ethics and this sort of thing. So I think that that's important to point out, too

So let's grant let's say okay. Well, you've answered the skeptic in terms of this

Rather subjective offer of direct acquaintance Okay. Now what because we still have to justify deduction or we still have to justify

Induction or did I already say induction deduction and induction? I'm trying to use his Words here of justify and that sort of thing, which we'll get into that in a moment to Lord willing, but well real quick Yeah, what if he were to respond?

Well fine you say you you know, you've justified that belief, but now what well

Isn't it isn't all that is required for him is to demonstrate that You do have you could have a non inferential justified belief like even if it's something limited

It proves that you don't need the Christian worldview You know necessarily a revelation to actually acquire that specific item.

So couldn't you get pushed back there? I mean if you grant him and say, okay fine, I'll give you that but then then now what well if you give him that Isn't that wouldn't that be giving him too much?

I mean, how would you approach that? I would say no Okay, because I would say that in some sense we could incorporate that into our own approach to this topic

Anyway, so presuppositional as you mentioned earlier, you said is Bonson starting arbitrarily?

No, because we believe that God has revealed himself to us. That's a Christian claim This has been the claim in the reform tradition, you know for as far back as it goes

And so we're we're receiving that testimony from God. We're believing that now there comes a point in the debate

I believe where David says well, well, how do you know that? Well, we're presupposing it.

That's the presupposition Again, people may accuse us of oh, well, you're being circular.

No, I'm not I'm presupposing the Christian worldview and people say well, you can't do that.

I say well, I just did We presuppose the Christian worldview. That's our starting point.

That's the whole point of the argument You mean that you're just accepting all of Christianity on faith?

Yes. Well, that's fete -ism No, because if you can use faith at any point along the chain of reasoning

I don't see why you can't use it at the very beginning at the very get -go and in addition to that I'm clearly using reasoning as I then set forth to defend the

Christian worldview in terms of transcendental Reasoning and the transcendental clash of worldviews and this sort of thing

We're saying that if you don't presuppose the Christian worldview, then you wind up in futility now to answer your question there what about direct acquaintance as an answer to stave off the infinite regress problem and to Respond to the skeptic.

Aren't we granting too much if we say well, that's fine that David Paulman did that I would say no Because he still hasn't shown that this doesn't ultimately end up in futility

There's a lot more to justify here But just given say non -inferential beliefs and the subjective statement

I have non -inferential beliefs that are based upon, you know direct acquaintances with things I don't think that that's sufficient at all to support a worldview.

I don't see where we get that at all Moreover, we do as presuppositionalist believe that we are acquainted with certain things that God does give us

These various concepts and that sort of thing were created in the image of God That must mean something right even with regard to our reasoning

And so it's not as though that's necessarily in conflict with the presuppositionalist project

I think that that's a serious problem here is that we can actually go ahead and grant this

I'm not going to but we can grant this and it still doesn't demonstrate what we need it to demonstrate

Because the problems of autonomy are going to rise up elsewhere in that noetic structure in that epistemological approach to things

There was something else I was going to say there, but I forget so take it away. All right, let's let's let's move along then

Thank you for that Reason vicious circle now, how could any argument for the truth of logical laws not fall prey to vicious circularity?

Since all arguments inevitably depend on validity of logical laws This is what's known in philosophy as the logo centric predicament

It would be an understatement to say that the general attitude towards the logo centric predicament in contemporary

Philosophy is that there is no non circular solution to this problem For example, Michael Dunn says it is of little use to argue for the possibility of justifying logical laws without circularity and then

Robert Hannah goes even further saying the epistemic circularity of logic entails both that logic is inexplicable and Unjustified the circularity of logic is a vicious circularity or more starkly put logic is groundless

However, I'm convinced that this is just not so in the previous section I introduced the idea that some beliefs are justified without mediation

But are known through direct acquaintance. It seems to me that this is also the solution to the logo centric predicament

My strategy here is known as meta foundationalist and it depends on the related ideas of a priori knowledge and the analyticity a priori knowledge is knowledge gained apart from experience

Analytic a priori knowledge is understood to be a priori Propositions that are true solely in virtue of the meanings of the terms involved now a common example of an analytic proposition

It's the sentence all bachelors are unmarried men Sentence is true based on the meaning of the word bachelor

Now this explains how an analytic sentence is true easily enough But the key difficulty facing any theory of analyticity is not so much to explain how analytic propositions can be true

But rather to explain how exactly it is that an analytic proposition is justified Now My proposal is that the justification lies in one's direct acquaintance with the relevant concepts

Analytic propositions are true in virtue of what they mean and justified by one's direct acquaintance with the relevant concepts

I propose that laws of logic are themselves analytic propositions and therefore justified

You know immediately for anyone who is directly acquainted with them so to summarize

Belief in the laws of logic can't be justified a priori via analyticity because the justification is not mediated through arguments

The justification does not depend on an argument and as such the justification does not assume the laws of logic

Therefore laws of logic can be justified in a non -circular way Now that is one way to justify belief in logic another method is abductively earlier

I argued that for the thesis that perceptions are immediately justified by virtue of one's direct acquaintance

With that which one perceives it is possible. I think Okay All right, yeah, so I do remember what

I wanted to say a moment ago so on the issue of direct acquaintance I did do a podcast on Revelationary apologetics.

I've started a new one called Christ or chaos. I encourage listeners go check that out because that's where I go more in -depth

Dealing with some of these issues or attempting to deal with some of these issues and providing some pushback

And Lord willing I will have another one of those up I hope tomorrow on this issue that we're discussing right here on deduction.

So I'm not Recommend folks to check out your first video It was well, it was more of an audio, but it was it was excellent and he you do go in much greater detail.

So revelationary Apologetics definitely check it out. If you're able to multitask right now go there right now and subscribe

There's definitely it's new so there's just a few a few episodes there, but they're really good You guys should definitely check that out.

But go ahead. Yeah, please do we talked about aliens last night live on there. Yes We had a big guest on Monday night.

And yeah, we've got eight or I think eight episodes plus my new one Well, you had dr. Light on the other day as well.

Yes. Yes, so Do do please go and like and subscribe but I was gonna say that I'm not gonna go as In -depth on this as I would there right because we're trying to keep this simple

We're already at 40 minutes. So I want to keep this as simple as possible So so yes back to the issue of direct acquaintance, though You do have the issue of what exactly is direct acquaintance and that that's a serious problem in My mind the way that I think about this am

I feeding back? No, you're fine. You sound you sound great. Okay What was

I gonna say, okay, so with with logic here he keeps talking about Justifying logic and I like what

Paulman does because if you notice if you were paying attention what he does is he he pulls out what

Bonson's concern is and Then he digs his hole deeper, right? He's like here these other philosophers who are saying the same thing as Bonson as far as the logo centric

Predicament, which is really cool. Like that's what philosophers do. So that's good kudos on that right so Presumably what he's gonna do then is try to resolve that So the way that he tries to resolve this is through this issue of direct acquaintance.

He's going to say that we're non Inferentially justified he's already said it Because we are directly acquainted with the concepts that are involved in these

Analytic statements of logic and that sort of thing. I think there are a host of worries here

I really do I think that the biggest worry is probably how someone discerns what exactly analyticity is

And where it applies and where it is not. Can you believe me?

I apologize Can you briefly define analyticity for folks who have no clue what that means? Just very briefly.

Yeah So I think that's actually the problem is that it's very difficult. It's analogous with direct the issue of direct acquaintance it's very difficult to Define what exactly analytic statements or analyticity is what he's going to say.

It is he just said it He said that these things are true In nature the case they're true in virtue of the meanings of the concepts of the meanings of the terms

Okay, I don't know exactly what he said. And so I'm not I'm just something all all bachelors are unmarried or something like that I mean all that So so How did he state that was it was it all bachelors or was it all unmarried men?

Which way did he state it something like that? But I mean you could use you can use an example where the the statement is true in virtue of the words used there

So right, right, right, right so the the issue then becomes with something like that, so all bachelors are unmarried men and The idea is this is true in virtue of the meaning of the terms.

There's something I want to say here first When we mix direct acquaintance with this issue of analyticity

It doesn't necessarily fix anything. It could actually further complicate things

Okay, so what I mean by that is when there are objections leveled against the issue of analyticity

They're still going to apply Regardless of what we've said about non -inferential justification pertaining to the issue of direct acquaintance.

Does that make sense? Maybe we have non -inferential beliefs. Maybe we have direct acquaintance with the concepts

That we find that constitute logic Okay, the problem is that if there are objections to the logical statements themselves or to the propositions in question the the laws of logic

Analytic statements if there are objections to those things in and of themselves They still apply regardless of what we've said about the issue of direct acquaintance and non -inferential

Justification the issue of direct acquaintance and non -inferential justification is merely offered again to solve the infinite regress problem

To say here's where we're starting as the autonomous human being. Okay Over on the other side then we've got the issue of how in the world then are we going to justify still using his language?

Justify logic now to be fair. He's he's borrowing Bonson's language I would point out that's a book that Bonson wrote early on that he never published.

I was in his early 20s He was learning philosophy. He was thinking through these things But I'm not trying to just write all that off.

I mean, he's free to respond to that I mean presuppositional apologetic stated and defended. Yes. Yes. I mean, that's just something to take into account is all

I'm getting at but so Yeah, we still are gonna have to look at the issues that are involved in something like analytic statements

So, how do you discern an analytic statement? Well, he said they're true in virtue of the meaning of the terms

Okay, so what we're saying here then is when we say all bachelors are unmarried males

We're saying that on each side of that equals sign. We have the same thing

We're saying the same thing twice bachelor unmarried male

Which makes this tautological, right? It means that we're saying the same thing twice

Bachelor Unmarried male now you could say a bachelor is an unmarried male and you're you're using it

You're saying it in a You're predicating of the bachelor that the bachelor is an unmarried male.

That's not what we're saying The is and I know there are lots of jokes about this because of what some politicians have said in the past But anyway, this is actually a real thing in philosophy.

The is here is an is of identity Meaning that the bachelor is unmarried male, okay the problem then arises of We're talking about synonyms

So is the way that we recognize forget about whether or not there are such things as analytic statements do we recognize analytic statements in terms of Synonyms if something's a synonym, does that mean that it's analytic and some people might say well

No, it doesn't have anything to do with synonyms If we're saying that this is necessarily true because we're stating a equals a that sort of thing

Okay, so now we're saying that analytic statements are necessary statements But how do we recognize a necessary statement like the laws of logic right which are necessary?

How do we recognize a necessary statement? We say well, it's their analytic statements. You know, how do we recognize synonyms?

So they're analytic statements. How do we recognize analytic statements? Well, they're synonyms How do we you know their their circularity involved here when it comes to being able to discern what exactly we're talking about?

with regard to these supposed analytic statements with regard to this tool of Analyticity now again

Paulman wants to get around this by saying well, we're not acquainted with those We're directly acquainted with the concepts involved this is why

I mentioned a moment ago that the objections would still apply at this next layer at the layer of the

Propositions the statements the truths the laws of logic and that sort of thing and this is somewhere

I think this is probably Seth's strongest point in the debate during the crossfire if I remember correctly

Seth really starts pressing him here and there there is some semantic squabble and there's some

Clarification and that would be worthwhile to see but we're not gonna make it I can see right now but But that is probably the best part of the debate in my mind is when they get into that issue with logic now

These are very difficult Things with regard to that, but the big objection here and then there's one more meta objection that please remind me to offer that After the next thing he's gonna say

Okay But the big objection here is when we're just saying the same thing twice like that when we're just talking about these statements like this

How do we know that they actually pertain to the contingent realm? How do we know that they actually have anything to do with facts at all?

I mean if we're just offering kind of these stipulative definitional truths How do we know that they apply in the real world?

Anyway, you know if we can even recognize them in that sort of thing because we believe in a world where we do see the

Laws of logic kind of at work, right? We can apply them to accomplish these different things even when it gets into mathematics and that sort of thing

We won't talk about which is based on which but they need to apply to the contingent realm as well

And that is brought up later in the debate. And if I remember correctly Paulman kind of concedes the point He's like, yeah, they don't they're they're distinct

Why does that matter which kind of if I'm wrong on that someone can correct me by watching the debate but if I remember correctly something to that effect was said and That was uh, that was a little bit confusing but all bachelors are unmarried males

Even that I want to question right? I mean the Pope is not a bachelor He's an unmarried male, but he's not a not a bachelor

And so, you know when we get into these things and the examples don't work. We might have a problem, too

Okay. Okay. All right, let's continue Consider that any any perception that is given to me has certain properties among these are logical properties

Now if I acquire a very large number of non contradictory perceptions and acquire no perceptions that are exceptions

Then I may justifiably infer that the best explanation for my uniform experience of non contradictory facts

Is that there is a law of non contradiction no Also that this method allows the genuine contradictions may exist and can be discovered in the future

So it is falsifiable and therefore not certain however until this is done the argument gives abducted justification for believing in laws of logic

Okay, okay, so Unless I'm missing something

I do not see how this is not completely at odds with what he just said because traditionally

Analytic truths are Understood as those statements which are true in virtue of the meaning of the terms

They cannot be otherwise and so if you're going to state that laws of logic submit to this measure of Analyticity then it is certainly not the case that we're ever going to find for example a true contradiction if we come to know the the law of non -contradiction

Through concepts constitutive concepts with which we have direct acquaintance and then we have some proposition in terms of incomparability and that sort of thing based on these concepts and then we're able to state the

Proposition or the the law of logic like the law of non -contradiction and see that exhibits

Analyticity what that's telling us is this is certainly and necessarily

True, it cannot fail to be true, right? So it should apply in every case everywhere now

Someone might offer something like dialyphe ism which posits that there are actual true contradictions out there something like the

Justification so -called that he just offered for logic along abductive or inductive type lines

Something like that may allow for something like true contradictions in the world or whatever

But my point here is that that simply contradicts what he just said as far as I can tell

I don't understand How you offer? deductive and inductive

Justifications for logic at the same time now either he is offering something that I've missed or And it's probably obvious and I'll look like a fool, but that's okay, that's what we do in philosophy or Or he's just throwing that's why

I have you talking so I don't look like a fool Well, this is you know, these are just different ways we might do it, okay

But if they're inconsistent if they're, you know incompatible with one another then then that's a difficulty

Or he could just really be in in serious error here, you know

The other thing is I don't understand what it means to perceive laws of logic in the created order

You know like go out and see a contradiction or something. I'm not sure what that means

You know if you're looking at the app when you're like, well, I guess that an apple is like an apple I mean, they're the same and so, you know, if I if I have an apple and don't have an app

I guess I don't this is very very strange to me in a way I know that's not really an objection, but I'm not sure exactly what he's trying to say there

Typically, we think about these things in terms of coming to our perceptions of reality

With the laws of logic already in mind as it were, right? So we're not denying that there's a priori knowledge or that there's a posteriori knowledge and that sort of thing

We do have some some problems with the categories strictly defined Philosophically and all that sort of thing, but I think in the

Christian worldview There are things that we know apart from sense experience and there are things that we know through sense experience

That's certainly clear in Scripture and in a biblical epistemology, but before we jump into the problem of induction what

I do want to say is is this and this is what I was mentioning a moment ago with the

The the meta objection as it were the one that's kind of overarching all of these things that was good

You remembered without me reminding you. Well, we're talking about the supposed justification for the laws of logic

That in and of itself is kind of strange because it's like are we talking about Justifying them logically speaking like proving the laws of logic or proving

Something like an abductive, you know now doctor the ductive offer of proof of the laws of logic

If we're talking about proving them Then I don't think that Paulman is successful because I don't have access to his direct acquaintance with the concepts whereby these laws of logic are are, you know,

Defined and that sort of thing later up the epistemological road but apart from that You know if we're talking about Justifying them in the sense of an epistemological justification

Like how do we know them like justified true belief sort of thing? It's not enough in the presuppositional is challenged to merely have that type of Justification for the laws of logic if you think about this in the grand scheme of things

With the way that Bonson presented what he said, he's talking about how can the unbeliever justify these laws of logic and all that You know, he talks about the logocentric predicament presuppositional is frequently appeal back to Aristotle's Transcendental argument as a type of illustration of the transcendental argument

So, you know Aristotle saying hey if you affirm or deny the laws of logic You actually have to affirm the laws of logic

Like even if you deny them you have to affirm them which proves them in a transcendental manner that sort of thing now

David Paulman thinks that's a logically circular argument. So it's fallacious Okay, but think about this for a moment if Paulman assumed that the

Presuppositionalist believes that that argument works in a narrow in the narrow sense on a local scale

That's a transcendental argument that gives us some type of justification for logic whether we're talking about proof or epistemology or whatever

If that gives us justification for believing in the laws of logic if that argument actually works

You got to think about why doesn't this bother Bonson, right? Well, the reason it doesn't the reason it doesn't bother me is because we do want to say that there are actual ways that we

Justify these various things and come to know these various things in terms of what looks like to us a very ordinary epistemology we're simply saying that once we start calling into question in the different particulars of this epistemological approach when we start

Looking at the worldview in which these things can be the case We run into difficulties on Autonomous moorings that we don't run into on the basis of the

Christian worldview in other words a person could justify the laws of logic in the case of the scheme that Paulman has just presented here if they're successful and I'm not granting that they are

But if they're successful, we still have to ask something. Let's say it's a materialist then we say, okay

What's the nature of these laws of logic, right? And so we're starting from wherever we want to start

We're starting from wherever they want to start to say what is this thing that you're you're grabbing hold up here

Let's say that it's your your Aristotelian Transcendental argument for the laws of logic.

Okay. How does that make sense in your worldview for one thing? How does it tie to other transcendental arguments for another thing?

How is the nature of logic consistent with the things that you want to say about the world?

So again, this is a worldview level apologetic It's not merely focusing in upon something like classical foundationalism is saying.

Hey, you guys can't get this to work That's not what we're saying. It's a much broader project than that.

Does that make sense? Yeah, and so so you would say that David Paulman's arguments here are unsuccessful because he's too narrowly focused and not broad enough

Well, what I would say is we could grant the truth of what he's saying and still he hasn't shown anything with regard to autonomous human reasoning

Working in a worldview sense because there are lots of assumptions that are evolved involved even further down the line, right?

But I'm not granting that he's gotten this far understand There's an objection at every around every corner, but we could even if he's successful thus far

I don't think that he's offered anything by way of a worldview. That's consistent that provides for Knowledge now, that's a big fat blank check.

I understand that But we could get into those things if that sort of you know discussion were to ensue

So the question becomes then much later down the line I know this is not the topic of the debate that we're listening to here

But the question becomes what does this have to do with apologetics anyway, right? What does this have to do with a

Christian apologetic? I think it has a lot to do with it in the sense of we're talking about epistemology

Which is very important for the apologetic endeavor, but it's not that important when we're talking about You know some sort of narrow sense of justification and I answered to wild skeptical scenarios

Versus actually offering something for the unbeliever I mean think about it what we have thus far is erected upon a subjective affirmation of something that David Paulman knows by direct acquaintance

So and there's no way for us to know if he in fact knows that because he's just subjectively stating it

I don't have access to it, right? But then how do he and even if he has access to it?

How would he know that others have access to it in the same way? That seems problematic as well, especially if it's not especially if it's not able to be described, you know, yes

That's interesting. All right real quick. I just want to give a quick shout out to super chat folks. Thank you so much

Really appreciate super chats the unapologetic Apologist four dollars and ninety nine cents.

Thank you so much. I guess he's kind of trolling here a little but he's a good guy preceptor Naturalistic pantheism and Bronze Age goat herder fairy tales.

Those are my favorites That's It's a good one and perhaps later on we could we can return to this question ten dollars super chat by JD freeze

He says my understanding is that strong precept holds that the exact worldview is a precondition of intelligibility

Does this imply one must have perfect theology in order to have intelligibility?

We don't have to answer that at this very moment, but perhaps we could address that towards the end You know, those are the only two questions

I see in the comments So perhaps we can answer that towards the end, but thank you so much for the super chat guys greatly appreciate it

All right. Um, did you have something else you wanted to say or do you want me to continue on and on the video? I was gonna say I would like to think my theology is perfect, but I just I highly doubt that it is

Man MJ Jackson $5 team frame EJ Carnell all the way fellas $5, but sorry no team frame.

I apologize. All right. Thank you so much. All right, let's let's continue

But why should this be assumed one cannot justify this belief by appealing to the past on pan of circularity

For this assumes the very thing one is attempting to prove So bonds is what right have we to read the future into the past Universal uniformity of nature cannot be verified from the experience of the independent thinker in any final sense

Since that principle exceeds the bounds of his experience So the most fundamental premise of all autonomous science the uniformity of nature is neither empirically nor rationally justifiable the problem to the sorry rather the

Solution the problem of induction is found in the direct inference or the proportional syllogism a non -deductive inference form direct inferences follow the same structure as traditional deductive syllogisms

However, they differ and that the the crucial premise is proportionate to the given frequency of some property within a reasonably large sample

Population now, although the conclusion of a direct inference follows with assurance because the syllogism is inherently statistical

The conclusion is only probabilistic. But how are we to justify our belief in the crucial premise of a direct inference?

This can be done through a combination of Bernoulli's theorem and a second direct inference now according to Bernoulli's theorem

Most large samples differ only a little from the populations from which they are drawn With this theorem and a second direct inference we can construct an argument which will rationally extend our knowledge to the unsampled members of a population

Once again such an inference is only only probabilistic However, since this method does not assume that the unsampled members of a population will be like the sampled members it avoids circularity

While giving us rational justification for extending our knowledge beyond our own experience And so we have a cogent response to Hume's problem of induction.

We do not have to presuppose the uniformity of nature So I don't want to go into this a whole lot because I want to give this argument a fair hearing

Sure, and it's been a while and I've not had time to look at this in depth

So he's working off Donald Williams here, which I am conversant with some of this So there was

Donald Williams and then there was a response by Mark Lang And then there was a response by Mark Lange I've worked a lot with Mark Lange's material actually in in my book and And then later on down the road, of course is

Timothy McGrew and Timothy McGrew is not just someone you take on in the middle Of a podcast like this when it's late

So so I want to give the argument a fair hearing and response some things that I want to point out though Just by way just to kind of preface how we might begin to think about something like that first of all again even if we're granting in a mechanistic sense

Some of the things that Paulman is saying it still doesn't show us how these things are connected to one another like how logic deductive logic hooks up with inductive logic how these both correspond back to This issue of direct acquaintance and all that sort of thing and then broadening the scope of it

It doesn't show us how we're going to get to other claims about the world and that sort of thing even this sort of response the problem of induction might unnecessarily and insufficiently

Narrow what it is that we can know through induction in order to find our place in the world as it were

Again, also we might submit something like well You know We do come to the world with these concepts already in mind in terms of logic and we come to the world in terms of something like a principle of the uniformity of nature or the principle of induction the inductive principle, whatever that might look like The assumption that the future will resemble the past Or something to that effect, right?

So that's just something that God is hardwired into us He's created us in such a way that we're at home in the world

The world operates according to these laws of nature in that sort of thing and it all fits together

Happy and and that sort of thing and hey Maybe what David Paulman and Donald Williams and Timothy McGrew and these guys are pointing out is in fact something that shows us

This is what the Creator has done and said this is the way that these things work So again at the end of the day, even when you get deduction even when you get

Induction you still have to ask the question. How is this consistent though with my overarching worldview again?

We're looking at this as though this is an autonomous human reasoner We're looking at this as though this is the atheist the naturalist the materialist whoever

Saying these sorts of things now again, you can get so far without maybe addressing the question of naturalism versus You know, whatever else but at some point these questions are gonna have to be pressed and brought up in that sort of thing

So that's one thing to talk about that, you know We already mentioned this even granting some of these I don't think it gets us where we need to go

Anyway in order to prove that in fact, this is autonomous human reasoning that's successful. Okay, that's a big fat blank check again

I concede that I'm just setting things up at 30 ,000 feet the other issue then is that Anytime we're talking about Induction a lot of times and I'm not saying that this is what these gentlemen are doing but a lot of times people think that offering a

Probabilistic argument is an answer to the problem of induction. That's not an answer to the problem of induction not at all

Bertrand Russell certainly saw this David Hume saw this. So the idea is something like okay

Well inductions not deduction and we know that and so by drawing inductive inferences We have an inductive inference and there we go or something to that effect or you know

Well, we're not saying that there's absolute deductive certainty. What we're saying is that there's probabilistic

Knowledge here. There's a probabilistic claim that we're making on the basis of these premises that hang together

We're we're making these general these singular and general predictive inferences

Through you know, the items of experience and this sort of thing And so the idea is well, we're not saying for sure for certain that the

Sun will come up tomorrow But we're saying it's probably true and this solves humans problem. No, it doesn't even

Hume saw this It doesn't because even probabilistic arguments and conclusions are assuming something like the principle of uniformity of nature or or that nature is regular or Something to that effect you don't get probabilism

Apart from some type of regularities and predictability you see that so we're still looking for a way to justify that Bayesian approaches in terms of Bayesian probability, these are generally

They're used a lot, but they're generally dismissed in a strong philosophical sense for answering the skeptical worry because they are subjective in nature

Even when it comes to the more sophisticated approach that Paulman's taking I believe based on my group.

There's still this type of Presumption that you know, it's say 50 % that the

Sun will come up 50 % it won't or whatever when we're looking at the you know The sample size that we have we're not saying, you know that this or that's going to happen

Although we know that one or the other is there's a there's an epistemological problem here that takes priority over the actual

Draw That takes place. This is really hard to articulate. It's fairly nuanced

So this is Mark Lane's objection if I'm not mistaken to some of the things that happened John Foster I believe brings this up in one of his books as far he talks about a penny and a penny machine and if it drops

The penny, you know, which side it lands up on I can't remember the penny or another coin But anyway, the idea is that to claim it's it's kind of 50 -50 is

Really disingenuous in a sense because We know that there's still going to be something that influences things in such a way that it's more probable that we draw one than the other and then we still have to justify why that would be the case the other thing is then moving from a smaller sample size

Let's say to a larger sample size. And again, I don't think that that's exactly what's happening in this instance

But when we're moving from a small sample size to a larger sample size, you know The issue of sample size is very important in science that still does not mean that the sample size we pick is going to be representative of the larger sample size without assuming something like The regularity in nature and that sort of thing

I think that the statistical analysis of this actually does move toward fixing that problem. That's why

I'm saying I'm not answering this in full tonight. Sure The other issue though is simply that even if we do have something that's set in that way with the type of theorem that we apply with the type of Statistical analysis that we run in this sort of thing

There's nothing to guarantee that those conditions have not changed since we in fact ran that test And then we're right back into the problem of induction all over again because we don't have a basis whereupon we

Can can assume that that nature is regular in that sort of thing here again Even if we get to the epistemological answer, we're going to drive home the point that metaphysics and epistemology

We don't conflate them, but they are related. We don't completely separate them from one another either

We're talking at the worldview level And so we have to ask is the metaphysic that's involved in whatever this justification or view is is that metaphysic then?

consistent with this epistemology that we've offered in terms of a justification for Induction so that's going to take us into the issue of the laws of nature and what is the nature of those laws of nature?

And that's a big problem for other views outside of Christianity. Sure. All right.

Very good You want want me to continue? Yeah, we can if you want we can just try to finish this opener and take any questions

We might have and you know, how are you? All right. Sounds good Evidentialism Evidentialists do not hold that knowledge cannot be through revelation

We simply acknowledge that one's belief in revelation as a source of knowledge must be justified by means of evidence as John DePoe says authorities play a valuable epistemic role because they are avenues for Justified beliefs and knowledge that are inaccessible to us without them or they make the procurement of such epistemic goods more convenient

Importantly, however for me to embrace an authority justifiably I must have good reasons to trust the source as an authority in the domains where I regard it as an authority

So in conclusion, I strongly urge Christians to move away from the presuppositional list method of argumentation

It may sound sophisticated It may even seem irrefutable due to the fact that most atheists lack the philosophical training necessary to identify the flaws in it

The paradigm case of that would be Greg Bonson's debate with Stein because Stein was obviously not prepared for anything that Bonson was bringing up and so that gives a false sense of confidence to many presuppositionalist because they think oh, well

I argue like this I can stop any atheist. Well, no It's just the Stein didn't know the answers to the questions that Bonson was raising that doesn't mean answers don't exist

So I believe that presuppositionalism thrives for the most part due to philosophical ignorance

I get that there are exceptions. There are crazy smart guys like Chris Boll and James Anderson and Greg Welty who hold, you know

To a form of presuppositionalism, but most people out there who are just holding to it. They don't know the philosophy they don't they're not familiar with these kinds of responses and So I think that you know, that's the main reason why it gets popular

But it's just simply not true Only by presupposing Christianity can one justify their belief in the so -called preconditions of intelligibility.

This can and should be done autonomously Okay So there you have it

Philosophical ignorance, that's Three things actually so the philosophical ignorance claim

I don't think he was making this claim, but we're not offering something like a god -of -the -gaps argument

We're saying here is this worldview which by the way It's not just that we think that our worldview provides the preconditions of intelligibility

We believe that our worldview is the precondition of intelligibility. I think we could say both but anyway

This makes me more of a purist vantillion, I guess at the end of the day, but anyway You know if we're talking about Philosophical ignorance in the sense of well, we don't have these answers to these questions

And so we're gonna kind of fill them in with God. That's not what we're doing We're reasoning upon the basis of God and we're saying if you deny that if you reject that then you you wind up in philosophical ignorance you wind up in philosophical difficulties contradictions and Inability to predicate anything right to know anything to find your way around in the world and so on and so forth on down the line

So so there's that I don't think that's what he was saying, but I did want to kind of bring that out another thing

I wanted to bring out he quoted a is it depot there or someone but about Evidentialism and you notice that he was talking about the issue of authority

Well, what authority is is David telling us to start with he's telling us to start with the authority of the self, right?

The subjective knower, but again, I don't see where we've gotten anything out of that really

We certainly have a lot of questions along the lines if not an outright reputation of sorts but You know even granting that how in the world would you set about to prove the authority of God the authority of the

Word of God By presupposing at the very beginning at the get -go that you are the authority, right?

It says CS Lewis talks about you know, who's in the dock, you know, he's got in the dock are we in the dock

You know, I think I think an important point too is I mean, it's we haven't touched this but I mean not only is his position philosophically problematic

I mean It's just blatantly unbiblical and I don't mean that I'm not saying that from kind of a moral high

I know a lot of people when a presuppositional it says we hold to presuppositional isn't because it's biblical You know, don't put

God, you know in the dock a lot of a lot of the criticisms is oh, well You know presuppositional isn't

Calvinist who you know, they they want to come off as they're very pious and well Well, no, I I think we should be pious in our epistemology, but it's not simply piety there's also a philosophical theological foundation for it, but our our

Foundation should honor the authority of God when when when you hear someone saying

I'm going to argue for autonomous reasoning as a Christian I don't I don't see how you read scripture and come to that conclusion and and some people might say well, come on Eli I mean when you see script various scriptures like You know in his light we see light, you know in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge

The be the beginning of knowledge the fear of the Lord. You don't really think that's dealing with Justification of knowledge as well.

Obviously. No, that's not the intent of the authors there But surely they give us principles that apply right they apply to those areas of where are in where our intellectual tools should be standing upon is it is it the elementary principles of the world or is it upon the rock of Christ and surely

The rock of Christ surely the revelation of Scripture is not one that encourages us to be autonomous.

I just it I'm sorry. There's a little frustration. I think that's a theological objection

I think that's an ethical objection. I think that sound And again that does that did

I'll be honest It bothered me a little bit at one point in the debate when when David was pressing

Seth and saying well Why should I believe God and I'm thinking I mean I get it in a hypothetical and a philosophical sense

But I'm not sure that that's what he was saying at that point But you know that we're in a bad place if we get to that But I just want to say like how in the world have you shown me that scriptures the authority that God is the authority based

Upon the assumption that you are the authority or that I am the authority.

It doesn't make a lot of sense To me. Oh, what was the other thing? I wanted to address with what he said there

We've we've gone on now and I have forgotten what the other point was What did he bring up at the end there he brought up that evidentialist claim and then there was one other thing

All right. I lost one minute again Sure, you can get to the very end. I'm sorry.

I'm getting old. So Blank on something I didn't want you to just play that over again

That's what it was yeah, yeah So his objection here his objection is that you know

The reason that this is such a successful program and it's so popular is because you're you're catching people unawares, right?

And that may be true in part right like somebody asked the other day. What's the greatest? Christian debate you've ever heard and I said it's got to be

Greg Watson and Gordon Stein I mean that debate is just fun to listen to yeah, but it's very clear that Stein was not prepared he didn't know what in the world had hit him and You know

Watson just Watson clearly won that debate From is even from dr.

Stein's criticisms of the the traditional theistic arguments If I was a classical apologist sure though his critiques of those arguments weren't good either

So, yeah, no, I agree with that. Everyone could have fun with that debate regardless of which angle you're coming from absolutely, absolutely and supposedly he became the man that atheists most feared or whatever, but You know, did he catch him flat -footed?

Yes. Can presuppositional is catch unbelievers flat -footed. Yes Can presuppositional ism in particular do that?

Maybe but I think that this is an objection if it is an objection I think it's an objection that applies to every methodology.

Sure. So I don't know why we should say that it's specific to Presuppositional ism the column could catch someone off guard if you don't know anything else of say

Big Bang Cosmology, so a scientific defense of the second premise. I mean it what can throw someone off If you're ignorant of something sure any any piece of information that you're ignorant of is gonna throw you off if you don't have an

Answer to it. So yeah, yeah, I think this cuts both ways I mean, I don't I don't think that it you know overrides

I don't I don't think that it only applies to presuppositional ism is what I'm getting at So now

I do think I understand what he's saying in the sense of hey, I'm David Paulman I'm conversant with classical foundational ism and direct acquaintance.

I'm gonna offer this for you, which I Understand that and I respect that But the atheist is free to do that as well.

Sure, right? So, um Yeah, so all right. Well, that was excellent again

I do and I don't I'm not just saying this because Chris is a friend and he's been on the show a bunch of times and you know

He came on now and put all this, you know thought into this I'm not just saying this for that reason.

I'm genuinely encouraging you to go over to Revelationary apologetics and subscribe his little half -hour critique of Paulman's Arguments and it's just a part one of a three -part series.

You go into much more depth now It's not it's not easy listening. You got to pay attention, but there's a lot of good stuff there

For folks to give it to give a listen and of course your other discussions as well have been excellent

So definitely subscribe to his to his channel. Are there any last comments you'd like to say before we take some questions

Chris? Yeah, there is and especially because I doubt whether we're gonna pick this up again and do more with this debate

I'm gonna be quite busy for the next month. So I Just wanted to say that, you know, eventually what what

Paulman gets to is offering on the basis of this subjective direct acquaintance the account of direct acquaintance he gets to Deduction and then induction and then let's work out from there to Confirmation theory to try to prove that there's an external world and he goes with the simplest of the theories or so he says to say that there's an external world and then he wants to Debate on that basis to try to convince the unbeliever.

But what I want to say is three things. First of all That's a lot of that's a lot of work right based upon things that at each step

Have been questionable At best right? But the other thing I want to say is what what's the what was the debate proposition?

Is human reasoning autonomous is human reasoning all autonomous. And so David takes the

Affirmative there and the entire program is subjective

It's based on his accounting of direct acquaintance. Mm -hmm. And so I don't understand how he's proven

Anything with regard to the debate proposition there. Sure. I could even grant perhaps

I'm not saying this but I could grant that he outperformed his opponent, but I still don't see that he actually substantiated what he needed to in order to Affirm that resolution.

So so if I were to ask you, okay now we obviously disagree with David We don't think he argued his case

So and there are a lot of holes but in the debate itself, who do you think did better I Think that it was like listening to two different debates and I don't know

Seth and so I'm not trying to hurt his feelings He strikes me as the type who would not have his feelings hurt

He like punched me in the face instead, but I don't know I don't know but Seth is very very good at explaining the method on an introductory level and offering

Just tons of Illustrations and rhetoric and those sorts of things I think the strongest part of the debate was during the crossfire section when he's questioning

David on logic I think he was going to the right spot right there I think that Paulman Probably slightly outperformed

Seth one of the reasons though is again It was like listening to two different debates You had

Seth offering kind of this one thing with the just the richness of the presuppositional method and then

Paulman is zeroing in on one issue Philosophically and it's clear that he wants to talk philosophy and and I don't know that Seth was really wanting to go down all those roads right, so That's kind of my my takeaway from it.

I think that both guys did a great job Hey great I'm old and washed up and retired and stuff

So like I'm not gonna like talk smack about the guys who are actually doing it and I think that the things that they brought

Up, I mean it brought up this discussion, right and it's good for sharpening one another

I think that Paulman is pretty clear that these discussions are in -house debates and they're sharp. We're sharpening one another.

Yes So the last thing I would say then with regard to all of that is, you know, what do we get in Romans 1?

We're told that the unbeliever has no apologetic has no defense has no excuse

So if there's a possibility that the external world doesn't exist

Whereupon we base other Christian claims if there's a possibility You know that the law of non -contradiction is false or something by the way

I don't think that God can know a true Contradiction and so I reject those views of pair consistent logics and that sort of thing.

I think they're interesting But yeah, that's a presuppositional response to that from my worldview but at the end of the day if you're talking about Possibility and probability no matter how much probability you get with regard to a classical or evidentialist case for the existence of God You've not removed every excuse from the unbeliever.

And that's what the Bible tells us we can have You know, there's the certainty of the faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead for our sins

That's proclaimed right in the book of Acts. It's there We have at least at least psychological

Certainty, but I think scripture speaking of far more there. It's not just pragmatic. It's speaking of at least

Epistemic maximal Maximalism there right maximal epistemic certainty, whatever that might mean

But I think that it's even maybe talking about epistemic certainty with regard to what we would think are contingent facts

But setting that aside, let's say you reject that argument Romans 1 There's no excuse and if you're saying that it's more probable that say

God exists than that He does not what you're saying There is there's still some probability that God does not exist and this is exactly what a guy like say

Christopher Hitchens Took advantage of in his debate with William Lane Craig. Hey, you can prove these things are probable all day long.

I'm a skeptic That's what I'm saying. I don't have a reason to believe this for sure. So there you go.

All right. Thank you for that Well, we just have a few questions here There's a lot of information that we went through and you definitely well you went through and you went into some detail so perhaps

It didn't produce as many questions there, but that that's fine Let's get to JD's JD freeze super chat.

Thanks again for the super chat. I appreciate it He says my understanding is that strong priest up whole strong priest up as opposed to a weak priest up priest up light

So I think he's suggesting somewhere along the lines of Mantel himself and Bonson I tend to think of Bonson for example as kind of the more purist manifestation of the priest up additional approach

Okay, so my understanding is that the strong priest up holds that the exact Christian worldview is a precondition of intelligibility

Does this imply one must have perfect theology in order to have? intelligibility

Yes, and no, right, okay, so so yes in the sense of we're not gonna have perfect knowledge

This side of heaven, are we? Whatever that might look like in the end. Anyway, I happen to believe there are many things.

We'll never know In virtue of our finitude not because of our sinfulness or whatever.

So we're never going to comprehend the Trinity We're never going to comprehend things like that fully because of God is inexhaustible, you know, he's infinite

So it is fine. So when I think of the depths of the Trinity I end up like I'm like this I'm like so confused so that in heaven when my vision is perfect.

I'm just gonna be like this because still in heaven I won't fully understand Me I won't have full knowledge of these things one day, you know

What's amazing is in the beautific vision in in eternity and in the the new heavens and the new earth

We can continue to to know God and come to know him more and more and we will never know him fully

He's inexhaustible and so for eternity we'll be coming to know God and never know him fully as he knows himself

Which is awesome. That's not that's not depressing or sad. That's awesome Because there's always more to know and enjoy about him

I think that's all but but in answer to the the person's question. No, it doesn't require perfect theology

I would also say that you know, there's a sense in which there's a lot of fuzziness around the edges

This is something that Bonson himself who was very purist that Bonson himself conceded, you know, when we're looking at various issues

You know, we're not always confident or sure about every single thing But what we are saying is at the end of the day

We're still resting upon the Christian worldview in order to address those issues. That's right. All right. Thank you for that Let's see here.

There was a question here The sire, I love the name this is the sire

What do you think of quines critique of the analytic synthetic distinction?

Doesn't only affect metaphysical conception of analyticity and leave epistemic analyticity untouched

Yeah, so what's going on there? Is that he's picking up on one of Bonson's traditional responses to the so -called analytic synthetic distinction?

Which much of it was in virtue of wine now when Bonson is writing his earlier work

Which is later published as presuppositionalism stated and defended and by the way for the listeners You don't know that was like found behind a filing cabinet in his old office or something when his mother cleaned it out

So it's not that it doesn't cover some topic. You wish it covered. I mean it was yeah It was put together after he died

You can barely very clearly see that Bonson is learning these things

You know in a student if like way and so he is relying a great deal upon quine

In that book as I recall he brings up a lot with regard to to quine quines understanding of meaning and Metaphysical versus analytic the analytics synthetic distinction all the things that he brings up in that question there

But what I would say is is this Quine's critique

I think still applies in a number of different areas with regard to the issue of recognizing analytic statements or Analyticity and then

I think also to go a little bit further than that Bonson's criticism of Analyticity is much broader than quine and I'm not gonna get into much more depth than that I know that this person wants me to do that But but I am going to pretty frankly dodge the rest of that at the moment because that's

Lord willing the next part of my my critique of David Bauman's other video that he made against I'm definitely definitely looking forward to that standing long and short of that at the end of the day on that question

I just want to say that no Deflecting to well, we just reject what quine said about meaning.

I don't think that's gonna work to save us here. Okay? All right. Thank you standing for truth Gave $5 super chat.

Thank you so much. Keep up the great work brother at revealed apologetics. Thank you so much I appreciate that. I will try my best to keep up the great work

Let's see here and interesting a JD free says I would love to hear a conversation between bolt or another good

Presuppositionalist and Timothy McGrew or Jonathan McClatchy perhaps with James Anderson as well kind of a dream team

Discussion I get to be perfectly honest. I'm not a big fan of the twos on twos and the the team debate sort of thing so for example,

I Don't remember the name of the YouTube channel, but when they had that discussion

I'm sure you're familiar with it on apologetic methodology where James White was there As it was it

Randall Rouser Randall Rouser Jonathan McClatchy Dr. Richard how that was a great discussion, but there was

I mean it was it was dangling meat in front of you So like when something got really good you had to move on And so you really can't focus in on the issues in a meaningful way when there's you know that much going on But everybody wanted a piece of dr.

White in that debate to that was like that was interesting, wasn't it? That was so to be this weird

It was respectful though. Like it was it was actually showing respect. It was interesting. All right.

Yeah, that was very interesting At any rate, let's see here if we have any more but I'm game for that if you ever put me on with Timothy McGrew Though or or even dr.

McClatchy you better get James Anderson on with Well, maybe

I could arrange something that because I don't I don't have access to Timothy McGrew maybe I do

I think we have had a brief correspondence, but I definitely have access somewhat to Jonathan McClatchy He he made a comment that that he didn't like the fact that I was sharing my videos on on his

Facebook page because he thinks it was pretty good his love for presuppositionalism was coming through And so I respectfully make sure

I don't do that. By the way, I very much appreciate Jonathan McClatchy. I think he's got some I think he's a great evidentialist.

I really do I agree. I have great respect for both those individuals

You know, let's see here. I think That is it with the questions.

Well a Chris, thank you so much And why don't you why don't you show folks what's behind you there?

Your book is on induction, isn't it or Yeah, so the world in his hand a

Christian account of scientific law and its antithetical competitors If you have enjoyed

Chris bolt and you want to see what he has to say with respect to the whole uniformity of nature thing Totally by his book.

It's available in softcover hardcover. Am I correct? Available in that was a hardcover.

There's a softcover. There's Kindle now and Kendall now, that's right. So Go and buy a book

Definitely worth your time. So all right. Well, that's it for this episode everyone who was listening.

Thank you so much I really do appreciate and appreciate the respectful comments and interaction there as well So until tomorrow,

I will be having I think I'll be having That's an awesome mug you see look what is this?

What is what do I have here? Come on? I'm supposed to be mr. Priest up. I got a cardinal on my cup

Whatever, man But tomorrow I'm gonna be interviewing scarlet clay Who actually has a very interesting story.

She wrote an article about her experience in Biola In their apologetics program and she's gonna share with with us how taking apologetics at Biola actually made her a presuppositional list

Which is interesting because Biola is definitely a more Classical and evidential evidentially oriented school there.

So that will be tomorrow at 9 p .m So looking forward for folks to listen in on that conversation.

I think will be fun Well, thanks again Chris and looking forward to doing more with you in the future. Thank you so much for coming on Thank you