The Transcendental Argument for God

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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April 29, 2021

00:02: Yes, so they're Have a handout to give everybody Please take the handout and pass around don't mind James Okay, we are going to we're going to switch gears hard and and strong And I'm going to I'm going to tell you we may stay an extra five minutes tonight So if you have to leave right at 8 o'clock you may but you'll miss Miss the best part I'm saving it for the end That's what I'm giving you right now chapter 5 I'm giving and I have chapter 4 for you because you weren't here Yeah, here's chapter 4 for you Johnny if you don't have your chapter 4 summary Johnny But what I just gave you is next week's to read along with chapter 5 and on the back of that You'll see that I give you a breakdown of the transcendental argument and what did you learn from Google? Yeah, that's pretty close that's pretty good I would say that's a fair That's a fair synopsis for Google especially Vantil Cornelius Vantil that guy yeah So Let me ask this question Honesty is the best policy how many of you read the whole chapter? No, it was it was heavy if you look at my book Look at here.
02:49: This is my my notes as I went through every page I might as well just highlight the whole thing because it was so it was meaty this week was meaty It was a lot to get through But What I want to really address is how the book is shifting because if you look at the table of contents you'll notice We've started with the basics and then we've moved to Apologetics as proof so what we're talking about in these chapters this chapter in the next chapter is Making our argument our proof that God exists then beginning in chapter 7 it's defending the opposition against that That's what we're going to talk about the evil You know people say if you think God exists, you know What about evil? That's the that's that's a defense.
03:50: We have to make that's different than the proof is What we're saying is true, and then the defense is dealing with what they're countering our proof So The tag Transcendental argument for God tag is simply saying that As you just articulated without God There is no meaning There is no logic there is no rationality and because Rationality exists because Because Logic exists Because meaning exists God must exist and honestly, it's it really is as simple as that and Here's the thing that I I recognize as I say this.
04:48: This is almost a Form of the teleological argument Now if you don't remember and I don't think we've gone over it in this class yet the classical arguments of apologetics that what what are called the the the traditional arguments are Known as the cosmological argument the teleological argument the moral argument and the ontological argument cosmological argument is Something exists and That is a creation creation Demands a creator therefore a creator exists something rather than nothing exists.
05:31: Therefore God must exist.
05:33: That's the Cosmological that's a simplified version of the cosmological argument.
05:38: The teleological argument though is the argument that purpose exists telos means purpose or goal and Because the world doesn't just exist but the world exists with a purpose Then We can surmise that there must be something to give it purpose That's the teleological argument.
06:00: Here's here's here's the here's here's how that plays out the great watchmaker Analogy, you probably heard this if I walked on to the beach and I saw a rock on the beach I would not automatically assume that the rock had a maker But if I walk onto the beach and I see a watch and I pick up the watch and the watch is clicking in time and it's set to the right time and the gears are working and the the the winding mechanism is working and it's ticking then I can assume I can By my inductive reasoning I can I can come to the conclusion that somebody made that Because it has purpose Right.
06:37: That's the teleological argument is that there's purpose there not just being The cosmological argument is existence But this is purpose, right and I think and dr.
06:49: Frayn somewhat agrees with me here I'm kind of I'm on a verge here.
06:52: Maybe I may go back and write a paper on this I really think the transcendental argument is a form of the teleological argument because what we're saying in a sense is that rationality logic and morality and All of those things depend on an existence of God But here's how it takes a step past the teleological argument because the teleological argument is still kind of starting neutral You see purpose I see purpose we both arrive at a convert at existence of God But the teleological or the transcendental argument goes above that It says we can't even be having this conversation if God didn't exist because this conversation relies on logic and reason and discourse interaction Which necessitates the existence of a personal God So the transcendental argument is is like the teleological argument.
07:45: It's just a greater in a sense Form of it because we're not we're not just saying that purpose exists We're saying that even to the idea to experience and understand that purpose exists would demand the existence of God Look at your your Yes, we could go through chat before the book and we we may look at a few things But I really want to I put this together just for you all because I wanted to help you hopefully understand it better The transcendental argument for God tag.
08:17: I'm going to read to you a few quotes The first quote is from the article on Christian Christian epistemology From got questions org, which is I I think I've told you guys about got questions before but if I haven't it's a very good Website, it's very useful and most of their articles are well done They're they're written on the popular level.
08:38: So they're easy to understand but they usually deal with with good good Good difficult questions.
08:44: So here's what it says science and deductive reasoning Or excuse me science and deductive reason by which means one may acquire knowledge presupposes that the universe Be logical and orderly and that it obeys mathematical laws consistent over time and space even though conditions in different regions of space can be radically diverse these nonetheless exists and They're none the less exists a underlying uniformity the Christian who believes in a transcendent causal reality expects there to be order in the universe since the Bible teaches that God upholds all things by his power the Christian expects the universe to behave in an orderly and rational fashion since God is Omnipresent and consistent within himself the Christian expects that all regions of the universe will obey the same laws Even though the physical conditions of different regions of the universe may be different Water boils at what temperature? To 12 Fahrenheit, right Water freezes at 32 degrees and that is always true Right.
09:50: It's a consistent truth But how did we arrive at that knowledge? through the process of testing Well got burned a lot, but but we tested it We we put it in we put it into a method of testing Okay, the water we know water does boil because we experience that can see it.
10:13: When does it boil we put it on under a temperature? Mechanism something that tests the temperature and that's how we come to the conclusion of when it boils, right? And and it boils all the time now.
10:24: Why do you believe? That tomorrow If you put a pot of water on your stove and turn the fire on or the heating element Why do you believe it's going to boil? because it always has and You expect the world to continue to behave as it always has It's called the process of induction.
10:51: It's how science works The reason why we believe the world is going to be tomorrow like it is today is because it always has been Right, but why? Yeah, but that's the argument right of the atheists is that it will it's it's it's this is not being guided or Directed you see that's the problem.
11:14: We have an orderly world we have a world that can be tested measured and Expectations can be laid out based on those measurements What if tomorrow you woke up in the the moon rose instead of the Sun? Or if water froze at 50 degrees instead of 32 Because you'd know there was something wrong All right.
11:43: So the process of induction the idea that we can can base future on the past, you know, this is probably going to happen because it happened before is based on the concept of underlying uniformity Underlying uniformity There was a skeptic.
12:01: I don't remember his name Can't place it right now, but I know that he said it.
12:06: He said there we really have no basis To believe that tomorrow will be like today There's nothing except yesterday and that's not proof Tomorrow water could boil at 30 degrees If there is no order that's the that's the again the transcendental argument is that when we look at the The universe and we look at the world around us and we begin to make rational logical assumptions we're basing that on the idea that there is rationality and logic in the world and How could we have a conversation otherwise? This was Van Til's whole point we can't even have a conversation unless you borrow from my worldview You have to steal from me Because you have to assume the uniformity of nature The consistency of these things you have to assume logic and rationality exist and in an atheistic worldview There's no reason to assume that Let's look at the second quote on your paper here.
13:14: This is from the Christian apologetics and research ministry This is Matt slick.
13:18: Don't let his name fool you He sounds like he would be like a car salesman, but he's not he's he's a very good teacher and Matt's website is good karm.org He says this the transcendental argument for God's existence takes different forms But is basically an argument based on the necessary preconditions for transcendentals Transcendentals are those things that are true, but do not depend on material conditions such as location and time for their validity such Transcendentals include the laws of logic the laws of identity the law of non-contradiction the law of excluded middle and the law of proper inference These are not dependent on space-time or humans for their validity with the laws of logic be true of humans didn't exist With the laws of logic be true of if humans didn't exist.
14:05: Go ahead yeah, yeah, because the world runs in a logical way and So the laws of logic transcend the world when Gordon Stein was debating Greg Bonson on this issue Greg Gordon Stein says he says I believe in what I can touch.
14:23: I believe in what I can feel I believe in what I can see.
14:25: I don't believe in anything that isn't material that was Gordon Stein's argument.
14:32: He said can you prove to me that there's something that exists? That's not material and Bonson said yeah the laws of logic The whole thing that allows us to have this conversation You can't grab it.
14:44: You can't taste it.
14:45: You can't touch it, but you know it exists because it allows us to have this conversation In fact, this is a quote from the bottom.
14:55: I have here is a quote from that debate He says the transcendental proof for God's existence is that without him is that it is impossible to prove anything The atheistic worldview is irrational and cannot consistently provide the preconditions of intelligence experience science logic or morality the atheistic worldview cannot allow for laws of logic uniformity of nature the ability for the mind to understand the World and moral absolutes and in that sense the atheistic worldview cannot account for our debate tonight He basically said to him he says by coming here you lost the debate By huh Yeah, and a lot of these guys are in white would admit, you know, a lot of these guys are indebted to Bonson Bonson Sproul and Bonson debated because Sproul was a classical Apologist that's why I'm trying to show there's not as big a difference as everybody wants to make it out because I love Sproul too Sproul was a genius Yeah, oh That's the one where the guy told him to drink antifreeze If you haven't watched the drink antifreeze debate, that's your homework this week.
16:16: Go watch that debate.
16:17: It's worth it the the atheist Was went nuts just had had a field day running back and forth across the chance of holding a cup of antifreeze The Bible says you will drink poison and live you anybody want to come up here and test this That's what the dude said.
16:38: I have a cup of antifreeze come drink this cup of antifreeze For a moment just because I want to do it Let's I want you to see the laws of logic and how they function.
16:57: This is just a few of them I know this isn't really the lesson But I'd like to just when we talk about when you hear somebody say the laws of logic This is Bay This is how we determine things are are are and are not things are true or not And the first is the law of identity I talked about this last week a equals a something is what it is and is not what it is Not the law of non-contradiction Is something cannot be and not be at the same time and in the same relationship a cannot equal not a The law of the excluded middle is that you can't have a and not a both be true and Finally the law of the proper inference and I use Bobby as my example for this one If a then be a therefore be if Bobby is here.
17:47: He's not at home.
17:48: Bobby is here.
17:49: Therefore He's not at home Those are just basic understandings of logic, huh? Yes, you're here.
17:58: Yeah And then, you know We talk about difference in deductive reasoning inductive reasoning, but ultimately I Hope that helps you helps clarify for you.
18:14: What was in the book.
18:14: I hope that was helpful in understanding that When we're having the conversation with the person They're borrowing from our worldview right away when we get to the issue of evil You'll see this very clearly because they cannot come and say Evil exists therefore God does not exist Without presuming the existence of evil and therefore assuming the existence of God That's right as it said in our text this week without God What? All things are permissible Without God all things are permissible Yeah, so hopefully that based on your reading and what I just gave you that will be helpful on the other side of that page is chapter 5 In its summary And next week we're going to look at other theistic arguments.
19:16: I talked about them tonight.
19:17: I talked about the cosmological argument I talked about the teleological argument.
19:22: We're going to dig a little bit more into those in our reading this week You guys have fun Let's end with prayer Father I thank you for your word.
19:31: Thank you for your truth.
19:33: I pray that your word would would guide us and direct us into all truth and that we Lord would be faithful in seeking to Share your truth with others even when it's difficult in Christ's name.
19:46: Amen.