Christian and Mormon Debate! Part 4 :: Galatians 1 & Joseph Smith

So once again, our next topic is Joseph Smith and Galatians 1. So once again, that's 30 minutes. And Jeremiah, you got it, man. You can go ahead, proceed with questions and get the conversation going there.

Yeah, so let me first begin.

By asking this question to you, Joseph, because my position is that I have to start with revelational epistemology to justify the world that I live in. I'm dependent on God revealing himself to me in such a way for me to know.

I think since he has given us his word, it's self-attesting. I think it provides the necessary preconditions, both in terms of how we account for laws of logic, our sense experience, reason. But my worldview is dependent on the scripture itself.

So that's why I have to lean so heavenly on exegesis and theology. So I just wanna start off by asking, why should I believe anything that Joseph Smith has to say?

Witness of the Spirit and the Book of Mormon

Yeah, that's a good question. So the way I see a religious epistemology working, I think we have multiple sources of knowledge generally, and I think also probably multiple sources of religious knowledge.

So you might say that an argument for the existence of God can give you some reason to believe in God, right? And our senses can teach us lots of things. Ultimately though, I also lean on a revelatory epistemology, not quite in the same way.

I'm not sure that, like say the world is only intelligible if we have the revealed word of God. But I do think that arguments, like historical arguments, like for the resurrection of Christ, arguments surrounding the history of the Book of Mormon, like even positive evidences for the Book of Mormon or for Joseph Smith's divine calling, ought not to be the foundation of our belief in God or in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I think ultimately the ground, the epistemic justification for that belief ought to be the witness of the Spirit. So I'm actually quite drawn to, I don't know if you're familiar with the term reformed epistemology.

Alvin Plantinga, okay, yeah, Plantinga and Alston and Volterstorff have some good work in how belief in God can be properly basic, which is kind of a technical philosophical term. And I think that is very well, it's very compatible with the LDS view that the foundation of our faith ought to be a witness of the Spirit, yeah.

But like you said, it's subjective in the sense that it's internal to us. We can't share that witness with others. We can't share experience of that spiritual witness with others, if that makes sense.

Yeah, and there's a part to where I do agree that things are subjective and we experience things. But to me, that would be hard to transition over to the objective, right? And so the reason why this part of the conversation is Galatians 1 and Joseph Smith is just for the audience sake.

So Galatians 1 specifically in verses eight and nine, the apostle Paul said, "'But even if we or an angel from heaven "'should preach to you a gospel contrary "'to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed.'".

Then he says, as I said it again, I'll say it the second time, "'If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary "'to one you receive, let him be accursed.'". And so he mentions an angel coming from heaven and I know the rest of what Paul writes.

He says, look, Satan can disguise himself as an angel of life. Now I put that on pause to say, somebody might ask the question, how can we trust the apostle Paul? Didn't he see some type of angelic figure on the road to Damascus?

Right, how should we believe his gospel? Now, and you can further clarify on this, but Joseph Smith saw the angel Marona and had this experience in the 1800s, right, allegedly. And so that's why, first and foremost, if we have a gospel of grace, which came so many years before Joseph Smith, it seems like we had an understanding of the gospel being it's something that God does apart from human effort.

And then Joseph Smith comes along with this package that's basically the same package on the inside, package a little bit different on the outside, but really you have to do some type of effort in order to gain salvation with God, even if it's on a universal level.

So I wanna present one way how I have confidence in the writing of Paul to be divine and from God in a type of propositional form that we can trust. So he himself said, it's Satan that can present himself as an angel of life.

Well, when we look back into the gospels, we understand that Jesus was talking to the apostles the night before the crucifixion. And he said that he would give them the Holy Spirit that would guide them into all truth, everything that they needed to know, the helper, the paraclete will be there.

And so we know that the apostles had that. So the apostle Paul comes along later and we're given certain, and I'm kind of jumping ahead in the discussion, but I'll just to suffice say that, then you got the apostle Paul having this miraculous experience.

Well, you have two other testimonies about the apostle Paul before we get into Paul's writing himself. Acts chapter nine is not written by Paul per se, it's written by Luke who wrote part two of part one, the gospel of Luke, right?

So that's number one, but the stronger proof that we can have confidence in Paul's writing is that the apostle Peter, who has promised to have the Holy Spirit and second Peter chapter three, he said, there are gonna be people that slip into the church and they're gonna twist God's truth, just like our brother Paul, they're gonna twist his writings like they do the rest of scripture.

So you have this apostle that was in close connection with Jesus, was promised to receive the Holy Spirit and a second Peter that tells us that it's the Holy Spirit that carries men along to write the very words of God.

He says, we can trust the apostle Paul's writings as being scripture. Scripture cannot be broken, what Jesus said in the same breath of quoting Psalm 82, which we're definitely gonna go back to at some point.

But my point is, is you have the strong link from Paul to Peter to Jesus. So it seems like we would have a problem with the apostle Paul, we'd also have a problem with Jesus and we'd also have a problem with the very foundation of the Old Testament predicting the Messiah.

And I'm over here saying, I see no link to Joseph Smith other than claiming to be a prophet, which I also have a little bit of beef with because the Old Testament had prophets that spoke on behalf of God, right?

Thus sayeth the Lord. But yet the book of Hebrews opening was saying, look, God spoke in these times through the prophets long ago in a very specific way. We see that he spoke through prophets with having dreams, visions, and then he would speak to them face to face or clearly.

But in these last days, God has spoken to us in a uniquely different way. He has sent the son to exegete the father, to make him known. And what did Jesus do? He sent apostles to continue writing scripture and by extension, anybody that was close to an apostle.

So I feel like the New Testament makes the case that it's the apostles that pin scripture themselves. The only example of a prophet that we have is in the book of Acts of Agabus and he makes a prediction of an event that's gonna come, but he was not writing scripture.

Luke, who essentially is the gospel of Paul, was giving us what comes from God, what we need to know for godliness to make us complete. So I'm just laying the groundwork to show how I have problems with believing anything in Joseph Smith that doesn't seem to present the gospel of grace and he has no tie to an apostle or to what Jesus said the night of his crucifixion.

Whether Christ Could Correct the Interpretation of Galatians 1

Yeah, so I guess let me ask you a hypothetical to start. So let's say, so you have this interpretation of the New Testament, right? You have, yeah, you believe in the gospel of grace, right? So now imagine that Christ himself appears to you and he says that interpretation is wrong.

I want you to teach us different gospel. How would you handle that situation kind of epistemically?

Well, and I'm okay with thinking through hypotheticals. Within that hypothetical, he would have to have revealed his word differently because he's not gonna contradict himself. That's why earlier, I would like to hear some evidence of how Romans four can be understood in a completely different fashion.

Also, so you can imagine that Christ gives you some really convincing exegesis of the passage and he says, actually, salvation comes by faith and works. And so I want you to preach this gospel now. What would you, cause yeah, so he's saying, it's not a contradiction.

You've just misunderstood the passage. What would you, what would your reaction to that? I mean, are you open to that like being epistemically possible?

Here's the problem. And this is a clash of worldviews because also in my worldview, the nature of the book of Revelation is very unique because you have the apostle John on the Island of Patmos, no matter what one's eschatology is, everybody agrees that he's existing within the church age, right, on the Island of Patmos, he was cast out.

And then he is receiving a vision that not only begins in the church age, but extends into the eternal state. And then he says, and he basically wraps up his letter. No one is to add or take away from the words of this prophecy.

So my worldview would be at odds with each other to say that Jesus is gonna reappear, which he can't do, it'd be the second coming. So based on the scripture, he's not gonna reveal himself and whisper in a still small voice because he's already given us his word and we'll get into the completion of it.

But Revelation itself tells us that nobody can come and add or take away to the already prophecy that extends to the eternal state. So my worldview will not allow for, and I don't mean that mean hearted, but it won't allow for Jesus clarifying what he actually means, right?

Because

Revelation, the Canon, and the Limits of Private Spiritual Witness

So I'm puzzled by a couple of points there, if I can, so on the point of Revelations, I'm sure you know that the Revelations was not the last book added to the canon. So, sorry, the last book written.

It was actually, I think in a lot of cases, the last book added to the canon, but it wasn't the last book written. So further scripture was written after the statement was made, you can't add to this.

So I think we are justified in concluding that the statement was about the book of Revelation specifically. And so, yeah, I guess my point is, I don't think you can say from your epistemic position that you know with absolute certainty in the same way that we know two plus two equals four, that Romans four absolutely teaches the gospel of grace.

And so given that, I think you'd have to be epistemically open to Christ himself appearing to you and saying your interpretation happens to have been wrong. And so here's a clarification. And so I agree that it is the case that Satan can imitate an angel and he can deceive people that way.

But the claim actually initially for Joseph Smith is not that he just had an angel appear. The first vision, which I think in many ways is the kind of initiatory event of the restoration is an appearance of Christ and the father.

And I think it's significant that that's perfectly compatible with Paul's statement. So epistemologically, I mean, so yeah, you made the point that Peter is associated, sorry, Paul is associated with Peter who's associated with Christ.

Epistemically, I don't think we can say, we know certainly that if Paul, sorry, if Christ is actually teaching the word of God, that Paul necessarily is also on historical grounds. I think we can say that.

I think it's certainly a very plausible case. It's very likely, but it's not a certain epistemic justification there. So the spirit is the only thing that can confirm to us as individuals that Paul actually is teaching the truth.

And I think it does confirm that to us because he is teaching the truth. But if the spirit is the ultimate epistemic authority, then the same can apply to Joseph Smith. It can give the same witness of Joseph Smith that it can give to us of Paul, I think.

Well, what guards me from totally getting lost and it's only the spirit is I can have somebody come to me and say, hey, the spirit told me this, or a Mormon may come to me and says, I have a burning in my bosom that what I believe is true.

And I'm gonna come back and say, well, it can't contradict scripture, right? Because I think you would agree with me. If you have an unmarried couple engaging in fornication and say, oh, we've prayed about it.

We have the burning in our bosom. We've heard the Holy Spirit tells us that God actually is gonna make an exception and make this okay. Well, me and you both hopefully would go to what is revealed in scripture, holy written and say, actually that's sinful before God.

And what you're either doing is lying to me, trying to pull a fast one, or you're engaging with something outside of what has been revealed to us because God can't contradict himself. And so I'm not trying to be dishonest.

My worldview wouldn't allow for Christ to come and tell me that, well, actually, revelation doesn't mean that. And number two, I was thinking about this too. We're probably gonna differ on when the canon was completed, right?

Which is gonna be further in discussion. So I don't wanna jump too far into that. So I wanna put that on pause. But you did make something interesting about Joseph Smith. So I had this in my notes in the first vision in 1820.

Is it right that Joseph Smith said that he saw God the Father and Jesus?

Yeah, yeah.

Is that right?

Yeah, yeah.

So how would you reconcile that teaching with 1 Timothy 6 .16 that says no man has ever seen God. And I think the context would be talking about God the Father. And John 6 .46 that says that no one has seen the Father except the one who is from God.

He has seen the Father.

Self-Authenticating Scripture and the Witness of the Spirit

So I'll comment on the epistemological point first and then I'll comment on that. So you're right that someone, yeah, someone can say, oh, I have this spiritual witness that the sin I'm committing is justified.

And they will be wrong about that, right? If it's sinful behavior, that will not be the case. So there is an objective fact of the matter as to whether someone is receiving it. And they can be mistaken about it or they can be lying or yeah, they can be deceived.

But so obviously, yeah, my spiritual witness does not count as evidence for you. It can only count as evidence for me. But I think if you make a statement like your spiritual witness can't be true because it conflicts with scripture, we're presupposing not only that the scripture is true, which I agree that it is, but that we have the correct, the sole correct interpretation of that scripture.

So that was my whole spiel at the beginning was I don't think that that's a claim we're justified in making. And so, yeah, I mentioned that, I guess what, so you said you believe that scripture is self-authentic.

So I would say that in order to accept scripture, we have to have the spiritual witness in the first place. And so you can't use scripture to undermine the epistemic value of spiritual witness because it relies on that witness.

So you say, I guess in what sense is it self-authenticating? Because it's obviously not true that it's like a properly basic belief in the sense that anyone who experiences it instantly believes it. There are millions of people who read the Bible and don't believe it to be true, right?

So when you say it's self-authenticating, I guess I think that that's epistemologically an unsound position. I don't see that we can say that just reading it is sufficient to accept it, I think. And I think that many Christians in history and today would accept that as well, that actually that witness the spirit is required to accept it.

So when you say it's self-authenticating, I guess, yeah, we can return to the other point as well, but I guess I wanna ask you here first, how do you see it as serving as its own epistemic justification?

I find that a very difficult claim to accept.

The Trinity, Ex Nihilo, and the Grounding of Logic

And I understand that. We gotta be careful when we're arguing in a flat line epistemological level. Any axiom is going to be self-begging. That's why we need to have an ultimate starting point that is consistent in terms of entire worldview.

So that's why my beginning statement is, if you don't start with the triune God of Scripture, then you're not really, and I didn't get into clarity on this, but if that's not your ultimate starting point, I don't believe you can have certainty with how we engage with one another, how we live our lives.

And you're gonna think in these one in many categories that go unjustified. I'm saying rather, if you start with the triune God of Scripture, then you can have certainty with how you live your life and you understand that we are made in His image.

So we have a justification for logic. These immaterial laws that are binding universally, they're necessarily true. So I'm saying you gotta account for epistemology and ontology and value theory. And so that's why I would say, you gotta have a better starting point philosophically rather than saying, well, I think this is probabilistically true because what you're also admitting to is I could be wrong.

Your epistemology isn't grounded in something broader. So you really don't have justified true belief because it's ultimately gonna be question-begging and it's really never gonna be certain. And yet we make knowledge claims as though we do have certainty about many things.

So that's why I tried to expand back to a worldview how the Trinity is from the Scripture and gives us a grounding for everything. And it goes all the way back to the beginning of created time. I can't buy into any view that denies ex nihilo because Psalm 33, Hebrews chapter one, the narrative talks about how God spoke the world into existence.

And if someone says that that just seems to be hyperbole. I'm like, why do you get it in poetic text and didactic text where it says all these came from the word of the Lord. And so that's why it's so important to talk about it.

And when I say self-authenticating, I'm saying that it's a necessary truth. So whenever we talk about worldview versus worldview, the only way that we can truly engage is by internal critique that's why a lot of my questions is how does Mormonism account for X, Y, and Z?

I realized we have different theological perspectives. If I look at the world around me and say, wow, this is the mighty work of God. And the atheist looks at, you know, the sky, the trees and all these things, they're gonna be like, man, evolution is crazy, right?

But they're not gonna be certain about it. But we look at the same evidence, we have different worldviews in which we interpret it. And so I'm saying given Mormonism, whether you lean more on philosophy, I feel like there's gonna be problems because you can't justify epistemology without just asserting.

Foundationalism, the Munchausen Trilemma, and Properly Basic Beliefs

Yeah, so I can comment on that. So, okay, so let me give a little bit of philosophical framing for this. So epistemology in terms of, so yeah, so epistemology is the study of truth, right? What is truth?

And then the study of knowledge. And a big part of that, if we define knowledge, this is kind of the standard definition, but in recent philosophy, there's been some problems with this formulation, but we'll stick with it because it suits our purposes, right?

Knowledge is justified true belief. So you believe something, it's true, and you have justification believing it's true. So the problem with the, okay, yeah. So first in justifying beliefs, we have, there's this thing called the Munchausen trilemma or the Agrippin trilemma.

There are three options of how we justify beliefs. We can have circular reasoning, right? We can have A supports B supports C, which is in turn supported by, or which in turn supports A, right? And that's a very unintuitive way of thinking about knowledge.

We can also say that there's an infinite regress of justification. So A is supported by B, supported by C, add infinite item, right? And that also is a very unintuitive way of thinking. So it seems like foundationalism, the belief that we have A supported by B, supported by C and C is not supported by another belief.

So we have what's called properly basic beliefs, seems to be a very attractive view. And this is not the only view that philosophers accept, but it's certainly the intuitive kind of non-philosophical view.

So what you're arguing in this, yeah, yeah, go ahead.

So if somebody, what would you call the third one again? The what kind of belief?

So, yeah, so the view that we have axioms on which we base things is traditionally called like foundationalism.

Yeah.

But would we actually know if the axiom is true?

Right, so that's where, so some people say that we just have to accept them. So some people say things like properly basic beliefs serve as the foundation. And these are things that are maybe incorrigible or self-evident.

And so I think that the transcendental argument, the sort of presuppositionalist line that you're arguing would say this axiom is logically necessary. And we know this because every alternative is impossible.

So we can be sure of this axiom at the base. And it's very attractive to think that we have a sure foundation in our axioms. So yeah, you're saying since everything else is impossible, this has to be the case.

I reject pretty much every step of the argument. So the impossibility of the contrary, I don't accept. But I think we can just look at a very simple, yeah, sure.

That third method you talked about, just assuming axioms, it just seems to be the way that it is. Why would you not just say, well, it just seems like God is a Trinity because he is unified and diverse.

And that just seems to be the way that it is.

Sure, so if we just accept axioms by what seems plausible, then we don't get certainty in our system. And so we want to try to get more certainty than that. And so what you're suggesting, what your view suggests is that rather than just having these axioms we accept for one reason or another, we know for a fact Christianity must be true because all the alternatives are in one way or another inconsistent, right?

And that's the goal of this presuppositionalist line, right?

And that all other systems of thought have to borrow from the triune God of scripture.

And that's how we know they're inconsistent, right? Yeah, that's how we know it's necessary to have this triune God of scripture. But my problem is, first of all, it doesn't get you Christianity, this argument.

It gets you an ontological grounding in a divine being. It gets you maybe this, if you allow the argument its fullest breadth, it gets you also a God that solves the problem of the one and the many. And it gets one that can ground value theory.

That's not necessarily Christian. I could come up with a God that is maybe four persons in one being, and that is then it satisfies all the conditions of this presuppositionalist argument. So that's why this argument is really good against atheists because it says you have to have some divine being that solves the problem of the one and the many, but it doesn't work with certain to get you Christianity because there can be theoretical alternatives which are not ruled out by this argument.

Internal Critique, Revelation, and the Completion of the Canon

Well, there's a lot of problems with that because I get how one can construct theoretical alternatives but the God of Christianity says that he has spoken to us within space and time. So we have certainty based on the God who cannot lie and has revealed himself.

So if somebody were to construct a theological hypothetical, they would have to make ad hoc adjustments to mirror the God of Christianity and just say, but it's different just ever slightly. And I'm over here saying, but how do you know that?

Where do you get the ontological, epistemical and value theory to critique my worldview? Externally, it can't be done. If it is, then it's not rightly representing my worldview because I'm saying God has revealed himself.

So if somebody presents a binary entity or a four person understanding of who God is, I'm saying, okay, where's your revelational grounding that would actually demonstrate that? And does it actually justify how we live?

If someone just hypothetically says that, well, I'm saying that, well, that honestly misrepresents the Christian worldview because we're saying God has spoken. We're not coming up with hypotheticals. We're saying that God has revealed this.

So just because somebody can say, well, I can make something that mirrors that, eventually you're gonna be mirroring the Trinity. And I'm saying you can call a rose by another name, but it's still a rose.

So the fact that somebody would have to make ad hoc adjustments to mirror the Trinity actually demonstrates my point. Well, then yeah, you have to continue to borrow from the triune God of scripture and even to justify your own argument against us.

So that's the thing where I'm thinking Mormonism, we have to go more to doing exegesis and looking at the scripture and rightly harmonizing it because that is the only ground in which we can really do that, especially in terms of if you wanna engage in an internal critique.

Because once again, I'm saying,.

Go ahead.

No, you go ahead and finish your thought.

Yeah, so what's crucial to my position is that God has spoken. So if someone's saying, well, hypothetically, I can say that God spoke a different way, I'm saying that's fine. That doesn't show an internal critique on my side.

And still demonstrates that you're having to borrow from my preconditions.

So you're right, it's not an internal critique and I don't think it needs to be. So my point is, if you're saying this one's right because God has spoken in this one, that's to presuppose that that one is the right one because we're accepting the fact that God has spoken as a point of evidence.

So my point is, if we accept this presuppositions line of thought, we're saying in order to account for X, Y, and Z, so for, we can say ontology, value theory, and epistemology, we need these preconditions.

Those preconditions can be met in other hypothetical worldviews. And so the argument doesn't get you far enough. But I can give you an example of a justifying logic on different grounds so that we don't even have to get into the presuppositions argument at all.

So Hilary Putnam, who I do a lot of research in, so basically, well, okay, I don't wanna get too far into it. Basically, he has this idea of the contextually a priori where he says that certain kinds of beliefs are justified if we cannot conceive of an alternative to them.

So it's actually, it's fallibilistic in the sense that previously, like in the 18th century, the view was that space was Euclidean. That is that it adhered to the, yeah, it kept to Euclid's system of geometry and the primary point there being the fifth postulate of the parallel postulate.

So our view of it was that it was Euclidean. The only way that we could come to find out that it's not Euclidean is by constructing a rival theory that accounted for the data in a different way. So single points of data could not disprove the idea that space is Euclidean.

As a matter of fact, space is not Euclidean. So they were contextually a priori justified. They were a priori entitled to accepting the space is Euclidean, even though they were wrong. But that still applies.

We still have contextually a priori entitlements now. So like basic logic, so the law of non-contradiction, we can't conceive of a way in which it could be true that something is both true and false.

In fact, so it's a psychological limit, but also methodologically, we can't conceive of a way in which the law of non-contradiction could be false. And so we're entitled to that belief because we can't conceive of an alternative.

It's actually very similar to the impossibility of the contrary argument. We can accept logic on totally naturalistic grounds because we can't conceive of an alternative. And I think that's a robust way of structuring that so that we actually don't even need to get into the presuppositionalist argument in the first place.

I think presuppositionalism points out that everybody has presupposition. So when you're talking about these hypothetical worlds and you make conclusions, even if they're a priori, well, how do you know that you're making the right conclusions?

Well, you're gonna base that off your presupposition. So we're talking about an ultimate foundation, right? That accounts for knowledge itself, existence, and how we are to live and interact. So yeah, I like the laws of logic because you have to borrow the laws of logic in order to try to engage with it.

So it's self-authenticating, right? And I'm saying scripture produces a worldview that's undeniable because it provides the very foundation for logic to be workable and that we can know that we are reasonable human beings, how we live and interact because we're made in the triune God's image.

So I'm saying, if there's not anything internally inconsistent on my view, then you have to show me a grounding for how you account for knowledge, existence, and value theory as a worldview. And then we need to, then you would have, because then I would be forced to show an internal critique with whatever that would look like.

And since I'm taking the positive position and defending that that's the triune God of scripture, we have to deal with our epistemology, right? To show if the Bible is consistent itself. And I know how we talked about God being simple, but that has its limitations because we are, according to the scripture, we are limited creatures.

So we're not gonna be able to fully comprehend that which is eternal. And I think we can put this on pause because this is gonna come back out in the completion of the canon and sufficiency of scripture because I do have just a couple more questions.

And even if we have to borrow time from the other topics, I have another question about Joseph Smith. If you're okay with me going back to that real quick.

Logic, Revelation, and the Scope of Mormon Epistemology

Yeah, can I make a quick comment on the intelligibility stuff and then we'll go back to Joseph Smith? So yeah, so I agree that we need some way of grounding our ontology, epistemology, and value theory.

And so my point about the contextually a priori is that actually does ground logic. So, well, okay, so not on a metaphysical level. So, my problem with the presupposition.

Right, right.

So my problem with the presupposition line is that the claim that God is the only proof of proper metaphysical ground of logic is a claim. And it's one that's disputed, I think, on good grounds. I think it makes sense to say that just a necessary precondition for existence, any sort of existence, is logical laws.

In fact, I have some problems with the idea that God is somehow above logic. But if we take, say, Gottlob Frege's view of logic or the way I understand it, I might be wrong about my interpretation of him.

So one of his statements is that logic is like the most general law. Logic constitutes something like the most general laws of nature. So the laws of the laws of nature are logic. And so we have this sort of metaphysical view of logic, not as existing, but as being just a description of the limits of certain sorts of metaphysical existences.

Then we have a grounding for what that means. Well, so no, in my view, reality is necessary. So yeah, so you can

Is it descriptive or is it necessary?

No, sorry, so when we talk about, when we say laws of logic, what we're referring to are descriptions of the limits of reality. That reality itself is necessary, and therefore those descriptions are also necessary.

And so we have there a grounding of logic Yeah, so then we have the epistemological question. So in terms of the existence of deductive logical laws, I'm saying, well, we know that because we're a priori entitled to it.

We have no viable alternative. And that's the exact same sort of argument that the epistemologist makes. Well, sure, just like God is, because it's necessary. So I'm entitled to believe it. So there's the metaphysical question, why is it the way it is?

And then there's the question of why I'm entitled to believe it. So why is it the way it is? Because it's necessary. And that's the same with the explanation of why God is, on your view. So how am I justified in believing it?

In the case of deductive logic specifically, I'll say because of the contextually a priori entitlement we have to it. Beyond that, well, I can say, well, now I have the laws of logic, and I can add in revelation there as a viable epistemology.

And so I can build an epistemology from there, but I have a grounding for it.

Sorry?

Wouldn't we need revelation from a God who knows all things to justify why we utilize knowledge the way that we do? If we don't appeal to a revelation, then we really couldn't know anything other than just saying it is the way that it is.

Well, I don't think so, but it doesn't matter because my view does have a God that reveals himself and by which we can justify that. If you want to take that line, I do have a God that can ground that.