Incinerating Presuppositionalism: Year Twenty

I began this blog with the first post on March 26, 2005, which was twenty years ago today. As milestones go, some might say this one’s kind of big. No doubt, when I first started this blog, I did not expect it to have such a run time. But here we are! It’s been a labor of love and frankly kind of addicting.

As in years past, I like to recap the previous year with links to entries since the last anniversary date: 

530. Incincerating Presuppositionalism: Year Nineteen - March 26, 2024

531. Why are you an atheist? - April 26, 2024

532. Can an atheist have purpose? - May 27, 2024

533. Are you sure there’s no god? - June 30, 2024

534. can science answer the remaining mysteries of the universe? - July 28, 2024

535. Have you ever questioned your atheism? - August 21, 2024

536. Are you completely materialistic in your mindset? - September 28, 2024

537. If you were convinced there was a god, would that be good news? - October 27, 2024

538. What Does AI Have to Say About TAG? - November 30, 2024

539. Does My Atheism Make Me Closed-Minded? - December 27, 2024

540. Imagining Creation - January 27, 2025

541. Miracles and the Primacy of Consciousness - February 23, 2025

In recent years I have not been keeping up with the latest developments in presuppositionalism, simply because my time and focus are devoted to other responsibilities and interests. On those occasions when I do poke around for the latest goings-on, it seems that most of what I find are just stale rehashes of the same talking points. At this point, I cannot even say what I have seen actually amount to arguments as such. Presuppositionalism has in general been deficient in terms of actual arguments and heavy in offensive projection, relentless interrogation and unteachable echo-chambering. Apologetics is not actually about vindicating theism so much as it is to strengthen the believers commitment to his own confessional investment.

We should always remember that the Christian bible does not lay out an epistemology, which can only imply that there is no such thing as a distinctively Christian theory of knowledge. Questions probing how we know things ultimately cannot be answered by applying Christian epistemological principles, because there aren’t any. Apologetic strategies which insist that non-believers answer a series of “How do you know?” questions are inherently fraudulent to the extent that they imply the pretense to there being a means of knowing available to believers owing to the mere fact that they are professing believers.

Presuppositionalists focus their debate ploys on topics such as the necessary preconditions of knowledge, the justification of inductive reasoning, the foundations of morality, and the like. No doubt these are vitally important areas of philosophical inquiry. But they will never be settled by appealing to a worldview which ignores the fundamental distinction between the real and the imaginary. Genuine knowledge has its basis in facts, not in fantasy. The biblical worldview immerses the mind of the believer in a make-believe psychology and emboldens the believer to pretend that he knows things that he in fact does not know. It is on the basis of this delusion that he challenges non-believers to answer stock questions on the believer’s own terms, terms which evaporate immediately once it is pointed out that the imaginary is not real.

Their interrogations are answerable, and yet their own worldview cannot provide objective answers to their own interrogations. What are the necessary preconditions of knowledge? These are identified explicitly by the axioms of existence, consciousness and identity. Yet their own worldview wipes these fundamental truths off the table. How can inductive reasoning be justified? This is answered by the objective theory of concepts, yet their own worldview has no theory of concepts to begin with, not even a bad one. What is the basis of morality? This is the primacy of existence, yet their own worldview denies the primacy of existence by affirming a universe where wishing makes it so. Where did the universe come from? It came from existence, yet their worldview holds that existence is the product of divine fantasizing, something we never observe in reality, but nevertheless virtually anyone can imagine it.

As for the future of this blog, while part of me thinks that my work here is done (maybe overdone?), I am not committed to closing it all down for good. I reserve the prerogative to publish future entries as I see fit. But I may not be keeping even the meager pace I’ve had over the past several years going forward. While this has been a wonderful learning experience for me and it has allowed me to interact with many very intelligent people over the years from all walks of life, trying to find time to work on the next entry has become a bit of a chore for me given the wide variety of competing demands on my time. Moreover, as Bukowski would have said, it’s taken on a repeat, which I find unsettling. One reader commented some months ago that he rarely has time to read. That’s a sad statement, but it is every bit as true for me as well. My work and family life are breathtakingly busy, albeit highly rewarding in fact, and frankly I’m astounded that I’ve been able to keep this blog going as long as I have.

I would love to hear from readers on what they think I may have missed, overlooked or failed to address over the years, if just to see what anyone who may have followed my work might say on this front. That’s not a commitment to dive in and take on some new area of research, but I am curious and maybe other readers will be able to point to other sources that have attended those areas.

As always, thanks to everyone who reads, and special thanks to all who have taken time out of their lives to post their thoughts in the comments.

by Dawson Bethrick

Miracles and the Primacy of Consciousness

The notion of miracles has enjoyed tremendous staying power in one form or another throughout virtually all cultures. Along with other expressions of supernaturalism, they are the stuff of much story-telling. In modern-day entertainment, supernaturalism oozes in everything from Stephen King novels to science fiction space operas. It is featured in campfire stories and also ancient religious texts.

It is curious, however, how some who will not take the campfire ghost story seriously will be up in arms when you don’t take the ancient religious story seriously. But if you ask these same people whether or not they believe wishing makes it so, they’ll typically say no, even emphatically. And yet the very notion of a miracle traces its roots to instances of some consciousness commanding reality to conform to its intentions, and reality obeying those commands. 

Imagining Creation

Many thinkers insist that the universe cannot be eternal, that it must have been caused to exist by some previously existing power or agency. Many secular scientists affirm a version of the ‘big bang’ that purports to “explain” how the universe “got here,” while religious thinkers hold that the universe is the product of some conscious act. I have not adopted either of these views or anything comparable to them. 

My view is that the universe is eternal – because existence is eternal. ‘Universe’ in my view is essentially the sum totality of everything that exists, whatever that happens to be. On this view, if something exists, it is part of the totality of everything that exists, which means it must be part of the universe. This is not to say that every particular thing in the universe exists as-is eternally – the leaves on the tree outside my window will eventually fall off and decompose into something else, but the matter that makes them up continues to exist in some form. But this view does entail that one cannot postulate the existence of something outside the universe – such as some agency allegedly responsible for bringing the universe into existence. This instance of the self-exclusion fallacy invalidates such a proposal. 

Another way to frame my position is to recognize that reality is eternal. To say that reality was “created” could only mean that something must have created reality, but then the question becomes: is not whatever is that supposedly created reality, itself supposed to be real? Or are we to accept the view that the unreal created the real? Even the most hard-core theist is not going to allow this. But he will resist conceding the fact that the universe is eternal and thereby likewise avoid discussing the implications this has for reality as such. “Such a person,” writes Leonard Peikoff, “does not contest the need of an irreducible starting point, as long as it is a form of consciousness; what he finds unsatisfactory is the idea of existence as the starting point.” (Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, p. 21). For the theist, it’s sacrilegious to suppose that the universe is anything other than the product of supernatural wishing.

Does My Atheism Make Me Closed-Minded?

On a number of occasions throughout my adult life in which I have discussed my views with theists, I have been accused of being closed-minded. Typically, the conversation starts out amicably enough, but at some point the theist realizes that my defense of my rejection of theism is impervious to his apologetic tactics. That is when frustration kicks in and personal attacks begin to well up. Usually the believer tells me that I hate his god or that I just don’t want to give up some sin or another. In some instances, the theist announces that I’m simply closed-minded and therefore unwilling to “see the light” as it were. 

In one exchange I had with a theist a couple years ago, I explained that my atheism was really a natural consequence of choosing to be honest on questions pertaining to theism in particular as well as philosophy in general. After all, I realize that I have no direct awareness of any gods, and I have found without exception that efforts to support the inference that there is (or “must be”) a god, are terminally deficient. I am of the view that choosing to believe something that one does not think is true (assuming that’s really possible) is not an application of honesty. Pretending to know something when one does not is certainly not an expression of an honest orientation to facts.

What Does AI Have to Say About TAG?

As readers here probably already know, AI is all the craze these days, and it’s not going away. I know next to nothing about AI myself, but my little experience with it is more than sufficient to give me some idea of its potential uses, some beneficial, others perhaps not so beneficial. But recently I got to wondering what AI can tell us about TAG, the transcendental argument for the existence of a god. Sometimes asking apologists to present this elusive argument has resulted in mixed and sometimes unsatisfying results. So why not ask AI? 

So I pulled up Chat GPT and plugged in my query. 

If you were convinced there was a god, would that be good news?

In today’s entry we turn to Michael Brown’s final question from his article 7 honest questions for atheists. As the title of his article suggests, Brown poses seven questions for atheists to consider, presumably in a good-faith effort to understand non-believers better. Naturally, different people who do not believe in a deity are going to answer Brown’s questions differently, and readers are invited to share their own reactions to his questions in the comments section below. The answers that I present here on my blog are my own and are not intended to speak on behalf of anyone other than myself. 

My answers to Brown’s previous questions can be accessed here:

1. Why are you an atheist? 

2. Can an atheist have purpose? 

3. Are you sure there’s no god? 

4. Can science answer the remaining mysteries of the universe? 

5. Have you ever questioned your atheism? 

6. Are you completely materialistic in your mindset?

In his seventh question, Brown wants to know how we as atheists would evaluate the prospect that the Christian god were real, whether we would welcome that or not.

Are you completely materialistic in your mindset?

We now turn our attention to the sixth question in Michael Brown’s 7 honest questions for atheists, which is aimed at getting the atheist to identify his worldview in positive terms more than the previous questions.

My answers to Brown’s previous questions can be accessed here:

1. Why are you an atheist? 

2. Can an atheist have purpose? 

3. Are you sure there’s no god? 

4. Can science answer the remaining mysteries of the universe? 

5. Have you ever questioned your atheism?