Anderson’s Anti-Epistemological Argument Against Naturalism

Recently Christian apologist James Anderson recently published An Epistemological Argument Against Naturalism. Readers are encouraged to take a look for themselves.

There is much that I could provide in response to what Anderson presents there, but along with some comments about Anderson’s overall approach to the matter, I’m going to confine my present objections to two primary areas. In my estimate, the objections I will present below are sufficient to refute this argument beyond recovery. (Mind you, in doing so, I am not attempting to defend “Naturalism” as a worldview, for no version of Naturalism that I have looked at addresses the fundamental philosophical needs which Objectivism addresses.)

If, after reading through what I have to say here, readers still have further questions on Anderson’s argument, feel free to post a comment. Reader feedback is always welcome.

Some Thoughts in Response to Anderson’s Argument on Propositions

Last month, the Ivy League International Apologetics Database, aka ILIAD Forum, published an article by Christian apologist James Anderson titled In What Ways is God the Foundation for all Knowledge? The ILIAD Forum is new to me, and it may be new to readers here at Incinerating Presuppositionalism as well. In its obligatory About page, it states that it “was founded in 2021 by undergraduate students from all across the Ivy League, who wanted to provide an online, accessible, and rigorous database of answers to common questions about the nature and commitments of orthodox Christianity.” The site hosts articles by some of the more familiar names (e.g., Vern Poythress, K. Scott Oliphint, William Edgar) and some not so familiar (to me at any rate). Without having explored much of it, already it appears to be a promising quarry for future reading.

In Anderson’s article (cross-posted on his own blog here), he includes a paragraph which demonstrates how apologists can pack so much distortion into so little space. Brian May must be green with envy!

In this entry I will first quote that paragraph in its entirety, then I will follow that with my own interaction, and readers can post their own reactions in the comments section.

An Examination of Van Til’s "Argument from the Uniformity of Nature"

A typical strategy of presuppositionalism is to focus on some area of philosophy which has historically been surrounded by controversy – a “problem” of philosophy in which consensus has historically been elusive and debate continuously ever-raging – and proclaim that the controversy is neutralized by adopting a specific brand of theism. It does not seem to matter to apologists that such a move does nothing to increase our understanding of the problem in question or that it invites yet new problems which apologists cannot resolve. This is because solving the problem was never their actual goal in the first place. On the contrary, their goal is to convince themselves of the alleged truth of their self-imposed delusion and to bamboozle as many unwitting sideliners as possible. This assessment is only confirmed by the fact that, even when the defects of their theistic “solution” to such philosophical quandaries are pointed out, apologists will continue on as though their defenses were entirely tenable. 

The appeal to ignorance underlying such a strategy should not be difficult to detect. Instead of pointing to empirical evidence demonstrating the existence of supernatural beings (e.g., prayer fulfillment, curing diseases by “laying on of hands,” restoration of amputated limbs, resuscitation of decedents, in-person meetings with angels – or the risen Jesus for that matter, etc.), apologists seek to put non-believers on the spot to “account for” some fundamental recognition about reality and articulate full-blown philosophical explanations solving some centuries-old debate found only in the hallowed chambers of academia. Wouldn’t it be most ironic if the ignorance which such apologetic strategies are purportedly aimed at exposing and exploiting actually haunts the proponents of those strategies in the first place? 

An Examination of Van Til’s “Argument from the Unity of Knowledge”

In my previous entry we surveyed the salient background features propping up Cornelius Van Til’s arguments for the existence of the Christian god as formalized by apologist James Anderson in his paper If Knowledge Then God (IKTG). The four biggies here are that (a) there can be only one argument (hence Anderson presents a total of seven formalized arguments in his paper, four of them on behalf of Van Til), (b) this argument establishes specifically Christian theism (as opposed to some “generic theism”), (c) the argument’s conclusion is certain (“not merely probable”), and (d) the argument must be a “transcendental” argument (by which means the apologist “discovers” or rather asserts what the necessary preconditions of knowledge must be). Thus we witnessed Van Til boast that “there is absolutely certain proof for the existence of God and the truth of Christian theism” (The Defense of the Faith, p. 103.) and that “this one proof is absolutely convincing” (Common Grace and the Gospel p. 192). 

So the very nature of knowledge as such, which human beings do in fact acquire and possess, is purportedly of vital interest in drawing the conclusion that there must be a god, and accordingly this god must be the god described in the Christian bible. What always strikes me as a fundamental liability to the presuppositionalists’ project here is that their procedure exhibits virtually no awareness of how the human mind forms concepts or even any discussion of whether concepts even play an integral role in epistemology. This omission is evident even in the fourth argument which Anderson attributes to Van Til, the so-called “Argument from Conceptual Schemes” (cf. IKTG, pp. 23-24), which is where one would most expect to find an analysis of concepts, but does not. If knowledge is conceptual (and it is), this oversight is quite a liability. In fact, I’d go even further and wager that not only is it because Christianity lacks an understanding of concepts – their nature, how they are formed, how they relate to and depend on the perceptual level of awareness, etc. – that believers might therefore imagine that knowledge must somehow be sourced in the supernatural, but also that supernatural notions cannot be rationally inferred from an objective understanding of concepts. 

How all this plays out is very instructive when it comes to assaying the intellectual deficiencies of presuppositionalism in particular, and Christianity in general. So with my earlier points in mind, let’s turn to the Argument from the Unity of Knowledge and see how “absolutely convincing” this “absolutely certain proof for the existence of God and the truth of Christian theism” might be. 

Preliminary Thoughts on Van Til’s “Argument from Unity of Knowledge”

In his paper If Knowledge Then God: The Epistemological Theistic Arguments of Plantinga and Van Til (hereafter IKTG), Christian apologist James Anderson develops a total of seven arguments, three from Alvin Plantinga and four from Cornelius Van Til, which are intended to draw conclusions affirming Christian theism. What unites Plantinga and Van Til for Anderson is that “both have argued that a successful epistemology… must appeal to God at some point” and also that “a thoroughgoing adherence to naturalism (roughly, the view that there are no supernatural beings) is a recipe for debilitating skepticism” (IKTG, p. 2).

This is all very fascinating to me since, back when I was a believer, one thing that did stand out to me in my study of the Christian bible, is that it had next to nothing to say on epistemology. My guess is that Plantinga and Van Til were going off of sources other than what we find between Genesis and Revelation.

My Refutation of STB: Ten Years On

Here at Incinerating Presuppositionalism, I like to recognize special anniversaries, milestones and achievements which mark the highlights of my blog. That’s not easy because, in my humble opinion, there are a lot of candidates for this kind of celebration. As frequent visitors likely already know, every year on the anniversary of this blog (first post dated March 26, 2005), I post an anniversary entry listing out all the posts I have published since the previous anniversary. Back in March of this year I posted the fifteenth such anniversary entry. 

Today I would like to mark the anniversary of an entry which rivals only a handful of others for most view counts on my blog – yes, the interest here persists after all these years! – namely an entry which I posted on this date in 2010. That is my Critique of Sye Ten Bruggencate’s www.proofthatgodexists.org. Feels more like eight and a half years ago, but in fact it’s been a full decade now. 

WSIBC: "God and Reason"

We come now to the fourth section of the fourth chapter of James Anderson’s book Why Should I Believe Christianity? which is subtitled “God and Reason.” Here he presents his case for the view that reason is best explained by Christian theism.

Anderson opens this section as follows:

Critics of religion often pride themselves on their rationality, and they like to cast the debate in terms of reason versus faith. Atheists stand on reason, we’re told, while religious folks have to fall back on faith. Richard Dawkins, for example, pejoratively refers to religious believers as ‘faith-heads’ while presiding over the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. (p. 115)

It’s true that disagreements between religionists and rational thinkers often touch on the conflict between reason and faith, and this is a serious issue. I see it as a good thing that Anderson at least acknowledges that it is an issue. However, I found that the word ‘faith’ appears only three times in this entire section, and those three instances are confined to just this first paragraph. The statement here reads as though Anderson disagrees with the view that reason and faith are in conflict with each other, but he does not actually expand on this in the proceeding section. I’d think that, if he suspects that critics of religion are mistaken in concluding that faith and reason are at odds with each other, this section would be a great place to put that supposed myth to rest once and for all. Unfortunately, that’s not what happens here. Rather he drops the topic of faith just as in “God and Existence” he dropped Heidegger’s “The Question.” Seems to be a pattern here. 

Changing Your Views

The topic of changing one’s views is constantly in play in discussions between religious believers and critics of religious beliefs. The question often arises: What would it take to make you believe? or What would it take to make you abandon your beliefs? Questions of this sort seem to have a baiting nature, but they can be rather thought-provoking as well. It is valuable to reflect on how our views have changed over the course of our lives, what they changed from and what they changed to, what prompted the change and what instigated the original belief to begin with.

In his blog entry Ten Questions Biblical Literalists Cannot Honestly Answer, Casper Rigsby asks:

8. Is there any amount of evidence that would change your views?

In a reaction titled 10 questions, Steve Hays responds:

i) It doesn't occur to Casper that we can't change our views in toto. Our view of the evidence is, itself a viewpoint.

It’s not clear how Hays can divine such a sweeping assessment of what Casper has or has not done from a simple question of this sort (perhaps this has occurred to him – his question is sufficiently open-ended to allow for this).

Lennox's 10, Part III

In this blog entry, I continue my examination of Oxford Professor and Christian apologist John Lennox’s reactions to common objections to Christianity.

This is the third entry in this series. The first two entries can be found here:

Lennox’s 10, Part I

Lennox’s 10, Part II

In the present entry, I consider Lennox’s reaction to the fifth and sixth claims which he considers, namely that “faith is believing without evidence” and “faith is a delusion.”

Jason Petersen on Objectivism and the Laws of Logic

A visitor to my blog recently asked me to comment on an article by Jason Petersen titled 28. Q and A: Objectivism and the Laws of Logic. As with virtually everything else I’ve read by Jason Petersen, this article has the dubious propensity to cause informed readers involuntarily to perform a double face-palm while trying to maintain the resolve to read on to the second paragraph.

In his article, Petersen presents a question – purportedly from a visitor to his site Answers for Hope - and proceeds as though he had something positively instructive to say in response to it. But since there’s always the possibility that some readers will find themselves more baffled after reading Petersen’s article than before they even knew of its existence,

The questioner, Jay, writes:

I have a question about how objectivsts account for Laws of Logic.

Now, the first question that flashed through my mind when I read this, was: Why would anyone go to Jason Petersen with a question about how “objectivists account for Laws of Logic”? Why suppose that Jason Petersen knows anything about the laws of logic, let alone Objectivism’s view of logic, in the first place? Perhaps Jay was feeling hopeless and figured that Jason Petersen could provide some “answers for hope.” We may never know whether or not Jay found Petersen’s responses to be satisfying, but we will take a look at them and determine their worthiness for ourselves.

Presuppositionalism, Atheism, and Confusion over the Primacy of Existence

It is not uncommon for me to find even intelligent adult thinkers confused over the primacy of existence. In fact, confusion over this fundamental principle is a norm among those who are not familiar with Objectivism. It’s even worse for those who have heard about the primacy of existence from sources other than Objectivists who know what they’re talking about, sources which may in fact be hostile toward Objectivism for whatever reason. Sometimes this confusion is occasioned in thinkers who are otherwise well-meaning but have learned the expression “primacy of existence” from non-Objectivists who themselves do not understand what it means or its implications for knowledge.

Anyone who examines the entries I have published on my blog over the years, going back to March 2005 – nearly 10 years ago now – will find many posts that deal directly with the primacy of existence, how it is fundamental to human cognition, and how it is incompatible with theism.

In a Youtube video titled Why the Primacy of Existence is No Problem for Any Presuppositionalist, video blogger Ozymandias Ramses II (to whom I shall refer as simply “Ozy” from here on out) makes some startling statements intended to support what the title of his video affirms.

Jason Petersen’s “Epistemology”

In a discussion titled Philosophical Vlogs Debates Jason Petersen of Answers For Hope, “Clarkian presuppositionalist” Jason Petersen explains his “epistemology.” (The whole discussion offers a fascinating glimpse of the profound embarrassment that Petersen makes of himself when trying to pontificate as an apologist.)

I think it would be instructive to take a look at what he describes and probe it for the virtues he claims on its behalf.

“Christian Epistemology”: The Blind Leading the Blind

Consider the following dialogue between Pastor Billy Bob and Lisa, a saved and sanctified church member troubled over basic questions about knowing.

Here are some study questions to keep in mind as you read this:

What is the source of Lisa's problem?

Why does Lisa have such a problem?

How would you answer Lisa’s questions?

What do you think is the proper solution to her persisting dilemmas?

How would Christians whom you know answer Lisa's questions?

If you are a Christian, how would you address Lisa's concerns? How do you address them in your own life?

Petersen’s Failed Attempts to Refute Leonard Peikoff: Objection 4 and Conclusion

This is the fifth and final entry in a series examining attempts by Christian apologist Jason Petersen to discredit anti-theistic statements by Objectivist philosopher Dr. Leonard Peikoff.

The first entry in this series can be found here.

The second entry in this series (Objection 1) can be found here.

The third entry in this series (Objection 2) can be found here.

The fourth entry in this series (Objection 3) can be found here.

Dr. Peikoff’s statements in question can be found here.

Jason Petersen’s response to Peikoff can be found here.

In this entry I will examine Petersen’s attempts to refute Peikoff’s “Objection 4” against theism as well as Petersen’s concluding remarks. We will examine certain claims about “God’s nature” as Petersen would have us imagine it. Petersen raises a series of point-missing objections to one of Peikoff’s statements. Along with this, we will find just what a catastrophe Petersen's "Christian epistemology" really is.

Fumbling at the First Down

In an audio exchange with AronRa, Sye Ten Bruggencate offers some clues as to just how absurd his worldview really is.

For example, at one point he affirms the view that “knowledge is justified true belief” (23:03 – 23:04).

So on this view, knowledge is a species of belief – a belief that is true and has been justified.

But Sye also states “if it’s a belief, it’s not knowledge” (39:11 – 39:12).

I Reject Christianity Because It’s Not True, Part IV

The following is the fourth and final installment in my little mini-series of blog entries examining reactions by James Anderson to “four common objections” to Christianity, which can be found on the Gospel Coalition’s article titled I Reject Christianity Because _______________.

The previous installments in this series can be found here:

Part I

Part II 

Part III

In the present entry, I will examine Anderson’s reaction to the fourth common objection raised in the Gospel Coalition’s article.

Jason Lisle on Axioms

The topic of axioms was raised in Jason Lisle’s comment exchange with Tony and other visitors over on Lisle’s blog It’s not “Human Reason vs. God’s Word”!. Coming to this discussion from the perspective of a worldview which provides no “epistemologically self-conscious” understanding of axioms, Lisle is clearly unprepared to interact with this area of inquiry with any credibility. Instead of raising important issues that need to be addressed or even showing a willingness to learn from his interlocutors, Lisle can be seen flailing his arms around groping for anything that might stick in the heat of debate. Clearly his only ambition is to protect his god-belief. What does he want to protect it from? That’s obvious, he wants to protect it from reason.

Before getting started, I want to point readers to several posts on the topic of axioms that are available for readers to peruse on my blog:

The Axioms and the Primacy of Existence 

RazorsKiss on the Christian God as the Basis of Knowledge – Part 2: RK’s Axioms 

A Reply to Matthias on Philosophical Starting Points

I have also written about the validity of the senses, another topic that comes up in these exchanges, in the following:

On the Validity of the Senses 

Answering Jason Lisle on the Reliability of the Senses

I will not address everything stated in the comments of Lisle’s blog (there are 1,180 comments!), but will instead focus primarily on some of Lisle’s questions and statements about axioms that can be found on page 3 of his comments pages.

On Romans 1:20-21

In a comment on his blog DR. GREG BAHNSEN: ATHEISTS ARE UNABLE TO ANSWER THE TOUGH QUESTIONS OF PHILOSOPHY, Christian apologist Charles Jackson claims that “God says that all know Him” and cites Romans 1:21, which states: “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”

By saying that “God” says this, Jackson is mischaracterizing the record that we have in Romans 1. The Epistle to the Romans was written by one or more human beings. (It is commonly assumed that it was written by the apostle Paul, but how can we really know this today?) Thus it is not true that “God says that all know Him,” rather it is the case that the guy who wrote Romans 1:21 is the one making the claim that we all know this god.

Is Jason Lisle Epistemologically Self-Conscious?

Last September, astrophysicist and Christian apologist Jason Lisle posted an entry on his blog titled Are You Epistemologically Self-Conscious? In it he seeks to defend the claim that “Christian epistemology makes knowledge possible.”

Let us take a look at what he says there and see just how “epistemologically self-conscious” Jason Lisle himself is.

A Reply to Matthias on Subjectivism and the Believer

This is the sixth and final installment in my interaction with a comment which Matthias McMahon of Choosing Hats posted on my blog Confessions of a Vantillian Subjectivist. In this entry, I explore the question of how subjectivism may express itself in the believer’s worldview affirmations. My original blog entry explains how subjectivism in metaphysics is indispensable to the Christian worldview: it affirms the existence of a conscious subject which creates its own objects, zaps physical things into being, alters their identity, controls their actions, etc., all by an act of will. Thus in terms of the subject-object relationship according to such teachings, the subject of consciousness holds metaphysical primacy over its objects. In previous interactions with Matthias’ comment in this series of blog entries, I have explored this matter further and cited additional evidence to confirm this observation of Christian metaphysics.

Of course, subjectivism in metaphysics leads to subjectivism in epistemology. Man’s knowledge needs a source of inputs informing it. How does he acquire these inputs? The objective approach is the epistemological model by which man looks outward at the facts of reality which exist and are what they are independent of his conscious activity. The task of consciousness in this case is to perceive, identify and integrate the facts he discovers by looking outward. This approach is called objective because it rests explicitly on and is guided by the recognition that the objects of consciousness exist and are what they are independent of conscious activity. In terms of the subject-object relationship, then, the objects of consciousness hold metaphysical primacy.

But, as has been indicated so far, and as we shall see confirmed below, the believer does not acquire input for his god-beliefs by looking outward at the world. When we look outward at the world, we do not find any gods or consciousnesses which can zap physical things into existence or alter the identity of objects by an act of will. On the contrary, to find these things, the believer must look inward, consulting the contents of his imagination, his preferences, his wishing, his emotions, etc., and calling it “revelation.” In such a way we find that subjectivism in metaphysics necessitates subjectivism in epistemology.

Below I will explore how subjectivism can manifest itself in the believer’s worldview claims, survey various expressions of subjectivism, and highlight examples from the Christian bible which both model and encourage subjectivism in the believer’s own interaction with reality.