Bahnsen on "Knowing the Supernatural" Part 12: "Logical Positivism"

Continued from Part 11.

"Logical Positivism"

We have seen repeatedly throughout my analysis of Bahnsen’s “Problem of Knowing the ‘Super-Natural’,” that he evades every opportunity to identify the means by which one might acquire awareness of what he calls “supernatural,” and any methodology for acquiring and validating knowledge from sources which allegedly exist beyond the reach of man’s senses. To enable this grand evasion, Bahnsen trains his sights on a soft target: the philosophy of Logical Positivism.

Logical Positivism is sort of a halfway house for those who do not understand why faith and reason, religion and science, mysticism and rationality are fundamentally opposed and, frightened by their own pragmatist shadows, retreated to a religious stunt-double under the guise of saving science. The Logical Positivists in part rejected all talk of metaphysics because it had been taken over by mystics and witch doctors. Consequently, having bought into the idea that this was a necessary association, the Logical Positivists threw the baby out along with the bath water. Not unlike Bahnsen himself, the Logical Positivists did not understand the relationship between the perceptual and the conceptual, thus supposing they were mutually opposed and irreconcilable, pointing to mystical models as evidence of the problem. So just as Kant "found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith," the Logical Positivists found it necessary to sacrifice fundamental philosophical principles in order to save science. But of course, this just undercuts any effort they make to protect science.

Unwittingly, this makes them an easy target for those who are desperate for even the cheapest momentary psychological validation. Enter now Greg Bahnsen:

The Logical Positivists intensified Kant's criticism. For them metaphysical claims were not simply empty definitions without significance (without existential referents), they were quite literally meaningless. Because metaphysical claims could not be brought to the critical test of sense experience, they were concluded to be senseless. (Always Ready, p. 184)

Bahnsen focuses on Logical Positivism’s rejection of supernaturalism because they reject any metaphysical position (apparently even one which would support their own epistemological defenses of science). So Bahnsen misses the point of Logical Positivism's own weaknesses: according to Logical Positivism, supernaturalism is meaningless – not because it violates principles of rationality (even though it does) – but because any generalized assessment of reality is ultimately meaningless. This was more or less the result of the attitude which the Logical Positivists adopted:

[S]uch concepts as metaphysics or existence or reality or thing or matter or mind are meaningless – let the mystics care whether they exist or not, a scientist does not have to know it; the task of theoretical science is the manipulation of symbols, and scientists are the special elite whose symbols have the magic power of making reality conform to their will. (For the New Intellectual, p. 34)

In this way, Logical Positivism represents yet another variant of the mysticism which its adherents were purportedly rejecting, since in the end it too reduces to the primacy of consciousness, the foundation of any form of mysticism. Is it any surprise that Bahnsen's response to Logical Positivism does not consist in correcting its charge of meaninglessness by demonstrating the meaningfulness of supernaturalism?

What the Logical Positivists intensified was the concrete-boundness of British empiricism, that is: sense-perception without recourse to concepts. In this respect, Logical Positivism and Bahnsen’s presuppositionalism are kissing cousins in that they both impale themselves on the same jagged point: the lack of an objective theory of concepts, and consequently no understood connection between perception and knowledge. So focusing on the Logical Positivists is not going to be very productive if Bahnsen’s goal is to rebut positions opposed to taking belief in "the supernatural" seriously. The weaknesses of Logical Positivism offer presuppositionalism an opportune occasion to come out appearing victorious.

In spite of Bahnsen’s polemics, one should be able to isolate a common theme in criticism of supernaturalism, even if it is only hinted at in the counter-positions which Bahnsen attacks: an absence of credulity in supernaturalism due to absence of any epistemological support for it. At this point, one would think that, if Bahnsen could correct the record by identifying in positive terms the means and methods by which one could acquire awareness of “the supernatural,” objectively inform supernaturalist terminology and claims with meaning that logically connects to something that can be verified as real, and distinguish the content of those claims from mere imagination, he would produce such a contraption. But he continually fails to come through on this. Instead, he allows his belief in supernaturalism to remain unsupported, shivering in the stark and barren wasteland of isolated nonsense, and chooses to attack naysayers for simply being persistent spoilsports, comforted by the fact that the opposing models which he does examine are self-defeating and thus non-threatening.

Bahnsen goes on, saying:

So then, opponents of metaphysics (and thereby of the theology of the Bible) view metaphysical reasoning as conflicting with empirical science as the one and only way to acquire knowledge. (Always Ready, p. 184)

Bahnsen would have made a terrible poker player as he was so transparent when attempting a bluff. If it were not so obvious that he has been package-dealing supernaturalism with metaphysics up to this point, there should be no question now, given his own parenthetical clarification. For the record, I am not an “opponent of metaphysics” (my own worldview has a branch devoted to metaphysics) and I would not say that (what I mean by) “metaphysical reasoning” is “conflicting with empirical science,” for my worldview’s metaphysical principles do not contradict the reality in which I exist, nor are they based on the fake environment of supernaturalism, biblical or otherwise. Hence it is important to clarify what Bahnsen really means when he uses the words “metaphysics” and “metaphysical” in such instances; he really means “supernatural” since he makes clear that what he has in mind is associated with what the bible teaches. We’ve seen this over and over throughout Bahnsen’s chapter on “Knowing the ‘Super-Natural’.”

So we should restate Bahnsen’s statement to what he’s really trying to say:

So then, opponents of supernaturalism (and thereby of the theology of the Bible) view supernatural reasoning as conflicting with empirical science as the one and only way to acquire knowledge.

The meaningfulness of this version is much clearer as it does not need to be dug out from underneath a haze of package-deals. And here is something we can agree with: someone who is seeking to “reason” from premises which take supernaturalism (such as that of the bible) seriously, will quickly expose his position’s enmity with the empirical sciences, and this is because supernaturalism contradicts the principle of objectivity. The rational physicist will simply laugh at the supernaturalistic idea that men can walk on unfrozen water (cf. Mk. 6:48-50), especially if for “authority” the supernaturalist points to a storybook; the viniculturalist will laugh at the supernaturalistic idea that water can be wished into wine (cf. John 2:2-11); the biologist will simply laugh at the idea that a man will rise from the dead three (or really only two) days after dying, or that corpses will reanimate themselves and crawl out of their graves as described in Mt. 27, etc. No, laughing is not an argument, but the arbitrary does not deserve counter-arguments. Such reactions can be expected; should we really be surprised when someone scoffs at the arbitrary? If we are, perhaps there’s something wrong. But often there is something wrong, for many in science today still have not recovered from the intellectual destruction of either Christianity or Logical Positivism.

Many popular philosophies leave the human mind vulnerable to the mystics’ attacks often because they inherit or unwittingly borrow from mystics’ premises. The presuppositionalist claim that many non-Christians have borrowed from Christianity is sometimes more accurate than apologists realize; the communism of the Soviets is a case in point. Irrationalism comes in many flavors, many of them only apparently opposed to religion. In fact, however, many non-theistic worldviews are merely secularized variants of overtly mystical worldviews. This is one reason why it is so important to understand our need for an objective starting point. If we begin by accepting any of the mystics’ false assumptions about reality, only a variant of the mystics’ irrationality can result.

But all of this underscores an insidious double standard on the theist’s part. If scientists are expected to take one set of primitive folklore seriously, to be consistent, they should not dismiss any claim, no matter how outlandish. Biblicists will mind if their biblical doctrines are dismissed out of hand, but they won’t mind if the animists’ doctrines are dismissed out of hand. Similarly, Vedists will get upset if their sacred Vedic passages are dismissed by scientists out of hand just as biblicists will. But so what? The discriminating scientist will always be open to the charge of “bias!” from the backers of any arbitrary worldview. But the tender emotions of those who feel slighted should not concern him.

Bahnsen posits an antithesis between the scientist and "the metaphysician" as follows:

Whereas the scientist arrives at contingent truths about the way things appear to our senses, the metaphysician aims at absolute or necessary truths about the reality which somehow lies behind those appearances. (Always Ready, p. 184)

There is in fact a fundamental antithesis between the scientist on the one hand, and someone espousing a supernaturalistic worldview like Christianity on the other. But it's not as Bahnsen characterizes it here. The scientist’s enterprise is reality-bound; his goals, methods and procedures are developed and conducted in concert with the fact that there is a fundamental distinction between fact and fantasy. The religionist, on the other hand, is willing to ignore this fundamental distinction, for the overt teachings of his worldview expressly require that fact and fantasy be blurred into an indiscriminate whole, thus resulting in a fatal compromise to truthful understanding.The scientist studies actual things using an objective process (the scientific method) to discover specific truths about those actual things, truths which he recognizes as obtaining independent of anyone’s wishes, preferences, or commandments. And while he may draw general conclusions from specific samples, these conclusions do not go beyond the universe to indicate a supernatural consciousness controlling everything. There is no reason why the scientist should not be able to conduct his research and validate his findings in keeping with the primacy of existence. In fact, it is only by adhering to the primacy of existence would his results be of any value in the first place.

By contrast, if Bahnsen’s “metaphysician" is ultimately guided by the primacy of consciousness, he will of course find a way to rationalize his imagination that a conscious force is what "somehow lies behind those appearances." He then declares that his imagination consists of "absolute or necessary truths" which, as a member counting himself among "the chosen," he "knows" by "revelation." Contrary to the scientist, the supernaturalist in this case does not draw conclusions about "the supernatural" from inputs he gathers from reality using an objective method. Instead, he is guided by a storybook whose oral lore, mythical allegories, poetic indulgences and mystical teachings serve as substitutes for objective inputs.

But the antithesis between the scientific approach to the world and the religious approach, as Bahnsen would characterize it, leads to what he will call “the anti-metaphysical polemic,” when in actuality an informed scientist would not at all reject an objective metaphysics – i.e., one which is not willing to relent on the fact that there is a fundamental distinction between fact and fantasy – but would recognize the fundamental importance of such metaphysical underpinnings to the integrity of his vocation. On Bahnsen’s premises (in which the distinction between fact and fantasy is fundamentally blurred):

A gulf is posited between the truths of empirical fact (arrived at on the basis of information from the senses) and truths of speculative reason (which could only be arbitrary verbal conventions or organizing concepts that are inapplicable outside the sphere of experience). (Always Ready, pp. 184-185)

If what is taken as "truths of speculative reason" are in fact "arbitrary verbal conventions," then of course we would posit that a "gulf" exists between them and facts that are discovered on an empirical basis. But there is no good reason to suppose that speculation (i.e., groping guesses, frantic hunch-making, stabs in the dark, etc.) is the only alternative to “empirical fact” (i.e., facts that are perceived directly), or that empirical fact and speculation are inherently partnered, as if the one lead naturally to the other. Reason is not a stab in the dark consisting of “arbitrary verbal conventions.” In fact, concepts allow the human mind to expand its awareness beyond the immediate perceptual level while preserving the integrity of fundamental truths that are discovered on the basis of firsthand discriminated awareness and performatively reaffirmed in every act of awareness (such as the fact that there is a fundamental distinction between fact and fantasy, that wishing does not make it so, etc.).

By characterizing reason as “speculative,” however, Bahnsen shows how willing he is to poison the well in order to salvage his supernaturalism. Who wants to rely on a method which is at best “speculative”? This only tells us what Bahnsen thinks of reason, and by extension the human mind, if he thinks reason is inherently speculative. At the very least, it tells us that he does not have a principled understanding of reason, and this is likely due to his worldview being clouded by a commitment to affirming the contents of a storybook as “divine revelation.” This should not surprise us, for his apologetic is not aimed at increasing man’s understanding of the world and his own mind, but at leaving him helpless and defenseless against the mysticism which his worldview is bent on promulgating.

Bahnsen thus presents “the anti-metaphysical polemic” as he understands it:

In that case, according to modern dogma, all meaningful and informative statements about the world were judged to be empirical in nature. The case against metaphysical claims, then, can be summarized in this fashion:

1. there cannot be a non-empirical source of knowledge or information about reality, and
2. it is illegitimate to draw inferences from what is experienced by the senses to what must lie outside of experience.

In short, we can only know as factually significant what we can experience directly with our senses - which nullifies the meaningfulness of metaphysical claims and the possibility of metaphysical knowledge. (Always Ready, p. 185)

Again, by "metaphysical claims," I understand Bahnsen actually means claims of a "supernatural" character. It should be clear that the two affirmations which Bahnsen lists here in no way encapsulate the criticism of supernaturalism that I have put forth. I have not stipulated that "there cannot be a non-empirical source of knowledge or information about reality," and I certainly do not hold that "it is illegitimate to draw inferences from what is experienced by the senses to what must lie outside of experience." Rather, my approach has been to a) isolate what Bahnsen means by "supernatural," b) probe Bahnsen's case for any indication of how we might distinguish what he calls "supernatural" from what he may merely be imagining; c) ask how one can have awareness of what Bahnsen calls "supernatural" (if not by perception, then how?); d) can claims about "the supernatural" being real be reconciled with the primacy of existence metaphysics (i.e., the foundation of truth), etc. Specifically, my interest is in discovering what Bahnsen's case for "the supernatural" may be.In regards to the first statement that Bahnsen formulates to represent the case against supernaturalism as he understands it, a couple points can be made that are somewhat sympathetic to the epistemological concern it raises.

We must bear in mind that knowledge is not something we have automatically, nor is it produced automatically. We need to act in order to acquire and validate knowledge, just as we need to act in order to achieve any goal. Our theory of knowledge needs to be consistent with the nature of our consciousness, for ignoring the nature of our consciousness will only undercut any theory of knowledge we attempt to establish on such ignorance. And it is a fact that we have senses and that we perceive objects because of the senses we possess. It is by means of sense-perception that we are aware of things distinct from our consciousness, and without awareness of something distinct from our consciousness, it has no content by which it can be identified as being conscious to begin with. “A consciousness conscious of nothing but itself is a contradiction in terms: before it could identify itself as consciousness, it had to be conscious of something.” (For the New Intellectual, p. 124) It is undeniable that our awareness of reality begins at the perceptual level, and in this sense the statement that “there cannot be a non-empirical source of knowledge or information about reality” is in fact true.The question which Bahnsen should be asking, but doesn't, is: What is the relationship between perception and knowledge? On the presuppositional (indeed the Christian) model, this is relationship never clear, most likely because it would not be religiously expedient to have a principled understanding of this relationship. In fact, it is the failure to understand the relationship between perception and knowledge that presuppositionalism as an apologetic method seeks to exploit in unwitting non-believers. But from what Bahnsen does say, it is clear enough what he thinks: knowledge of reality does not depend on perception. His followers might qualify this to say that "theological knowledge" (or knowledge of "the supernatural") does not depend on or reduce to perception. And if so-called "theological knowledge" is ultimately informed by the imagination, this would certainly be the case.

But is it really the case that metaphysical knowledge - that is, knowledge of the nature of reality - is not dependent or related to perception? To claim this, it may either be that a) what is claimed as "metaphysical knowledge" is not actually knowledge, or b) the relationship between knowledge and perception is simply not understood, and thus supposed not to be of any epistemological importance. In the case of religious belief and the presuppositional defense of it, both components play an important role.

In upcoming installments we will examine Bahnsen’s interaction with the premises of “the anti-metaphysical polemic” that he listed above. For now, however, let us propose the following alternatives those premises:

1. there cannot be a non-objective source of knowledge or information about reality, and
2. it is illegitimate to draw inferences from what is experienced by the senses to what contradicts experience.

Would Bahnsen object to either of these premises if they imperiled his beloved supernaturalism? Would he be willing to contend for a non-objective source of knowledge about reality in order to save his theism? Would he endorse a worldview which draws inferences from what is experienced by the senses to what contradicts that experience? I suspect that Bahnsen would in the end need to take issue with these premises, given his commitment to Christian theism.

In regard to (1), guarding our knowledge against incursions from any non-objective source of knowledge would prevent subjectivity from creeping into our worldview. At minimum, this would take care of any view which reduces to the primacy of consciousness (such as the notion that reality was created by consciousness and conforms to the dictates of a consciousness). It would also checkmate the desire to manufacture one’s worldview on the basis of the content of a storybook, especially if the content of that storybook affirmed views which reduce to the primacy of consciousness (such as is the case with the Christian bible). The principle of objectivity in fact serves as a fire-wall protecting the human mind against any variant of mysticism. This principle equips the human mind with what it needs to distinguish between fact and fiction, reality and imagination, knowledge and fabrication.

Moreover, recognizing that it is illegitimate to draw inferences from what we experience firsthand by means of sense-perception to conclusions which contradict what we experience, would equip the discriminating mind with the ability to filter out many arbitrary claims at the outset, thus allowing a thinker to devote his attention to things that are of actual value to his life. For instance, if he reads that dead corpses which had been buried in graves suddenly reanimated and rose out of those graves (cf. Matt. 27:52-53), he would – armed with the principle described in (2) above – recognize that this is fiction and entertainment, for his experience consistently indicates that the dead remain dead, and corpses do not reanimate in their graves and rise out of them.

The Christian worldview, however, stands on an explicit rejection of such principles. It cannot survive for a moment on principles which explicitly exclude the contaminants of subjectivism and contradiction. It can only get away with rejection of such principles by deceptively obscuring the nature of the human mind and reducing it to a subhuman level – to the level of a terrified stock animal that is “always ready” for slaughter, “always ready” to prostrate itself, not in order to live, but in order not to die.

by Dawson Bethrick

Bahnsen on "Knowing the Supernatural" Part 11: "The Case Against Metaphysics"

Continued from Part 10.

"The Case Against Metaphysics"

What is the case against supernaturalism? Bahnsen wants to know. But before addressing this question, we need to ask: What is the case for supernaturalism? Bahnsen has been hailed as one of the most talented and formidable of Christian apologists, but what case has he presented in favor of supernaturalism? He has presented no case at all. He claims that there is a realm "beyond the physical realm," a realm allegedly populated by beings which "surpass the limits of nature," a realm which lies, not merely beyond the reach of man's senses (for telescopes and microscopes prove that we are able to expand the reach of our senses, and it is doubtful that Bahnsen would admit that looking through a high-powered telescope will one day give us a glance of a supernatural being), but beyond any ability we will ever have to perceive. However, Bahnsen identifies no alternative means by which we could have awareness of what he calls "the supernatural." So if Bahnsen claims to have awareness of "the supernatural," by what means does he have it, and why doesn't he tell us? If he does not claim to have awareness of "the supernatural," then what is he talking about, and how can we know? Blank out. Furthermore, because human consciousness has its limits and because the human mind can imagine things that "surpass" those limits, men will always be able to claim that some thing (which they imagine) exists beyond our ability to perceive. But Bahnsen provides no indication of how we can discriminate between what he calls "the supernatural" and what he may in fact only be imagining. These concerns hang like a dark shadow over every point that Bahnsen has sought to raise in his apologetic, and yet he ignores them throughout.

Sadly, those who accept supernatural claims do so on the say so of those who author or reiterate those claims, not on the basis of any objective evidence that impartial parties can discover and verify for themselves (hence presuppositionalism's disdain for so-called "autonomous reasoning"). And those who demand unearned authority in such manner already show their willingness to abuse the trust of their followers, taking such trust as license to make the story up as they go (for their followers show that they will believe anything on their leaders' say so). As we already know, men have five senses. It would literally be as easy as child's play to claim that there exists something which could only be perceived if we had the appropriate sixth sense, which is never named and which we lack anyway. If we had 200 sense modalities, one could always come along and assert the existence of something we'd need a 201st sense modality to perceive. But how did the one making these claims perceive it in the first place if he lacks that crucial 201st sense modality? Again, blank out. We will never be able to perceive what men imagine, because the imaginary is not real, and something needs to be real in order to be perceived by impartial witnesses. But such facts do not cause Bahnsen to pause and consider. He steamrolls right over them as he races towards a cliff.

So Bahnsen not only fails to address these concerns, he does not show that he is even prepared to consider them, perhaps because he never was concerned about them himself. And no doubt, he most likely did not want his readers to be concerned about such issues either, so he would be motivated to suppress them even if they did occur to him in the privacy of his own thoughts. Let's face it, most readers of Bahnsen's apologetics books would be looking to strengthen their faith - i.e., to quell doubts rather than invite them. So the first thing we can say here is that Bahnsen does not present a case for the supernatural. If "the supernatural" is given no positive case on its behalf by its own defenders, why would opponents need to assemble any case against it? If there is nothing to recommend a position, why would we need to bother refuting it? So long as Bahnsen fails to identify any means by which we can acquire awareness of "the supernatural" (he only tells us how we do not have awareness of it), and so long as he fails to produce a serious, objective method by which we can distinguish what he calls "the supernatural" and what he is merely imagining, then he has failed to produce even the rudimentary beginnings of a case for the supernatural.

What else can we say? We can also point out that supernaturalism cannot survive on a proper metaphysics. It is clear that supernaturalism assumes the primacy of consciousness metaphysics, for it affirms the existence of a supernatural consciousness which holds metaphysical primacy over any object distinct from itself. But even to say that such a consciousness exists, we implicitly make use of the opposite principle, namely that the objects of consciousness exist independent of consciousness: they are what they are regardless of what we know, think or imagine about them. Otherwise the proponent of supernaturalism claims that the supernatural consciousness of his imagination exists essentially because he wants it to. And any honest adult should be able to recognize without a lot of deliberation that wishing does not make it so. Already we can see that an insurmountable case against supernaturalism is at our disposal.

In spite of these points, which seem to have eluded Bahnsen’s finely tuned intellectual powers of brilliance and precision, the master apologist nonetheless sought to take on “the case against [the supernatural],” at least, whichever “case” is most easily defused. When confronting non-religious philosophers, Bahnsen prefers to go up against the lightweights, perhaps because they were the only ones he bothered to read:

The most common philosophical reason advanced by unbelievers, from Kant to the Logical Positivists of our century, for antagonism to metaphysical claims is quite simply the allegation that "pure reason" apart from sense experience cannot itself provide us with factual knowledge. Metaphysical statements speak of a suprasensible reality which is not directly experienced or verified by natural science; it might be said quite baldly, then, that metaphysics is a kind of "news from nowhere." Those antagonistic to metaphysics argue that all informative or factual statements about the objective world must be derived empirically (based on experience, observation, sensation), and therefore human knowledge cannot transcend particular, physical experience or the appearance of the senses. (Always Ready, p. 184)

Bahnsen acknowledges that a common criticism of supernaturalism is the lack of an epistemological methodology which can take us from what we do know in the “here and now” (i.e., by reference to the evidence of the senses) to the “suprasensible reality” that Bahnsen claims to know about. We will find below that his response to this type of objection is to remove such knowledge claims from the field of epistemology altogether, which is a most fatal move if there ever were one. It is pointed out that we do not perceive such a phenomenon, but the response to this is that we should not expect to perceive it and accept claims about in spite of our inability to perceive it. Bahnsen does not seem to be claiming that he possesses a mode of perception beyond the five that we know human beings to possess. That is a wise move, but it garners him no points. Regardless, as pointed out above, even if man possessed 150 sense modalities, what would keep the Bahnsens of the world from claiming the existence of something which could only be perceived if we had a 151st sense modality, which, it is acknowledged, we lack? Then as now, we would be told not to expect to perceive whatever it is that we could not perceive, but that it is there nonetheless. At any rate, Bahnsen is well aware that a major concern is how one could “know” what it is he and other religionists are talking about when they speak of “the supernatural,” and yet what does he provide to answer this concern? Does he identify the means by which he is (allegedly) aware of what he calls “the supernatural”? No, he does not. Instead, he seeks to undermine reliance on the sense modalities that we do have, pronouncing them tainted or even inadequate to begin with. But nowhere does he identify any kind of alternative, and nowhere does he prove the existence of what he calls “supernatural.” Again, he provides no positive case for “the supernatural.”

So again, when Bahnsen affirms the existence of “a suprasensible reality which is not directly experienced or verified by natural science,” he merely identifies the means by which we do not know “the supernatural,” but he resists indicating the means by which one could know “the supernatural.” It is, as he confesses, “a kind of ‘news from nowhere’,” only it’s not news at all. He gives us nothing by which we could distinguish this “[good] news” from fantasy and fiction. That is because it is fantasy and fiction. If there’s a difference between fact and fiction, then Bahnsen and other advocates of “the supernatural” need to explain how we can acquire knowledge of what they call “the supernatural” and distinguish it from mere imagination. One does not even need explicitly to “argue that all informative or factual statements about the objective world must be derived empirically (based on experience, observation, sensation)” in order to recognize a difference between fact and fiction. But if one does make the claim that “informative and factual statements about the objective world” can be informed without content originally gathered from the world by “experience, observation, sensation,” he needs to identify an alternative to these. What alternative does Bahnsen identify? That’s just the problem: he identifies no alternative.

Consider:

According to Kant, metaphysical discussions trade in purely verbal definitions and their logical implications; hence they are arbitrary, suspended in the sky, and result in irresolvable disagreements. Metaphysical statements have no real significance. By nature, human knowledge is dependent on the senses, and thus reasoning can never take one to conclusions that apply outside the empirical realm. (Always Ready, p. 184)

The notion of “conclusions that apply outside the empirical realm” is a rather vague way to identify something one wants to defend. It identifies a contrast, but it does not necessarily imply objectivity. As I have pointed out several times already, anyone can imagine something that exists “outside the empirical realm.” But imagination is not an objective means of knowledge. Apologists will have to do better than this if they want their religious views taken seriously by rational thinkers.

by Dawson Bethrick

Bahnsen on "Knowing the Supernatural" Part 10: "Pure Motives?"

Continued from Part 9.

"Pure Motives?"

Bahnsen wants to suppose there’s something more than intellectual behind anyone’s rejection of something he cannot distinguish from imaginative fantasy. He writes:

It would be profitable to pause and reflect upon an insightful comment by a recent writer in the area of philosophical metaphysics. W. H. Walsh has written, "It must be allowed that the reaction against [metaphysics – i.e., supernaturalism] has been ... so violent indeed as to suggest that the issues involved in the controversy must be something more than academic." (Always Ready, p. 182)

To appreciate the context of Walsh’s quote, it would be interesting to see some examples of what he considers “violent” reactions. Are they merely words on a page that believers in the supernatural find disturbing (some believers have shown themselves to be quite insecure, in fact), or are they actually riotous actions causing harm and destruction to life and limb? Would these theists consider my point-by-point examination of Bahnsen’s attempts to defend supernaturalism “violent” in some way?

And what about theist’s reactions to “anti-supernaturalism”? Is it not also vehement and full of indignation that they, too, can likewise be called “violent,” even if they do not result in the turning over of vehicles on the street and the burning down of houses? If the “violence” of the reactions that Walsh and Bahnsen has in mind turns out to be nothing more than, say, petty name-calling and insulting language, well, it seems that Bahnsen is prone to some “violence” of his own. As we have already seen, on pg. 56 of Always Ready, Bahnsen calls people who do not believe in his invisible magic being “dull, stubborn, boorish, obstinate and stupid.” Are we to suppose that there is something more than intellectual to the believer’s faith commitments when merely the existence of non-believers prompts him to contemptuous derision like this? If not, why not?

Of course, Bahnsen is all too happy to agree with Walsh:

Precisely. The issues are indeed more than academic. They are a matter of life and death - eternal life and death. (Always Ready, p. 182)

That must be it: non-believers must have some kind of death wish. That explains why they reject the supernatural and other irrational ideas. They deny religion because they secretly want to suffer the fate of religion’s non-believers. It could not be that they simply don’t believe what religion teaches, or in fact understand why religion is irrational. They want eternal torment. That is what Bahnsen apparently would have his readers believe. If they believe Christianity’s myths and legends, it is quite possible that they’ll believe Bahnsen’s apologetic hazing as well.

Bahnsen appeals to the bible to buttress his suspicions:

Christ said, "And this is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send" (John 17:3). However, if the unbeliever can stand on the claim that such a God cannot be known because nothing transcending the physical (nothing "metaphysical") can be known, then the issue of eternal destiny is not raised. (Always Ready, pp. 182-183)

As should be clear by now, we do not have to “stand on the claim that such a God cannot be known because nothing transcending the physical (nothing ‘metaphysical’) can be known.” Rather, we can stand on the truth of the axioms and the primacy of existence, truths which the religious believer himself must assume while denying, in order to expose religion’s commitment to irrationality. So long as one realizes that there is a fundamental distinction between reality and imagination, and religious defenders cannot provide an objective method by which one can distinguish between what they claim and what they may merely be imagining, then rejecting religious teachings is merely being intellectually responsible.

Bahnsen then identifies what he finds most worrisome:

Accordingly, men may think and do as they please, without distracting questions about their nature and destiny. (Always Ready, p. 183)

Why would it bother Bahnsen or anyone else if other “men may think and do as they please”? The thought that “men may think and do as they please” really bothered Jim Jones, too.

Why is it that religious leaders so often find intellectual liberty objectionable? Is it because intellectual liberty threatens their leadership, livelihood, or the perks of their station? Bahnsen claims that “every believer wants to see the truth of Christ believed and honored by others.” (Always Ready, p. 115) My initial thought on reading this was, “Does Christ want this, too?” If Christ is omnipotent and able to change non-believers into believers (as is supposedly the case with Christians themselves, according to Bahnsen’s type of Reformed Theology), then whatever is the case now must be what Christ wants to be the case now. After all, according to Bahnsen’s mentor Van Til, “God controls whatsoever comes to pass” (The Defense of the Faith, p. 160). Indeed, if Jesus can make a visiting appearance before Saul of Tarsus as he was on his way to persecute Christians, that same Jesus should be able to appear before anyone whose heart needs to be changed. If Jesus doesn’t do this, well, that is not the non-believer’s fault.

And what of those who do not consider “questions about their nature and destiny” to be “distracting,” even though they do not believe in any invisible magic beings? What of those who are pleased to contemplate such questions? Personally speaking, I enjoy contemplating such questions. But I still observe the distinction between the real and the imaginary, and this is what earns me the religionists’ contempt.

Then Bahnsen projects what worries him onto everyone else:

Men will, as it were, build a roof over their heads in hopes of keeping out any distressing revelation from a transcendent God. The anti-metaphysical perspective of the modern age functions as just such a protective ideological roof for the unbeliever. (Always Ready, p. 183)

An old polemical tactic is to broad-brush one’s accusations at large without naming specific culprits or citing evidence to substantiate the charge being made. Here Bahnsen shows that he is familiar with this tactic. Does Bahnsen identify those who allegedly “build a roof over their heads in hopes of keeping out any distressing revelation from a transcendent God”? No, he does not identify any particular individual who does this. Presumably Bahnsen has in mind anyone who disputes the existence of his god. Does he produce any evidence to substantiate his charge that those anonymous persons “build a roof over their heads” to keep out the Christian god? No, he doesn’t. All he provides is a quote from Nietzsche, but that didn’t prove anything but the fact that Bahnsen had to dig a quote out of a source that is some 100 or so years old to find an instance of a non-Christian apparently providing a case in point (when in fact it didn’t).

Worshippers of Geusha, the supreme being of the Lahu tribe, could play the same game. They could quite easily say that men seek to “build a roof over their heads in hopes of keeping out any distressing revelation from” Geusha. And on their Geusha-centric “presuppositions,” this would of course “make sense.” But is it an argument? No, it is not.

What’s noteworthy in either case, is the fact that there would be no need to “build a roof over” one’s head to begin with. Bahnsen betrays the very irrational fear that the bible seeks to inculcate in its readers, a fear which Bahnsen bought into and projected on everyone else.

Bahnsen was no doubt emotionally taken captive by passages such as Luke 12:5, which states:

Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell.

Of course, if one grants the whole bag of assumptions that the bible uses to entice fish into its nets, such passages will of course be very compelling psychologically. But that’s just the point: why grant the basic claims of the Christian worldview to begin with? This just brings us back to the original issue of “the problem of knowing the ‘super-natural’,” which Bahnsen leaves unattended in characteristic manner.

Indeed, what we have here is a classic case of projection: Bahnsen fears “the supernatural” because he thinks it is something both real and beyond his comprehension (and yet he insists that we accept it as “knowledge” and postures as a spokesman for its wishes and pronouncements). He wants protection from supernatural wrath, so as a matter of course he supposes everyone else does, too. Indeed, if one thought there were an angry supernatural deity in the first place, who wouldn’t want to take cover? Bahnsen takes cover in his feigned piety, by pretending to be a know-it-all when it comes to “the supernatural” (however, do not ask him how one can have awareness of “the supernatural” or distinguish what he calls “the supernatural” from his vain imaginations). Bahnsen simply projects his own irrationality onto everyone else, supposing all human beings are just as frightened and dishonest as he is. The choice to be dishonest “accounts for” the persisting and insistent delusions of the theist.

In spite of the deception that shines through the faded patina of Bahnsen’s feigned piety, he brings the discussion back to the topic at hand:

The fact is that one cannot avoid metaphysical commitments. The very denial of the possibility of knowledge transcending experience is in itself a metaphysical judgment. Thus the question is not whether one should have metaphysical beliefs, but it comes down to the question of which kind of metaphysic one should affirm. (Always Ready, p. 183)

I would agree that “one cannot avoid metaphysical commitments,” so long as “metaphysical” neither equates nor implies “the supernatural.” I certainly do not think it is the case that “one cannot avoid supernatural commitments.” I am living proof of this. As for considering “the possibility of knowledge transcending experience,” this not only depends on one’s metaphysical view, but also on what assumptions are packed into the notion of “knowledge transcending experience.” It is not clear what Bahnsen means by this expression, for he nowhere makes it explicitly clear. If he means knowledge that is implicitly available as a result of conceptual integration or inductive generalizations based on objective models, then yes, such knowledge is in fact possible. But if by “knowledge transcending experience” Bahnsen means to denote some ideational content that is ultimately fictitious or based on imagination (even if it is not admitted as such), then I would say it is wrong to call such content “knowledge.” ‘Fantasy’ is the appropriate concept to denote this.

And yes, if it is the case that “the question is not whether one should have metaphysical beliefs” – because “one cannot avoid metaphysical commitments” – I would add that “it comes down” not only “to the question of which kind of metaphysic one should affirm,” but also how consistently one’s worldview applies that metaphysic. My worldview openly and knowingly affirms the metaphysic of the primacy of existence in the subject-object relationship. And my worldview is consistent with this metaphysic. It is, in fact, an extension of this principle, the essential principle of objectivity, applied to the rest of philosophy. Christianity, as we have seen, affirms a metaphysic which grants primacy to consciousness. Can Bahnsen consistently apply this principle in his operative view of the world? Bahnsen nowhere engages the issue of metaphysical primacy, and yet here he is, talking about metaphysical commitments, judgments and their associated principles. Why does he avoid the issue of the proper relationship between subject and object? Did he not think there is a proper relationship between a subject and its objects? Or, is this something one need not address in his metaphysical views? Or, is it something anyone can be justified in taking for granted without ever understanding what his professed views imply in regards to this relationship? Since Bahnsen remained silent on this issue, we will never know. But one thing’s for sure: we won’t learn about the proper relationship between a subject and its objects from Bahnsen.

Failing to address this issue when he had the opportunity, Bahnsen then sought to turn his guns on those who do not embrace his particular brand of subjectivism, namely Calvinist Christianity:

The apostle Paul teaches us that all unbelievers (including Nietzsche) "suppress the truth in unrighteousness" (Rom. 1:18); they attempt to hide the truth about God from themselves due to their immoral lives. "The carnal mind is enmity against God" (Rom. 8:7) and "minds earthly things" (Phil. 3:18-19). Those who are enemies in their minds due to evil works (Col. 1:21), and are foolish in their reasoning (Rom. 1:21-22; 1 Cor. 1:20), are led in particular to an anti-biblical metaphysic (e.g., "The fool has said in his heart there is no God," Ps. 10:4) - disguised as an anti-metaphysical posture in general. (Always Ready, p. 183-184)

Because he cannot present any epistemology whcih warrants any assertion of "the supernatural," Bahnsen wants to morph the issue into a matter of moral impropriety. He cannot rationally justify belief in the supernatural, but he's still anxious to vent his contempt for the spoilsports.So Bahnsen reiterates the Pauline accusation that non-believers "suppress the truth in unrighteousness," and "attempt to hide the truth about God from themselves due to their immoral lives." These are not light accusations to say the least. Apparently “mind[ing] earthly things” – like one’s own life, the welfare of one’s loved ones, the consequences of one’s choices and actions – is a vice. Note that he echoes these charges even though he nowhere identifies any means by which a human being can acquire awareness of what he calls "the supernatural," or by which we can confidently distinguish between what he calls "the supernatural" and what he may very well be merely imagining. It is common for those who are trying to hide something to redirect attention away from their subterfuge by making accusations against individuals. The goal of such a move is to put others on the defensive, thus enabling evasion. But here Bahnsen does not restrict his accusations to specific individuals. He broad-brushes with very wide strokes, accusing people he does not even know of living "immoral lives." And what's behind the charge that they live "immoral lives"? Merely the fact that they do not believe in Bahnsen's invisible magic beings. And why should they, especially given the fact that Bahnsen does not explain how we could be aware of "supernatural" agents or confidently discriminate them from the believer's imagination? Indeed, Bahnsen fails in this task even when he set its before himself. Can it be that Bahnsen is simply projecting here? Can it be that the immorality that is being swept under the rug is Bahnsen's own dishonesty as he triest to defend a worldview which insists on faking reality? All these sweeping accusations, asserted without any evidence whatsoever, probably made Bahnsen feel good for a moment. By putting the blame on a collective of anonymous persons despised because of their non-belief in his deity, Bahnsen finds momentary relief from his guilt, the guilt that results from enshrining a fake environment and pretending that it is reality while denigrating methods that even he uses on a daily basis.

by Dawson Bethrick

Bahnsen on "Knowing the Supernatural" Part 9: "Suprasensible Reality"

Continued from Part 8.

"Suprasensible Reality"

After sanitizing metaphysics of any dependence on sense experience, Bahnsen rests on the conclusion that “metaphysics eventually studies non-sensuous or suprasensible reality.” When reading this, it is hard to resist interpreting Bahnsen to mean nonsensical reality. After all, he has so far given us no guidance on how to discriminate “the supernatural” from sheer nonsense. Bahnsen wants to say that his god, its magic kingdom and its eternal gulag belong to the category of “suprasensible reality.” Why could not the Lahu tribesman make the same claim about Geusha, the supreme being of their religion? It is easy to see how a child might claim that his imaginary friend exists in a “suprasensible reality,” and thus should not expect its existence to be verifiable by means of empirical tests. If such claims are valid for Bahnsen, why could they not be valid for any claim that, on a rational basis, would appropriately be deemed arbitrary? Again, how do we distinguish between Bahnsen’s “suprasensible reality” and his imagination?

In this section of his chapter on “The Problem of Knowing the ‘Super-Natural’,” Bahnsen tells us of the methods that we should not expect to use in order to validate his supernatural claims, leaving unattended the identification of any reliable method by which one can validate his supernatural claims.

As I mentioned in an earlier installment of this series, we must be on guard for when Bahnsen really means supernaturalism when he uses the word “metaphysics.” Supernaturalism has engulfed metaphysics so completely for Bahnsen that even he is not aware of the perversity of this insidious equivocation. He has sought to hide this by arguing that the “ultimate conceptual framework” that philosophers use to separate the intellectual wheat from the nonsensical chaff is not something we perceive directly. But anyone could have told you this. Indeed, there is a fundamental distinction between the perceptual and the conceptual levels of consciousness. But this distinction in no way invalidates the senses or annuls their epistemological significance, nor does it suggest that “the physical realm” was created by an act of consciousness. In his effort to protect Christianity from the growing “anti-supernatural bias” of modern academics, Bahnsen has swapped metaphysics as a study of being for metaphysics as a study in concealing the subjectivism of one’s worldview. This is accomplished by keeping things vague and ambiguous.

For instance, Bahnsen writes:

In the nature of the case the metaphysician examines issues transcending physical nature or matters removed from particular sense experiences. And yet the results of metaphysics are alleged to give us intelligible and informative statements about reality. That is, metaphysics makes claims which have substantive content, but which are not fully dependent on or restricted to empirical experience (observation, sensation). (Always Ready, pp. 181-182)

Does Bahnsen give an example of what he means by “issues transcending physical nature or matters removed from particular sense experiences”? Do the issues which “transcend physical nature” have anything to do with the reality in which we actually live (as opposed to some imaginary realm)? He wants to say that “the results of metaphysics [so-conceived] are alleged to give us intelligible and informative statements about reality.” But how does this work? If metaphysics is an examination of “matters removed from particular sense experiences,” what informs them? What is their connection to the reality they allegedly describe? Can it be that the issues Bahnsen has in mind are actually the result of abstraction from sense experience, and Bahnsen simply does not know how this process works and thus mistakenly supposes that sense experience has no fundamental role in metaphysics? It does appear that this is the case. He’s all a-swirl in his own ignorance of how the conceptual mind works. How does Bahnsen know that the “substantive content” of (conceptually legitimate) metaphysical claims is “not fully dependent on or restricted to empirical experience (observation, sensation)”? Is it the case that what Bahnsen takes as metaphysical claims which have “substantive content” are actually based on imagination and fabrication rather than on an objective process of identifying reality? If they are based on reality, they need something to connect them to reality, namely a process by which their content is derived from reality. Otherwise, how could we have any confidence in the supposition that the content of those claims has anything to do with reality? What process of validation does Bahnsen propose? He has not identified any means by which we can gain awareness of what he calls “supernatural,” nor has he identified any means by which we can confidently discriminate between what he calls “supernatural” and what he is imagining. Unless Bahnsen can identify a connection between his metaphysical claims (which he presented above) and reality, are we to assume that a connection is there anyway? Who would encourage us to be so intellectually irresponsible and imprudent, and why?

Notice how 'always ready' Bahnsen is to identify those means by which his supernatural claims are not supported:

For that reason the means by which metaphysical [i.e., supernatural] claims are intellectually supported is not limited to natural observation and scientific experimentation. Herein lies the offense of metaphysics [i.e., supernaturalism] to the modern mind. Metaphysics [i.e., supernaturalism] presumes to tell us something about the objective world which we do not directly perceive in ordinary experience and which cannot be verified through the methods of natural science. (Always Ready, p. 182; italics added)

The “offense” of supernaturalism is not only in its stipulation of which means do not support its claims, but also in its conspicuous failure to identify in positive terms the means which allegedly do support its claims. Those who claim that the supernatural is real do not present evidence of the supernatural, and what they claim is difficult if not impossible to distinguish from what is merely imaginary. One can, of course, imagine the things Bahnsen claims (just as we can imagine the things described in a Harry Potter novel), but in order to accept such claims as truth, Bahnsen needs to identify some means other than imagination by which we can "know" what he's talking about.

With the development of science, thanks to the rebirth of reason which effectively put religion in retreat, many thinkers are now more critical about what they accept as truth, just as people who want to take care of their bodies are more critical about what they put into their bodies. So when they encounter claims which are not backed up by evidence and/or contradict knowledge that has already been validated, they naturally (and rightly) reject them, whether or not they find them “offensive.” In fact, it is typically the religionist himself who is offended when his claims are not accepted on his say so. After all, he accepted these same or similar claims on someone else’s say so, so it is very frustrating for him to find others who are not as unquestioning and uncritical as he is. Even worse, if thinkers arm themselves with fundamental principles which are impervious to the religionist’s anti-rational attacks (such as the primacy of existence), the religionist often becomes so inflamed that he resorts to name-calling (and some will even try to justify this behavior).

So we are finding that Bahnsen is no different in this respect. He is quick to point out the kinds of methods which will not substantiate or verify his supernatural claims, but he nowhere identifies any methods which will substantiate or verify those claims. This is most unhelpful to his own case, and yet he wants to slander those who don't readily accept such claims on his say so.

Bahnsen continues:

Of course, antipathy to metaphysics [i.e., supernaturalism] is even more pronounced in the case of Christianity because its claims about the entire scheme of things include declarations about the existence and character of God, the origin and nature of the world, as well as the nature and destiny of man. Such teachings do not stem from direct, eyeball experience of the physical world, but transcend particular sensations and derive from divine revelation. They are not verified empirically in a point by point fashion. Scripture makes absolute pronouncements about the nature of the real world as a whole. Biblical doctrine presents truths which are not circumscribed or limited by personal experience and which are not qualified or relativized by an individual's own way of looking at things. Such authoritarian claims about such difficult and wide-ranging matters are offensive to the skeptical mood and religious prejudices of the present day. The modern age has a contrary spirit regarding philosophical (especially religious) claims which speak of anything super-natural, anything "beyond the physical," anything metaphysical. (Always Ready, p. 182)

Here’s a case in point. Bahnsen tells us that Christianity’s claims “do not stem from direct, eyeball experience of the physical world,” they “are not verified empirically in a point by point fashion,” they “are not circumscribed or limited by personal experience” and “are not qualified or relativized by an individual’s own way of looking at things.” Bahnsen tells us which criteria do not support his supernatural claims, but he does not tell us which criteria do support them. He simply tells us that the contents of his claims “transcend particular sensations and derive from divine revelation.” In other words, he appeals to magic in order to substantiate them. He tells us that his worldview's magic is real, and to validate this claim he appeals to magic. This is just another instance of tape-loop apologetics. Round and round in a circle we go. And meanwhile, as is typically the case with Christianity's defenders, what the apologist calls "divine revelation" is indistinguishable from simply and uncritically accepting what is written in an ancient storybook. And to rationalize this, Bahnsen concocts an epistemology of negation, telling us how his claims are not validated, and remaining silent on how they could be validated.

by Dawson Bethrick

Bahnsen on "Knowing the Supernatural" Part 8: "Ultimate Questions"

Continued from Part 7.

"Ultimate Questions"

Bahnsen titled the next paragraph of his chapter “Ultimate Questions,” but yet he does not ask one question anywhere in it:

So then, "metaphysics" studies such questions or issues as the nature of existence, the sorts of things that exist, the classes of existent things, limits of possibility, the ultimate scheme of things, reality versus appearance, and the comprehensive conceptual framework used to make sense of the world as a whole. It is not hard to understand, then, how the term "metaphysics" has come to connote the study of that which is "beyond the physical realm."" Simple eyeball inspection of isolated and particular situations in the physical world cannot answer metaphysical questions like those just enumerated. An individual's limited personal experience cannot warrant a comprehensive framework encompassing every sort of existent there may be. Empirical experience merely gives us an appearance of things; empirical experience cannot in itself correct illusions or get us beyond appearance to any world or realm of reality lying beyond. Nor can it determine the limits of the possible. A particular experience of the physical world does not deal with the world as whole. Nor does the nature of existence manifest itself in simple sense perception of any physical object or set of them. (Always Ready, p. 181)

Some clarification is in order here before proceeding any further. He says that “’metaphysics’ studies such questions or issues as the nature of existence, the sorts of things that exist,” etc., but earlier he seemed to mean specifically “supernatural” things when using the term “metaphysics.” It is doubtful that even Bahnsen held that only supernatural things exist. So at best, on the understanding of ‘metaphysics’ that he gives here, it would include but not be limited to study of “the supernatural.” Presumably, since natural things exist, if ‘metaphysics’ studies “the nature of existence, the sorts of things that exist,” the field of metaphysics would at minimum entail the study of natural things. So unless it is already assumed that “the supernatural” is real and not imaginary, a person using the term ‘metaphysics’ would not necessarily have “the supernatural” in mind, especially if he did not subscribe to any form of supernaturalism. Contrary to what Bahnsen’s earlier statements have indicated, then, one can be “anti-supernatural” without being “anti-metaphysical.”

But Bahnsen might have differed with this analysis, for he says that “it is not hard to understand... how the term ‘metaphysics’ has come to connote the study of that which is ‘beyond the physical realm’.” By constraining metaphysics to include “that which is ‘beyond the physical realm’,” Bahnsen implies that metaphysics would have no interest in studying that which is found within “the physical realm” unless “the supernatural” were taken seriously and granted primacy over it. But I see no reason why we should accept this. What exactly is the difference between something that is admittedly natural or physical and that which is “supernatural” or “beyond the physical realm”? Distinctions like this are obviously assumed by Bahnsen, but he nowhere pinpoints them. Consequently any distinction between “the supernatural” and “the physical realm” remains unexpressed, vague, approximate. Perhaps we’re supposed to “just know” how they are distinguished, as if it were a secret we’re not supposed to put into actual words.

Bahnsen seems to think that “’metaphysics’ has come to connote the study of that which is ‘beyond the physical realm’” because, according to him, it also studies the “limits of possibility, the ultimate scheme of things, reality versus appearance, and the comprehensive conceptual framework used to make sense of the world as a whole.” Even if we accept this, it is still not clear why a “supernatural” realm needs to be posited in distinction to “the physical realm.” If metaphysics is devoted to the study of what is real, and “the physical realm” is real, then certainly we should not expect metaphysics to ignore that which is within “the physical realm.” But on Bahnsen’s view, “the physical realm” is, for reasons he does not clearly state, at best relegated to a secondary position and subordinated to a realm which he calls “supernatural” if not shoved aside altogether. The result is that, if metaphysics is “the study of that which is ‘beyond the physical realm’,” it becomes troublesomely unclear why it would have any importance for beings which exist in “the physical realm.” We are physical beings (those who doubt this can verify it by taking a physical knife to their physical skin) and we live in a physical world. We value physical things (e.g., food, water, shelter, clothing, shoes, beds, television sets, CDs, computers, cars, other human beings, etc.), and we obtain them through physical means (action, effort, work, money, trade, etc.). A worldview whose metaphysics focuses on “that which is ‘beyond the physical realm’” seems to abandon man along with “the physical realm” that it seeks to ignore. What could possibly justify this?

Perhaps Bahnsen thinks that metaphysics studies “that which is ‘beyond the physical realm’” because the form in which our knowledge of metaphysical truths and principles is not itself physical. After all, a “comprehensive conceptual scheme,” which Bahnsen lists among the things which metaphysics studies, is not something we put in our pocket or contain in a jar. But this would be most naïve as it would indicate a dismally primitive understanding of man’s mind and the process by which he forms concepts. Indeed, Bahnsen makes mention of a “comprehensive conceptual scheme,” but his biblical worldview provides no native theory of concepts. Concepts do not represent a supernatural dimension; on the contrary, the mind’s ability to form concepts is as natural as its ability to perceive physical objects. But for Bahnsen, the conceptual realm somehow implies a supernatural realm, apparently because the conceptual is not a physical object that can be studied in a chemistry lab.

One of the most important relationships which a serious metaphysics should study, but which Bahnsen nowhere lists among those things which metaphysics – on his understanding – studies, is the relationship between consciousness and its objects. An objective worldview is one in which the object of consciousness is understood to hold metaphysical primacy over the subject of consciousness. On this view, for example, an object is what it is no matter what the subject wishes it to be. This is the proper orientation between a subject and its objects. A subjective worldview is one which allows the subject to hold – either always (in the case of a privileged subject) or at least occasionally (when such bestowals are distributed) – metaphysical primacy over its objects. On this view, there exists at least one subject which has the power to wish its objects into anything it prefers them to be. This power is often called “authority” or “sovereignty,” as in the case of Bahnsen’s god. The subjective view thus constitutes a reversal of the objective view, for it trades on reversing the proper orientation between a subject and its objects.

Inherent in Bahnsen’s habit of conflating metaphysics with supernaturalism is the reversal of the relationship between the subject of consciousness and its objects. Note that, in addition to studying “such questions or issues as the nature of existence, the sorts of things that exist, the classes of existent things” and other matters, metaphysics is also the branch in which the relationship between consciousness and its objects is first encountered. The object of study in metaphysics is reality, and the awareness that there is a reality requires a means of awareness. The issue of metaphysical primacy asks whether reality exists independent of consciousness, or whether it conforms to consciousness. This is the most fundamental issue in all philosophy, for however one answers it, defines the rest of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, etc. Unfortunately, Bahnsen expresses no concern for understanding this fundamental relationship. Whatever observations, inferences, conclusions or verdicts one reaches in metaphysics, they are by means of consciousness about some object of consciousness. Thus the question of the relationship between consciousness and its objects is inescapable.

The closest Bahnsen comes to the issue of metaphysical primacy is “reality versus appearance.” But he does not bring this issue up because there is an actual problem here, or because he has an actual solution to the supposed problem. Rather, Bahnsen brings it up in order to sow doubt in the mind of the reader about the efficacy of his own mind, for he nowhere explains how appearance is different from reality, nor does he explain how any difference between how reality appears and how reality actually is can be overcome. He interjects this dichotomy for the express purpose of posing a conflict between man’s mind and the world he perceives. In actuality, the problem is between Bahnsen’s worldview and the world in which we exist.

On an objective theory of perception, there is no insidious conflict between appearance and reality whatsoever. Appearance is merely the form in which we are visually aware of something. In any instance of awareness, there is the object of which we are aware (the what of awareness) and the form in which we are aware of it (the how of awareness). When we perceive an object, we are perceiving that object. Kelley explains:

Consciousness is not metaphysically active. It no more creates its own contents than does the stomach. But it is active epistemologically in processing those contents. What we are aware of is defined by reality – there is nothing else to be aware of – but how we are aware of it is determined by our means of awareness. How could there be any conflict between these two facts?... Metaphysically, our cognitive faculties determine the manner in which we grasp reality, but it is reality we grasp. In perception, the way objects appear to us is partly determined by our perceptual apparatus...; but the objects themselves appear, the objects themselves we are aware of by means of their appearances. (The Evidence of the Senses, p. 41)

When we perceive an object, we have awareness of that object. We do not “perceive appearances” – that would be a stolen concept. Rather, we perceive objects in the form dictated by the nature of our awareness and the objects we are perceiving. But what we are perceiving all along are the objects themselves. And since our consciousness is real, the form in which we perceive something is just as real as the object that we are perceiving. Understanding what distinguishes them from one another allows us to recognize that there really is no conflict here at all. But the “reality versus appearance” dichotomy is still likely to hold sway with the defender of supernaturalism, not because he really thinks there is a conflict between his means of perceiving a turn in the road, a tree, or a stop sign, and the turn, the tree or the stop sign itself, but because has accepted a false model of consciousness to begin with, and this false model of consciousness is vital to his god-beliefs.

Again, the topic of Bahnsen’s chapter is “The Problem of Knowing the ‘Super-Natural’.” In knowing anything, there is, as Kelley reminds us, the what of which we are aware, and the how by which we are aware of it. For Bahnsen to gain any credibility in his endorsement of supernatural claims, he would at minimum have to enlighten us on both of these concerns. Remember that on the jacket of Always Ready, Douglas Wilson hails Bahnsen’s mind as “nothing if not precise.” What precisely does the term “supernatural” denote? How precisely does Bahnsen have awareness of it? At every turn, Bahnsen resists addressing both questions with any specificity, even though they are fundamental to any claim to knowledge of “the supernatural.”

Bahnsen goes on to tell us that “simple eyeball inspection of isolated and particular situations in the physical world cannot answer metaphysical questions like those just enumerated.” In other words, he is saying, perceptual observation “cannot” address such issues as “the nature of existence, the sorts of things that exist, the classes of existent things, limits of possibility, the ultimate scheme of things, reality versus appearance, and the comprehensive framework used to make sense of the world as a whole.” Bahnsen’s reason for stating this is clear enough: “An individual’s limited personal experience cannot warrant a comprehensive framework encompassing every sort of existent there may be.” This can only mean that Bahnsen is taking omniscience as a minimum necessary condition for answering the metaphysical questions he mentions and forming “the comprehensive framework used to make sense of the world as a whole.” To possess answers to the issues he lists, one would presumably need “unlimited personal experience” and something more than “simple eyeball inspection of isolated and particular situations in the physical world.” On this view, in order to have “a comprehensive framework encompassing every sort of existent there may be,” he would presumably need to have exhaustive knowledge of “every sort of existent there may be.” So on Bahnsen’s own standard, unless he himself was omniscient, he didn’t have any answers to these questions. Bahnsen would likely reject this conclusion for he holds in his back pocket a substitute consciousness which allegedly possesses the omniscience his standard requires. Thus we have an epistemology of vicariousness: the believer himself confesses that his own mind, allegedly created by a perfect, infallible and omnipotent creator, is basically worthless when it comes to supplying “the comprehensive framework encompassing every sort of existent there may be” which metaphysics is intended to deliver, but this does not matter for he has access (by means he does not identify) to a consciousness which is supernatural (which he does not precisely define in positive terms) and which has all the answers already. It’s the standard “I may not know, but my god knows” position in philosophy.

Bahnsen is on record repeatedly claiming that the Christian worldview is the precondition to intelligibility of human experience. This is one of his fundamental debating points, a claim which is couched in the context of epistemological vicariousness described above. Naturally we would not expect Bahnsen to confess that he himself lacks “the comprehensive framework encompassing every sort of existent there may be.” And although he would likely claim to possess such a framework, he would likely admit readily that he himself does not have direct awareness of “every sort of existent there may be.” He does not need such awareness, for all he needs to do is stipulate that “every sort of existent there may be” was created by his god. Since his god is omniscient and created every existent distinct from itself, it necessarily has exhaustive knowledge of “every sort of existent there may be,” and that exhaustive knowledge is the master “comprehensive framework” in which “every sort of existent there may be” finds its proper orderly place. So on this view, Bahnsen himself does not have the requisite exhaustive knowledge needed to inform “the comprehensive framework encompassing every sort of existent there may be” which is allegedly the precondition to the intelligibility of human experience, but he claims his god has this knowledge. How could he know this? Well, that question comes under the topic of his present chapter: “The Problem of Knowing the ‘Super-Natural’.” So again, the what and the how of this alleged cognition are what Bahnsen needs to address, but so far he’s not addressed either in the slightest.

All throughout, Bahnsen seems to be denigrating the role of sense experience in developing the “comprehensive framework” that metaphysics is supposed to deliver. Indeed, if Bahnsen thinks that this “comprehensive framework” is pre-packaged by an omniscient deity in the first place and somehow deposited into select human minds (such as Bahnsen’s own), then talk of “developing” this comprehensive framework from some fundamental starting point is anathema to Bahnsen’s position. Since Bahnsen’s “limited personal experience cannot warrant” this “comprehensive framework” any better than anyone else’s experience can, he wouldn’t know where to begin if he had to assemble it on his own. He’s so familiar with it and his own mental abilities that he doesn’t know how he or any other human being could build such a contrivance.

But whatever the case may be, Bahnsen is sure that one cannot develop such a “comprehensive framework” from the “limited personal experience” man has in the world. No experience that man can have will ever be enough for Bahnsen. The senses are inappropriate anyway, because whatever divine agency created them, in all its otherworldly brilliance, saw to it that they merely give us awareness of appearances, not of reality proper. As Bahnsen puts it, “Empirical experience merely gives us an appearance of things; empirical experience cannot in itself correct illusions or get us beyond appearance to any world or realm of reality lying beyond.” Bahnsen happily tells us that “the Bible distinguishes appearance from reality,” perhaps in order to nag his readers without going into any detail. At any rate, all this means that empirical experience could not be the means by which Bahnsen acquires awareness of “the supernatural.” Again, Bahnsen only tells us how he does not know what he calls “the supernatural”; he does not explain how he could know what he claims to know. He constantly keeps this issue conveniently and safely out of sight.

Bahnsen avoids disclosing his position on what role empirical experience does play in acquiring knowledge. Does sense experience for Bahnsen play no role in acquiring any of the knowledge which ultimately informs the “comprehensive framework” by which we make sense of the world? Bahnsen does not confront this question, but from what he does say one can easily get the impression that, on his view, the senses (“empirical experience”) play no role of any significance. Sense experience is limited, and what we presumably need is unlimited experience. Also, “empirical experience merely gives us an appearance of things,” which suggests that the senses cannot give us direct awareness of reality itself, or anything “beyond the physical realm.” “Appearance” is a kind of distorting filter through which we can only “see... darkly” (cf. I Cor. 13:12). Bahnsen never questions his supposition that there is a “beyond” to begin with, for he assumes that there is such a place, even though he nowhere explains how he or anyone else could know this. And in spite of this failing, rejecting “supernatural” claims is always unwarranted and indicates an unjustifiable bias. Go figure. And since for Bahnsen there is a difference – indeed, a conflict – between appearance and reality – a conflict Bahnsen nowhere explains how one could resolve – sense experience could only deceive or at best lead us off track. Man’s cognitive inabilities are no doubt a testament to the infinite wisdom of his creator.

So two assumptions are vital to Bahnsen’s discounting of sense experience, at least to the extent that he wants to marginalize any cognitive role they may play in providing man with the “comprehensive framework” he needs for making sense of the world in which he exists. They are:

- sense experience is limited (and our “comprehensive framework” must have
“unlimited” experience)

- sense experience leads to the “reality-versus-appearance” conflict (and sense experience is unable to resolve it)

Bahnsen apparently has both angles covered. Even if one wants to argue that man can assemble a “comprehensive framework” suitable for making sense of the world in which he exists on the basis of the limited experience that his senses provide, Bahnsen can hit him with the “reality-versus-appearance” conflict. And if one wants to argue that the distinction between reality and appearances do not in fact prohibit the senses from providing him with the “comprehensive framework” he needs to make sense of the world in which he exists, Bahnsen can hit him with the “sense experience is limited” objection.

Unfortunately, throughout all this, Bahnsen ignores two important factors:

- the need to identify some alternative means of awareness to supply the inputs needed for objective knowledge of reality (since sense experience has been discounted)

- the nature and role of concepts which inform that knowledge

If we throw out sense experience, or even neutralize its epistemological significance, we need an alternative mode of awareness in order to acquire the knowledge which informs the “comprehensive framework” by which we make sense of the world in which we exist. It will not do to say that we have knowledge of X but no mode by which we could be aware of X or of the stepping stones needed to infer X. Bahnsen hastens to discount sense experience, but does not identify an alternative mode of awareness. He wants to discount the senses in part because they allegedly only give us “appearances,” not reality as such. But if appearance is simply the form which our awareness of objects takes, then there really is no conflict here, since both the object we perceive and the form in which we perceive it have identity and are factual, i.e., objective. Once we grasp this fact, we have what we need for avoiding the conflict that Bahnsen might charge on account of the “reality versus appearance” dichotomy.

The other reason he wants to discount the senses is because they only give us limited awareness. But what could possibly be an alternative to limited experience? Unlimited experience? Why suppose such a thing is either possible or achievable? Why suppose such a notion is actually meaningful? What would “unlimited experience” be like? We can put the words “unlimited” and “experience” together, just as we can put the words “square” and “circle” together. But together are they really meaningful? Indeed, it seems that once we have called something “experience,” it is limited to what is meant by the concept ‘experience’. Since to exist is to be something specific, since A is limited to itself, the claim that “unlimited experience” is either possible or real seems quite incoherent. If Bahnsen wants to argue that “limited experience” is insufficient, and his preferred alternative is supposed to be “unlimited experience,” then he needs to explain what he means by it before it can be seriously entertained. Otherwise, it seems that he is straining to manufacture points against the efficacy of the human mind, something which he wants to claim his perfect creator-deity created. Quickly it appears we will find ourselves in the quicksand of a Kantian gimmick if we follow Bahnsen on his wild goose chase.

Meanwhile, we should ask: What is so insufficient about “limited experience”? When I see a tree, my experience is limited to what I experience. But if I see a tree in my experience, I still see a tree. I still have awareness of an object. Indeed, I do not need awareness of all trees in the universe and across eternity to have awareness of the one tree before me. It is a fact that I am seeing something. Perhaps at this point Bahnsen would like to raise the “reality-versus-appearance” objection. “How do you know what you’re seeing is a tree?” So now I am supposed to have a mind sufficiently sophisticated to produce all kinds of reasoning to prove that what I see is actually a tree, and yet I am supposed to buy into the premise that my senses are so deceptive that I might not actually be seeing a tree. And really, what argument would Bahnsen accept at this point? Perhaps Bahnsen would be satisfied if I were to say something like, “I am absolutely certain that what I perceive before me is a tree because the triune God of Christianity has guaranteed that He will not lie to me, that as creator of my empirical apparatus He will not allow me to be so misled.” This is nothing more than the invisible magic being defense: it does not deal with the issue whatsoever, and only lays a new, completely arbitrary burden on the load of burdens Bahnsen would have us accept on our way to adopting such confessions.

Now, the conventional attack against the senses has often been the charge that knowledge has universal scope while the senses do not provide universal awareness. Therefore the leap from awareness of particulars to universally binding knowledge is unwarranted, unjustified, arbitrary, subjective, or any other denigrating adjective the haters of man’s mind want to apply to it. Perception on this view could hardly serve as a suitable tie between knowledge and reality. This is Bahnsen’s (unargued) assertion that “empirical experience merely gives us an appearance of things.” Couple this with the supposition that the senses distort the objects we perceive, and we have Bahnsen’s two-fold attack against empiricism in a nutshell. Keep in mind that, all the while, we as readers of Bahnsen’s writing are expected to follow the arguments of this “precise” and “brilliant scholar,” even though our faculties are too incompetent to distinguish between the reality of what he has written and he may merely appear to have written.

Of course, attacks like this only tell us that the attacker does not understand how concepts are formed in the first place. Universality is a property of concepts; it is not a property we should expect to find in perception. Even more importantly, neither “unlimited experience” nor omniscience is a precondition for the universal scope of conceptual reference. Concepts are how the human mind expands its awareness beyond the immediate inputs provided by sense perception. The content of concepts is based ultimately on what we perceive, but it is not limited to only those units which we have encountered personally. In fact, if the Objectivist account of concepts is true, then there is no problem in supposing that we can acquire knowledge having universal scope on the basis of “limited personal experience.” On the Objectivist account, concepts can be formed by integrating as few as only two units which are similar in some way. All objective units have the minimal similarity in the fact that they exist. (Incidentally, these points blow Van Til’s “One-Many” argument out of the water.) If we are able to form concepts – i.e., open-ended classes which are universal in their scope of reference – on the basis of only two (or more) units, then “limited personal experience” is no hindrance to developing a “comprehensive framework used to make sense of the world as a whole.” If “an individual’s limited personal experience” incorporates the Objectivist account of concepts, he has all the “warrant” he needs for informing the “comprehensive framework” he needs to make sense of the world and his existence within it. And if we have such a “comprehensive framework” along with the “warrant” we need for whatever reason to have it, then we have what we need to “correct illusions.” This is one of the functions of reason: to correct misidentifications. But what reason will not do is take us from this world to another world contradicting it. The only thing that can do this is the imagination, and its product is fantasy, not knowledge. And it is against these – fantasy and imagination – that Bahnsen fails to distinguish his god and whatever else he claims exists “beyond the physical realm.”

Now internal to Christianity, Bahnsen’s attempts to discredit empirical experience are not without their consequences. If empirical experience is insufficient to get us from the world of appearances to some realm that exists “beyond the physical realm,” then what are we to make of Romans 1:20? This passage, beloved by many Reformed apologists, states the following:

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.

Now it has always struck me as odd to say that “invisible things... are clearly seen.” If they are seen at all, whether clearly or obscurely, one can hardly call them “invisible.” At any rate, if the mode of awareness indicated here by the phrase “clearly seen” is taken to be a type of empirical experience (e.g., eyesight), then what are we to say of the distinction between appearance and reality, which Bahnsen himself says the bible acknowledges? If there is a distinction between appearance and reality, then there very well may be a distinction between what appears to be “the invisible things of him from the creation of the world” and the world as it really is. Bahnsen would no doubt want to immunize the bible’s own statements from the objections he wants to raise against man’s perceptual faculties.

As for the “limits of possibility,” this actually belongs to the branch of epistemology, since possibility is epistemological, and what we determine to be possible depends on our understanding of what is actual rather than the other way around. Indeed, it is in the context of a “comprehensive conceptual framework used to make sense of the world as a whole” that we are able to rationally assess the possibility of any proposals.

And though for some thinkers “the term ‘metaphysics’ has come to connote the study of that which is ‘beyond the physical realm’,” this is misleading. It is not as if metaphysics as a field of study were happy to ignore “the physical realm”; however many thinkers may in fact feel intimidated by physical realities which do not conform to their preferences, and thus retreat into an imaginary realm where anything goes. If one is serious about studying “that which is ‘beyond the physical realm’,” he would at minimum need to identify the means by which he acquires awareness of “that which is ‘beyond the physical realm’,” if anything in fact exists “beyond the physical realm.”

Bahnsen writes:

Simple eyeball inspection of isolated and particular situations in the physical world cannot answer metaphysical questions like those just enumerated. An individual’s limited personal experience cannot warrant a comprehensive framework encompassing every sort of existent there may be. (Always Ready, p. 181)

Again, there goes Romans 1:20.

If “a comprehensive framework encompassing every sort of existent there may be” does not come from “an individual’s limited personal experience,” then where does it come from? Is it magically installed into our minds? Is it then infallible? What if mine disagrees with someone else’s? Is the “comprehensive framework” that Bahnsen has in mind conceptual or something other than conceptual? If it is conceptual, what is Bahnsen’s account of concepts? If it is something other than conceptual, how can Bahnsen claim to know it? Blank out.

The task of statements like the one Bahnsen gives above, is to discount the role and relevance of one’s own firsthand perception of the world in developing “a comprehensive framework.” Essentially, Bahnsen’s reasoning is: ‘Since one’s own firsthand awareness is not awareness of everything (i.e., since one is not omniscient to begin with), he cannot formulate his own “comprehensive framework”.’ If man’s consciousness were bound to the perceptual level of consciousness (i.e., if it had no recourse to the conceptual level), there might be some argument for this; though as an argument for skepticism, it would still have its work cut out for itself. However, since man has the ability to form concepts on the basis of what he perceives, Bahnsen’s argument is not only fallacious, it’s downright naïve, especially coming from someone sporting a philosophy degree. At the very least, such statements betray a glaring ignorance of concepts, how they are formed and how they expand our awareness beyond the perceptual level of consciousness.

It needs to be pointed out that we demonstrate the ability of concepts to expand our awareness beyond our perceptual limitations whenever we talk about great distances, for example, in terms of units that reduce to the perceptual level. Applying arithmetic operations to units of measurement is one means by which we expand our awareness beyond what we perceive at any given moment.

Sadly, Bahnsen himself probably did not even realize how profoundly he was undercutting his own case by slipping his own head through the noose he had just fashioned, for after all, he was operating on the basis of a Dark Ages worldview.

by Dawson Bethrick

Bahnsen on "Knowing the Supernatural" Part 7: "Distinguishing Appearance from Reality"

Continued from Part 6.

"Distinguishing Appearance from Reality"

In this brief section of his chapter "The Problem of Knowing the 'Super-Natural'," Bahnsen makes the following claims:

Therefore, the Bible distinguishes appearance from reality, and it provides an ultimate conceptual framework that makes sense of the world as whole. The Biblical metaphysic affects our outlook and conclusions regarding every field of study or endeavor, and it serves as the only foundation for all disciplines from science to ethics (Prov. 1:7; Matt. 7:24-27). (Always Ready, p. 181)

This is a rather quizzical statement. Where exactly does the bible "distinguish appearance from reality"? What does it say in this regard? And what exactly is the distinction between appearance and reality? Does the bible tell its readers how they can reliably distinguish between appearance and reality? Is Bahnsen saying that appearances are not real? If we trace it further, wouldn’t this amount to saying that consciousness is not real? On the same token, did Bahnsen fully understand that there is a distinction between what we imagine and what is real? If his followers claim that he did, where did he make this distinction explicit, and why didn’t he guide his worldview accordingly?

Bahnsen himself was fond of referring to the first chapter of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. In the first chapter, twentieth verse, the apostle writes:

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.

The verse already dumbfounds itself by tidily encapsulating an internal contradiction. For how can something that is invisible be “clearly seen”? But add to this unworkable conundrum Bahnsen’s statement that “the Bible distinguishes appearance from reality.” How well does this statement integrate with what we read in Romans 1:20? Could it be that the “invisible things” which appear to our seeing that the apostle wanted to take as evidence of the Christian god, are merely an appearance, and not reality? Supposing the presuppositionalist proposes a method by which appearance and reality can be reliably distinguished (not that he ever will), does Paul’s epistle offer any evidence that he applied that method in order to make sure that “the invisible things” he claims “are clearly seen,” are not merely a passing appearance, but in fact are real?

Bahnsen says that “the Bible... provides an ultimate conceptual framework that makes sense of the world as whole.” But how effectively can the bible do this when it doesn’t even have a theory of concepts, and its very foundation is built on stolen concepts? The bible clearly and incontrovertibly grants metaphysical primacy to consciousness, and yet the primacy of consciousness is false. How can one “make sense of the world as whole” when he views the world as a creation of consciousness? As a creation of consciousness, it is subject to whatever the ruling consciousness desires it to be at any given time. We can say “rocks do not sing,” but if we grant that there is a universe-creating, reality-ruling consciousness which “controls whatsoever comes to pass” (Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, p. 160), how could anyone be confident that “rocks do not sing”? Bahnsen himself asks, "He could even make the stones cry out, couldn't He?" (Always Ready, pp. 109-110) It is doubtful that he would have answered this question negatively. For all we know, the ruling consciousness could have an entire quarry of singing rocks chorusing its praises in the wilderness. The apologist has no epistemological jurisdiction here, for his own worldview’s foundations would undermine any claim to certainty on such basic things. At most he could only claim to be certain that he can never be certain (an "apparent contradiction"?), for the only prevailing standard would be absurdity as such, and nothing more.

So ironically, Bahnsen is correct when he says that “the Biblical metaphysic affects our outlook and conclusions regarding every field of study or endeavor.” Of course it would, if it is taken seriously as a truthful portrait of reality. But it does not follow from this that “it serves as the only foundation for all disciplines from science to ethics,” and it’s not unsurprising that Bahnsen gives no argument to support such a bizarre and untenable thesis.

by Dawson Bethrick