Bahnsen on "Knowing the Supernatural" Part 15: "Further Difficulties"

Continued from Part 14.

"Further Difficulties"

Bahnsen then raises a most curious concern:

There are other difficulties with the position expressed by (1) as well. We can easily see that it amounts to a presupposition for the unbeliever. What rational basis or evidence is there for the position that all knowledge must be empirical in nature? That is not a conclusion supported by other reasoning, and the premise does not admit of empirical verification since it deals with what is universally or necessarily the case (not a historical or contingent truth). Moreover, the statement itself precludes any other type of verification or support other than empirical warrants or evidence. Thus the anti-metaphysical opponent of the Christian faith holds to this dogma in a presuppositional fashion - as something which controls inquiry, rather than being the result of inquiry. (Always Ready, pp. 187-188)

We have already seen that the presumption that knowledge must be "empirical" in nature is a mistake which can be easily corrected. And correcting this mistake does not in any way compel us to affirm or appeal to supernaturalism.

But Bahnsen wants to ask those who affirm that knowledge is empirical in nature, what rational basis they might have for supposing this. It may simply be that they do not know of a better way to express what they sense to be the case about the knowledge they have acquired. But if Bahnsen wants to know what rational basis one has for his suppositions, he should at the very least tell his readers what rational basis he might have for supposing that Christianity’s claims about “the supernatural” are true. Unfortunately, Bahnsen does not indicate any rational basis that his supernatural beliefs might have. In fact, he has only told us how his supernatural beliefs are not supported. For instance, their “support is not limited to natural observation and scientific experimentation.” They “do not stem from direct, eyeball experience of the physical world.” “They are not verified empirically in a point by point fashion.” “Empirical experience” must not be sufficient, for it “merely gives us an appearance of things,” and “the Bible distinguishes appearances from reality,” so there is obviously a conflict between how things “appear” to us and what they “really are.” Indeed, Bahnsen does not even explain what he means by “rational basis,” and yet he wants to know what “rational basis” others have for their claims, even though when he has an opportunity to identify any “rational basis” for his supernaturalism, he reneges on it. The consequence of this for Bahnsen is, obviously, if he has a problem with others not providing a “rational basis” for their position, he is quite simply a hypocrite for holding that against them.

Bahnsen wants to reserve the right to raise questions about what “rational basis” his adversaries might claim for their own positions, but when it comes time for him to defend his claim to “knowing the ‘super-natural’,” he's content to leave such concerns completely unattended. So when Bahnsen says that "everybody should be expected to play by the same rules" (p. 185), that holds only some of the time.

Bahnsen elaborates on the problem with empiricism as he understands it:

That anti-metaphysical presupposition, however, has certain devastating results. Notice that if all knowledge must be empirical in nature, then the uniformity of nature cannot be known to be true. And without the knowledge and assurance that the future will be like the past (e.g., if salt dissolved in water on Wednesday, it will do likewise and not explode in water on Friday) we could not draw empirical generalizations and projections - in which case the whole enterprise of natural science would immediately be undermined. (Always Ready, p. 188)

So what is missing? Does Bahnsen think that this problem is somehow overcome by belief in "the supernatural"? Would believing in "the supernatural" somehow make it sensible to assume that nature is uniform with itself? How would this follow? Bahnsen likes to raise problems, but doesn't explain how we can resolve them.

Let us entertain Bahnsen's supposition that "if all knowledge must be empirical in nature, then the uniformity of nature cannot be known to be true." Unfortunately, Bahnsen nowhere explains why this would be the case. Moreover, Bahnsen does not correct the error in the assumption that "all knowledge must be empirical in nature" by pointing out the fact that knowledge is actually conceptual in nature. Why doesn't he do this? I suspect there are two factors involved here: 1) Bahnsen does not understand that knowledge is conceptual in nature because he does not have a conceptual understanding of knowledge (and this in turn is due to the fact that the biblical worldview has no native theory of concepts); and 2) a conceptual understanding of knowledge would actually undermine the presuppositional apologetic, since presuppositionalism is geared toward exploiting Christianity's lack of an understanding of concepts in order to attack the human mind. In fact, had Bahnsen understood the nature of his mind and of knowledge before he became a Christian, he probably would never have become a Christian in the first place.

Also noteworthy is the fact that Bahnsen raises against non-Christians the very concern non-Christians could easily (and rightfully) raise against Christianity, given its commitment to metaphysical subjectivism, its lack of a viable conceptual theory and its moral proscriptions against autonomous judgment.

If I truly believed that the universe in which I exist were a creation of an invisible supernatural being which had the power to manipulate at any time or any place any object which exists in this universe, including myself, how would I know that salt would dissolve in water on one day, and not explode in water on other days? Bahnsen's mentor Cornelius Van Til tells us that the Christian god

may at any time take one fact and set it into a new relation to created law. That is, there is no inherent reason in the facts or laws themselves why this should not be done. It is this sort of conception of the relation of facts and laws, of the temporal one and many, imbedded as it is in the idea of God in which we profess to believe, that we need in order to make room for miracles. And miracles are at the heart of the Christian position. (The Defense of the Faith, p. 27)

On this "presupposition," the ruling consciousness ("God") could decide that, on Wednesday, it is a fact that salt dissolves in water, and on Friday, it is a fact that salt explodes in water. It can do this, according to Van Til, because "there is no inherent reason in the facts or laws themselves why this should not be done." It is simply setting the fact of how salt responds to water "into a new relation to created law," which it can do at will, and without advance notice or approval of the church elders. If one were to believe that such a thing as Van Til's god were real and active in the universe, where's this "assurance that the future will be like the past" that Bahnsen speaks of? If I truly believed that facts could be altered by the will of an invisible supernatural consciousness, how I could acquire the foreknowledge that it would or would not manipulate some object in my experience or some state of affairs in my life? How could I know that salt always dissolves in water? What if the ruling consciousness planned that later today salt will cease dissolving in water, and turn into rubber trees when it comes into contact with water? Surely the Christian believes that his god has the ability to do this. So what tells the believer that it won't do this or something else that is as absurd? What if the ruling consciousness is having a bad day, prone to wrath as the bible says it is? What if it's in a bad mood, and decides to send a tornado, earthquake, hurricane, or tsunami? Or, perhaps it decides to whip reality around such that utterly unpredictable chaos ensues? On Christianity's premises, we are to accept that such things are possible on the basis of the will of an invisible supernatural consciousness. But Christianity's defenders seem oblivious of the implications such views have for epistemology, which is utterly ironic given their characterization of rival positions.

Suppose I assumed what Christianity says is true, that there is an invisible supernatural being which can alter the facts of the universe at will. Even if I deluded myself into thinking I could forecast events before they happen, such as salt dissolving in water, my bus coming on schedule, or the sun warming the day, I do not know how I could acquire any degree of confidence in my forecasts, for my mind is not a supernatural mind, nor does my mind have the power to read the mind of any invisible supernatural consciousness (I cannot "think the thoughts" of an omniscient, infallible being after it, and I'm simply too honest to pretend that I can). In essence, all inductive generalizations and projections would be worthless. Some might perchance come true, but not because my inductive inferences were cogent. Only because my conclusions happened to coincide with the present wishes of the ruling consciousness would they seem to be true. Epistemology would thus be reduced to a crapshoot. But even here, “true” is a contextual assessment, and there would be no context corresponding to what actually happens available to me, for I would be unable to assume that the present is a reliable indicator of the future. If Christianity were true, as Van Til indicates, there would be no necessary relationship between an entity and its own actions, just as there would be "no inherent reason" why the ruling consciousness could not "at any time take one fact and set it into a new relation to created law." My "knowledge" would ultimately boil down to chance occasions of just so happening to get things right. And yet, this is the very same weakness that Bahnsen wants to charge against non-believing worldviews. Bahnsen thus hangs himself with his own rope.

by Dawson Bethrick

Bahnsen on "Knowing the Supernatural" Part 14: "Philosophical Self-Deception"

Continued from Part 13.

"Philosophical Self-deception"

Bahnsen opens this section of the chapter “The Problem of Knowing the ‘Super-Natural’, the 31st chapter of his book Always Ready, by referencing a position that he characterizes as “the first and foundational step in the case against metaphysics” – by which he really means, “the case against supernaturalism.” Recall what that “first and foundational step in the case against metaphysics” – according to Bahnsen – was:

There cannot be a non-empirical source of knowledge or information about reality. (Always Ready, p. 185)

In response to his own rendition of what “anti-supernaturalists” hold, Bahnsen asks:

What are we to make of the assertion that "all significant knowledge about the objective world is empirical in nature"? The most obvious and philosophically significant reply would that if the preceding statement were true, then - on the basis of its claim - we could never know that it were true. Why? Simply because the statement in question is not itself known as the result of empirical testing and experience. Therefore, according to its own strict standards, the statement could not amount to significant knowledge about the objective world. It simply reflects the subjective (perhaps meaningless!) bias of the one who pronounces it. Hence the anti-metaphysician [i.e., anti-supernaturalist] not only has his own preconceived conclusions (presuppositions), but it turns out that he cannot live according to them (cf. Romans 2:1). On the basis of his own assumptions he refutes himself (cf. 2 Timothy 2:25). As Paul put it about those who suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness: "They became futile in their speculations" (Romans 1:21)! (Always Ready, p. 187)

Did anyone besides me notice the switch here? In the above paragraph Bahnsen announces that he is turning his focus on “number (1) above,” which he states here as follows:

All significant knowledge about the objective world is empirical in nature. (Always Ready, p. 187)

But earlier, when he first listed point (1) on page 185, it was stated as follows:

There cannot be a non-empirical source of knowledge or information about reality (Always Ready, p. 185)

There is a fundamental difference between the two statements that Bahnsen sets before himself. One version speaks of the nature of knowledge itself, while the other version makes a statement about the nature of the source of knowledge about reality. The two are not the same thing. At some point Bahnsen swapped the one for the other, but he does not explain why. Perhaps, in spite of his acclaimed precision and brilliance, Bahnsen did not notice the switch, or did not think it was worth explaining.

In regard to the affirmation that “all significant knowledge about the objective world is empirical in nature,” Bahnsen misses his opportunity to point out the most obvious error committed by such a statement. Knowledge itself is not “empirical” in nature. On the contrary, knowledge is conceptual in nature. That is, knowledge consists of concepts and concepts are the form in which we retain our knowledge. That Bahnsen missed this painfully obvious opportunity to correct such a statement, is itself indicative of his own position’s inadequacy to deal with much of anything philosophical, especially epistemology. This correction is enough to put all of the concerns that Bahnsen raises in the above paragraph to rest. For instance, if knowledge is conceptual in nature, there is no reason to suppose that “we could never know” this to be the case. For there is no reason to suppose that we could not form concepts to identify the nature of knowledge. All we need is an understanding of how concepts are formed, and we have this understanding thanks to an objective philosophy. And while Bahnsen might point out that the claim that all knowledge is empirical in nature is not itself open to “empirical testing,” such difficulties need not concern us if knowledge is in fact conceptual in nature. This recognition is itself conceptual, thus qualifying as knowledge on its own terms. Furthermore, if the concepts which informs one’s knowledge of the world were formed according to the objective theory of concepts (a theory which we will not find in the bible), then we need not worry that such knowledge “simply reflects the subjective (perhaps meaningless!) bias of the one who pronounces it.” If they are formed according to an objective process, one which is fully consistent with the primacy of existence, then the conceptual products of our methodology have an objective, rather than subjective, basis. Meanwhile, by identifying the nature of knowledge as conceptual rather than empirical, the non-believer can confidently plead innocent to Bahnsen’s charge that the anti-supernaturalist cannot live according to his own worldview’s premises. For by understanding and acknowledging that knowledge is conceptual in nature, the non-believer nowhere “refutes himself,” nor is there any need to suppose that such recognition commits thinkers to “become futile in their speculations.” The bible’s canned platitudes and denunciations thus resound in the hollow vacuum of its own anti-conceptual wasteland.

Now in regard to the affirmation that “there cannot be a non-empirical source of knowledge or information about reality,” this is an altogether different claim, for it speaks about the nature of the source of knowledge rather than the nature of knowledge as such. Unfortunately Bahnsen nowhere addresses it. His comments aimed at discrediting the idea that the nature of knowledge is empirical do nothing to refute the position that the nature of the source of knowledge is empirical in nature. Indeed, there is no incompatibility between the position that the nature of knowledge itself is conceptual on the one hand, and on the other the position that the source of knowledge is in fact ultimately empirical in nature.

Concepts need content to inform them. Where do we get that content? To what do our concepts refer? What do our concepts denote? How do we form our concepts? We do not know how Bahnsen’s worldview might answer such questions, for the source of Bahnsen’s worldview is the bible, and the bible does not provide a theory of concepts. Indeed, the bible is totally silent on the issue of what concepts are, how the mind forms them and how they can represent things in reality.

But an objective worldview which is not constrained to conforming its understanding of reality to ancient storybooks, does not promote such intellectual disability. In fact, an objective worldview which provides a working theory of concepts has the power of opening an individual’s mind both to itself and to the universe in which he lives, giving the understanding he needs to maximize his mind’s abilities and efficacy in his life. An objective theory of concepts recognizes why man needs concepts (for they bring the universe of things and facts into the range of human consciousness) and how they are formed (by a process of abstraction). It also identifies the source from which the content of our concepts ultimately comes, namely empirical experience.

We need inputs from reality to inform our concepts with content that is relevant to reality. Otherwise, if what informs our concepts does not come from reality, on what basis would we say that those concepts have anything to do with our living in reality? How could we say that any statement we make is true if the conceptual constituents of our affirmations do not ultimately refer to things in reality? Perception supplies us with the inputs we need to inform and integrate the concepts we need to identify and live in reality. If Bahnsen does not like this idea, he needs to identify and argue for an alternative to perception as the mode of awareness by which we acquire the inputs we need to give our concepts the content they need to qualify as knowledge of reality. As we have seen throughout his chapter, however, Bahnsen does not identify any alternatives to perception as means of awareness of things that exist. And when he claims that supernatural things do exist, he presents no method by which we can confidently distinguish the things he calls “supernatural” from what he may merely be imagining. Consequently, he gives us no reason to suppose that his god-belief is anything other than an elaborate fantasy.

An objection to the effect that the view that the source of knowledge is empirical would cripple our ability to arrive at universal truths about things in nature, would of course be a non sequitur. If concepts are understood as open-ended classes which are formed on the basis of the limited input provided by sense perception, then there is no reason to suppose that man’s mind cannot arrive at universal truths by beginning with an empirical source. The nature of the product is not – and need not be – the same as its source, because the units given in perception undergo a process of abstraction, which consists essentially of four steps: isolation, integration, measurement-omission and definition. Universality is a property of concepts; it is nothing more than the open-endedness of a concept’s scope of reference vis-à-vis the units subsumed by it.

We form the concept ‘ball’ on the basis of just a few (two or more) units which we perceive in our firsthand experience, but the concept ‘ball’ includes all balls which exist now, which have existed in the past and which will exist in the future. This all-inclusive capacity of concepts is made possible by the third step in the process of forming them, namely measurement-omission. This is the step which acknowledges that specific units possess relevant attributes in some measure, but those attributes can exist in any measure. A ball can be 2 inches in diameter or it can be 10 inches in diameter; it may be red, or it may be black and white; it may be inflated with air such that it floats on water, or it may be solid and more dense than water such that it does not float, etc. The concept is thus universal, i.e., open-ended in its scope of reference.

It should be noted at this point, to preempt common presuppositionalist refrains, that propositions are not primaries. On the contrary, propositions are assemblages consisting of concepts put together in a coherent manner. As such, propositions represent a further step in the process of integration beyond concept-formation, for they integrate two or more concepts into a meaningful whole, resulting in a unit all its own and denoting a complete thought. But the universality of a generalized proposition (e.g., “all balls have a radius and a diameter”) is derived from the universality of its constituent concept(s). Since we can form the concept ‘ball’ on the basis of just a few units of which we acquire awareness through perception, and since the concept ‘ball’, as a result of measurement-omission, is universal in its scope of reference, a proposition such as “all balls have a radius and a diameter” which encompasses all balls is possible because of the universality already available to us in the concept ‘ball’.

None of these points on behalf of the view that knowledge is conceptual in nature necessitates belief in a god or necessitates a leap beyond the natural to “whatever surpasses the limits of nature.” Indeed, the formation of concepts and their assembly into larger units (e.g., thoughts, propositions, theories, etc.) are natural processes of the human mind. They are consistently identifiable according to a process which most thinkers should be able to understand without too much difficulty, and they are open to a means of testing which is in fact scientific. There is no contradiction in affirming that knowledge is conceptual in nature and that the source of knowledge is perceptual (or empirical) in nature. The objective theory of concepts bridges the perceptual and the conceptual levels of cognition, thus demystifying the process whose disunderstanding is so central to the presuppositionalist strategy.

by Dawson Bethrick

Bahnsen on "Knowing the Supernatural" Part 13: "Double Standards and Begging the Question"

Continued from Part 12.

"Double Standards and Begging the Question"

Bahnsen begins this section of chapter 31 of his book Always Ready by interacting with the second premise that he attributes to the case against supernaturalism. That premise is:

it is illegitimate to draw inferences from what is experienced by the senses to what must lie outside of experience. (Always Ready, p. 185)

Bahnsen probes this statement with a series of questions:

We should first ask why it is that metaphysicians (and theologians) should not reason from what is known in sense experience to something lying beyond sensation. After all, isn't this precisely what empirical scientists do from day to day? They continually reason from the seen to the unseen (e.g., talking of subatomic particles, computing gravitational forces, warning against radiation simply on the basis of its effects, prescribing medicine for an unseen infection on the basis of an observed fever, etc.) It certainly appears capricious for those with anti-metaphysical leanings to prohibit the theologian from doing what is allowed to the scientist! Such an inconsistency betrays a mind that has been made up in advance against certain kinds of conclusions about reality. (Always Ready, p. 185)

So, is Bahnsen saying that we reason from an empirical source? Indeed, we do just this. But one does not need to be a metaphysician or theologian to be able to do this. Ordinary mortals do this all the time. What makes this possible? Bahnsen wants to argue that his god makes this possible. But in fact, the ability to conceptualize is what makes this possible. One will never learn this point from Bahnsen, for his desire to assimilate the human intellect into the context of his god-beliefs will only cloud the matter rather than pave the way for clear understanding.

The ability to form concepts allows the human mind to create open-ended classes of entities, attributes, actions, etc., which include not only those qualifying entities, attributes, actions, etc. which we perceive, but also those which we do not perceive. The concept 'cat', for instance, includes the cat we are looking at in the neighbor's yard, as well as cats that we saw in another neighborhood, cats that lived 100 years ago, cats that will live in the future, etc. The membership of individual cats within the range of reference of the concept 'cat' is not restricted to some specific number; the concept 'cat' does not "expire" after it's been used to denote 10, 100 or 5,000 specific cats. On the contrary, the concept is open-ended, and there is no quantitative limit to the units which can be included in it. What specifically makes it possible for the human mind to continue integrating new units into the concept ‘cat’ is the operation known as measurement-omission. Measurement-omission is the principle which guides conceptual integration: “the relevant measurements must exist in some quantity, but may exist in any quantity.” (ITOE, p. 12) With simple principles such as this, which are accessible to any thinker, there’s no reason to posit an invisible magic being to understand how the mind operates when it “reason[s] from what is known in sense experience to something lying beyond sensation.”

Note that the cats which we do not see but include in the concept 'cat' are just as finite and this-worldly as the cats which we do see. There is no reason to suppose that the cats which we do not see and yet include in the scope of reference of the concept 'cat' cannot be seen at some point in time by someone, even ourselves, unless of course they no longer exist or will not exist during our lifetimes. But even then, the units included in the concept are still just as non-supernatural, non-otherworldly, non-miraculous as the ones we have actually perceived, for the ones we have actually serve as the model for the concept in the first place. So while concepts do in fact serve as our cognitive means by which to reason from what we do see to what we do not see, we don't leave the universe by performing this process, and what we reason to is just as non-supernatural as that from which we originally reasoned.

But is this really what Bahnsen is proposing that theologians are doing when they assert the existence of “the supernatural”? If theologians who assert “the supernatural” are simply drawing conclusions pertaining to what is not seen from what they do see, what are the steps in their reasoning process which lead to such conclusions? Scientists can identify the steps they take in developing their conclusions, so why doesn’t Bahnsen identify the steps that the theologian takes in concluding that “the supernatural” is real?

Bahnsen seems to be setting up a subtle false dichotomy: either one affirms that it is completely illegitimate to reason “from the seen to the unseen,” or – if we grant that this is impossible – then supernatural claims are perfectly legitimate. But he gives us no reason to suppose that both positions are wrong. Why not entertain the objective alternative which Bahnsen ignores: that we do in fact reason from what is given in perception to what lies beyond perception, and yet the units which lie beyond perception that we integrate into the sum of our knowledge are just as natural and this-worldly as the units which we perceived and which we used as models for the integration process in the first place.

Bahnsen wants to make it all appear so innocent (and yet, Bahnsen himself has warned us that there is a distinction between appearance and reality) by pretending that what theologians do is essentially no different from “what empirical scientists do from day to day.” And yet he conspicuously ignores the fact that his scheme requires us to drop the principle of objectivity from the context of the reasoning process he's trying to assimilate into his defense of supernaturalism. Moreover, he does not show how the process of reasoning to the supernatural from what is seen is at all similar to the process of integrating unperceived but still completely natural and this-worldly units into concepts formed on the basis of perceived models.

Thinkers of all professions – not just those involved in the special sciences – do in fact reason from what they perceive firsthand to things that they do not perceive or have not yet perceived. But there is nothing inherent in this process which requires that what is concluded from such reasoning cannot be perceived at some point. The cats about which I draw general conclusions from a small sample, for instance, are just as non-supernatural as the cats which I perceive and which make up my sample.

For instance, I have been to many, many cities in my lifetime. I have seen them firsthand, walked their streets, eaten at their cafes, gone to board meetings in their tall buildings, strolled in their parks, etc. Every city I have seen has had trees. I have never been to Pittsburgh, PA, but I have no reason to suspect it does not have trees. I reason from what I have seen (other cities) to what I have not seen (trees in Pittsburgh, PA). There is nothing illegitimate about this, and if I do in fact one day go to Pittsburgh, I wager that I will see trees there. This is an important point: the reasoning process that Bahnsen alludes to (“from what is known in sense experience to something lying beyond sensation”), does not require that we reason from what we perceive to what must be imperceptible, supernatural or otherworldly. What Bahnsen mentions – subatomic particles, gravitational forces, radiation, causes of infection, etc., may be imperceptible, but this does not mean that all things concluded by a course of reasoning that begins with what we perceive must also be imperceptible. Moreover, there’s no reason to suppose that subatomic particles, gravitational forces, radiation, causes of infection, etc., are just as finite, non-supernatural and this-worldly as the cats and trees we perceive on a daily basis.

But Bahnsen wants to make sure that we allow at the very least the ability to reason from what is perceived to that which is imperceptible. That’s because his invisible magic being is held to be imperceptible. That is why he specifically names examples which are imperceptible (e.g., subatomic particles, gravitational forces, and the like). But does Bahnsen explain how one can reason from what is perceived to that which is not perceived? No he does not. Does he explain how conceptualization makes this possible? No, he does not. If he did, he’d have to show how this process could be executed and validate his god-belief claims at the same time. Bahnsen nowhere comes close to doing this. I suspect that his defenders will probably say that his book was intended for an untutored audience, meaning: he hadn’t intended on tutoring them. But this is a roundabout way of admitting that he in fact did not explain these things. So such defenses are unhelpful.

Bahnsen then writes:

Everybody should be expected to play by the same rules. (Always Ready, p. 185)

But does Bahnsen truly want “to play by the same rules” as non-believers? If anything, one gets the impression that he emphatically does not. Bahnsen clearly wants to reserve for himself the option of appealing to “revelation” as a defense for his claims. This is simply a variant of the invisible magic being defense: if you cannot establish your position on the basis of facts which are accessible to anyone who reasonably investigates the matter, claim that your position has is certified by an invisible magic being who makes it so. This assessment of Bahnsen’s apologetic is no stretch, not even in the least.

In his opening statement when he debated Gordon Stein, one of Bahnsen’s chief points was that “the existence, factuality, or reality of different kinds of things is not established or disconfirmed in the same way in every case.” Apparently some claims should be established by means of reason, but other claims are exempt from this requirement. Bahnsen found it important to segregate his god-belief claims epistemologically from other types of claims, insisting that we should not expect his god-belief claims to be verified in the same manner as we might verify other claims, particularly claims having to do with things that exist in the universe (i.e., things which are not believed to “surpass the limits of nature”). Of course, if “the supernatural” were really imaginary, we would not expect the methods we use to verify truths in the actual world to be sufficient when it comes to verifying claims about “the supernatural.” So such reservations are not surprising.

To illustrate his point, Bahnsen employed his famous “crackers in the pantry” example, which achieves its aim by trivializing the methods we use to verify claims in “the ‘here-and-now’.” His point was that one cannot expect to verify the claim that the Christian god exists in the same manner as we verify the claim that there are crackers in the pantry. The existence of the crackers in the pantry can be verified by simply going over to the pantry and checking to see if the crackers are there. If we see the crackers in the pantry, then we can be sure that the claim that the crackers are in the pantry is true.

But, according to Bahnsen, the existence of the Christian god cannot be verified in such a manner. Okay. How then can it be verified? He implies that the existence of his god can in fact be verified by the same mind that can verify whether or not there are crackers in the pantry. But this is where Bahnsen led the audience on a wild goose chase, never elucidating any methodology by which we can verify such claims. Throughout the debate, one of Bahnsen’s primary aims was to shield his god-belief claims from criticism (his other aim was to discredit non-belief in Christian supernaturalism), and in the present context he sought to do so by pointing to other things whose existence is not verified in the same way we verify whether or not there are crackers in the pantry, such as: “barometric pressure, quasars, gravitational attraction, elasticity, radioactivity, natural laws, names, grammar, numbers, the university itself (that you’re now at), past events, categories, future contingencies, laws of thought, political obligations, individual identity over time, causation, memories, dreams or even love or beauty.” What Bahnsen ignores is the fact that all these examples are of things that can be verified and understood by means of reason. In fact, we use reason when we check to see if the crackers are in the pantry just as we do when we measure barometric pressure, search for the existence of quasars, test gravitational attraction, etc. Reason is the common denominator for exploring all these inquiries. But reason does not help us when investigating the alleged existence of “the supernatural,” and Bahnsen’s own appeals to “revelation” confirm this. Since Bahnsen does not show how reason can be used to verify his god-belief claims, and numerous statements of his verify that the existence of his god cannot be known by means of autonomous inference from what we perceive (in fact, he says, this knowledge needs to be “revealed” to us), then it does in fact look like Bahnsen wants to reserve for himself a different set of game rules, in spite of his statement to the opposite effect.

Could it be that the method by which Bahnsen has “knowledge” of “the supernatural” is just too sophisticated to explain? It would appear not. Instead of going and looking on the shelf, as we might do if we’re in doubt about there being any crackers in the pantry, Bahnsen’s method for “knowing the supernatural” seems to be nothing more than consulting a storybook to settle questions about the existence of his god. Christians might object to this characterization, saying that it is just as geared toward trivializing Bahnsen’s methodology of confirming his god-belief claims as his crackers-in-the-pantry example trivializes methodologies used to verify claims in “the ‘here-and-now’.” But again we must ask: what exactly is the methodology that Bahnsen proposes for investigating claims about “the supernatural”? If Bahnsen never presents any methodology for investigating such claims, how can we be accused of trivializing it? And if Bahnsen does have a methodology which for one reason or another prefers to keep close to his chest, how exactly does it differ from taking what the bible says at face value on its own say so? Here we just get another massive blank-out.

But notice what Bahnsen says next:

Moreover, it is important to notice that (2) above is not really relevant to making a case against biblical metaphysics. Christianity does not view its metaphysical (theological, supernatural) claims as unguided or arbitrary attempts to reason from the seen world to the unseen world - unwarranted projections from nature to what lies beyond it. In the first place, the Christian claims that God created this world to reflect His glory and to be a constant testimony to Him and His character. God also created man as His own image, determined the way in which man would think and learn about the world, and coordinated man's mind and the objective world so that man would unavoidably know the supernatural Creator through the conduit of the created realm. (Always Ready, pp. 185-186)

Bahnsen needs to make his position on this matter clear instead of clouding it with the murkiness of statements like this. He needs to come clean on this: Does man (according to Bahnsen’s view) infer the reality of “the supernatural” from what he perceives in the world around him, or not? If Bahnsen thinks so, then what are the steps in that inferential process? How does one infer the existence of “the supernatural” (i.e., that which “surpasses the limits of nature”) from the natural? As I ask in my blog Is Human Experience Evidence of the Christian God?

How does that which is natural, material, finite and corruptible serve as evidence of that which is supernatural, immaterial, infinite and incorruptible? In other words, how does A serve as evidence of non-A?

Or,

How does something serve as evidence of that which completely contradicts it?

On the other hand, if Bahnsen does not think we infer the reality of “the supernatural” from what we perceive in the world around us, then he admits that such beliefs cannot be rational, for they have nothing to do with reason. Bahnsen cannot have it both ways. Indeed, he will have to play by the same rules. If he cannot establish his claims on the basis of reason, he needs to admit this, and with that he will concede all debate.

Now those who confuse their imagination with reality and give special names to their confusion (e.g., “the supernatural”) will always be able to concoct explanations for how they come into possession of what they call “knowledge.” By accepting one arbitrary premise, especially in a position of hierarchical importance in one’s overall understanding of the world (cf. Bahnsen’s “ultimate presuppositions”), the believer shows his willingness to compromise his rational faculties and thus opens the door to any other arbitrary notions that he will need to support the original. Essentially, he uses a fabrication to cover up another fabrication. The common currency here is pretense in the guise of profound philosophical truth. But in doing so he outlines a worldview that is completely incompatible with what we learn from the world. We learn from the world, for instance, that we possess a volitional consciousness, but here Bahnsen tells us that an invisible magic being has “determined the way in which man would think and learn about the world.” According to this view, we are merely puppets manipulated by strings dangling from a magic kingdom, or characters in a cartoon universe executing an elaborately contrived script.

The commitment to the primacy of consciousness here is difficult to miss. This deity – a supernatural consciousness – “coordinated man’s mind and the objective world so that man would unavoidably know the supernatural Creator through the conduit of the created realm.” On this view, both the subject (“man’s mind”) and the object (“the objective world”) conform to the wishful dictates of the supernatural consciousness, whose will holds metaphysical primacy over both. The subjectivism of such a view is echoed by Van Til: “the world of objects was made in order that the subject of knowledge, namely man, should interpret it under God... The subject and the object are therefore adapted to one another.” (The Defense of the Faith, 3rd ed., p. 43) According to such a view both man (even as a subject himself) and the world about him, are objects of the consciousness of the supernatural deity, and they conform precisely to its intentions.

This view suggests more than that knowledge of “the supernatural” is not the conclusion of a rational process, but that man is completely infallible so long as his “conclusions” (which are “unavoidably know[n]” and not derived from any rational process to begin with) agree with the content of the storybook (and so long as those conclusions conform to the prescribed interpretation of that storybook), but wholly fallible in any other use of his intellect. If man’s mind and the world he beholds were “created” such that they are both “adapted to one another” by a perfect creator which can never err, then it seems that infallibility in theological assertions is exactly what is being claimed.

Bahnsen continues:

God Himself intended and made it unavoidable that man would learn about the Creator from the world around him. This amounts to God coming to man through the temporal and empirical order, not man groping toward God. This amounts to saying that the natural world is not in itself random and without a clue as to its ultimate meaning, leaving man to arbitrary speculation and metaphysical projections. (Always Ready, p. 186)

While Bahnsen wants to characterize the alleged “unavoidability” of this knowledge of “the supernatural” as the cause behind the world’s non-randomness, the view he presents here renders epistemology completely futile. For it puts man’s mind in a completely passive role when it comes to his acquisition of knowledge. Since it holds that the “knowledge” that the Christian god exists is “unavoidable” and this same god “com[es] to man through the temporal and empirical order,” man’s mind can remain completely idle and still possess this alleged knowledge. So Bahnsen is in effect coming full circle in divorcing knowledge from the operation of man’s mind, which is confined to “groping” were it not for a supernatural deity rescuing it from its own devices and helplessness.

It is at this point that Bahnsen introduces the dichotomy between “arbitrary speculation” and “divine revelation,” a commonplace assumption in Christian apologetics. This dichotomy is integral to the religious view that man’s mind is epistemologically helpless, and Bahnsen is in no way the only one who has tried to exploit it. Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, makes it quite explicit:

How, then, do you discover the purpose you were created for? You have only two options. Your first option is speculation. This is what most people choose. They conjecture, they guess, they theorize ... Fortunately, there is an alternative to speculation about the meaning and purpose of life. It's revelation. We can turn to what God has revealed about life in his Word. (pp. 19-20)

Reacting to this, Mister Swig accurately encapsulates its apologetic use:

Either you guess at the truth like a hardcore skeptic, never knowing whether you're right, or you look at the Bible and accept its make-believe answer on faith. Given only these two options—and not the explicit alternative of reason, logic, and the scientific method—why would anyone choose mere speculation? (Rick Warren: Master Assimilator for the Christian Collective)

The reason why Christians want to characterize the discovery of one’s purpose in life as a matter of speculation vs. revelation, is to frontload a set of assumptions which will be recruited to discredit any purpose one might decide for himself that does not subordinate him to the will of an invisible magic being, specifically the Christian deity. If, for instance, a thinker recognizes that his purpose is to live and enjoy his life – a purpose which religionists want to discourage at any cost – then any reasoning he cites in support of this purpose can be discounted as the product of mere “speculation.” The message here is quite clear: don’t try to think for yourself, let the church elders do it for you, and abide by whatever pronouncements for your life that they might issue. Which means: you are not to live for your own sake, you are to sacrifice your life to whatever end the religionists decide for it.

Embedded within all this is the question of whether or not the world is “random.” Bahnsen wants to use the concept ‘random’ as if it denoted a metaphysical attribute, when in fact it describes an epistemological vantage. If the law of identity obtains throughout the universe (the apologist is free to argue that it does not), then “randomness” could only indicate a lack of knowledge on the part of any knower as to the causes of what he discovers or encounters. For instance, it may be a random incident that my coworker and I both show up to the water fountain with empty cups in hand at the same moment, but this would not entail that there is no causality behind our mutual meeting. If A is A, and A is what it is independent of conscious functions (e.g., beliefs, misunderstandings, wishes, emotions, etc.), then not only can we affirm that the universe is not random, we can affirm it on an explicitly non-theistic basis, that is: on the basis of the primacy of existence metaphysics.

Of course, I am a man, but no god has come to me “through the temporal and empirical order.” Only other men have, and men can be misinformed or dishonest (and even both). Many in the world are prone to making all kinds of outlandish claims. Would Bahnsen have me discard all discriminating awareness and simply accept whatever the first passer-by might claim? Perhaps this depends on who that first passer-by might be and what he might claim. If he claims what Bahnsen claims, then the answer would be yes: consider it true, even if you don’t at first believe it, and apply his scheme of apologetics to make sure what is claimed is in the end believed. If the first passer-by happens to be a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Scientologist, or even a rational man, don’t trust anything he says, for he does not number among “the chosen.”

Sensing that what he has presented is still not sufficient to shield his position from scrutiny, Bahnsen ups the ante by invoking the doctrine that man is inherently sinful:

Moreover, given the intellectually corrupting effects of man's fall into sin and rebellion again God, man's mind has not been left to know God on the basis of man's own unaided experience and interpretation of the world. God has undertaken to make Himself known to man by means of verbal revelation - using words (chosen by God) which are exactly appropriate for the mind of man (created by God) to come to correct conclusions about His Creator, Judge and Redeemer. (Always Ready, p. 186)

Bahnsen’s tactic here is less than sophomoric. He’s essentially saying: “If you deny that my invisible magic being, then you’re morally worthless!” Which is essentially to say: “If you defy my authority, then you’re a disgrace!” That is what the appeal to sin is all about: it’s a last ditch effort to discredit anyone and everyone who does not believe what the Christian claims by exploiting any self-doubt or lack of self-esteem as an indication of the presence of this magical contaminant called “sin.” The doctrine of “sin” allows the Christian apologist to cover his resort to childish slander with something that seems seriously important: man’s moral nature. And yet, the doctrine of “sin” itself only demonstrates how out of touch Christianity as a worldview is with a rational understanding of morality. One of the ways Christianity’s own teachings succeed in nullifying morality as such, is by its underlying doctrine of collective guilt: all men are guilty by virtue of one man’s transgressions. Men “inherit” a “fallen nature” – and with it an innate “rebelliousness” against the Christian god – as a result of the “sin” of one man whom none of us living today ever met and whose existence cannot be objectively corroborated; all we have is a storybook, told in campfire fashion, that this man allegedly existed in some unspecified era of the distant past. You can’t be good by your own choices and actions, so why try? After all, morality on Christianity’s own view is primarily about being “good” (at least in the eyes of an imaginary being), not about how to govern your choices and actions in order to live. Your choices and actions, like your life, are of no concern in the eternal scheme of things, so they shouldn’t concern you in your life to begin with.Even Bahnsen’s own statements confirm the accuracy of this analysis, for he admits that this presumption of “man’s fall into sin” is not something he can discover by means of reasoning from the world that he experiences firsthand. According to the Christian view, this “presupposition” is based in “verbal revelation,” which is essentially nothing other than indiscriminately believing what one reads in the storybooks of the bible. Observe:

Christian theology is not the result of a self-sufficient exploration of, and argument from man's unaided and brute empirical experience, to a god lying beyond and behind experience. Rather the Christian affirms, on the basis of Scripture's declaration, that our theological tenets rest on the self-revelation of the transcendent Creator. Theology does not work from man to God, but from God to man (via infallible, verbal revelation; cf. 2 Peter 1:21). (Always Ready, p. 186)

So while above Bahnsen wanted to take thinkers to task for supposing we cannot reason from the seen to the unseen (because surely we do this all the time) as a premise in the case against supernaturalism, he’s now saying that this is not how one arrives as religious truths in the first place! Is Bahnsen coming, or going? It’s hard to tell, principally because the position he wants to defend requires a lot of shape-shifting on its defenders’ part. Recall that in the previous section, Bahnsen declared that “the metaphysician aims at absolute or necessary truths about the reality which somehow lies behind those appearances.” (Always Ready, p. 184) He may “aim” at such “truths,” but simply aiming for them does not validate them or make them truthful. So the question remains: How does he know? What epistemological procedure does he undertake to secure these “absolute or necessary truths about the reality which somehow lies behind those appearances”? Again, Bahnsen resorts to the claim of revelation, and he also characterizes the human mind as epistemologically passive as it is supposed to idly receive revelatory transmissions from “the supernatural.” Thus Bahnsen appeals to the supernatural in order to validate the supernatural, which is terminally circular. If this method is “valid” for Bahnsen’s purposes, why wouldn’t it be valid for any rival position? For instance, what would stop someone who wanted to validate The Wizard of Oz from validating the claim that The Wizard of Oz is true by appealing to what The Wizard of Oz says? The conclusion is inescapable: Bahnsen has no epistemological warrant for his claims whatsoever, for he identifies no epistemological process by which his belief in supernaturalism can be validated.

From all of this, however, Bahnsen wants to draw the following conclusion:

Therefore, the anti-metaphysical polemic - already seen to be arbitrary and inconsistent - begs the main question. If God as portrayed in the Bible does indeed exist, then there is no reason to preclude the possibility that man who lives in the realm of "nature" can gain a knowledge of the "supernatural." (Always Ready, p. 186)

In spite of the fact that Bahnsen’s defense is terminally circular, as we have seen, he can’t wait to accuse non-believing positions of begging the question themselves. This is not uncommon at all: presuppositionalists seem to delight in posturing as if non-belief in the supernatural somehow stood on a wobbly foundation full of fallacy and error. But does it really? Bahnsen’s focus is on dismissing efforts which “preclude the possibility that man... can gain a knowledge of the ‘supernatural’,” but fails to explain why anyone’s worldview should include claims about “the supernatural” as valid knowledge. Even Bahnsen’s own hypothetical “If God... does indeed exist” is intellectually shortsighted. If such a being existed, then all bets are off when it comes to assessing anything proposed as a possibility, no matter how absurd it might seem. If such a being exists, anything would be possible, both the theist’s proposals as well as any atheist’s. That’s because the very notion of a god presupposes the primacy of consciousness, and on such an assumption nothing could be written off as either an absurdity or an impossibility. What about corpses rising from their graves and walking around in cities a la Matthew 27:52-53? This is perfectly possible, on the assumption that an invisible magic being is running the universe like a cartoon. Same with the idea of a pack of acid-breathing canines typing out dissertations on Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints on the surface of Venus. If a mere human being could imagine these things, how could one say it’s not possible for the being which allegedly created man in the first place to be able to make what a human being imagines real? Can man’s imagination range beyond the abilities of the Christian god? What card-carrying Christian would admit to this?

But such “what if?” appeals are not helpful to Bahnsen. What if men were actually water-breathing lilies that grew in the silts of the Ayeyarwady delta? Well, we’re not, so why treat such questions as if they were important?

At this point, Bahnsen can only assert his position and treat it as a given:

God created and controls all things, according to the Biblical account. Given that perspective, God could certainly bring it about that man learns the truth about Him through both the created order and a set of divinely inspired messages. (Always Ready, p. 186)

In such a way, Bahnsen demonstrates how affirming one arbitrary claim and treating it as centrally important (cf. “presupposition”), allows one to argue any arbitrary claim he wants, since he’s already granted legitimacy to the arbitrary. A little leaven, leaveneth the whole lump. If we grant one absurdity, on what basis could we rule out any other absurdity? Blank out.

This in turn gives Bahnsen the license to speak for “the unbeliever”:

When the unbeliever contends that nothing in man's temporal, limited, natural experience can provide knowledge of the metaphysical or supernatural, he is simply taking a roundabout way of saying that the Biblical account of a God who makes Himself clearly known in the created order and Scripture is mistaken. (Always Ready, pp. 186-187)

I suppose that, no matter how solid a case the non-believer presents on behalf of his position that supernaturalism is irrational, the apologist will always be able to dismiss it as “a roundabout way” of saying the bible is mistaken. If the apologist has no arguments for his position, such maneuvers might be psychologically palliative, though only momentarily. But since Bahnsen prefers to philosophize on the basis of “what if?” scenarios, let’s ask one of our own: what if “the unbeliever” gives the apologist ample opportunity to

a) identify the means by which one can have awareness of “the supernatural,”

b) explain how supernatural claims can be verified in a manner consistent with the nature of consciousness which man actually possesses,

c) provide a reliable method by which “the supernatural” can be distinguished from what the believer may merely be imagining, and

d) credibly explain how “revelation” is not essentially the same as believing something one reads in a storybook,

and it turns out that the apologist fails to deliver on all four points? What then? If Bahnsen is so certain that “the Biblical account of a God who makes Himself clearly known in the created order” is not mistaken, why doesn’t he explain how such claims can be substantiated on the basis of the primacy of existence, which we know is true and fundamental, instead of just avoiding this and these other issues repeatedly, even when he sets out to write a chapter purportedly intended to deal with “The Problem of Knowing the ‘Super-Natural’”? If this god has made itself “clearly known” to men, why do disagreements about the identity of this god and its accompanying theology persist so stubbornly among those who number themselves among “the chosen,” just as we would expect them to do if in the end their theology were seated in the imagination of its adherents?

But Bahnsen insists that his position’s detractors must be committing some fallacy in their rejection of supernaturalism:

This begging of the question is sometimes veiled from the unbeliever by his tendency to recast the nature of theological truth as man-centered and rooted initially in human, empirical experience. However, the very point in contention between the believer and unbeliever comes down to the claim that Christian teaching is rooted in God's self-disclosure of the truth as found in the world around us and in the written word. (Always Ready, p. 187)

Let us make one thing clear: one is not “begging the question” when he rejects subjective, irrational or arbitrary claims. If a man claims that Blarko, an invisible conscious being which exists beyond the universe, created the universe by making a wish, designing all its structures and contents according to its wise “counsel” such that everything “reflects” its infallible mind and unquestionable plan, and he offers no objective method by which we can independently discover the existence of this Blarko and verify the truth of his claim, on what basis should we accept that claim as knowledge? Suppose we point out that, like Bahnsen, this man fails to explain how such knowledge can be possible, but instead focuses on supposed problems in rival positions which reject belief in Blarko. Would this gain any ground for his case? Of course not; problems in a rival position are not going to substantiate such claims.

And notice how Bahnsen’s own position is guilty of the very fallacy he charges the non-believer with committing: begging the question. Bahnsen makes it clear that he must appeal to the supernatural in order to validate his supernaturalism. He refers to “the truth in the world around us and in the written word” of the bible as “God’s self-disclosure,” but nowhere does he explain how man could know this, even if it were in fact true. Simply reading something in a storybook is not sufficient to accept it as truth. Moreover, if what we read in the storybook would require us to ignore fundamental facts which we do know in order to believe what it says, why would we believe it? Time and time again, apologists fail to factor the nature of man’s cognition and its needs into his defenses, and that is because man’s cognition and its needs are of no concern to his religious doctrines. What is important to the believer is believing, not understanding. So we should not expect understanding to be the goal of their apologetic program. Bahnsen confirms this assessment with statements such as the following:

There is no reason to think that theology would be intellectually required to be built upon the foundation of human sense experience, unless someone were presupposing in advance that all knowledge must ultimately derive from empirical procedures. But that is the very question at hand. (Always Ready, p 187)

By “empirical procedures,” I understand Bahnsen means sense perception. Again, he does not want his readers to think that sense perception is our primary means of awareness and, consequently, the base of our knowledge. He says that this is “the very question at hand,” namely whether or not “all knowledge must ultimately derive from empirical procedures.” Would Bahnsen say that some knowledge is derived from an absence of consciousness? If not, then he needs to identify some alternative to “empirical procedures” (i.e., sense perception) as the base from which knowledge can be derived. If “that is the very question at hand,” why doesn’t he address this point?Instead, Bahnsen prefers to dwell on soft targets:

The anti-metaphysical polemic is not a supporting reason for rejecting Christianity; it is simply a rewording of that rejection itself. (Always Ready, p. 187)

It may be the case that “the anti-metaphysical polemic... is simply a rewording of that rejection itself,” but what if “the anti-metaphysical polemic” that Bahnsen has described is not the basis upon which one rejects Christianity? What if instead the non-believer has adopted what may be called the anti-irrational polemic, the anti-subjective polemic, or the anti-arbitrary polemic? I tend to prefer calling it the anti-mystical position. It is anti-mystical because it is first pro-reason, pro-rationality, pro-reality and pro-man. As such, this anti-mystical position is broader than merely a rejection of Christianity; it involves a total decontamination of the human intellect of any irrational, subjective or arbitrary worldview influence, Christianity being merely one of the many views filtered out as a result of an uncompromising commitment to rationality. This is consistent with the two alternative positions which earlier I had proposed in lieu of the Logical Positivism that Bahnsen shadow-boxed:

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.

Let the apologist come out of the closet to argue for a non-objective source of knowledge about reality. Let him claim legitimacy to drawing inferences from experience to what contradicts it. Let him defend the willingness to blur the distinction between fact and fiction, reality and imagination, truth and arbitrariness, for this is the substance of his faith.

by Dawson Bethrick

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