Self-Attestation vs. Self-Authenticity

As I read more and more examples in which I find a conflation between epistemology and apologetics (link, link, link, link), I am reminded of Anthony Bryson's thoughtful chapter in Calvinism and the Problem of Evil called, Calvinism, Self-Attestation, and Apathy toward Arguments From Evil. Unlike many authors, Bryson is aware of the distinction between the two:

...my aim is not to look at what role self-attestation should play in apologetics. I'm interested in how the Christian can know that the Bible is the word of God. In the SA literature, these sometimes get confused.

In his chapter, Bryson detects apathy from presuppositionalists towards the problem of evil and thinks such is due to their reliance on the principle of "self-attestation." He writes that some presuppositionalists think as follows: 

We clearly know that God exists because of what the Bible says. Since God is its author, it is infallible. And we know its author is God because of its own self-testimony. In short, the Bible is self-attesting... 

...how can we know that the Bible is inspired? The most common answer from self-attestation theorists is that Jesus and the rest of the Scriptures teach that it is… we know that it was written by God because God, in the Bible, has written that it was written by him. (pgs. 275, 280-281)

Now, some authors of books in the Bible do claim their own or other biblical writings have been divinely revealed. But any reliance on self-attestation to function as a positive evidence, proof, or defense of one's belief in the Bible already presupposes that the Bible is trustworthy. Circular argumentation (apologetics) may be permissible (see below). But argumentation presupposes epistemic justification, and circular justification (epistemology) is not permissible (link). Bryson is interested in the latter, not the former.

Here's another problem with "apathetic" presuppositionalists Bryson mentions: does every proposition the Bible communicates begin with a self-attestation (e.g. "I am the Lord...")? Obviously not. How, then, are we able to know those propositions? Not by an appeal to self-attestation! There must be some other way in which we know each biblical proposition, in which case Bryson has a point that the motivation for a lazy self-attestation epistemology is undercut. 

Further, suggesting that self-attestation is an epistemic necessity would seem to lead to a vicious regress: with respect to any purported revelation from God, God Himself would have to attest that He is attesting that He is attesting ad infinitum. Divine revelation could not be known if it requires infinite content.

Now, none of this suggests that self-attestation arguments are irrelevant to apologetics. Self-consistency is a virtue, after all. The Bible may even allow for [apologetic] tests according to which one may disconfirm knowledge claims, which is not the same as suggesting the Bible requires tests for knowledge-claims to be epistemically justified (link). 

Even so, should one solely rely on self-attestation arguments in one's apologetic (let alone in one's epistemology)? No. For example, other religious apologists might make self-attestation arguments. It would be useful to show in what ways Christianity has comparatively unique evidence or in what ways those religions are internally inconsistent. In other words, if he had cared to make an argument against a purely self-attestation apologetic, Bryson would also have had a point. To this extent, I have no issue with him. 

On pg. 282, however, Bryson seems to equates self-attestation with self-authenticity:

SA arguments fence off inerrancy claims so that we cannot possibly acquire good reasons for thinking that the Bible, or just a part, is uninspired. God's self-authentication is the most fundamental and important piece of evidence for the inspiration/inerrancy of Scripture. All other evidence depends on it and must be interpreted in light of this epistemic base. The self-attestation of Scripture is not one piece of evidence among others that happens to weigh more. It determines what else can count as evidence, including how or whether we even ought to search for evidence. Put another way, for the SA theorist belief in biblical inerrancy resembles the sort of belief lodged in the middle of a Quinean doxastic web. The belief will (and ought to) be held, come what may.

Perhaps Bryson only means to summarize certain presuppositionalists. In footnotes for this paragraph and elsewhere in his chapter, he mentions Frame and Kruger. Indeed, his critiques of these and other presuppositionalist may land. For example, Kruger, whose work I do respect, has said (link):

Christian theologians—especially in the Reformed world—have long argued that there is a more foundational way we can know books are from God: the internal qualities of the books themselves.

In this case, Bryson's response appears devastating:

Kruger believes that SA sanctions the use of other kinds of evidence, like the internal virtues of a book, to pick out the divinely inspired books. Yet, despite this broadening of potential evidence, his view collapses into the strict self-attestation view. He requires that we beg the question and assume which books belong in the cannon [sic] to figure out which books should be included in the canon. Unless God, via some other form of communication, enlightens us as to the list of canon making attributes, we must rely on God's word. Consequently, we must have already isolated the right books so that we can extract from them the criteria for canon inclusion.

For instance, Kruger believes that the beauty of the Bible, along with its efficacy and harmony, is evidence of inspiration. But how does he know to search for these attributes? Primarily because of what he knows about God and his character. And he acquired this knowledge, I believe he would say, from Scripture.

At this point, we've hit upon the second horn of our dilemma: We must already know some of the books that belong in the New Testament canon apart from this method. For if we know that book X belongs in the canon and then learn that according to that book, properties a, b, and c are indicative of divine inspiration, those properties must not initially explain how we first learned that book X is inspired. (pg. 293)

Touché. Is there an alternative, or is the presuppositionalist out of luck? Perhaps Bryson would agree that "self-authentication" can refer to some meaning that is distinct from "self-attestation" if an author defines his terms. That is the route I would wish to take.

Self-attestation would be something along the lines of a speaker identifying himself as such while speaking. Bryson's definition of self-attestation (provided above) is just fine. On the other hand, I have mentioned elsewhere that I think self-authenticity means that the truth content of one's belief is the very justification one has for believing it. Self-authentication would be synonymous with self-justification.

As such, these are distinct ideas. In my mind, then, equating self-authenticity with self-attestation would be to commit the same sort of conflation between knowledge (epistemology) and defense of knowledge (apologetics) I've seen elsewhere. Consider an analogy I've mentioned before:

When a mom calls a child to dinner, she doesn’t need to identify who she is for the child to "know" who is calling. If she did identify herself, such self-attestation ("Ryan Hedrich, your mom is calling you!") wouldn’t be "needed"... but it also wouldn’t be unreasonable. Self-attestation might serve as a reminder to the child to take her words seriously. Aside from questions of knowledge, such reminders might have a psychological or pragmatic purpose (e.g. behavior reinforcement, mindfulness). (link)

To expand on this, a child is playing outside of his house. His mom calls him home for dinner. How does the child "know" to come home for dinner? Well, the epistemic starting point must be the mother's voice. 

Of course, the voice doesn't exist without the mother first existing, but that's a point of ontology. An ontological precondition for a situation in which a child is able to "know" to come home for dinner is distinct from what the child himself must take as his epistemic foundation for knowing to come home for dinner. Again, when a child hears his mother's voice, she doesn't need to say, "This is your mom speaking!" for the child to "know" and obey his need to come home.

A fortiori, as sinners, we are playing outside of the safety and nourishment of God's house. When He calls his children home by His word - Scripture; the Bible - the recipients of His effectual call may - with full assurance - know, hear, follow His voice. They will do this even if the word they hear does not contain a reference to self-attestation ("Thus saith the Lord")! That being said, our God is gracious, and if we listen long enough, we find that He does give us behavior reinforcement and so forth by self-attesting as to the fact that it is He who is calling.

The epistemic justification we have for believing God's speech is true - the content of which are biblical propositions - is the very fact that His word is truth. There is no prior premise. There is no circular reasoning in which a proposition[al belief] somehow becomes justified only after one makes a circular argument. As I said before, we don't know Scripture because it is "self-attesting" - i.e. because Scripture says it was written by God. We know it because it is "self-authenticating" - i.e. the truth of God's word and nothing else is our epistemic justification for foundational belief in it. 

In short, I think self-authenticity is to epistemology as self-attestation is to apologetics. Neither "prove" the Bible is God's word. But self-authenticity (John 10) is the principle by which Christians are able to know what is indemonstrable, whereas self-attestation is one reason (among many) Christians can cite in defense of what they already know.