God, Language, and Scripturalism

I noted in this post that I believed Language is a precondition for knowledge. I say Language with an upper-case "L" to distinguish it from alleged, particular languages like English, Hebrew, Greek, etc. This is a helpful article which distinguishes Language (or linguistics) from languages as well as makes some other acute observations.

For Language to be a precondition for knowledge is just for it to be necessary in order to know. Why do I consider language to be a precondition for knowledge? This becomes clear when it is explained what knowledge (at least, "philosophical" knowledge) necessarily entails: belief in propositions.

But given this, I do not find that I can agree with Clark that "words are arbitrary signs" which "tag thoughts" (cf. here, especially the quotes under the subsection "Meaning and Symbols"). Clark's Language and Theology is an excellent book, but at the very least, I find this assertion to be an over-generalization. The rest of this post will explain why. Firstly:

P1) Language is a precondition for knowledge.

P2) God's [self-]knowledge is eternal.

C) Language is eternal.

It is at least the case God's knowledge of Himself is necessary. So Language is necessary and natural to God. That is, what God knows about Himself must be non-arbitrary, so Language - and by extension, some particular language or languages, as that is something propositions require - must be necessary.

Unless we are prepared to concede that the meaning of the object of knowledge is not propositional but rather supra-linguistic or beyond expression - in which case we seem to be left with some kind of Plotinic, transcendent experience - the words or signs or symbols in the propositions God necessarily knows must also be necessary. Simply put, if there are necessary, known propositions, there are also necessary words, signs, or symbols.

This is not to say that people cannot perhaps create arbitrary words, signs, and symbols and designate them to be univocal with some set of necessary propositions (although see the last paragraph). But there still remains the necessary fact of eternal, non-arbitrary words and propositions.

The question then is, in what way is or are eternal language(s) necessary? I see two options:

1) it is inherently meaningful.

2) it symbolizes something not reducible to linguistics similar to operalization of so-called "physical objects."

As I believe the majority of Scripturalists hold to the idealistic idea that all things are a congeries, set, or complex of propositions (with the possible exception of the physical world), it would seemingly follow that Scripturalists should opt for 1); otherwise, we are back to a correspondence theory of truth bereft of univocality, which is pretty much the primary reason Clark rejects empirical "knowledge."

Thus, to assent to truth could simply be to assent to the eternal, linguistic expressions of God's knowledge (or arbitrarily designated equivalents thereof). [It is hard for me to grasp the idea that propositions act and will; alternatives, however, seem to be worse.]

To clarify, for example, Greek and Hebrew are spoken by God, so we know that either:

1) both particular languages are arbitrarily created but valid equivalents of the language of God's eternal knowledge, as they both are comprised of words, signs, or symbols which can be univocally designated as equivalent in meaning to the eternal, propositional language(s) of God's [self-]knowledge, or

2) one (or both) of them is (are) actually the language of God's eternal knowledge.

Or perhaps there are no arbitrary words, signs, or symbols. If I write a truth in English, God knows it. But does that really mean I created truth? Instead, we might consider that there aren't really any "particular" languages except in a geographic sense. Just as you can learn an "English" word which is synonymous with another "English" word, you can learn an "Arabic" word which is synonymous with an "English" word. What I mean is that "English" and "Arabic" may not modify the words but rather describe the people who usually use the words. In this case, all "languages" are in some sense necessary. There would simply be different expressions of knowledge, like two sentences being interchangeable (the same proposition). This would actually make more sense to me as I continue to work to understand the philosophy of language.

Prelapsarian Anthropology: Some Thoughts

Man was created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27). All are still images of God (Acts 17:28), though the image has been marred such that one must be conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29). Therefore, what man lost by virtue of the Fall cannot be an essential aspect of the imago Dei. If it were, men would no longer be the image of God.

Gordon Clark thought the essential property of the image of God is the innate faculty to reason. Man is by nature able to reason, and though this ability too has been dimmed due to sin, unregenerates with sufficient experience to occasion its use are nevertheless able to construct and understand propositions and even valid, if unsound, arguments:

The image must be reason because God is truth, and fellowship with him-a most important purpose in creation-requires thinking and understanding. Without reason man would doubtless glorify God as do the stars, stones, and animals; but he could not enjoy him forever. Even if in God’s providence animals survive death and adorn the heavenly realm, they cannot have what the Scripture calls eternal life because eternal life consists in knowing the only true God, and knowledge is an exercise of the mind or reason. Without reason there can be no morality or righteousness. These too require thought. Lacking these, animals are neither righteous nor sinful. (link)

There are some who have argued that man’s image must be understood with respect to his given tasks as well as the capacities used to fulfill said tasks (Genesis 1:28; link). However, I think this doesn’t work for a few reasons. Firstly, seemingly even on that view it is the last Adam rather than men who fulfills the stipulations of the Adamic covenant (see here and here). That being the case, if the or an essential feature of the image of God were functional, men would not and seemingly could not any longer image God. Secondly, considering Vos’ argument in Biblical Theology (pgs. 22-23) to the effect that if man’s function were an essential element in his makeup, he would have already known it, the fact Adam received special revelation explaining his function mitigates against the notion that it was essential to humanity:

The provision of this new, higher prospect for man was an act of condescension and high favour. God was in no wise bound on the principle of justice to extend [the covenant of works] to man, and we mean this denial not merely in the general sense in which we affirm that God owes nothing to man, but in the very specific sense that there was nothing in the nature of man nor of his creation, which by manner of implication could entitle man to such a favour from God. Had the original state of man involved any title to it, then the knowledge concerning it would probably have been formed part of man’s original endowment. But this not being so, no innate knowledge of its possibility could be expected. Yet the nature of an intensified and concentrated probation required that man should be made acquainted with the fact of the probation and its terms. Hence the necessity of a Special Revelation providing for this.

Does this mean fulfilling the Adamic covenant would have been by grace? No, for Adam's obedience to the dominion mandate in Genesis 1:28 and precept in Genesis 2:17 would have been the grounds for his inheritance. The point is that Adam's merit would have been pactum rather than condign. This is dissimilar to the covenant of grace in which our "personal obedience" is no longer the grounds for meriting our inheritance:

Man had been created perfectly good in a moral sense. And yet there was a sense in which he could be raised to a still higher level of perfection. On the surface this seems to involve a contradiction. It will be removed by closely marking the aspect in regard to which the advance was contemplated. The advance was meant to be from unconfirmed to confirmed goodness and blessedness; to the confirmed state in which these possessions could no longer be lost, a state in which man could no longer sin, and hence could no longer become subject to the consequences of sin. Man's original state was a state of indefinite probation: he remained in possession of what he had, so long as he did not commit sin, but it was not a state in which the continuance of his religious and moral status could be guaranteed him. In order to assure this for him, he had to be subjected to an intensified, concentrated probation, in which, if he remained standing, the status of probation would be forever left behind. The provision of this new, higher prospect for man was an act of condescension and high favour. (Biblical Theology pg. 22)

Thus, contrary to certain arguments against a Reformed anthropology, while there may be some similarity to Pelagianism in respect to one's personal obedience being the ground of fulfilling the Adamic covenant and inheriting eternal life, because Pelagians do not believe Adam was concreated morally upright, to argue against Reformed anthropology by alleging a correspondence between the two is specious.

Given the doctrine of original righteousness – that the moral character of man’s nature was indeed “very good” – the nature of what would have been merited by Adam is an interesting question. Is the implication that if he had completed the dominion mandate, then Adam would have merited eternal or, as Vos put it, “confirmed” life? It would appear that way, as Adam already possessed life, albeit mutably. The mutability of this life and the correlative righteousness mean that these too cannot be regarded as necessary to be in the image of God (although they may be necessary for healthily being in the image of God).

Aside from man’s rational faculty, one final common suggestion as to what distinguishes man as in God’s image is his [alleged] possession of “free will,” by which I mean not only the ability to choose – for Reformed Protestants believe men possess volitions – but also the ability to choose in such a way that it was not externally determined. Some Reformed Protestants think Adam possessed free will prior to the Fall, but it seems to me that there are at least two reasons why this can’t be the case:

1. Adam was originally righteous, so he could not have chosen to eat the apple according to his concreated “nature.” An inference one could draw from this would be that a precondition for Adam’s eating of the apple was the passive reception of a corrupt nature by means of secondary causation, e.g. the temptation of the serpent. Satan’s own reception of a corrupt nature would have had to have been on the occasion of some good, created thing. It is a sufficient defense to note that if God created Satan and other rational creatures with a capacity to be tempted and sin, there does not appear to be any reason to suppose that He could not also have created said creatures with the necessity to sin, given certain circumstances.

2. God’s knowledge of what Adam would choose was predicated on Adam’s actualizing one of two possible choices, God is not eternally omniscient, from which serious consequences for Christianity would follow.

Eternal Generation and Timelessness

As I've recently been reading about the nature of time and the nature of the Trinity, I have found Paul Helm's work to be good reading. For instance, he notes in God and Time: Four Views (pg. 33):

...the affirmation of God's timeless eternity appears to be necessary in order to avoid difficulties in affirming the eternal begetting of the Son by the Father; for if God is in time then the begetting of the Son looks like an event in time.

If the begetting of the Son is not an event in time, it is atemporal or timeless. But if the begetting of the Son is an event in time, then it seems that there was some time prior to the generation of the Son in which he was not generated. More precisely, the Son is not necessarily pre-existent. This leads to some bizarre conclusions: for example, "fatherhood" would be an accidental and acquired rather than an essential property of the first person of the Trinity. In fact, it would seem that pre-existence would be a and the only property that would be essential to the first person of the Trinity on this view. This would amount to a sort of reverse Arianism. It at least underscores the problems of a notion of time which infinitely extends into the "past."

I say all this to note that if one accepts eternal generation (and even if he does not), he must either accept divine timelessness or reject a host of classical Christian doctrines like divine immutability, the pre-existence of the Son (seemingly), and especially eternal or intuitive omniscience.

Helm provides a positive formulation for understanding eternal generation in the context of divine timelessness at the end of Eternal God (pgs. 284-286):

...while it may be granted that ‘begotten’ has a meaning distinct from ‘created’, that meaning is not wholly distinct, in that both ‘create’ and ‘beget’ are causal notions. How can the Father beget the Son without adversely affecting the equal divinity of each and the divine unity of the pair? It would seem to follow from being begotten (however this is understood) that the Son cannot be equally divine with the Father, in that he cannot be autotheos.

Perhaps it is possible to address these questions in the following way. For an atemporalist the eternal begetting of the Son by the Father cannot express a temporal relation of any kind. The Son cannot come into being at some time after the Father, nor (of course) can he come into being at the same time as the Father...

The nature of the begetting must be something like the following, then: there is no state of the Father that is not a begetting of the Son, and no state of the Son which is not a being begotten by the Father and necessarily there is no time when the Father had not begotten the Son, and no time when the Son had not been begotten by the Father...

The residual problem is not, how can the Son be co-divine when there was a time when the Father was and the Son was not, but, how could the Son have a timeless relation of begottenness while being equally divine with the Father? Perhaps a solution to this may be found in expunging the language of subordination entirely from the account of the Trinity, in asserting the co-equality of the Father and the Son, not their equality in every respect, but their equality in respect of divinity. The puzzle (to me at least) is why a satisfactory Trinitarian doctrine may not rest with saying that God exists in three co-eternal and equally divine persons. Is the language of begottenness and procession not a reading back into the doctrine of the Trinity those roles which according to the New Testament each person of the Trinity adopts in order to ensure human salvation?

I am not quite sure what Helm means by "equally divine" or "equality in respect of divinity" in the last paragraph. I find it hard to believe the "solution" he means to offer is the rejection of the very doctrine of eternal generation which he defended throughout the chapter. So here's what I think he means:

In the first paragraph, he seems to think autotheosis is relevant to divine co-equality. He may be puzzled as to why eternal generation would preclude the idea that the Son can be autotheos, for which reason he suggests "expunging the language of subordination entirely from the account of the Trinity." His final question seems to imply that the Scriptural evidence for the eternal generation of the Son relies on analogy: we see the economic activity of the Trinity and use that as a lens for understanding the ontological Trinity. My best guess, then, would be that Helm is suggesting that this lens should not be used to read the language of subordination which may be found in the economic activity of the Trinity back into the relations between the persons of the ontological Trinity. Thus, the Son may be autotheos yet eternally begotten.

If this is an accurate rephrasing - and if it's not, the apparent alternatives puzzle me! - it doesn't strike me as satisfying Helm's own earlier question: how can the Son be autotheos if he has been "caused" by the Father?

Regardless, I think Helm does a good job of explaining how eternal generation can be consistent with a theological system which holds to divine timelessness.

Trinitarian Heresies: an observation

As I'm studying the nature of the Trinity, it seems that the explanations posed are often accused of slipping into extremism associated with oneness and threeness simultaneously.

For instance, a social understanding of the Trinity in which the persons are ["merely"] generically united is alleged by some to be tritheistic, yet a corresponding doctrine, the monarchy of the Father, is alleged to be unitarian.

On the other hand, those who claim a numeric unity among the persons of the Trinity is alleged by others to be modalistic, yet a corresponding doctrine, that each of the persons of the Trinity are autotheos, is alleged to be tritheistic.

It is odd at first glance, but I suppose it makes sense if you look at it from the perspective that opposing sides view each other's qualifications as over-corrections for already extant error.

Back to Biblical and Covenant Theology: the Mosaic Covenant

It's been a while since I've read biblical and covenant theology. It's hard for me to synthesize them with philosophical and systematic theology. J. V. Fesko has said that biblical theology is to building as systematic theology is to building inspector. That's the best way I can understand how they relate.

Anyways, a friend and I were discussing covenant theology recently, particularly whether or not the Mosaic covenant was an administration of the covenant of grace to individual Israelites and/or a typological republication of the covenant of works for corporate Israel. My friend thought that Galatians 4:24 was a direct reference to the covenant of works and that the reference to Mt. Sinai was to the eternal moral law of God (which always ought to be obeyed) rather than a synecdoche the Mosaic covenant, but I think I've convinced him that Galatians 3-4:20 sets the context for 4:21-31 to be understood as contrasting the Mosaic covenant with the covenant of grace. This would have interesting implications as to how we understand the purpose for which the Mosaic covenant was given. I was a little rusty while discussing this, so hopefully I can put some of my thoughts in order here.

The covenant of grace, while the same in essence throughout redemptive history, has been administered differently. As the Westminster Larger Catechism puts it:

Question 34: How was the covenant of grace administered under the Old Testament?

Answer: The covenant of grace was administered under the Old Testament, by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the passover, and other types and ordinances, which did all foresignify Christ then to come, and were for that time sufficient to build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah, by whom they then had full remission of sin, and eternal salvation.

Question 35: How is the covenant of grace administered under the New Testament?

Answer: Under the New Testament, when Christ the substance was exhibited, the same covenant of grace was and still is to be administered in the preaching of the Word, and the administration of the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper; in which grace and salvation are held forth in more fulness, evidence, and efficacy, to all nations.

When the question is posed as to whether or not the Mosaic covenant falls under the rubric of the covenant of grace as administered in the Old Testament, in comparing the above exposition to Exodus 19:5-6, the answer appears to be negative. The purpose, rather, is to typologically revive the covenant of works.

Now, I have not committed myself to believing that the Mosaic covenant was a covenant merely superimposed onto the administrative history of the covenant of grace, for there are elements in it - especially the ritual laws which were fulfilled by Christ - which seem to indicate otherwise. But perhaps these only served to demonstrate that the covenant of grace was administered under the Mosaic covenant although not by it, since the Mosaic covenant was established upon but did not abrogate the Abrahamic.

If the essence of the Mosaic covenant is Exodus 19:5-6, then it would seem that the Mosaic covenant was with the nation of Israel rather than individual Israelites per se and typified the covenant of works, at least to the extent that such was possible for a collection of sinners. Adam, Israel, and Jesus are all uniquely connected to this covenant. Adam had Eden, Israel had the promised land of Canaan, and Christ has the promised land of new Eden. The former sons of God failed to meet the demands of the covenant of works, though there existence establishes a pattern which helps us to understand Christ's work. In the case of Israel especially, it was impossible for them to actually fulfill the covenant of works:

Even though they were not able to keep this law in the Pauline, spiritual sense, yea, even though they were unable to keep it externally and ritually, the requirement could not be lowered. When apostacy on a general scale took place, they could not remain in the promised land. When they disqualified themselves for typifying the state of holiness, they ipso facto disqualified themselves for typifying that of blessedness, and had to go into captivity. This did not mean that every individual Israelite, in every detail of his life, had to be perfect, and that on this was suspended the continuance of God's favor. Jehovah dealt primarily with the nation and through the nation with the individual, as even now in the covenant of grace He deals with believers and their children in the continuity of generations. - Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology pgs. 127-128

The point of "apostasy on a general scale" occurred when the nation as such acted in a sufficiently dissimilar manner to that which was necessary in order for there to be a recognizable connection to the obedience of one who actually rather than merely typologically attempted to fulfill of the covenant of works.

But strictly speaking, every Israelite was a sinner, so each broke this first covenant to which Paul refers in Galatians 4:24. So perhaps the Judaizers in Galatians 4 misunderstand the purpose of the Mosaic covenant by attempting to individualize its promises on the condition of general obedience. Or perhaps insofar as the Mosaic covenant typologically recapitulates the covenant of works, it would be more safe to say they understood its demands applied to themselves (which is true regarding the moral law) but misunderstood their own inability to meet its demands. In this case, they still misunderstood the purpose of the laws of the Mosaic covenant to be a means of salvation rather than a "tutor."

So I suppose all of this means I lean more toward a more Owenian (link) understanding of the Mosaic covenant, although Witsius' position could be arguable as well (cf. pgs. 35-39 here). Fesko's coming out with a new commentary on Galatians this month, so I'm looking forward to reading what more he has to say about this topic.

Irrationalism

I think most who have spent any amount of time studying philosophy will have come across philosophical skepticism, the idea that certainty, knowledge, and/or truth is impossible. It is one of the more persistent positions in history. But most people either know or can easily understand that it's also self-defeating. By definition, one can't know that philosophical skepticism is true.

A similarly prevalent claim one will hear, especially in discussions with agnostic atheists, is that the burden of proof is on the one making an assertion (e.g. God is known by His revelation as expressed in the Bible) to show that such is the case. While this is true, it is usually accompanied with confusion if the claimant is asked to give an account of his own worldview. I suspect that this is because the person doesn't understand the following: for one to suspend judgment (assent or dissent) regarding a given proposition is not necessary irrational; however, for one to suspend judgment on every proposition is necessarily irrational:

Clark’s emphasis on the importance of epistemology as a means to a cohesive belief system is warranted, for to any assertion pertaining to science et. al., the question may be "properly ask[ed], How do you know?" This poignant question... exposes as question-begging statements and actions which advocate a so-called suspension of judgment...

Advocating the suspension of judgment on all matters is as self-defeating as asserting philosophical skepticism. And even abstaining from making assertions while commanding or asking questions is a form of question-begging, for as Augustine noted in De Magistro, when one does these things, he is actually attempting to teach another something, i.e. what he wants to be performed or what he wants to be answered. Even merely acting without speaking requires an answer to the problem of suicide. A thinking creature cannot avoid epistemic concerns.

Christians need to recognize when an opponent is attempting to stall or divert attention away from having to explain his own worldview. Ignore rabbit-trails and press the point.

Standing on Straw Legs

Here's a recent post by Called to Communion. Ironically, instead of constructing a successful analogy to sola scriptura, the OP inspired an argument against Roman Catholicism.

On the one hand, the RC magisterium is perspicuous. On the other hand, the Scriptures which the apostles wrote - yes, the same apostles who RCs argue constituted the RC magisterium in Acts 15 - are not perspicuous.

Is the RC magisterium necessarily perspicuous or not? If not, then how can one determine which teachings are and are not perspicuous? If so, then why isn't Scripture perspicuous?

What's The Point?

I wanted to expand on something I mentioned a few posts ago:

It is conducive to an unbeliever's understanding to refute his worldview by employing a necessary precondition of knowledge, like logic, rather than simply quoting Scripture. The more cognitive dissonance one can create in an unbeliever's mind, the better.

I've been writing a few posts as of late about why I think those who make knowledge claims must presuppose an omniscience source for them. In most if not all cases, I've structured the arguments for this from the perspective of epistemic and logical necessity. But as I'm a Scripturalist, one might wonder why I don't simply cite passages of Scripture which entail divine omniscience and illumination and leave it at that. After all, given my first principle, Scripture, any argument I make must follow from it anyways. So why not make the simple argument and leave it at that?

While I do not accept classical apologetics as philosophically sufficient, I understand the appeal of a methodology which forces another to accept a logical conclusion or abandon belief in a proposition, especially a proposition which can be called "intuitive." The problem is that an opponent to theism in general or Christianity in particular can without any problem retreat to a fallback position by denying what he previously believed.

The point of epistemic apologetics is to cut off all retreat. Either the opponent accepts the necessary conclusion or remain hopelessly mired in self-contradiction. In the latter case, I simply just tell him that he accepts the conclusion until he recognizes that he cannot resist without appealing to the necessary conclusion.

Now, God has communicated with His people. Christians know that the truths which Scripture conveys are necessary. But the manner in which these truths are illustrated to be necessary may, as I alluded to in the other post, affect the opponent's willingness to accept the conclusion. It may lead to cognitive dissonance. At least, this is what I suspect.

Why? Well, unbelievers are inundated with claims by false religions who they have the word of God. While guilt-association of Christianity with these false religions is fallacious and inexcusable, it doesn't hurt to show that propositions entailed in a Christian worldview - such as an omniscient source of knowledge - are necessary by means [not mutually exclusive with the answer "because God said so" but] intended to highlight the foolishness of holding the contradictory in such terms that even the unregenerate mind cannot stand it. After all, some unbelievers see the stupidity of skepticism, and while it may be fashionable to taunt those who believe the Bible to be God's word, the more quickly a Christian can not only cut at the actual heart of an opponent's worldview but also at what the opponent himself perceives to be the heart of his worldview and by utilizing types of arguments (e.g. Socratic) the opponent is more likely to respect, the quicker the opponent will be forced to change his tactics.

There is something to be said for respect. If one can address an opponent with some level of what is commonly thought to be philosophical sophistication (think William Lane Craig), then an opponent be more willing to seriously engage or consider an argument, and the greater may be the benefit for other believers: renewed interest in apologetics, confidence that Christian beliefs can hold under scrutiny, etc.

UPDATE: After a little more reflection, I think what I am trying to say is that I want to marry the intuitive appeal of classical apologetics with the necessity of epistemic preconditions for knowledge. This would be done by showing that a proposition such as "One must have recourse to an omniscient source for knowledge" follows from multiple propositions within one's epistemic system. This is useful because while one may inexcusably deny one precondition of knowledge, if he acknowledges another - one[s] more commonly believed, like the laws of logic - then by demonstrating that "one must have recourse to an omniscient source for knowledge" follows from (or more precisely, is mutually conditioned with) the laws of logic, it would seem reasonable to suppose that one will be more inclined to accept what is entailed by what he understands to be a precondition for knowledge than he would if either 1) the premise in question was not a precondition for knowledge, in which case he would simply back off the premise (cf. classical apologetics), or 2) the precondition for knowledge in question was one which is not acknowledged to be intuitive (cf. the Bible is God's word).

Knowledge of Related Truths: Revisited

A friend of a friend is interested in apologetics and wanted to along the argument I presented in this post to her philosophy professor. I don't know whether or not he is a Christian, but here was his ostensible reply:

One of the problems I saw immediately in the argument was his use of “proposition”. A proposition is a component of an argument, He states: "Are all propositions related, or can a proposition be known to be true in isolation from all others?" A proposition cannot stand alone to begin with. There must be at least two propositions in an argument: premise and conclusion is the simplest argument. To stand alone it must be one of three things: a statement, a command or an exclamation. His questions at the ends of the first paragraph – can a proposition be known to be true in isolation from all others – makes his argument problematic from the beginning.

To be honest, I'm not even sure how this response relates to the points I made in the post, so I guess I'll just post a few thoughts:

I am in full agreement that propositions are only components of arguments. But knowledge is propositional. The nature of the object of our knowledge (propositions) is a separate issue from the nature of the justification of our knowledge (argumentation).

I also agree with the idea propositions cannot stand alone... that was a point of my post. That propositions cannot stand alone is instrumental to the argument I made, viz. ignorance of one proposition begs the question as to how one can know any proposition. The conclusion I drew was essentially that recourse to an omniscient source for knowledge is an epistemic necessity. In any case, I wasn't just asserting that as an isolated, true proposition. I clearly argued for that. So exactly how this is "problematic" needs to be explained.

As a side note, the idea that statements, commands, and/or exclamations can stand alone is vague. As I wrote in this post:

It is true that assent to the isolated statement “Jesus is Lord” does not necessarily mean that one knows its biblical meaning; he may be assenting to a falsehood. But the point is that one doesn't need to know the biblical meaning “in the context of all other propositions” in order to know what God knows. It is sufficient to know the infima species of the biblical subject “Jesus,” i.e. a minimal, finite number of propositions which would individuate “Jesus of Nazareth” from “Jesus of Strauss” et. al.

The English language is infamous for its imprecision, ambiguity. Take the professor's assertion, for example. What does "stand alone" mean?

Does he mean that certain sentences can be written or said without need of elaboration or a context for understanding these sentences? That doesn't make much sense. Just as the statement "Jesus is Lord" is unintelligible if abstracted from a context in which the statement can be understood, if I command one to "obey God," he might reasonably ask what "God" I am referring to. I had better be able to appeal to a broader context.

Or maybe the professor means that these sorts of sentences require no epistemic justification? But how would that be relevant? Knowledge is propositional. Propositions are the meanings of declarative sentences. I can say "Joe was he who hit the ball" and "the ball was hit by Joe" and those two sentences mean the same thing. To know the proposition is to understand both sentences. Commands cannot be known, because commands have no truth value. "Obey God" is neither true nor false. It may or may not be true that "one ought to obey God." Furthermore, propositions can be conveyed via "exclamations" and statements," so I really have no idea what the professor means by "stand alone."

Regardless, it doesn't appear to me that the professor understood the argument I was making. If he really did understand it, I am disappointed he didn't write a clearer, more thorough critique. I don't mind being shown I'm wrong, if I am wrong. At the same time, I hope that the friend of my friend won't be so easily taken in by such a reply as this.

The Future of Scripturalism: Epistemic Apologetics

I've written several posts on this blog about why I think omniscience is a precondition for knowledge (read and follow the links provided in this link). I haven't explained the full import I think this argument has, however, and a part of the reason is that I'm still turning it over in my mind. I think the last few paragraphs of Steve Matthew's latest review of Clark's A Christian View of Men and Things (link) provides a fine occasion for this discussion and some other points I've been meaning to address:

Clark tells us that if we can logically demonstrate that a system of thought has at least one contradiction in it, that system must be false. This is an application of what is called the coherence theory of truth, which holds that truth must be non-contradictory. Writing in his essay Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended, Gary Crampton says the following about the coherence theory of truth,

“Logic in the Clarkian view functions a a negative test for truth. It is an apologetic tool to show how a contradiction in any system (which all non-believing systems contain) disproves it as a valid system. Logical coherence is a very valid way to proof-text a system for its validity or non-validity. The fact that the Bible is logically consistent does not prove it to be true, but it certainly shows the non-believer that the Christian worldview is based on a system of truth that is logically coherent.”

In other words, we do not prove the Bible is true by testing it for logical coherence – we know it is logically coherent because God tells us in Scripture that this is the case, God is not the author of confusion (1Cor.14:33) – but we can disprove other systems of thought by exposing their internal contradictions. The Bible tells us the wisdom of this world is foolishness (1Cor.3:19). It is the job of the Christian apologist to make this foolishness evident.

Clark asserted inconsistency invalidates worldviews; on the other hand, Clark did not assert consistency alone validates a worldview. For example, compare what Gordon Lewis stated about Clark's position in Testing Christianity's Truth Claims (pg. 119-122) with Clark's response in Clark and His Critics (pgs. 399-403). I may reproduce the exchange in a different post, but one critical point is that Clark denied Lewis' claim that he, Clark, had ever asserted or implied that consistency is the sole test of truth-claims. Having read much of what Clark has written, I came to the same conclusion (e.g. points 3-7 here) before even knowing about this rebuttal of Clark.

To understand what Clark is doing, consider the following observation of a prominent, contemporary epistemologist (link):

The classic test for whether a condition for knowledge, say the truth of what is believed, is analytically necessary is whether or not it is absolutely inconceivable that someone has knowledge while failing to satisfy the condition. The test for whether a conjunction of conditions X is jointly sufficient for knowledge is whether we can conceive of X obtaining without knowledge.

Clark's use of logic as an elenctic apologetic implies Clark regards logic as a precondition for knowledge. Since he's right, by applying the test of logic to worldviews, those which are illogical can be discarded, as the do not satisfy a precondition for knowledge. However, this is not to suggest that consistency alone suffices as a precondition for knowledge. Clark noted in his response to Lewis that there are several competing theories of mathematics which are each consistent, or at least seemingly so. But what do geometrical systems have to do with epistemological systems? When Gilbert Weaver mistook Clark for thinking Bertrand Russell was consistent when, in fact, Clark's point was that Russell was only relatively consistent, in his reply to Weaver, Clark even admitted that even if he was unable to discover inconsistency in Russell, his limitations would not imply Russell was consistent (Clark and His Critics, pgs. 283, 291). Clark was clearly not a rationalist. However, he was rational insofar as he recognized logic to be a necessary precondition for knowledge. As Clark stated in this same reply to Weaver (pg. 290), he regarded Scripture as the sufficient precondition for knowledge of truth:

...I "supplement" consistency by an appeal to the Scripture for the determination of particular truths...

He states the same ideas elsewhere. For instance:

The initial implausibility of a thorough-going, all comprehensive system of axioms and theorems does not lie in the fact that it is a hitherto unrealized ideal. The implausibility rests on the contrast between the common opinion that the secular sciences are true, at least largely true, and the implication of Christian axiomatization that they are all completely false… the present point is simply that God is the origin of all truth. Then all truth is one and self-consistent. But if so, non-Christian systems of thought must be false... (Karl Barth's Theological Method, pg. 97)

Here, of course, Clark has in mind the Christian God who has revealed Himself by His word and thereby given His people access to the source of knowledge. Or, as I wrote in a recent post: "God can univocally communicate His eternal thoughts to man by divine illumination pertaining to what He has revealed in His word."

But in addition to conveying the true worldview, Clark also recognized the place of refutation in apologetics. It is conducive to an unbeliever's understanding to refute his worldview by employing a necessary precondition of knowledge, like logic, rather than simply quoting Scripture. The more cognitive dissonance one can create in an unbeliever's mind, the better.

This brings me to the point of my post: the more necessary preconditions of knowledge one can construct and utilize, the more quickly and efficiently a Scripturalist can create this cognitive dissonance by showing that an unbeliever's worldview fails to satisfy these preconditions. I think significant progress can be made in Scripturalist apologetics along these lines.

However, cannot all propositions in Scripture be considered necessary preconditions for knowledge if the theory that all propositions are related is true? It would seem so. But this is a good thing, I think. For one thing, it's a reason Jews cannot copy Scripturalism. But then, on what basis should a Christian choose from the sufficient precondition of knowledge (Scripture) various necessary conditions for knowledge (e.g. logic a la Clark)?

That all propositions are related doesn't mean all propositions are epistemically equal, so to speak, for some are entailed by, justified by, or deduced from others (etc.). While the claims of consistency in Scripture may not actually be falsifiable, they are testable by means of, say, logic. This is one of the more fundamental propositions by which we can test for knowledge. Rather than classical apologetics, which attempts to reason from common assumptions to God, then, this could be called epistemic apologetics, which aims to show what are the fundamental propositions without which knowledge is impossible.

Given that Scripture is the sufficient precondition for knowledge, Christians are already ahead of the curve in a search for these necessary preconditions for knowledge, for the sufficient precondition itself will already entail them. In addition to logic and divine omniscience - including what can be further inferred from those preconditions - I think language as a necessary precondition for knowledge is an avenue Scripturalists have yet to fully appreciate, especially in a practical sense. It is the responsibility of the Christian apologist to study Scripture to find them and learn how to appropriate them. Even one precondition is enough, as in Clark's case. At any rate, they can be distinguished but never ultimately abstracted from the harmonious system in which they are found (Scripturalism):

Axiomatization is simply the perfecting and exhibiting of the logical consistency of a system of thought. In view of Calvinism’s well known reputation for consistency, axiomatization and Calvinism should get along well together. The many theorems derived from the smallest possible number of axioms… And since the axioms, if there be several, depend for their meaning on their interrelationships, axiomatization would rule out the possibility of even a single axiom in common. (Karl Barth's Theological Method, pg. 95)