Five(ish) Dialectical Arguments for Moral Realism

Moral realism holds that there are moral facts and that at least some moral claims are true.  There really is a fact of the matter whether it’s bad to be a racist.  It really is bad to rape someone. 

The truth of moral realism is difficult to show.  This really isn’t as problematic as it may seem at first blush.  Almost everything in philosophy is difficult or impossible to show.  It’s (probably) impossible to demonstrate the reliability of sense-perception.  People usually just come ready-made with their moral intuitions and accept their beliefs in a basic way, that is, without argument.  I’ve argued before that such belief is not problematic so long as there are no overriding defeaters.  But many defeaters for the truth of moral realism have been offered, ranging from arguments that moral judgements are subjective and thus not reflective of an external reality, to the idea that evolution would fail to produce true moral beliefs, to the idea that morality and naturalism are incompatible.  

I don’t think that moral realism can be deduced from some more fundamental truth.  I think it must be defended in a dialectical manner.  

Here’s one example of such a dialectical strategy: We can show that any alleged defeaters for moral realism can also be levied against the reliability of sense perception, and yet we still hold that beliefs based on sense perception are rational, so we should also believe that beliefs based on moral intuition are also justified.  Here’s how this works:  There’s conflict between different sense-observers of some event E, in which the different observers disagree over what they saw.  Yet this does not offer a strong enough defeater to undermine the whole-web of sense perception.  A similar story can be told for moral realism.  We can even (in many cases) explain why such disagreement arose in the case of the different sense observers as well as the different moral observers.  Maybe the sun blinded a quarter of the sense observers, thus explaining their divergent experience.  Maybe the Nazis failed to take into account all the moral data, thus explaining their divergent experience.

Here’s another example of such a strategy: 

We can attack the alternative positions and show that they’re incoherent. This is known as the (non-fallacious) ad-hominem strategy.  This strategy functions as an argument by elimination.  This isn’t the same as establishing the truth of moral realism, it’s merely showing the inadequacy of the alternatives.  So, what's the moral realism's alternative? Moral nihilism, which breaks into two: (a) Error-theory and (b) non-cognitivism.  Error-theory holds that all moral claims are false.  Non-cognitivism holds that all moral claims are just disguised emotions or attitudes and thus not subject to truth evaluation.  Both suffer problems and have strong objections that can be levied against them (see here for an argument against error-theory).  If we succeed in showing that the alternatives are inadequate, this goes some way towards showing that moral realism is rational.  

Another: 

We can reduce the cost of accepting moral realism by accepting a reductionary account of moral claims.  Moral naturalism would be one example of this approach (check out Peter Railton).  Parfit's approach of having moral truth being based on normative reasons that lack an ontology is another.  

And another; 

If it can be shown that God exists, many of the defeaters that are levied against moral realism are weakened.  A theistic universe just seems prima facie more compatible with moral facts than a naturalistic one--some theists even argue that God’s existence is required for certain categories of moral truths, such as obligations and duties.  A theistic universe can offer a very plausible story about how we come to have reliable moral beliefs in a way that evolution struggles to do.  And, a theistic universe allows God to eventually punish and reward moral agents in a just manner.  

Again:

Companion-in-Guilt arguments for moral realism seem quite potent to me.  They rely on a parity between moral reasons and epistemic normative reasons; the idea being that everyone should accept epistemic normative reasons, and in doing so, are committing themselves to the same sort of entity as moral reasons.  I'm thinking this move depends on Moral Rationalism, or the idea that morality reduces to rationality.  

And the final dialectical method available for the moral realists:

Jolt the intuitions of the moral nihilist.  Is it really not wrong for a person to torture and murder a 10 year old child?  Was MLK’s life really wasted--the world really did not improve because of the work that he did?  Was Hitler really no worse than Jesus?  Our intuitions here are as strong as our intuitions that the external world exists.  This experience of moral intuitions counts at least as some sort of justification for believing them.  Phenomenal Conservatives seem to have at least some point to their arguments.

An Argument against Moral Nihilism

The following is an adaption of a friend’s arguments against error-theory.  Error theory is the position that all moral statements are false.  It isn’t the only variant of moral nihilism, but I think it’s the most competent.  If we can give a strong reason to doubt that it’s coherent, that’ll give us a strong reason to adopt moral realism.  

Error-theory: All predications of objective moral value are false.

We can show that this position results in a contradiction.  

1. Assume error theory is true. 
2. Which means that the following is true: If all moral predications are false, and P is some moral predication, then P is false. 
3. Yet if we think that at least some negations of moral predications are themselves moral predications, then we also have that the negation of P is false.   
4.  Error theorist must maintain that all negations of moral predications cannot themselves be moral predications.
5.  But we have a counter-example that shows that a negation of a moral predication is itself a moral predication.  
6.  “P and not P” both being simultaneously true is a contradiction, and any theory that implies a contradiction is false.
7.  Error-theory implies a contradiction, and is thus false.  

But it’s worse than this.  If the error theorist wants to maintain that there is a translation of ¬P that is not a moral predication, he is committed to the position that no proposition of the form ¬P is a moral predication, because otherwise his theory still implies a contradiction. He must then say that propositions of the form “it is not the case that X is morally wrong” are necessarily not moral predications.  

So the error theorist is committed to an even stronger thesis than with which he started: 

Revised Error-Theory (RET): All statements of predication of objective moral value are necessarily false.

RET is the only way to block the negation entailments of moral predications, that is, that “M is not wrong” entails “M is right” are all false.  On its own, this is too strong.   If we even have one counter-example, the theory is defeated.  As shown below, there is a counterexample.  

In support of premise 5, take the following example:

M: It is not the case that it is not permissible to murder.

This seems, on the face of it, to be a moral predication. It asserts that it’s not true that it is impermissible to murder. 
Since M is a moral statement, the error-theorist believes that M is false.  So the error theorist accepts ~M.  Let’s go through the steps here:
~M: It is not the case that it is not the case that it is not permissible to murder
Which means:  It is the case that it is not permissible to murder.
Which obviously is a moral predication.  So we have a counterexample. 

And by modus tollens;

8. If Revised Error-Theory is true, then there are no negations of moral predications that are themselves moral predications.
9.  But ~M is a moral predication that is itself a negation of a moral predication.
10. So Revised Error-Theory is false.

Motivating Plantinga's Distinction between De Jure Objections and De Facto Objections

De facto objections target the truth of Christian belief.  De jure objections target the warrant of Christian belief, i.e., whether an agent can hold Christian belief in a rational way despite whether Christian belief is true or not-- for example, a person may believe that a dice will land on six, and it may be true that the dice will land on six, yet that person may just be lucky in having the right belief, thus having no warrant for so believing.  

Plantinga holds that his account in Warranted Christian Belief has shown that no de jure objections are separate from de facto objections to Christian belief.  That is, you cannot object to the rationality of Christian belief without having arguments that show Christian belief to be false.  

De jure challenge to Christian belief: An agent must have an argument for a target belief p to be warranted in accepting p.

Consider the following, call it C.

C: If Christianity is true and Reformed Epistemology is true, then Christian belief would not need argument to be warranted.

Let’s say that C is a true conditional in both 
(w0) the world in which Christianity is true,
as well as 
(w1) the world in which Christianity is false.  

In (w0), Christian belief is warranted on C.
In (w1), Christian belief is unwarranted on C.

Yet, the only reason that in (w1) Christian belief is unwarranted is due to the falsity of Christian belief and not because of its lack in arguments.

Yet, if C is true, skeptics in (w1) (as well as in w0) can only attack Christian belief in their world using de facto arguments, i.e., they must use arguments purporting to show that Christianity is false.

Why I Am Not an Evidentialist

William Alston took it that there are no good arguments that show the reliability of sense perception.  He spent many pages undermining arguments that attempt to show its reliability [see note].  Yet he (and the vast majority of us) accepted beliefs based on sense perception as rational.  Given the failure of arguments to show the reliability of sense perception, the only way to account for this rationality is by adopting an Externalist theory of justification.  An Externalist theory of justification holds that a process of which the agent is unaware and unable to defend may still provide the agent with justified and true beliefs, and if the process produces such beliefs that they may count as knowledge.  The process in question is our sensory equipment and the beliefs that it produces.  If it does so reliably, even if we're unable to show that it does so reliably, the output beliefs may count as knowledge.

We can apply the lesson learned here to the case of Christian belief.

Reformed Epistemology (RE) is the position that Christianity can be justified in a way analogous to the way that our beliefs derived from sense perception are justified.  Humans typically believe that there’s an external world, that there’s a table in front of us, etc., on the basis of our sense-perception.  I don’t accept these beliefs on the basis of argument, nor do I infer them from other premises -- rather, I just accept them in a basic way, that is, without argument.  And we typically take it that humans are rational in accepting such sensory beliefs in this manner.

Here’s the basic story that RE provides in order to show that Christian belief can be justified apart from argument:  

Christian belief can be warranted sufficient for knowledge if it is the output of a reliable process.  RE would say that this reliable process is the testimony of the Holy Spirit, which confers true beliefs upon believers.  We just found ourselves believing that Christianity is true.  This is analogous to sense-perception.  The testimony of the Holy Spirit makes you justified, though it may not be something that you’re able to use to show your justification.  In order to show your justification, you need to refer to the arguments. 

If RE is correct, then it shows that we can have the same sort of justification in believing Christianity as we have when we accept the output of our sense-perception.

This outcome is desirable for a few reasons, four of which are the following: (a) Christianity, to be justified, doesn’t require a formal grasp of philosophical arguments, and in this way we can say that our grandmothers and other laymen are justified in their Christian beliefs, and (b) philosophical argumentation probably isn’t a good basis for our Christian beliefs, as it oftentimes waxes and wanes as we meet objections, forget premises, tire of study, and so on (c) the average experience for a person becoming a Christian does not usually have much (if any) reference to the arguments (d) and, perhaps, though I don’t endorse the following (see here): if there are no good arguments for Christianity, then it may still be able to be justified regardless of this lack of evidence. 

Note: By showing the reliability of sense-perception, I don't mean that a particular belief based on sense perception cannot be corrected by another belief also based on sense perception.  For example, I thought I saw a car, but on further examination, I realized it was a bale of hay.  This is an example of an incorrect sensory belief being corrected by another sensory belief.  What I instead mean is that the global nexus of sensory belief cannot be shown to be reliable.  I mean to call to mind thought experiments such as the idea that I may be dreaming and thus my beliefs based on perception do not match up with an external world, or perhaps I'm a brain being manipulated by a scientist to have false sense perception.  These sorts of thought experiments question the global reliability of sense perception.  Trying to use sensory beliefs to show its reliability would be begging the question against this type of skeptic.  

Calvinistically Construed Middle Knowledge?

Middle Knowledge (MK) is a proposed category of God’s knowledge that’s meant to solve the tension of God providentially controlling a world filled with agents that possess robust libertarian free choice.  MK provides an avenue for God to exercise control of such a world via his knowledge of what a libertarian free agent would do in any given situation. God can figure out just what situations are needed for an agent to freely produce the result he desires in history.  

In other words, MK is meant to allow God to match the puzzle pieces of free choice with the outcome he desires in history.  

Calvinists reject Middle Knowledge.  I do as well.  I think the sort of free choice MK seeks to defend is incoherent, not necessary, and that it threatens God's aseity.  I may argue for those claims later, but not here.  I instead want to focus on a lesson that I think Calvinists can learn from MK without embracing it.

As I argued for here, we should embrace an amendment to Calvinism that enables it to accommodate a realm of creaturely reality that's prior to God's will.  Leibniz calls this the realm of the possibles, and it allows a concept of divine permission strong enough to preserve God's holiness in the face of creaturely sin.  Leibniz's model also rejects libertarian free-choice, evading its problematic implications.

This proposed amendment shares important similarities to MK.  It places a realm of reality prior to God's will, a property that it shares with MK (but it does this without violating his aseity as MK does, see above link).  We call this a pre-volitional view of providence.  It also enables God to select through possible creatures and match them with his desired world history.  MK tells a similar story.  These are benefits of MK that we should seek to uphold. But, given Leibniz's rejection of libertarian free-choice, Leibniz's amendment isn't identical to and should not be called MK.  Leibniz takes his proposed class of pre-volitional truths to reside in God's necessary knowledge and thus sees no reason to posit MK.

A handful of Calvinist theologians have recognized the importance of such an amendment.  Bruce Ware and Terrance Tiessen are two representative examples.  Both of them reached their position independently of Leibniz.  Both, however, erroneously used the term "Calvinistic Middle Knowledge."  Tiessen has thankfully abandoned that verbiage and proposed the term "Hypothetical Knowledge."  The term conveys the central idea of the Leibnizian model correctly, that God's creative decree is in view of pre-existent hypotheticals (possibles, in Leibniz's words).  

I think Tiessen's proposed term is useful and should be adopted.  But, strictly speaking, hypothetical knowledge cum determinism reduces to a subset within God's necessary knowledge. 

This is a dense post.

Anselm on Sin Necessitating the Atonement

This book goes on to prove by rational necessity - Christ being removed from sight, as if there had never been anything known about him - that no man can possibly be saved without him.  [ . . . ] And I show that all things which we believe about Christ ought, necessarily, to occur. 
- Anselm

In Anselm's work Cue Deus Homo?, we learn that Anselm holds a particularly strong view on the problem of sin.  He argues that we cannot work to remove sin, for any work that we do is something we owe to God anyway.  This truth just follows from the definition of God as the greatest conceivable being and what we owe God as his creatures.  Sin will remain forever no matter how hard we work.  It follows that no matter how small a particular sin is (if it is small) that we are incapable of paying for it.

Anselm uses this conception of sin to set up his doctrine of the atonement.  Given the supposition that God wishes to save some of us, Anselm holds that his conception of sin can show that the atonement is necessary.  And given that Anselm's doctrine of sin can be maintained on grounds of natural theology alone, this project qualifies as an example of the sort of congruence I mentioned in an earlier post about how peculiar Christian doctrines can link up with what we learn from natural theology in surprising ways.  This sort of congruence can provide additional justification for Christian belief.

Here's how Anselm thinks this works:  Those who owe the debt must pay, so the agent that pays the debt must be a human - (here Anselm is drawing on his Realism, which I don't care to explain because I think his use of it is wrongheaded and unnecessary for the cogency of his position.)  Later Christian tradition holds that the agent paying the debt must stand in the correct sort of relation to those receiving the benefit, which is the relation of federal headship.  But Anselm takes it that this federal head must also be God because humans cannot ever give to God something that isn’t already owed to him.  Only a God-man could atone for sin.  This God-man then dies an unjust death, accruing merit.  Jesus offers this bonus to the Father.  The Father is obligated to fulfill what Jesus wants, and Christ wishes for his fellow man to be saved from their sin.  The law is satisfied and mankind escapes punishment through this inter-Trinitarian exchange.  If this argument works, we have a strong reason to think that God must become incarnate and atone for sin if he wishes to pardon us. 

This isn't exactly the view of the atonement that would become popular with the Reformers, but it's a close neighbor.  The Reformed tradition holds that the death of Christ wasn't so much as to accrue excess merit but rather to provide satisfaction for the demands of the law in the form of undergoing punishment on our behalf. The adjustments to make Anselm's argument work for this view of the atonement are slight and don't change anything of substance.

How Presuppers Came About:

 

Two Defenses for the Doctrine of Original Sin

In the last post, I mentioned that I’d eventually address alleged defeaters for Christian belief.  A defeater is evidence that counts against a certain belief, in this case the truth of central Christian doctrines.  There’s a few such alleged defeaters for Christianity; arguments targeting the coherence of the doctrine of original sin, the Trinity, the Atonement, and the historical reliability of the New Testament are usually proffered as such.  We’ll defend the coherence of original sin in this post.

What’s the problem with original sin?  It’s important to get clear on what the doctrine means.  It isn’t merely the inheritance of a corrupt nature from Adam.  It’s also the imputation of the guilt of Adam onto his descendants.  We are not only born corrupt due to the sin of Adam, we’re born guilty and condemned for his sin.  The difficulty of this doctrine is easy to see--we aren’t, in the ordinary course of life, guilty for the actions of other people.  If Dianne lies to her husband, I’m clearly not responsible for her action.  So why should we be guilty for Adam’s sin? 

Here are two two attempts to defend the coherence of the doctrine.  Both are speculative, one significantly more than the other.  If they’re successful, they show the coherence of the doctrine. I have a strong preference for the latter one, but I think the first is fun and interesting to discuss.

Edwards’ Defense 

The first attempt comes from Jonathan Edwards. To provide his answer, we first need to consider how we’re held guilty for any actions that have occurred in our own personal past.  How am I guilty for an action that I did 10 years ago?  The common-sense answer is that it's because I’m the same individual as I was 10 years ago.  I’m the one that did the action, hence I'm responsible for it.  But this self-identity across time puzzles Edwards as it has many other philosophers.  

Christians traditionally believe that God created the world ex nihilo, out of nothing.  Edwards believes this doctrine is relevant to the question of self-identity across time.   He accepts creation ex nihilo but extends the doctrine to its limits.  He holds that created reality is wholly dependent upon God in such a way that it must be constantly supported by him to continue to exist, and he takes this to imply that God creates the world anew at every moment ex nihilo. But given this view of creation, nothing exists for more than an instant.  How, then, is there identity of an object across time?  Nothing can exist for more than an instant, so the same object cannot continue to exist over a period of instants.  

So the version of ‘myself’ that acted 10 years ago immediately went out of existence. I’m literally not identical to that version of myself from 10 years ago.  We just treat my temporal splices across the many instances of time “as if [they] were one,” in the words of Jonathan Edwards.  I am not, literally speaking, the same individual across time.

So our initial common-sense answer to our first question is wrong.  I cannot be guilty on the basis of self-identity for an action 10 years ago because I, my current time splice, did not exist 10 years ago.  

Edwards suggests that we’re held guilty for past actions given an arbitrary decree of God based upon his wisdom.  So long as the various temporal slices of what we call “Daryl” across time share important qualities with each other, and so long as God decides to treat my various temporal splices “as if they were one,” then Edwards believes that we can justly hold my current self guilty for past actions.    

Let’s apply this insight to the doctrine of original sin.  Adam isn’t identical to me.  But neither am I identical to myself from 10 minutes ago.  If I can be held responsible for something that “I” did 10 minutes ago, then this suggests that I may also be held responsible for something done thousands of years ago if so arranged by God.  In Edwards' view, I can be held as guilty for Adam’s sin as much as I am guilty for a sin that “I” did 10 minutes ago, so long as I share certain qualities with Adam and so long as God has decreed to treat us in this manner.  

Here’s the argument schematized:

1. Nothing has identity through time.
2. The only basis for treating a collection of time splices as if they were one is God’s will to do so.
3.  It is thus possible for God to treat Adam and his posterity as a unity if he wills to do so.
4. God wills to treat Adam and his posterity as a unity, as revealed by Scripture and by our consent to Adam’s sin.
5. Therefore, we can be held responsible for Adam’s sin, because we can be held responsible for actions that are not literally our own.  

Edwards' Defense is extremely speculative with high metaphysical costs.  I do not find myself willing to accept those costs.  But it is an illustrative example of a creative and brilliant Christian mind drawing on vast metaphysical resources to answer defeaters for the Christian faith.  For those that may be drawn to the metaphysical picture required for Edwards’ defense, it may be an appealing defense.

William Lane Craig’s Defense

Craig creatively combines two doctrines to defend the coherence of original sin.  They are: 
(a) federal headship 

and,
(b) God’s middle knowledge  
I’ll explain each in turn.

Federal headship is a concept with which many Reformed readers should be familiar.  It’s the idea that an agent can be appointed as our representative head, and that his actions as our head can be accounted as our own. The fate of those that the federal head represents is determined by how he acts.  This agent stands before us on God’s behalf, and if he fails, we fail as well.  

This doctrine, on its own, makes for a poor defense of original sin.  Why should Adam be our representative? I didn’t choose him.  Surely he can’t justly represent all of us. Perhaps if I were in his situation, I would have made the right decision.  To answer such a line of reasoning, cue God’s middle knowledge.

God’s middle knowledge allows him to select a federal head that represents each and everyone of us accurately, by allowing him to know how each of us would have acted if we were placed in Adam’s position.  God’s middle knowledge just is his knowledge of what we would do in every situation.  I cannot rightly complain that I would have done differently in the garden.  God knows I wouldn’t have.  Adam is thus a good representative for me, as he acted as I would have acted. 

Craig’s defense is dependent upon this two-stage strategy.  We are held responsible for the sin of Adam because he is our federal head, and we cannot complain about Adam being a poor representative for us because God knows via his middle knowledge that we would have acted the same as Adam.  Adam is thus a fitting representative for all of us.  

Just as my senator represents me in congress, and this representation of me is just because I voted for him, so too is Adam our representative to God, and this is just because God knows I would have “voted” for Adam’s sin if I were there.  This is a fantastic defense of the doctrine of original sin.  

I do not, however, accept the doctrine of middle knowledge as Craig understands it.  But I do believe that I can still make use of Craig’s defense with suitable qualifications.  I’ll discuss in another post why I reject middle knowledge and what what qualifications I think should be made.

Arguments for Christian Belief

The arguments below are for Christian belief in particular, over and above belief in theism.  It should be kept in mind that each of these arguments can be given either a Bayesian or deductive form.  Even if one of them is singularly weak (providing a credence of, say, 15%) it can still be used to build a cumulative case when paired with the others.

I'm currently not interested in providing arguments defending the coherence of Christianity.  I'll do that later.  I merely want to provide a brief glimpse of the arguments that can be taken to provide evidential weight to the Christian religion.  

1. Fulfillment of Prophecy: 

This method of argument was more prominent among the old guard of Christian scholars.  It is enjoying something of a resurgence among the Bayesian-inclined apologists of late (think McGrew).  Two prominent examples can be quickly adduced, Jesus's predictions of the destruction of Temple in 70 A.D. and of his own death (which was strongly predicted during the Last Supper, one of the earliest and most well-attested Christian traditions and certainly placing the prediction prior to its fulfillment.)  

There are other examples, but they quickly devolve into complicated historical arguments and disputes about the dating of the Old Testament.  They're worth the time, but I won't be relating them.

2.  Martyrdoms, Sincerity, and Trials of the Eyewitnesses 

This is the most popular and the strongest argument for the truth of Christianity.  It proceeds using two commonly granted points (a) Many eyewitnesses (over 500, according to Paul) claimed to see the risen Jesus and the empty tomb, and (b) many of these same eyewitnesses died for this belief.  

Now, people will die for things that are untrue.  Many Muslims die for their beliefs.  But people do not die for things that they believe to be false.  This shows that the apostles truly believed that they had seen the physically resurrected Jesus and the empty tomb.  

3.  Christian Experience

This is a neglected evidence for Christianity, but an important one.  The reality of the pull and tug of the Christian walk, the prayer life, answered prayers, our growth in moral character, the dependence on Jesus, and the community of believers all provide evidence of a reality that is external to us and real.

We, in the ordinary course of life, take experience of an external object or reality as evidence that that object or reality exists.  We should do the same here.  

4. Congruity of Christian Doctrines with Natural Theology [see note]

If we can argue for theism on the basis of natural theology and separately from Christianity, and if we can see that particular Christian doctrines cohere well with what we learn from natural theology, then this congruence may provide some justification for Christian belief.  I'll give two examples that I think illustrate this congruence: the peculiar Christian doctrines of penal substitutionary atonement and the Trinity.  It may seem odd to use these doctrines, usually believed to be handicaps for Christian apologists, as evidences--but hear me out.  

Penal substitutionary atonement holds that God forgave humanity but in such a way that he upheld the integrity of the moral law.  The law demanded punishment, and God satisfied that demand himself in the crucifixion.  Why can God not merely forgive us?  Here's an answer from Anselm: “There is nothing more intolerable in the universal order than that a creature should take away honor from the creator and not repay what he takes away.”  There is, according to Anselm, a moral government, and this government should not be violated. Merely forgiving sin is not respectful to this moral order, and thus, in order to forgive us while upholding and displaying the law, God must find a way to forgive us that satisfies the moral order.  

We learn from natural theology about the perfections of God, either in the form of the Ontological argument in which he's described as the maximally great being, or in a more inductive fashion using the varieties of the Cosmological and Moral arguments.  The atonement doctrine strives to uphold the perfections of God's love in his desire to forgive us while not violating his perfection of justice.  A doctrine that uniquely satisfies these perfections coheres well with what we've learned prior from natural theology, and this congruence can count as evidence for Christianity. 

The same perfect-being considerations apply in the case of the Trinity's congruence with natural theology.  God being the maximally great being implies that he possesses all perfections.  Love is plausibly a perfection.  Yet love is essentially other-focused.  God existed without creation, yet he's always possessed all perfections.  The only means for God to have possessed the full perfection of love is if there are a plenitude of divine persons in God, allowing him to love another.  Christianity teaches this view with its doctrine of the Trinity.  God the Son is perfectly loved by God the Father.  We thus have another congruence.  

5. Miracles

Another often neglected evidence for the Christian religion.  Christians oftentimes claim to experience miracles that convince of the Faith.  Paul the Apostle claimed that his ministry included miracles.  Augustine relates miracles.  The skeptic and mathematician Blaise Pascal was largely convinced by a miracle.  These miracles do not occur in a vacuum, but in a specifically Christian religious context and are meant as a validation of the Christian message.

6.  Lewis's Trilemma

This trilemma carries at least a little weight.  It's derived from C.S. Lewis.  It's meant for those skeptics that just want to give Jesus a pat on the back and claim that they respect him as a moral teacher.  As Lewis points out, this is something we can not do in light of Jesus's teaching.  He claimed to be a person worthy of our worship, worthy of the title Lord.  Either he was deluded and insane, he was a malevolent liar, or he was telling the truth.  Jesus won't allow us to claim him as a mere moral teacher.  

Now, from the character of his life it's hard to say that he was a liar.  His concern for the poor, for moral uprightness, and calls of repentance argue against that.  He certainly didn't seem mad, either.   This leaves us with taking Jesus at his word and accepting him as Lord.

The Trilemma has some force, but any scholarly treatment of it is going to quickly get messy.  We need to show that Jesus really did aggrandize himself in the way that this trilemma alleges.  If he didn't, then the trilemma is a false one and another horn must be added to it--that Jesus really didn't claim to be Lord and that this claim is just based on myth.  We need to (and can) defend against this horn and show it to be false. William Lane Craig discusses this aspect of the trilemma in his book Reasonable Faith, p. 327-329.  

All of these arguments deserve fuller treatment.  This post is merely meant to provide a taste.

N.B. I am not an evidentialist.  I do not think that these evidences are required for a Christian to believe the faith rationally. I do not think that these evidences are the main way that Christians arrive at the faith.  But I do think evidences have their proper role and should be developed. 

I will discuss in a later post the view that Christians can justifiably believe the faith on the basis of the testimony of the Holy Spirit and how this testimony can confer knowledge on believers.

Note: In this section,  I'm drawing on the epistemological position known as Coherentism and its account of justification.  I don't think Coherentism provides the whole picture of justification, but a hybrid theory similar to Susan Haack's is useful.

An Argument That an Eternal Hell is Just

One of my philosophy professors presented this schematized version of Jonathan Edwards' argument that hell is eternal and justly so.  I've always liked it

1. A just punishment is a deserved punishment. 

2. The deserved punishment for a wrong action is proportional to the evil of the action. 

3. The evilness of an action is a function of the weight of the obligation violated. 

4. The obligation to love, honor, and obey someone is in proportion to that person’s loveliness, honorableness, and authority. 

5. God is infinitely lovely, honorable, and authoritative (i.e., sovereign over us). 

C1. Therefore, wrong actions against God (“sins”) are infinitely evil (from (3.), (4.), and (5.)). 

C2. Therefore, wrong actions against God (“sins”) are deserving of an infinite punishment (from C1 and (2.)).

C3. Therefore, an infinite punishment for wrong actions against God (“sins”) is just (from C2 and (1.)).

(4.) seems like the weak link here.  

Response to a Presuppositionalist

Presupper: “If we reject God, we cannot know anything.” 

To address this assertion, we need to keep in mind the distinction between these two claims:
1.) Those individuals that reject God know nothing.

or
2.) If God were to not exist, then we could not know anything.

(1.) represents the epistemic sphere, it concerns how people have knowledge.  It claims that if a person rejects God in their minds then they possess no knowledge whatsoever.  (2.) represents the ontic sphere, it concerns something out there in the world that’s independent of our mental life, God’s existence and his creation of the world which enables us to have knowledge.  The presupper's statement better mean (2.), because (1.) seems obviously false.  

But before saying more, we probably should try and define what we mean by “knowledge.”  Here’s a rough attempt that will work for our purposes: Knowledge = justified true belief.  So a person qualifies as possessing knowledge if they have a belief that is true, i.e., is actually the case, and if that belief is justified in some way.  Justification can be attained via a variety of means--either by evidence, or by testimony, or if the belief is a result of a reliable process (like sense perception), etc.  

With this short definition of knowledge in mind, we can ask: May a person that rejects God possess knowledge?  Sure they can.  Say that an atheist believes that it’s 2:00 AM.  So he meets the belief requirement.  Further, it’s true that it’s 2:00 AM.  So his belief meets the truth requirement.  Further, the clock telling him that it’s 2:00 AM is reliable.  So the belief meets the justified requirement.  So he possesses knowledge.  That it’s. He’s got knowledge. The atheist doesn’t need to first know that God sustains the world in existence or that God created the world in order to know it’s 2:00 AM, the atheist merely needs the elements above.  So it’s false that if we reject God that we cannot know anything, so (1.) is false.

Yet (2.) is true, because the atheist would fail to have knowledge if God did not create him and the clock in the first place.  We need to keep the ontic and epistemic concerns separate, or we’ll be confused.

So it’s true that the atheist would know nothing if God did not exist, but this is a point about the reality of the case, not about the personal knowledge of the atheist.  Here’s the distinction at work: (a) The atheist does not need to know that God exists in order to know what time it is, but (b)  it is the case that he knows what time it is because God exists.

An Argument Against Standard Calvinism

This post fulfills the promise of the last to provide a standard Calvinist reason to adopt the Leibnizian model of divine permission.  By "standard Calvinist" I just mean any Calvinist that embraces versions of premise (5.) below as an accurate model of divine providence.  This argument is adapted from Alexander Pruss.

The Simple Argument:

1. God would not do what he should not do. (premise)

2. God should not intentionally cause an extremely great harm on an innocent. (premise)

3. Hell is a great harm. (premise)

4. So God would not impose (intentionally cause) hell on innocents. (from 1, 2, 3)

Yet, this argument can be extended.

5. Standard Calvinism: God imposes (intentionally causes) wrongdoing on an innocent, namely, Adam. (Assumed for reductio)

6. It is better to suffer wrongdoing than to do wrong (premise)

7. So, acting wrongly is worse than to suffer wrongdoing. (from 6)

8. So, acting wrongly is a worse harm than enduring hell. (from 3, 7)

9. So, God should not intentionally cause wrong action on an innocent. (from 2, 8)

10. So God does not intentionally cause wrongdoing on agents. (from 1, 9)

11. Contradiction (from 5, 10)

(1.) is pretty safe in most people’s eyes. (2.) seems correct, given God’s goodness. (6.) is an observation from Socrates: it is better, morally speaking, for a person to remain free from wrong than for them to do wrong, even if that person undergoes great torment for doing the right thing. Further, most Calvinists readily admit that hell is infinite just because of how bad wrongdoing is. So it seems most Calvinist should accept premise (6.), which is the key premise.

(5.) is just standard Calvinism.  Still, some standard Calvinists may find it objectionable as a description of their view.  So I offer them a challenge: State your view of Calvinism that avoids the implication that (5.) is true.  I think they'll find that it's difficult, if not impossible without the help of Leibniz.

What should we do with this? I think we should modify our concept of Calvinism away from this vanilla account. We should accept the solution sketched by Leibniz.

God's Permissive Will

 Man is himself the source of his evils: just as he is, he was in the divine idea. God, prompted by essential reasons of wisdom, decreed that he should pass into existence just as he is. - Leibniz

Leibniz’s claim is that he can uphold the idea that God permits agents to act in a very strong sense, a sense that most Calvinists would prima facie find objectionable, yet without violating God's ultimacy. 

Leibniz's Model:  It is not the will of God that determines the sequence of things. It is the nature of things themselves which produces their sequence, prior to all of God’s decisions; God chooses only to actualize that sequence, the possibility of which he finds ready-made. 

God is, on this model, not an inventor of the nature of things, or of creaturely essences.  He’s a discoverer.  Further, Leibniz believes that creaturely essences determine the actions that the relevant creature will take.  Despite the determinism present in this model, it seems to cohere well with the idea that God permits our actions rather than determining them himself.  For God does not will the essences as he finds them in the realm of possibility, instead finding them ready-made.   God merely wills the existence of the whole of the series, not the determinations to evil themselves, which are solely determined by the possible creaturely essences prior to God’s decision to create them.  
So it looks like Leibniz can preserve the idea of strong permission. How does he manage to uphold the ultimacy concerns of Calvinism?  By locating the possible creaturely essences within God.  We can call this the Internal Principle of Leibniz’s Model.  

Internal Principle:  Possible creaturely essences, though prior to God’s will, are nevertheless based within God.

Given the Internal Principle, it turns out that God possesses his knowledge of creatures ad intra and in a non-discursive way.  God’s aseity is preserved.  

But how can these possible creaturely essences be internal to God? What does this even mean?  As far as I know, Leibniz offers just a hint at how exactly this is supposed to work, in the form of his occasional comments of the possible creaturely essences as residing in the divine understanding.  This suggestion, however, could prove problematic if the divine understanding is referencing concepts that are not internal to God.  This is the sort of criticism pressed by many.  Leibniz’s next move is to say that the divine understanding is only referencing concepts that fall within the divine nature itself.  In his own words: "This so-called fatum, which binds even the divinity, is nothing but God's own nature, his own understanding." I also have my own tweak to this account, in which the possible creaturely essences are reflections on what God could possibly create given his omnipotence.  They are thus based on one of God’s own necessary properties, his omnipotence, but in a such a way that their existence occurs prior to his creative will. If such a suggestion as this is coherent, the Internal Principle’s coherence can be maintained.

Still, it may be that some theists will object to this construal of how God possesses knowledge of creaturely essences.  But we can show that every theist is at least committed to this kind of knowledge, the kind in which God does not determine the truth value and which is thus prior to his will.  If we use discover in this sense, then it’s obvious that God discovers quite a few things.  He discovers he’s God.  He discovers the moral law as determined by his nature.  He discovers mathematics (perhaps? Mathematics being a part of or about God’s nature?). God did not determine via his will any of these truths.  They are instead determined by God’s very nature.  Leibniz is merely claiming that there’s another set of truths that fit into this kind of divine knowledge: our creaturely essences which determine our choices.

I think this Leibnizian insight is important, and I think it's one that can be absorbed into the Calvinist system. True, Calvinism may lose one leg of its motivation due to the ultimacy concerns being adequately met by Leibniz, but it still remains the case that Calvinism is the only plausible interpretation of the Scriptures. Leibniz's model is strictly consistent with such an interpretation.

In order to show that Calvinists should strongly consider adopting Leibniz, my next post will be an argument against the standard form of Calvinism that struggles to make room for robust permission, and thus violates God's holiness by implicating him in evil.

A Neat Argument for a Necessary Concrete Being

An argument adapted from Joshua Rasmussen for the conclusion that there must be a necessary concrete entity.  Necessary in the sense of existing in all possible worlds, and concrete in the sense that this being possesses powers that can cause other things.  The argument assumes a basic understanding of modal logic, but otherwise is simple to understand:

Start with the following very weak and plausible thesis: It is at least possible that all of contingent reality is caused by something.  

1.  Suppose that there is no concrete necessary being.
2.  Then, it is impossible for a concrete necessary being to cause the beginning of all contingency.  (This is because, if there is no necessary being, then it is not possible for there to be a necessary being – from S5.)
3.  It is not possible for a contingent concrete entity to cause the beginning of all contingency. (This is because the contingent concrete entity would already have to exist to cause contingency.  In other words, an instance of contingency would be ‘prior to’ all instances of contingency, which is impossible.)
4.  Thus, if there is no necessary concrete entity, then it is not possible for anything to cause all of contingency, which contradicts our initial thesis.

The Dating of Luke-Acts

The Dating of Luke-Acts: 

Either 75 A.D.,

- We’d expect Luke-Acts to mention the martyrdom of Paul if he had known about it (approximately 65 A.D.)  His failing to mention Paul’s death is best explained by it not happening yet.  However, we can resist this reasoning if we see that the literary purpose of Luke-Acts is completed with the preaching of the gospel in Rome, so there’s no literary requirement to mention the death of Paul.

- Paul’s death is long enough ago that it isn’t news (probably about a decade earlier), so it doesn’t need to be mentioned.

- Luke’s redaction of his Markan source in describing the “abomination that causes desolation” as “armies surrounding Jerusalem. . . they will be taken as prisoners to all nations” occurs in the text right when we'd expect Luke to follow Mark's description of a vague prediction of the defilement of the temple. Luke instead enriches the account with concrete historical detail that must be based on historical knowledge of Jerusalem’s fall, so post 70 A.D. Further, Luke references the building of ramparts and encirclement of the city in ch. 19.

- But given Luke’s lack of awareness of Paul’s letters, the work must not be long after 70 A.D as Paul’s letters were collected quite early.  He would have used them if he had them, but he didn’t.  

- So, approximately 75 A.D. is the best date for the composition of Luke-Acts.

- Some scholars think that Paul’s farewell address to the Ephesians is a funeral oration indicating Paul’s death in Rome.

- If church tradition concerning the writing of Mark occurring near the death of Peter circa 64 A.D. is taken at face value, then we have another argument to rebuff the problem of Luke-Acts omitting Paul's death.

Or 62 A.D., 

- Paul’s letters not mentioned.

- Paul’s martyrdom and Peter’s martyrdom not mentioned, despite Stephen’s being mentioned

- James martyrdom (62 A.D.) not mentioned

- Harnack eventually changed his mind, accepting this earlier date given the above considerations.

- Very strong knowledge of 50s Roman Syrian administration

- The redaction of the “abomination that causes desolation” as “armies surrounding Jerusalem,” is language that is nevertheless still too generic a description to be based on concrete historical knowledge. The language also has parallels in the Septuagint.  Some scholars think Luke may be drawing on another source in introducing this prophecy and thus not redacting his Markan source.

- Furthermore, Luke tends to mention when prophecies are fulfilled if they have been fulfilled (Acts 11:28).  He doesn’t do this in the case of Jesus’ prophecy of the fall of Jerusalem.  The best explanation is that the fulfillment hasn’t occurred yet, so Jerusalem hasn’t fallen yet. So it must be prior to 70 A.D.

- These considerations together argue for a date of 62 A.D.

- Luke seems unaware of a Pauline return trip to the East, as the Pastoral epistles (post 62 A.D.) indicate (Paul went to Crete at some point, per the epistle to Titus). It’d appear that Luke would want to amend or comment on Paul’s strong language of never seeing the Ephesians again (cite) if he had known that Paul would return to the East.  It also appears that Paul indicated that he wanted to return to the East in the Prison epistles (dated 60-62 A.D.), as he asked Philemon to prepare a room for him.  The Prison Epistles were most plausibly written in Rome during the first imprisonment (60-62 A.D.) (Bruce believes this due to a development in Paul’s theology that must be dated later than his earlier epistles.)

- Primitive vocabulary: Other evidence that is less often talked about includes the sparing use of the noun Χριστιανόι; the use of μάρτυς in the literal sense of “winess” rather than in the modern sense of “martyr”; the use of “Simon” (Σίμων) for Peter; and the comparatively primitive use of the term ἐκκλησία. Though these arguments are not completely conclusive, they do cumulatively point to an earlier rather than a later date.

Evidence that Peter (and Paul) were Martyred in Rome

Evidence that Peter (and Paul) were martyred. Moreover, that the place of martyrdom was in Rome: - 1 Clement claims that both were martyred, and given that Clement lived in Rome, his description may imply that the martyrdoms took place in Rome. He may have even been in a position to know this first-hand. (95 A.D.) - John 21:18 clearly implies that Peter was martyred by crucifixion (80 - 95 A.D.) - Ignatius’s letter to the Romans seems to imply that the martyrdoms took place in Rome (110 A.D., possibly later) - 2 Timothy, which has the strongest support of the pastorals of being authentic (given the style of language and undesigned coincidence of the metalworker, see here), implies that Paul is imprisoned in Rome and approaching his death, or at the very least reflects an early tradition of Paul’s martyrdom in Rome. (65 A.D.) - 1 Peter 5:13 probably refers to Peter’s presence in Rome, whether or not this letter is authentic or merely reflecting an early tradition. (65 A.D. - 85 A.D.) - Apocryphal literature, such as the Acts of Peter and the Acts of Paul, clearly refers to Peter’s crucifixion in Rome and Paul’s martyrdom there. (160 - 180 A.D.) - Gaius mentions a “trophy” in Rome for Peter. (190 A.D.) - Archaeological evidence in the Vatican Necropolis corroborates these traditions. (100-180? A.D.) - No competing traditions exist that Peter or Paul died elsewhere. Given the later primacy disputes and later church emphasis on apostolic pedigrees, the location of the martyrdom of the two most important apostles would be a badge any church would desire - yet no claimants other than Rome exist. The importance of this point is hard to overstate. Clement’s evidence has more weight than at first sight. As F.F. Bruce points out, Clement’s language of the “great multitude gathered around” the apostles echoes Tacitus’s language about the Nero persecutions, in which he speaks of a "great multitude" killed by Nero. Clement is most probably referring to the deaths of the apostles in Rome. Some of the points may be elaborations on the same stream of attestation, and thus may not represent a true independent witness for the martyrdoms.

In any case, I'm collecting all of this to argue for these two points, specifically point 2, which tends to be neglected at the expense of point 1: 1. There were eyewitnesses who claimed to see Jesus resurrected physically and his tomb empty. 2. These same eye-witnesses were willing to die for this belief.

The Guards at the Tomb

The Problem:  Mark’s omission of the stone’s removal and of the Roman guards.  Is he assuming an account of the empty tomb that is contradictory to Matthew’s account?

Matthew’s Account: Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.  And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.  His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.  And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men.

Mark’s Account: When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body.  Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb  and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?” But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away.

These accounts are not, strictly speaking, contradictory.  To be strictly contradictory Mark would need to say something to the effect that “No angel moved the stone and no guards had been present.”  Nevertheless, there does seem to be a strong tension between the two accounts that calls for a harmonization, leading us to ask--why would Mark omit the account of the guards and miraculous removal of the stones if they did in fact happen? 

Before we suggest two possible harmonizations, we need to keep in mind that Matthew used Mark as a source and read the text above by Mark. Would Matthew intentionally discredit Mark’s account or rather see himself as merely adding an omitted element? 

Two possible harmonizations:

Defense 1

Adapted from Tim McGrew

The Perfect Past Defense:  The stone had been moved by an angel and the guards had been knocked out.  The event was not witnessed by the women--and thus we have a decent coherence with Mark’s text. 

Objection 1: Then how do we know about the event at all?  

Response 1: The guards.

Objection 2: But the text has its own explanation for how we know about the event; the women were witnesses to it.  This seems to be the most natural reading, too.  Why resort to the guards?

Response 2: Because, given the demands of the text, we must resort to the guards’ witness anyway.  For how do we know what was said between the guards and the Jewish leaders?  Further, this point might help explain the reason Mark omitted the account: perhaps the testimony of the guards had not come to light by the time that Mark had written his gospel--maybe only after some time did the guard’s testimony of the angel come available to Matthew.    

Defense 2

Adapted from a suggestion by S.G.F. Brandon (1967)

The Evangelistic/Apologetic Defense:  Mark was writing to a primarily Roman audience.  Mark intentionally presented an account that would be palatable to a Roman audience, and in view of this omitted the presence of the Roman guards.  

It’s hard enough to convince Romans that an enemy of the state that had been crucified should be followed, so Mark intentionally strives to include (a) pro-Roman quips and (b) exclude elements of the story that would put Rome in a negative light.  

In support of (a), see the centurion at the cross exclaim “Surely this is the Son of God!,” in Mark 15:39.  Also see Mark’s account of the trial of Jesus in which the Romans seem to bear very little responsibility.  

The argument here is that the omission of the Roman guards at the tomb constitutes an example of (b).  Mark is intentionally excluding this element of the story so as to make it more presentable to a pro-Roman audience.  

Objection 1: This account assumes the guards were Roman rather than Jewish guards.  

Response 1:  Matthew 28:14 is good evidence that the guards were Roman.

Note:

William Lane Craig helpfully points out that the Jewish-Christian polemic as preserved in Matthew 28 helps to establish the historicity of the guards: 

Christians: Jesus rose from the dead! See his empty tomb.

Jews: You stole the body, that's why his body is missing.

Christians:  We couldn’t have stolen his body, there were guards protecting the tomb.

Jews: The guards fell asleep and that's when you stole the body.

Christians: No, you bribed the guards to say that they fell asleep.

The procession of this polemic would be surprising if there were no guards.  Would not the Jewish response simply have been that the Christians were lying about there ever being guards? Why would they resort to the guards falling asleep if the guards did not in fact exist? The only plausible explanation for why the Jewish would claim that the guards had fallen asleep rather than deny that they existed is that the guards did in fact exist.

Against Presuppositionalism

 Whether Autonomy is Warranted

Autonomy == reasoning that does not presuppose the truth of divine revelation.

Presuppositionalists believe that autonomy, as defined, is not warranted.  The Reformed tradition believes that it is warranted.

1. Autonomy is Explicitly Warranted in Scripture.
We are, for instance, to "test the Spirits.”  This warrant does not extend only to the Christian community, for both Paul (1 Cor.15) and Jesus (Jon.10:38) appealed to the mental faculties of unbelieving audiences in order to convince them of the Christian religion. These texts need to be addressed by the presupper.
2. Autonomy is necessary.
(a) A person does not submit to special revelation prior to conversion.  It is necessary for us to assume the reliability of our sense-experience and reasoning faculties before it is even possible for us to come to the Scriptures.  We thus cannot assume the Scriptures prior to our senses and reasoning faculties.
(b) Further, when approaching what may appear as a surface-contradiction in Scripture (perhaps the Trinity, or perhaps an understanding of the nature of Christ), are we to banish reason and accept the contradiction? Or are we to try to get beyond the surface-contradiction and to show that Scripture is in accord with right reason? There should be, as the old Reformers taught, an usus organicus of reason in theology.  We all use our reasoning in interpreting both natural and supernatural revelation.
(c) Even the Presuppositionalist is subject to their own autonomy charge.  A common apologetic argument among Presuppositionalists: “(i) The world should be intelligible, or moral, or whatever (ii) God is the only explanation for the world being intelligible (iii) therefore we should presuppose God.” That first premise is an ‘autonomous’ premise, as it does not assume the truth of divine revelation. The argument is therefore as autonomous as any other traditional proof.
3. Autonomy is not sinful.
(a) Presuppers will often say that reasoning autonomously means that we “are operating independently of God’s order,” and is thus wrong.
It is impossible to operate outside of God’s order -- but this is a metaphysical point, not an epistemological point. Given God’s existence, of course he is first and primary.  Of course we are created in His image and thus have a conscience and the ability to reason. God is first in the order of metaphysics but this does not imply that he is first in the order of epistemology, or the order of knowledge.
(b) Presuppers often say that classical apologetics fails to do what Peter commands us to do in 1 Peter 3:15, which is, in the words of one presupper, to “sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts when we give our apologetic.”
Yet one can assume Christianity is true in their heart yet they need not assume it's true as part of their argument.  Further, arguing in a circle is bad reasoning and is not honoring to the reasoning faculties that God has gifted to us, and is thus sinful.
(c) Presuppers will often say something like the following: “Reasoning autonomously encourages the atheist to judge God’s truth on the grounds of his own autonomous reason rather than telling him to submit himself and his reason to God whose truth is plain to all of us. “
Relying upon our reason and sense-experience is not the same thing as self-legislation. Rather, this autonomy is part of our composition. Whoever made us intended that we operate according to these laws which we find within us. These laws are given to us, not created by us. The concept of moral autonomy (which is sinful) is not analytically contained within the concept of reasoned autonomy. (Sproul)

Explanation:
Autonomy as defined does not imply that reason is “ultimate.” I think reason has limits and that there are things that go beyond reason. Reason is one authority among others: sense-experience, the moral sense, the testimony of the Holy Spirit. Reason is not ultimate among these authorities, but rather it stands alongside them. This multiplicity of starting-points grounds the usus organicus of reason in theology, it stands behind the necessity of the autonomy that I support, and it explains the appeal made to sense-experience by Paul and Jesus.

This differs from the Presuppositional project in which knowledge is a circle, by which each element in the circle is justified by how well it coheres with the other elements.   My view (Reformed Epistemology) instead holds that knowledge is like a tower, in which the basic starting points are self-justifying, and from which we then build up knowledge in a non-circular fashion.  

Quotes:

From a noted presuppositionalist:
"It may no longer be possible to distinguish presuppositional apologetics from traditional apologetics merely by externals--by the form of argument, the explicit claim of certainty or probability, and so forth. Perhaps presuppositionalism is more an attitude of the heart, a spiritual condition, than an easily describable, empirical phenomenon." (Frame)

"Still the human testimonies which go to confirm [special revelation] will not be without effect, if they are used in subordination to that chief and highest proof, as secondary helps to our weakness." (Calvin)

A Formal Argument against the Permissibility of Homosexual Activity

Many people wish to do as God commands in Scripture, yet the modern mind is finding it increasingly difficult to understand why God would forbid homosexual acts.  Even granting that we should do as God commands just because God commands it, it's still helpful for us to understand why God would command as he does.  I decided to create a formal reproduction of the argument Alexander Pruss makes in his book One Body against homosexual activity.   Attempting to answer such curiosity to these questions can solidify our confidence in the rightness of God's commands and further reveal the nature of God's goodness.  I think the argument as it stands goes someway towards establishing why God prohibits homosexuality.   

I'm not the greatest at symbolic logic, so the symbolization is rough.  But it is valid.  So if the premises are true, the conclusion must follow.  The argument has controversial premises ((3.) being the most controversial? a couple of others, too), but I think they can be supported.  I might provide justification for them in a later post.  I do want to provide an explanatory note for premise (3.) at the offset, however.  When I use the phrase "one body" I mean something very precise and concrete: Only two opposite sex-bodies can join together in such a way that their bodies strive biologically towards the same goal and thus become one body.  For all of our biological functions human individuals form complete wholes save one.  We have a complete digestive system.  A complete breathing apparatus.  The only biological function that requires another individual to complete is reproduction.  Biology is the underlying good of many different human goods. The pleasure of eating is undergirded by the biological good of nourishment. Even the prohibition against murder is based in biology. So it shouldn't surprise us that biology would play such an important role.

1. If a pleasure is divorced from its underlying good, then that pleasure induces deception and undermines integrity. 
∀x(Dx⊃~Ix) 
2. Any intentional behavior that induces deception and undermines integrity is wrong. 
∀x(~Ix⊃Wx) 
3. The relevant underlying good of sexual behavior is one body union. 
∀x((~Dx&Sx)⊃Ox) 
4. Homosexual behavior cannot achieve one body union. 
∀x(Hx⊃Sx)&~∃y(Hy&Oy) 
5. Homosexual behavior induces the relevant pleasure without the underlying good. 
∀x(Hx⊃Dx) 
6. So homosexual behavior induces deception and undermines integrity. 
∀x(Hx⊃~Ix) 
7. So homosexual behavior is wrong.
 (∀x(Hx⊃Wx))