Authored by: Nocterro.

As Bolt has also stated in his opening post, the three topics to be discussed are:

1) The reliability of scripture
2) The self-deception of atheists
3) The presupposition of God in my reasoning

¹Response to the “Reliability of Scripture”

Bolt writes:

Scripture is reliable and is the source of my claim that Nocterro believes both ‘God exists’ and ‘Nocterro does not believe that God exists’. Scripture is also the source of my claim that Nocterro presupposes God in order to reason at all.

Bolt bases his other claims on the claim that scripture is reliable. But how does he know scripture is reliable? He writes:

From the providence of God and the results of textual critical science it can be known that we currently posses substantially correct transcriptions of the autographa of Scripture. Nocterro must assume from the outset of the discussion that God has not spoken clearly and that He has not provided us with an adequate means of learning what He has said if Nocterro is to call into question the reliability of Scripture.

It is interesting here that Bolt is not defending the claim that scripture is true, rather he is defending the claim that our current texts match the originals. Also interesting is that one of his justifications for this claim is “the providence of God” – going on to state that:

Nocterro must assume from the outset of the discussion that God has not spoken clearly.

He claims that scripture is the source of his claim that I (and presumably everyone else) must presuppose God in order to reason. He is presupposing God in order to show that scripture is true. But surely scripture is correct only if both the Christian God exists and one must presuppose the existence of God to account for reason.

Bolt must show both that the Christian God exists and that we must presuppose the existence of him to account for reason but cannot use Scripture alone to do so. To do so would be to assume the very thing in question. Bolt can’t use that which necessarily depends on the existence of the divine to argue for the existence of the divine using its proposed divinity as a reliability-maker.

Response to “Self-deception”

He also writes:

It is worth noting that the second-order belief mentioned influences the way that Nocterro interprets evidence. Nocterro suppresses the truth in unrighteousness. This feat is accomplished through rationalizing away evidence of the existence of God, ignoring obvious points, dodging anything which might challenge his anti-Christ presuppositions, etc.

There are a few things to say about this:

a) Can Chris point to anything I have ever written that is an example of me rationalizing away evidence of the existence of God?
b) What “obvious” point or points does he feel I have ignored?
c) What have I ever dodged?

Apparently Bolt feels that I have been intellectually dishonest in this discussion by not addressing the issue directly.

Scripture, according to Bolt, states that I am self-deceived. But why believe Scripture? If Scripture is false, then it seems Bolt has no reason whatsoever to claim that I am self deceived, but as we have seen above, we may not simply assume that Scripture is true since it is obviously false if God does not exist, and if I do not have to presuppose him.

Further, if there are good arguments which reduce the probability of God’s existence then so too is the likelihood of Scripture’s being true reduced and by proxy this reduction extends to my being self-deceived. Granting that there are such arguments and coupled with the fact that I have a privileged access to the contents of my own mind, in that I experience them directly, it seems even more unlikely that I am so deceived.

To quote Richard Swinburne:

The adequacy of grounds is often expressed in terms of probability—both by the externalist and by the internalist. The grounds for a belief are adequate to the extent to which they render the belief probable. (And if the grounds for one belief B consist of another belief C, then, for B to have adequate grounds, Cs grounds must make B probable. (Epistemic Justification, pg. 56)

In other words, a belief on a certain matter is justified if it is more probable than other mutually exclusive beliefs on the matter. So, if this argument is sound, then I am justified in my belief that I am not self-deceived.

Response to “Presupposing God”

This is quite clearly the most important portion since Bolt’s justification for all the previous sections is based on the success of his argument here. That is to say, if Bolt does not succeed in showing that God exists and that I must presuppose him in order to reason he has, by proxy, not succeeded in showing that scripture is reliable, and that I am self-deceived.

Bolt writes:

Given his anti-theistic worldview, Nocterro cannot posit the notion of right or wrong ways that beliefs should either come about or be held and hence his position is reducible to absurdity.

Bolt assumes here either that (1) no atheistic epistemic justifications have ever been offered; or (2) all such justifications offered fail. As for (1), even a simple Google or Wikipedia search will show this is blatantly false. Regarding (2), Bolt has a grand task indeed if he must offer objections to ALL forms of non-theistic theories of justification.

He states:

There is no absolute person or persons on an atheistic view which provides an account for epistemic normativity.

This assumes that any justification must necessarily be based on an absolute person or persons (by which I assume he means a deity) – it begs the question against atheism.

He continues:

The character and command of God and His having created us in His image and obligated us toward Him provides for the epistemic normativity necessary to right belief.

It seems quite odd to me that while several philosophers have written entire books on epistemic justification, Bolt’s justification consists of merely a single sentence – a sentence which, all things considered, doesn’t really tell us much at all. All Bolt does here is state that his theory of justification is based on God; he does not explain how or why, he gives no details. How exactly is it that belief in Yahweh leads to correct beliefs? Is it Bolt’s claim that if one is a believer, then Yahweh will prevent that person from ever believing something which is false? I’m also not sure what Bolt means by “right belief”. Is a right belief a belief with is justified? Is it a belief which is true?

Truth be told, this conversation seems eerily similar to Bolt’s conversation with Mitch LeBlanc regarding another formulation of TAG (Transcendental Argument for the existence of God), the laws of logic, and conventionalism in which LeBlanc states:

[The TAG] is no better than a God of the Gaps argument, applied to logical justifications. Why can’t epistemology rely on the possibility of there being justifications? If you’re saying that the case is such that these three justifications have been shown to be false, and Christianity has not, therefore we must choose Christianity, I think you’ve just begged the question in favor of Christianity. If the arguments in the bulk of my paper hold up, it is an incoherent notion to state that logical principles can be grounded in the existence of God.

To which Bolt replies:

I can deny that lightning is caused by Zeus and even come up with other explanations for it, even other unscientific explanations, and not be concerned about my entire epistemology crashing down. You actually cannot, however, deny that Christianity is the precondition for logic and come up with other “explanations” for it and not be concerned about your entire epistemology crashing down. If you are actually unable to account for logic then you are reduced to absurdity and unable to even entertain allegedly possible justifications for logic. You have no place to stand.

All this ties in closely with the notion of the ”impossibility of the contrary”. Bolt’s overall argument here (modified to reflect our current discussion) is:

1) Christianity gives a sound epistemic justification.
2) Nocterro cannot give a sound non-Christian epistemic justification.
3) Therefore, Nocterro must borrow from Christianity for epistemic justification.

However, Bolt has merely asserted (1). He has offered no real defense of this, or even explained how Christianity does so. Until he can do that, (3) does not follow from (1) and (2). Furthermore, even if he successfully defends (1), he must still defeat any epistemic justification I could possibly offer in order to show that (2) is true.

Leblanc touches upon this notion in a paper by referencing presuppositionalist Greg Bahnsen’s attempt at avoiding having to show all possible justifications false:

As such, in an attempt to avoid the arduous task of showing that all flavours of the aforementioned possible justifications are false (and thereby that any worldviews that employ them are false), he seeks only to show that they all depend upon a particular claim, that ‘Christianity is false’, and that this claim renders everything unintelligible….

To paraphrase this section of LeBlanc’s paper:

i) One must have knowledge of all possible non-Christian justifications in order to show that they all share this claim in common.
ii) If one shows that this claim “Christianity is false” is false, then the TAG is no longer needed.

On Warrant

Perhaps the most prevalent view of warrant in contemporary philosophy is that of proper function, as employed comprehensively and famously by Alvin Plantinga. To say that warrant is proper function is to say that some persons true beliefs are justified in counting as knowledge if they have arisen by virtue of the proper functioning of some cognitive faculties.

Plantinga outlines some criteria in his paper “Epistemic Justification” (Nous, 1986):

A) Your faculties must be in good working order.

This is of course not a problem for the theist, since he will believe that he was designed with faculties in good working order. However, I think two points need to be brought up:

1) Many theists can believe this, not just Christians.
2) Even an atheist may employ an “epistemic veil of ignorance”; that is, he may use God merely as a hypothetical, just as Rawls did in discussing how we may decide what is moral.

In regard to (2), Plantinga writes:

Even if [the atheist] doesn’t think we human beings have been designed and created by a powerful and highly competent being who proposed to endow us with the ability to achieve true beliefs, he may nonetheless think of this idea as a convenient and useful fiction [...] he may say that our cognitive faculties are working properly when they are working in the way they would work if the theistic story were true. He may therefore treat this story the way corresponding stories are treated by some who accept ideal observer theories in ethics…

B) You must be epistemically dutiful.

This merely means that you make real, honest efforts to come to hold true beliefs.

C) Your environment must be appropriate for your particular repertoire of epistemic powers.

Plantinga asks us to imagine:

You awake on a planet near Alpha Centauri. There, conditions are quite different; elephants (or their counterparts) are invisible to human beings but emit a sort of radiation that causes human beings to form the belief that a trumpet is sounding…

…The problem is that your cognitive faculties and the environment in which you find yourself are not properly attuned. The problem is not with your cognitive faculties; they are in good working order; the problem is with the environment.

So basically, it must be the case that our faculties are “suited” to our environment.

Warranted Neo-Confucian Belief

Bolt states:

Given his anti-theistic worldview, Nocterro cannot posit the notion of right or wrong ways that beliefs should either come about or be held and hence his position is reducible to absurdity.

Based on this statement, and drawing from other conversations that Bolt has had, it seems that he is making the claim that only the Christian God can provide the type of warrant required for knowledge. That is to say, he is attempting to prove the truth of Christianity by showing that a denial of Christianity necessarily leads to a denial of warrant, and thereby a denial of knowledge. This, however, is dubious for it is certainly not clear that only the Christian worldview can account for warrant. As one example, David Tien shows that Neo-Confucianism meets the criteria for warrant² (should Bolt also want to claim that his belief is properly basic, Tien’s discussion attempts to show that warranted Neo-Confucian belief provides a defeater for Christian theism).

Briefly, in Neo-Confucian belief, the liangzhi is the “perfect state of mind”. The li (or principle) is the way things ideally ought to be. So, if it can be said that one has a liangzhi state of mind, one’s state of mind is ideal, natural, or perfect. A Christian may consider the mind of God to be liangzhi.

Tien states:

The liangzhi operates as a faculty of the mind that discerns flawlessly, naturally, and spontaneously between right and wrong. It not only forms correct beliefs, it also produces correct affective responses.

I will not delve too much into affective responses here, as I do not think it is important to the discussion. However, the Chinese scholar Wang Yangming states that all humans innately possess liangzhi.

In response to one seeming problem with such an account of the mind,  how does Wang account for our poor moral choices? He offers this explanation:

All things in the universe are a combination of li and qi. Qi is the stuff of which the universe is made. It exists in various grades of purity. Although all things possess all the li of the universe within them, because of the impurity of the qi of which they are composed, some li are obstructed, thereby accounting for the differences between things.

Wang’s view is that while humans possess both li and qi, we are able to purify our minds and eliminate qi. He says that qi is manifested mainly as self-centered desires. Qi can thus be compared to the Buddhist concept of negative karma, or the Christian concept of sin.

In Plantinga’s Warranted Christian Belief, he states that, according to the sensus divinitatus, Christians have warrant for belief because they have a faculty that produces true beliefs. Thus, Christian belief is warranted (the SD being created by God). However, Wang’s Neo-Confucian beliefs also meet Plantinga’s criteria for warrant.

Tien writes:

First, the liangzhi, once it is discovered and utilized, is a properly functioning (and affective) faculty. Second, the world of li and qi is an appropriate cognitive environment for the operation of liangzhi. Third, the liangzhi faculty of our original minds is simply the conscious aspect of li, which is itself descriptive and normative truth; li conveys the truth about the way things are when they are the way they should be.

Plantinga defends his warrant by stating that if his model is true, then Christians and non-Christians are in different epistemic situations. He also states that one who holds to a non-Christian worldview is necessarily assuming the Christian worldview is false. If this is the case, then it is also the case that the Christian is assuming all non-Christian worldviews are false. Plantinga holds that the claim of arbitrariness only works if the Christian and non-Christian are in similar epistemic situations. If, however, the Christian account is epistemically superior, then the objection is not sound. Since the Neo-Confucian account for warrant is at least internally consistent, and the Neo-Confucian account is epistemically similar to the Christian account, then the Neo-Confucian may accuse the Christian of arbitrarily assuming the falsity of non-Christian belief, just as the Christian may likewise accuse the Neo-Confucian. Thus, Plantinga’s response is self-defeating.

Later on in his paper, Tien examines the overall issue:

And all along, I have claimed that Neo-Confucian belief is probably warranted only if Neo-Confucian belief is true, and Plantinga has claimed the same for Christian belief. The de jure objection is dependent on the de facto objection. If Wang’s description of ultimate reality is true, then Wang’s Neo-Confucian beliefs probably are warranted. If it is false, then they are probably not warranted.

To conclude:
1) If Christian beliefs are possibly warranted (by Plantinga’s method), then Neo-Confucian beliefs are also possibly warranted.
2) If Christian beliefs are true, then they are probably warranted; and likewise for Neo-Confucian beliefs.

As such, if Bolt intends to make the claim that only Christian theism can account for epistemic warrant, it seems that he is simply wrong. Further, it is also an open issue as to whether or not Neo-Confucianism is overall a preferable system to Christian Theism, as well as whether or not Bolt’s system succeeds in providing what he hopes it does. One might discover that I am not presupposing God to reason, but rather, that Bolt is presupposing Neo-Confucianism (and further, possibly deceived about his doing so!) It seems to follow that Bolt should make a case not that Christian belief (and only Christian belief) is warranted, but that it is in fact true.

Assumption vs. Existence

Further, even if Bolt is correct in saying that I must presuppose God, it obviously does not follow that God exists. Bolt seems to be operating with a principle similar to: If I can do Q by assuming P and P only, then my assumption is true where Q is account for reason, or having warranted beliefs and P is that God exists. However, would it not be more accurate to say: If I can do Q by assuming P and P only, then I must assume P? Does the necessity of assuming P entail that P is true? I think not. So, even if Bolt is correct in that I must presuppose that God exists (and I do not think he is), that would mean only that Bolt’s belief in God is possibly justified, not that God actually does exist.

Conclusion

As such, our three topics are really one topic. Of that one topic, it does not appear to me that Bolt has presented any sufficient case or convincing reason to accept that (i) his Christian theism provides warrant, (ii) no non-Christian system can possibly provide warrant. Indeed, the internal consistency of Neo-Confucianism and that it meets the criteria for warrant seems to render at least (ii) obviously false. Given that one does not need to presuppose the Christian God in order to satisfy the requirement of warrant in knowledge, one does not need to accept the authority of scripture and given that, one need not to accept that they are self-deluded if they think differently than Bolt does.

___________________________

¹Any time the word “God” is used, it refers to specifically the Christian God, unless stated otherwise.

²Tien, David W. “Warranted Neo-Confucian Belief: Religious Pluralism and the Affections in the Epistemologies of Wang Yangming [1472-1529] and Alvin Plantinga” in International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 55:1 (2004).