Presuppositionalism

The presuppositional apologetics of Sye's Sinner Ministries kept us busy for ages on this blog. Paul C. drew my attention to this very clear treatment of presuppositionalism from the philosopher Gene Witmer. It's good.

I am also reading Greg Bahnsen's book "Always Ready" (Greg being a [now deceased] presuppositionalist Sye knew and clearly admires).

What's interesting, reading this other stuff, is that while Sye clearly uses a lot of standard presuppositional stuff, some of his moves are novel. Here is an illustration:

Sye asks "What's your account of logic, etc.?"
Me "You mean, what makes the laws of logic hold? Well, I 'm not sure. But here are three answers I quite like." [I present them - one is Quinean and one Wittgensteinian. At least two explain why the laws of logic may not even require an "explanation" or "underpinning".)
Sye "But what's your account! You must have one! I am not going to deal with positions you don't even hold."
Me "But I am not committed to one."
Sye "Ah! So your world view cannot account for logic!"
Me "No. It may be one of these answers is correct. Or perhaps some other non-Christian view is. I am just not sure, that's all. But you say you have an argument that no non-Christian account can possibly be correct. What is it?"
Sye: "But what's your account of logic?"

And round and round we go. These moves are pure Sye, I think - all his own handiwork.


By the way, my own version of presuppositionalism is available here. It's fun using some of Sye's own "moves" against him.

Incidentally, there is one move open to presuppositionalists that Witmer does not deal with, which we might discuss. As Witmer says, it's open to an atheist to say, "Hey the laws of logic, moral principles, etc are just "brute" - they are basic features of reality not further explicable. They constitute our presuppositions. As we atheists are allowed to have presuppositions too, what's the problem with our world view? Where is the internal contradiction?"

I did point this out to Sye fairly early on, in fact (back in July/August).

Anyway, a presuppositionalist could reply:

"But what about simplicity? The God hypothesis is highly economical - on my world view, one single, simple thing accounts for logic, morality etc. etc. But on your world view, you need a whole load of different presuppositions to account for these different things. As your world view values simplicity, so it does at least contain an internal tension (you favour simplicity, yet your world view ends up being complex, requiring also sorts of things to be presupposed, rather than just one thing) - your own commitment to simplicity gives you reason to favour my world view over your own!"

I have my own ideas about how to deal with this move, but put it up for debate....

Sye's Presuppositional Apologetics

I had a thought - not one that's going to convince Sye, of course, but anyway, here it is, for discussion:

Sye's proof appears to be:

1. Logic cannot exist without God
2. Logic exists
Conclusion: God exists

This is a deductively valid argument (necessarily, if the premises are true, so is the conclusion).

Of course, for a "proof" you need more than validity. So what else? Self-evident premises? Well, if so, then Sye will say: my premises are self-evident (and of course to him they seem to be). So it is a proof!

Trouble is, what he is really supposed to be doing is proving to us that God exists. Now you cannot prove something to an audience in this way if the premises are not self evident to your audience.

Illustration: I can prove I just drew a three-sided figure:

1. I just drew a triangle
2. Triangles are three sided figures
Conclusion: I just drew a three-sided figure

Have I "proved" to you my conclusion? Of course not. You still have no idea whether I drew a three sided figure or not. It might be evident to me that the premises are true. But of course the first premise is not evident to you. So the "proof" fails.

The same of course is true of Sye's "proof" if it's not self-evident to us that his premise is true. Which it is not.

Now, this is where Sye gets ingenious - he says, in effect, "It IS self evident to you - God HAS given you this knowledge - but you choose to hide it from yourself, being miserable sinners. That means I HAVE proved it to you that God exists."

This is a key move for Sye, then. He relies on saying that we are somehow deluded.

Of course, someone is deluded here about the self-evidence claim. The fact that even most Christians - many of whom I would guess are far more holy and virtuous than Sye - scratch their heads and say "But it isn't self-evident!" (I include here even those who think the premise is true - they don't think it's self-evident!) should certainly suggest to Sye that he's the deluded one.

At the end of the day, all he's got is an assertion - that we're all (including the majority of Christians) deluded and that's why we can't see he's got a proof.

That's the sort of thing nutters always say, of course!

As I say, any fair-minded reader of the posts over at Dan's blog surely won't be able to avoid the conclusion that Sye is either a bit mental (religion can do that to you, of course, as I'm sure even Sye will recognise when it comes to certain other religious folk) or just a willful bullshitter.

Sye is back - and telling fibs?

If you were reading this blog last July/August you will remember a very, very long exchange between myself and Sye, of Sinner Ministries.

Sye has a "proof" of God which is based on "presuppositonal apologetics". We spent ages - two or three weeks and over 30 main posts - slowly and carefully unpacking Sye's arguments and rispostes, until, eventually, he was left with nowhere to run.

I kind of enjoyed doing it, but some of you got highly irritated, I know.

Anyway, the 30 odd posts can be found listed under "sinner ministries" on my sidebar menu.

Well, Sye now turns up on the debunking atheists website where he is peddling the exact same arguments, winding people up all over again.

When one commentator mentioned that I had dealt with a point Sye raised on this blog, Sye, I'm told, said:

"I guess you haven't been paying attention Dale. We discussed my time at Stephen Law's blog at an earlier entry here, and also the fact that he never once said how his own wordlview accounted for the universal, abstract, invariant laws of logic."

Sye later added:

"He did not want to reveal his own worldview, because he did not want to commit to a view he knew I would dismantle."

Notice how Sye seems actually to be presenting himself as the victor in our discussions. He's suggesting that he cornered me.

Now some of you may remember that I did in fact offer not one but three different atheist-friendly views of logic, not one of which Sye was able to refute. If you want to count them, they are here, here and (Quinean one, from my book) here.

It's pretty difficult to avoid the conclusion that Sye is just telling a barefaced lie here and hoping no one will notice (Sye's lying for Jesus, I guess?)

Care to come over here and explain yourself Sye?

If you want to check out what Sye's up to now see the debunking atheism thread here (it's huge - you need to scroll down and then hit "newest" to reach the end).