Servile Conformist

Final Thoughts on Chris Bolt.

So Chris Bolt and I have been having an exchange and I think it has ultimately run its course. I’m a little disappointed by Chris, I don’t think he returned the level of charity or care in reading that I gave him. This is not to say he was uncivil, but I didn’t care for passive aggressive comments like this:

Pat includes the Greek text in his post. Whether he is showing off or genuinely thinks it adds to the discussion I do not know.

There is a lot I could say about this, but I won’t. I’m really not interested in rhetoric and performance, but I’m getting the feeling that Chris is interested in it. I started getting that suspicion in his first post when he made comments like this:

Frankly, if that is the best one can do, then I feel pretty good about my apologetic.

and

I feel as though presuppositionalists are in good shape.

I wondered, “Why include such things? Who needs reassurance?” but over the course of the discussion he went from reaffirming that he feels good about his apologetic to adding in little observations like this:

Perhaps Pat is showing off in switching to x and y

Even his parting remark was a shot at me:

Only time will tell if our atheist friend is stubborn enough to defend claims like “Liars always lie” or “Hyperbole does not exist” or “The Apostle Paul self-consciously affirmed non-classical logics.” Concession is the alternative. Pat needs to put down his shiny new logics and find a new line of argument.

Now compared to the typical discourse that takes place on the internet between atheists and Christian apologists, this is below mild. Still, it bothers me because I think I failed in my personal assessment in Chris, I may have ended up projecting something on to him that he simply wasn’t. I set myself up for that disappointment, if it is the case.

I wonder about two things; how closely Chris read anything I wrote and how closely he studied the issues at hand.  For just one example of the former, he made this remark in his latest post:

What Pat should do is forthrightly address the view that the Apostle Paul, following the poet he quotes, is using hyperbole to communicate the truth that Cretans are generally liars. There is nothing in Pat’s post that takes away from this traditional apologetic response to the charge of contradiction in Titus 1.12-13a.

And what did I post on the 16^th of December on this very topic?

Now I can respect that Paul was making a rhetorical point in citing Epimenides, he was as Greek as they come. To most Christians (and to most apologists) this isn’t much of an issue, but it is for the Presuppositional/Covenantal apologist. Here we have a proposition embedded in scripture that is both thought of by unregenerate and regenerate minds, both Jew and Gentile, that simultaneously affirms and denies its own truth value.

This proposition exists. It is a contradiction. How does it stand in relation to the Triune God? How is this proposition grounded in Almighty God? How does Chris account for it?

The purpose of me using Titus was merely an example of showing the proposition exists for both of us and if it exists for both of us then both our worldviews must account for it. It isn’t some argument against scripture itself. What Paul cites is a liar paradox, how and why Paul does so isn’t relevant to the minor point I was making and I thought I explicitly made that clear. Perhaps I didn't.

As I said above, I’m beginning to doubt Chris is paying much attention to the issue I’ve raised. He has been promoting responses to me by another blogger that leave a bit to be desired, but I’ve ignored them since I considered it a rabbit trail. I don’t think Chris would have promoted the blog posts unless he considered them substantial, so I’ll show an example:

Tarski’s proposal is that we can save consistency in the face of the Liar Paradox, not for natural languages, but for restricted and regimented artificial languages, wherein no language contains its own truth predicate. At the bottom level, we have the “object language,” which does not contain words like “true” or “false” at all.

This does not accurately describe what I laid out:

Let us say that the following the following takes place in language lⁿ. In this case lⁿ is an object language and a  meta-language;  l^n-1 is an  object language from lⁿ and  lⁿ⁺¹ is the meta language for lⁿ.  Each language lⁿ contains every wff from l^n-1 and has a predict that  belongs to every true wff and only true wffs of l^n-1, let us call this  Tⁿ. Tⁿ cannot apply to any wff of lⁿ unless that wff also belongs to l^n-1.

There is no bottom level object language that does not contains words like ‘true’ or ‘false’. This is made explicit. It goes on to read (wikipedia link removed):

However, if we want to contend with the truth-value of an assertion made in the meta-language, we would need further recourse to a meta-meta-language to consider whether or not the truth predication of the meta-language (regarding the object-language) is correct. What if there’s a question regarding the truth ascribed in the meta-meta-language? Well, we need a meta-meta-meta-language. See the pattern? It’s turtles all the way down.

An infinite regress isn’t a mistake or a problem. Infinite regression is fine n dandy in mathematics, such as the creation of an infinite set of natural numbers through successive application of the successor relation to zero. Same concept here and asking me where the hierarchy stops is to assume to the collection is finite instead of infinite. It doesn’t stop, it runs to completion in the same manner that Bertrand Russell shows that Tristram Shandy can finish his biography in 'Principles of Mathematics'.

Now I’m not disappointed that Chris made an oversight or didn’t read me carefully. We all do that. But I’m disappointed that I feel that I’ve fallen prey to something I’ve warned about to numerous other atheists in real life, don’t become the object an apologist uses to showboat. I may have just become that object.

I blame myself, I tricked myself into thinking I could have a good discussion with a fellow philosopher over complex topics in a spirit that didn’t frame the conversation like some kind of zero-sum duel where only one person comes out the victor. I didn’t get that, instead I got backhanded remarks and condescension, probably for a crowd.

I hope I’m wrong, but I’m going to close the matter and wish Chris a happy new year and move on to other topics.

 

More thoughts on Chris Bolt

Chris Bolt offered a brief comment here on our last exchange (bold emphasis is mine):

According to the text, Cretans are always liars. Taken in the strictest sense it follows that if a person is a Cretan, then that person is a liar. But should the claim be taken this way? Perhaps the statement simply means that virtually every Cretan is a liar, or Cretans in general are liars. If so, then Pat’s concern disappears, because the Cretan who uttered this statement need not have been a liar, and there is no contradiction.

YES! "According to the text" All we have is the text. Here is the bit of text from Titus under consideration (bolding mine):

Κρῆτες ἀεὶ ψεῦσται

Considering this is taken from Callimachus'  Hymn to Zeus, we see the same phrase in the Callimachus text (bolding mine):

Κρῆτες ἀεὶ ψεῦσται  

The bolded word (ἀεὶ) doesn't exactly have a large ranging semantic domain; it pretty much means always, perpetually, every single instance, and so on. I wouldn't say, "taken in the strictest sense" but taken in the only sense that the text and context allows. Incidently, Paul borrows from Epimendes again in the Acts 17:28, where Paul famously engages with pagan philosophers at the Areopagus. 

Chris goes on to say:

But I think there is a much better common sense response to Pat’s concern. Note that the text does not claim that Cretans always lie. Rather, Cretans are always liars. A liar is a person who lies. Liars are often known for their propensity to lie. Some habitually lie. My mother would say they “lie like a dog.” But very rarely, if ever, does a person do nothing but lie.

Chris may state a common sense view, but it is a view not allowed by the text nor the context. Saying x is always y means that in every instance x can be y, it will be y.

But enough about Titus, I wanted to take some time to restate what my intent has been with our recent engagement:

First, If an apologist is going to make use of the “Impossibility to the Contrary” they are going to have to resolve paradoxes like the liar paradox.

Second, How an apologist goes about resolving these problems has to remain consistent with their theology and in Chris’ case, the sovereignty of God and revelational epistemology. Grounding all knowledge and truth in God’s nature while accommodating paradoxes is going to be no easy feat.

And third, all of this is also going to impact what kind of transcendental argument can be made. The weaker and weaker the TAG gets, the easier and easier it becomes to deflate. Van Til offered some wildly strong metaphysical claims, but I’m a little disappointed to see apologists backing off them.

In any case, I hope this moves the discussion forward.

Offering a response to Chris Bolt Part 2

This post is a follow up to this one.

Conventional notions of truth and falsity in our natural language and in our everyday discourse are what I consider to be a useful fiction. It is not that these every day notions are just flat our wrong, but they are the products of our natural language, which is a messy and vague affair. I adhere to a correspondence theory of truth or to put it more finely, a proposition is true if and only if the proposition’s satisfaction conditions have the relevant truth maker(s).

I’ve been persuaded by Alfred Tarski  that the best way to pursue and understand truth when it comes to object languages and logic, is that truth is a hierarchical affair. Propositions must have their satisfaction conditions met from another source not itself. The paradox Chris Bolt and I have been discussing is a paradox rooted in epistemology and metaphysics. We have been looking at a proposition that simultaneously meets and does not meet the satisfaction conditions, the truth doesn’t seem discernable prima facie, but let us take a closer look and see if we can’t make sense of the issue.

 

Offering a response to Chris Bolt Part 1

Chris Bolt was kind enough to offer a lengthy reply to one of my posts concerning Presuppositional/Covenantal apologetics. The reply was insightful and clearly pointed out where I did not make issues clear enough. I’m going to take things a bit out of order for organizational purposes, so if I get anything out of context I accept the full blame. I'm also going to split my two posts up, to make it easier to read instead of giant post. This first post should be rather uncontroversial, I just want to explain myself better and explain some of Chris’ remarks to atheist readers. The second post will deal with the issue of a semantic paradox and the Presuppositional/Covenantal options for response.

 

Can Presuppositional Apologists Account For Logic?

One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, "Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons." This testimony is true.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what I’ve read from Van Til and starting to wonder if Presuppositional/Covenantal apologists even have, in principle, an argument that is valid. Let me use Chris Bolt from Choosing Hats Blogs as an example.

 

Behold David: His name was much academically elite

The man smiling back at you on the right is none other than the (in)famous David Nutting of the Alpha and Omega institute. He has been in Minnesota as of late, giving talks at Universities on the issues surrounding the Evolution/Creation debacle that crops up every now and again in American courts and is the galvanizing issue that binds most active secularists together. I attended one of David’s presentations on a lark (his better half was feeling ill and I wish her a speedy recovery), but ended up being the only person from my local SSA branch to attend. This left me with the burden of reporting the event and the end result is this blog post.

To those readers not familiar with me or my blog, I want to remove any pretense of objectivity. I’m an atheist who has little interest in the current debates that surround these issues, nor do I care about persuading people to join my cause. I don’t have much interest in the natural sciences outside its intersections with philosophy and religion and do not even begin to have the knowledge needed to deal with the various claims that Mr. Nutting brought up in his presentation. No need to go getting mixed up in the business of my betters, I say.

What I hope to provide is some insight and feedback that others can use to reflect on, and what knowledge I do have I’ll certainly bring to the table when appropriate.  So with that in mind…

 

 

What’s Wrong With Mormon Apologetics?

The answer of course is, lack of substance:

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.

(1^st Peter 3:15 KJV)

Hey Greta! Why are atheists so thoughtless?

The blog title is my suggestion for Greta Christina's next book.

Now I really don’t know much about Greta Christina, other than she recently visited my campus to talk about secular sexuality, but I didn’t attend. Greta stayed off my radar until recently when three different people sent me one of her blog entries about Alain de Botton.

Presuppositional Apologetics can’t account for all Truth!

This is a friendly puzzle for my friends over at the Choosing Hats website. I can imagine that contesting with village atheists can be an exasperating experience, so here is something a little different:

A successful response from Dr. Peoples

After a pleasant and thoughtful exchange with Dr. Peoples in e-mail, I’ve come to the conclusion that the two concerns I raised in my previous post have been addressed more than adequately. Concerning my comments on (P1), Dr. Peoples had this to say*: