Philosophy

Pushing The Antithesis – Part 3 – Defining Worldviews

Posted on by jra

The third part of the series has to do with as the title suggests, defining worldviews. The actual definition for what a worldview is plays a critical role in understanding the presuppositions one brings to the table for interpreting reality, knowledge, and ethics.

One of the reoccurring themes you will notice through this blog series is Bahnsen’s emphasis on the myth of neutrality. This becomes even more apparent when defining what a worldview actually is. In each of the major domains of a worldview you must assert truth’s in each area and this itself removes the option of neutrality. An assertion has only a binary conclusion; true or false.

Bahnsen defines a worldview as:

“A worldview is a network of presuppositions(which are not verified by the procedures of natural science) regarding reality(metaphysics), knowing(epistemology), and conduct(ethics) in terms of which every element of human experience is related and interpreted.”

Another quote worth providing is viewing the Christian faith as a complex system:

“We must recognize that the Christian faith is a complex system of mutually-supported, interwined beliefs filling out a broader interdependent worldview.”

Like in Systems Engineering each component affects the overall health of the whole system, so each element of a worldview affects that worldview as a whole. Each subcomponent functions as a link in the chain and if one link is inconsistent with the others the system will break down. The Christian faith is no different, which is why the Bible must be the only rule for faith, life, and apologetics, otherwise Christianity will self-destruct on the sand of human autonomy.
 

Recommended Reading

Bahnsen, Greg, “Worshipping the Creature Rather Than the Creator”

Hurd, Wesley, “Me and my Worldview”

Moore, T.M., “Beyond Creation vs. Evolution: Taking the Full Measure of the Materialist Challenge”

Nickel, James, “Mathematics: Is God Silent?”

Stump, James, “Science, Metaphysics, and Worldviews”

How Not to Present An Argument

Posted on by jra

I recently ran across a post browsing through my “Calvinism” sparks links in Google + and ran across this excerpt that was reply by a person, named David.


David,
I am choosing to address your comment, not because I strive to change your mind, but for the sake of other readers who have ears to hear.

If there is a set of doctrines that are not supported by Scripture, particularly in how to inherit eternal life, then such a belief system is a false gospel. Besides this, if this false gospel describes a god (the one we are supposed to be seeking and obeying) with attributes that are not the attributes that Scripture describes of Him, then the belief system is doubly false. Such a religious system would have to be deemed a cult.

You are saying (at my comment page –8/18/11) that Calvinism matches “the historic views of the church at large the past two thousand years.” This is an unimpressive claim when it was Calvinism which, throughout much of Europe, merely got its way like Catholicism did, through the persecution of those who would not adhere to their enforced state religion. Augustine, whom Calvin quoted extensively, was a very influential Catholic who believed that Tradition and the Church were as authoritative as Scripture, yet Calvinists insist (dishonestly) that it is Scripture alone which they follow. No, Calvinists follow men’s interpretations of Scripture, which means you, as a Calvinist, are not following Christ, but following men’s doctrines –particularly, Augustine’s, Luther’s, and Calvin’s. By the very title “Calvinism”, your belief system is one that adheres to what John Calvin wrote in his “Institutes”. Please do not side-step this fact by talking about “hyper-calvinism” and a “straw man”. Those are typical phrases of evasion I’ve heard numerous times by those who don’t want to own up to what their system does indeed teach.

Now what I find interesting is that the writer seems to define a cult as any religious system that persecutes a group of people like Roman Catholisim did. The other problem is the author is not even addressing the “system” of Calvinism, which is actually what it is. The other problem is the author throws a statement saying that Calvin quoted Augustine saying that since Augustine believed that the Church and the Bible were on equal authoritative grounds that is what Calvin believed.

So what can we learn from this when presenting an argument? A number of things, namely:

  • Context is Everything – Our author, despite her strong convictions really gave no context to her argument nor the context around the quote from Calvin quoting Augustine.
  • Define your Terms – She throws out the term, “Calvinism” without ever defining it.
  • Genetic Fallacy – She attributes what Augustine believed about the weight of Scripture and Church to Calvin, simply because he quoted him.

So it is important to think your presuppositions to their logical conclusions with chains of reasoning that can be used to defend your position and what you are actually trying to prove.

Thoughts on Van Til: Scripture & Philosophy

Posted on by jra


From Van Til’s “The Defense of the Faith”:

“But to engage in philosophical discussion does not mean that we begin without scripture.
We do not first defend theism philosophically by an appeal to reason and experience in order, after that, to turn to scripture for our knowledge and defense of Christianity. We get our theism as well as our Christianity from the Bible…It is therefore the system of truth as contained in Scripture which we must present to the world.”

The starting point for the Christian worldview is always the scriptures, but if you listen to Christians attempting to defend the Christian faith, they seldom start with the Scriptures. Instead they feel it is necessary to “put themselves in the mind of the unbeliever” in order to establish a “common ground” to have sound discourse with them. When this approach is utilized the battle is over.

Why would the battle be over with defending the Christian faith with this approach? The moment the Christian concedes(Even just for the sake of argument) they have already agreed that there is a possibility that God and the Bible may not be true. The Scriptures never grant the Christian such liberty. Let’s look at the verse below and see if we can apply it to our example above:

(ESV) John 8:24: “I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”

Jesus was speaking to the Jewish religious leaders and you say he was engaged in an apologetic for the faith. He does not once concede and say, “OK, let’s just for sake of the argument I”m not who I say I am, namely the Son of God, who takes away the sins of the world…?” No, this is never once entertained, but the unbelieving leaders are forced to either accept His testimony and therefore to believe that he is the promised Messiah or they will perish in their sins. There is zero room for neutrality. And this is the point; to concede to the unbelievers position is to believe that God is neutral and we not from the Scriptures that this is not the cause. The Lords judgements are binary; we are either covenant keepers or covenant breakers. Saints or reprobates.

So this is why the presuppositional method of apologetics is the most faithful defense of the Christian faith to the scriptures. We have committed our way to the King of Kings and as Christ said in Matthew 12:30, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”

Blackbox Engineering & Ordo Salutis

Posted on by jra

I think any rationale person would agree that in order to understand anything you need an adequate of the thing being discussed. For our purposes we will be referencing “thing” as a system. Our model will be simple. We will create a system that simply adds two integer values together and outputs the sum of the two values. That being said we can view the conception of the things defined in what historically engineers have referred to as “Black Box Engineering”. This method is commonly used in engineering disciplines and is really very simple.

In the diagram shown above the model consists of 3 parts:

1. Input – Before anything meaningful can be done with our system we need some type of input to act on. For example, we will pass two inputs: a = 1, b =2.

2. Blackbox – This is where our input collected in step 1 is transformed into something that we desire. In our model our blackbox will compute the sum of the two input values.

3. Output – This is the result of our transformation produced by our Blackbox in step 2.

Now let’s make this a little more interesting. Can we apply this method to the order of salvation in relation to the Christian religion? Yes, we can and more specifically as it relates to the Ordus Salutis (Order of Salvation):

1. Inputs – The inputs to feed into our Blackbox consist of biblical means of grace that includes:
A. The preaching of the Word. (Romans 10:17)
B. Prayer (I Tim 2:1)

2. Blackbox – Regeneration that occurs by the Spirit of God working with the inputs of A & B primarily.

3. Output – The resulting output is a new creature in Christ that is justified, sanctified, adopted in the family of God, faith, and eternal life to name a few.

So we see everything human beings deal with are systems in some form or another weather they be buildings, bridges, or the order in which Christ saves a man.