Recently, I was on the atheist brain-cell killing zone of “Friends of The Bible & Beer Consortium”. The group attracts all the village atheist to leave their intelligence behind and set up shop in a Facebook group. The exchange I had was between Randall Theo(a troll) and Ty Wilson. Neither of them has a view of their own and can’t answer basic questions of their own worldview. But in the middle of their profound ignorance they asked a question that pops up from time to time:
TheSire said:
Randall, how do you account for laws of logic, objective moral norms, and induction?
Randall said:
Which one involves a talking snake? dude, it’s Saturday night(he said this on Thursday and Friday. Is Randall in the movie “Groundhogs Day”?). I am out with friends on vacation. Get out of your mothers basement and go have a beer. Have a couple.
Ty Wilson:
What is the source of the apprehension and understanding of revelation? How did you determine this method was a reliable pathway to truth?
TheSire:
Ty conflates all the revelations from God as being the same. Some require us going through historical investigation and others do not. The issue of general revelation wasn’t addressed. That all facts presuppose the existence of God was just passed over to attack the grammatical-historical and the redemptive-historical methods of interpretation. Why suppose those methods are correct in obtaining truth? I don’t know if Ty really understands what he is doubting. Is he saying that we need to understand what someone is saying apart from their own words and historical setting? How does Ty read any text(these words including) without relying on the grammar and historical meaning of the terms? Does Ty receive magic beams of meaning into his head? Ty’s only response to presuppositionalism is to give up communication. The historical-grammatical method of interpretation is necessary for any meaningful conversation. You only know what someone is saying if you know what the words they are using mean(grammar and the historical setting). So, Ty responds that we need to give up communication in order to defeat presuppositionalism. We can just read Ty as saying this “Christianity is true but I’d rather be a sinner.” So, Christians have a solution to this. That God created this world and gives us a book with a historical setting by which we are to understand it. All knowledge is revelation of God and he chose to reveal himself through the means of written communication. God presents a timeline in which we are able to know how to interpret the Bible.
Ty runs into another problem. I asked him if he was a Particularist or a Methodist. He wisely tucked his tail and ran from the question, but it still applies. He proposes a Methodism for his position. But how does he ever know his method is correct apart from particular facts? Bahnsen’s apple orchard covers the issue of having a method of what a good apple is without already knowing something about apples. In Christianity, God provides a method and particular instances of knowledge. So, the Christian needn’t choose.
Other stuff:
The Council 