Category: Epistemology

apologetics, Calvinism, Dr. Cornelius Van Til, Epistemology, PresuppositionalismLeave a comment

Van Til and Common Grace

TheSire

A very important insight of Van Til is his notion of Common Grace. Here is William Dennison’s words on Van Til’s notion: Readers of Plato’s dialogues must be sensitive to what literary critical scholars refer to as the “Socratic problem,” that is, the task of separating which concepts belong to Socrates (470/ 469– 399 BC) and which concepts belong to Plato. Although a number of ideas continue to be subject to speculative analysis, many scholars follow Aristotle’s (384– 322 BC) lead, maintaining that the doctrine of Forms that appear in the middle and later dialogues belongs to Plato. 137 For … Continue reading Van Til and Common Grace

apologetics, Epistemology, Jimmy Stephens, philosophy, Presuppositionalism, Steve HaysLeave a comment

Stroud and Van Til

TheSire

My friends Jimmy and Békefi Bálint had a conversation on the issue of his paper: Bosserman on Stroud’s Objection https://philarchive.org/archive/BKEVTV Necessitarian-discord-tact-convo Modest TAG argument: Modest is Hottest: A Brief Response to Bálint Békefi’s “Van Til versus Stroud: Is the Transcendental Argument for Christian Theism Viable?” Is TAG viable? Continue reading Stroud and Van Til

apologetics, Calvinism, Epistemology, Jimmy Stephens, Metaphysics, Presuppositionalism, theologyLeave a comment

Cartesian Demons and Christianity

TheSire

I’ll post a recent conversation between Jimmy and an atheist that recently occurred: Ledouche said: How do you know god isn’t an infinite deceiver? Jimmy said: I don’t consider infinite deceivers a possibility. Given the Christian worldview, the existence of the Christian God and His revelation rule out the possibility that there is such a deceiver floating about. God Himself is the original archetype of truth: his perfect self-coherence, self-reflection, and self-containment (by which I mean that all universals about God exhaust the particulars, and all particulars exemplify universals). And God determines the truths of the cosmos; His word is … Continue reading Cartesian Demons and Christianity

Calvinism, Epistemology, Freewill, Metaphysics, philosophy, Steve HaysLeave a comment

Determinism and Skepticism

TheSire

It is sometimes stated that Determinism entails skepticism. That is presented by certain libertarians to undermine one’s confidence in Calvinism. It seems that they have a problem with accidental beliefs. Here was the response of Hays to Spencer Toy on this problem: Spencer Toy said: As William Lane Craig has stated, once a person embraces determinism of any sort a strange vertigo sets in. One very well may believe true things, but only because they’ve already been determined to believe those things just as much as their opponents have been determined to believe false things. In such a system, nothing can be … Continue reading Determinism and Skepticism

apologetics, Atheism, Dr. Chris Bolt, Epistemology, logic, Metaphysics, Paul Manata, philosophy, PresuppositionalismLeave a comment

“Start with”

TheSire

Atheist use to present to me the problem of starting points. They use to argue that we must start with ourselves or we must start with logic. That is because if we start anywhere else we would enter incoherence. You would have Christianity without logic and you wouldn’t know Christianity was your starting point because you didn’t know that you exist. The Christian says that he starts with God. How could he start with God at the expense of your own existence and laws of logic? The issue with this criticisms is that they confuse what is meant by “start … Continue reading “Start with”

apologetics, Epistemology, Ethics, logic, philosophy, PresuppositionalismLeave a comment

Wavering Wicca

TheSire

The worldview we will be looking at is Wicca. It is a religion that many believe to be thousands of years old and that it takes from various traditions of the world. The issue like every worldview is that there are multiple sects that exist within it and each has different core beliefs from one another. I’m not going to discuss every variety of Wicca but just some categorical beliefs that each form will fall in. For our purposes, we will divide it into 3 broad categories. Those are Monistic Wicca, Pagan Wicca, or Atheistic Wicca. Monistic Wicca: 1. Metaphysics … Continue reading Wavering Wicca

apologetics, Causality, Dr. Greg Bahnsen, Epistemology, philosophy, Presuppositionalism, science, theologyLeave a comment

A start for a philosophy of Christian science: Part 1

TheSire

This is the beginning of a series of articles related to the issue of Christianity and Science. These are a short defense of the idea that Christianity is necessary for science. Here are the other parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part … Continue reading A start for a philosophy of Christian science: Part 1

Causality, Epistemology, philosophy, Presuppositionalism, science, theology1 Comment

A start for a philosophy of Christian science: Part 7

TheSire

This is part seven in my series on science.Here are the other parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, and Bibliography. The problem of induction: Let’s say that we observe a large number of objects with characteristic A, noting that all of them also possess characteristic B. It is natural for us to conclude that, in all probability, all objects with A also possess B — including those objects with A that have yet to be observed (or cannot be observed). The question Hume asked is, “What … Continue reading A start for a philosophy of Christian science: Part 7