Dr Greg Bahnsen - Van Til's Presupp Apologetic: Philosophical Considerations, Part 1 (Part 3)

This recording has been released into the public domain by the Bonson Institute where we aim to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.

We began an exposition of the presuppositional viewpoint as it's presented by Dr. Van Til. And our emphasis was on the biblical approach to apologetics. We looked at a summary of Paul's approach to knowledge and to the defense of the faith, and in some detail looked at Acts 17, the Areopagus address of Paul. And we emphasized the fact that apologetics makes epistemology crucial, the theory of knowledge, how one knows, and presuppositional apologetics makes a biblical approach to knowledge crucial. You can see from the blackboard last night the three points we did cover. Epistemological method is crucial to apologetics, the need for a biblical epistemological message. And then toward the end of last night's session, I discussed the fact that Dr. Van Till calls for a transcendental presuppositionalism, by which we mean we compare worldviews, the Christian view as a unit, the Christian outlook on life over against the non Christian philosophy of life. And we ask about the preconditions of knowledge, which position makes intelligibility of logic, experience, time, the fact, if you will. We ask about the impossibility of the contrary. We challenge our opponent to make sense out of his position. Now, what I'd like to do tonight is to change our focus to a more philosophical discussion. And I hope nobody gets up and runs out at the sound of that. There'll be some heavy going tonight. I don't apologize for that, but I do warn you in advance. But I don't want you to get the feeling that if at some point you feel like we are swimming underwater for a little distance and you have to hold your breath a little bit longer and it's a little bit tougher mentally. That isn't to say that the rest of the series is going to be that rough, but tonight we do need to talk about philosophy. In particular, I'd like to make the point that a modern study of epistemology would lead us to see the need for a presuppositional approach, even as Dr. Van Til himself has said. And the way I'm going to demonstrate that is by going through. There's so much, in one sense I could rehearse all of modern epistemology, but that would take us much more time than we have this week or tonight. I'm just going to look at some selected sections of modern epistemological discussions and try to draw some relevant applications to our subject matter. I'm going to begin by a discussion looking at the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, who is perhaps the leading language philosopher, the analytical philosopher of the 20th century. Many of my former professors would say the leading secular philosopher of the 20th century, not just the leading language philosopher of the 20th century. Whether you have that high view of Wittgenstein or not, he certainly did have some novel insights and has changed the direction of 20th century Anglo American philosophy. Now, it turns out that Wittgenstein, his discussion of philosophy and the nature of philosophy, and in particular his discussion on certainty, he has a particular book entitled Uncertainty pointed out some things about the nature of the system, logical process, the theory of knowledge and the way we know. That shows us the need for a presuppositional approach to the defense of the Christian faith. According to Wittgenstein, one's definition may be chosen according to his interest or purpose, but all definitions are governed by custom and function within a form of life which determines the language games which are utilized. He says there's no such thing as an eternal essence or concept that gives you your definition of words. Definitions, as you all know anyway, are variable according to a culture or to a language group. But what he wants to point out is that those definitions function the way they do within a language game and a form of life. And I quote him, interpretations by themselves do not determine meaning. This is akin to the fact that a signpost is itself dead and does not indicate which way the arrow is supposed to point to. I don't know if you've ever thought about that, but if you come up to a signpost and you see the arrow pointing in this direction, why do we interpret the arrow as pointing us that way? Why not interpret it just the opposite, as though you have the base of the pointer in what we now call the point, and that line spreading out from the base is showing you where to go. Well, the answer is obvious. It's our form of life in our culture. We just happen to interpret the arrow in that particular way. We're trained to do so. Only a regular use of it, a custom, gives it life and meaning. And so he says, I quote again, following a rule is analogous to obeying an order. We are trained to do so. We react to an order in a particular way. And hence language games are publicly determined, are part of a common way of acting and responding. And again, I quote, to obey a rule, to make a report, to give an order. Our customs, uses, institutions to understand a sentence. Means to understand a language. To understand a language means to be a master of a technique. So you want to understand Dutch, for instance, where you don't learn dut just by knowing a few words. You need to know the technique of how to turn a Dutch phrase to know its syntax, the meaning of individual particles of the language. To understand the language means to be a master of the technique. So that obeying a rule is a practice which explains why someone cannot be said to obey a rule privately or only once in his life. To obey a rule means that you understand that form of life, that practice, that technique, that the language that forms the rule is getting at. The reasons why we follow a rule in a certain manner or the way we reason why we use language in a certain way eventually give out and we simply have convention. As Wittgenstein says, this is simply what I do. I stop giving reasons at some point and I simply say, well, that's just our manner of life. That's what we do. Regular public practice determines the meaning of words. It requires common behavior and agreed upon results. To use a language means sharing, in some sense, a form of life. He says if language is to be a means of communication, there must be agreement not only in definition, but also, queer as this may sound, in judgment. They agree in the language they use. That is not agreement in opinion, but in form of life. Now, I realize that this is coming very soon in the lecture and without a whole lot of exposition with it, but this is highly significant. What Wittgenstein is telling us is that to understand the use of the language, you need to share customs, you need to share a form of life. Understanding a language is not just agreement in definition, it's agreement in judgment. A judgment, for instance, that the cat is black. If I were to constantly look at dogs which are white and say the cat is black, I may understand the meaning of the word cat and black. I can give you the definitions. But if I constantly applied it to something which you said is a dog and is white, you'd say you don't agree with us. You don't understand our language. You know the definitions, but we don't agree in judgment. A form of life, you see, gives meaning to your words. If language is to be a means of communication, there must be agreement not only in definitions, but also judgment. And he says elsewhere that the form of life a person has is the bedrock for all of his explanations, the place where all of his justifications give out. When I obey a rule, I do not choose, says Wittgenstein, I obey the rule blindly. And here he's using rule in a way that perhaps is a little misleading. He means, when I get down to the bottom of my explanation, when I give you the rule for my use of language, in my judgment, it's not as though I can give you a further reason. It's as though I do it blindly. It's just the form of life that I have. And it is within one's language game, within his form of life, that thinking and understanding are defined, so that knowledge becomes one's ability to use a language game. And what counts as justification for your knowledge claims will be internally determined by that game itself. As he says, the chain of reasons has an end. Is our confidence justified? What people accept as justification is shown by how they think and live. To put it very basically, what a rationalist accepts as justification is not what an empiricist accepts as justification. And what they will accept is shown by the way they think and the way they live. And thus, different standards or norms will be used in different systems, in different situations, in different language games. The criteria for certainty will thus be internal to any system of thought and a matter of practice, a matter of form of life. Without the context provided by the language game, there would be no sense to doubting or testing, drawing conclusions at all. He says there are points where doubt is completely lacking. He says it this way, doubting always has an end. And where doubting has an end should be identified as the place where reasons and justifications have an end as well. For this is the paradigm for the grammar of our language. This is the paradigm for our language game. Wittgenstein insightfully noted that doubt presupposes the mastery of a language. It presupposes the use of rules and procedures. But now, how do you justify your rules and your procedures? Where do you get these? What rules justify the rules that you use in your grammar? Doubt cannot be so radical that it calls into question the very meanings of the words used to express the doubt. To doubt a sentence, you need first to understand what is meant by the sentence. And thus, and I quote, if you are not certain of any fact, you cannot be certain of the meaning of your words. Therefore, the very activity of doubting requires a context of accepted belief. One cannot doubt only if he first has learned. Excuse me. One can doubt only if he first has learned to handle a language and to use some judgments to call other judgments into question. Learning precedes doubt, and learning precludes doubting everything. To get on with learning, the student must not Doubt certain things. These are obvious observations, aren't they? You stop to think about it. If I were to begin to teach you a class, let's say, on the use of the English language, and you doubted every single thing I said, you would never learn English. At some point you must accept the rules, the form of life, the way of giving explanation. For how can a child immediately doubt what is taught? That could mean only that he was incapable of learning certain languages. To doubt from the outset, before you first learn something about that which you're going to doubt, means you have no ability to learn about that subject at all. Now these observations have important epistemological consequences. The child learns by believing the adult doubt comes after belief. Also, doubt itself rests only on what is beyond doubt, and thus a doubt that doubted everything would not be a doubt. Everybody has indubitables. Okay, we'll get used to that. Language are non negotiable to his system of thought. Everybody has that which is beyond doubt for his worldview, for his form of life. Everybody has an indubitable. Wittgenstein has shown that universal doubt is impossible because doubt requires the testing of assertion. But testing comes to an end and assumes something which is not tested. And therefore the questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, as it were, like hinges on which those doubts turn. If you're going to doubt something, if you're going to be in a critical position, you must have first your own undoubted foundation. You're indubitable. And so his conclusion, I think, is one which we should agree. If you tried to doubt everything, you would not get as far as doubting anything. The game of doubting itself presupposes certainty. Now Wittgenstein went on to say that if a person tries to doubt everything, what's going on here is not really a mistake in his reasoning. It's madness. When somebody has nothing on which he depends and doubts every single thing or seems to give indications that he does, we don't say that he's made a mistake. Mistakes are particular problems within a system of thought. Given certain standards, certain procedures, accepted forms of life and reasoning, then you can find a mistake. But when somebody doubts everything, then there aren't any mistakes. There's just utter madness, an inability to think whatsoever. He gives us a number of examples of indubitable propositions as far as he's concerned. And I think the uncritical reader is often led to agree very easily with Wittgenstein. For Instance, he says that to doubt that I had great grandparents should be brushed off as madness. Anybody who would doubt that sort of thing doesn't know how to use the English language, doesn't know our form of life. Well, I'm ready to agree that there are and indeed must be indubitable propositions. I agree that universal doubt is true enough, quite senseless. However, I will demure when Wittgenstein starts talking about the madness of those who fail to recognize his indubitable. Here I think we have a damaging point as to how Wittgenstein settled upon his most basic commitment. Wittgenstein went on to say that a child picks up his presupposition inadvertently. Presuppositions are not the sort of thing that you can reflect upon and argue about. They're simply there. They are built into the system of language and the form of life that we inherit. And that's perfectly unacceptable, I think, in philosophy, because if that's really what Wittgenstein comes down to, is irrelativist. Wittgenstein, I think, though, was correct in holding that the system of propositions that one accepts is certain are the unmoving foundation, the essential presuppositions of his language game. They are the basis for his thoughts and his actions. And these indubitables comprise a world picture, as Witten friend says, one's way of looking at things, his world and life view, we would say, as such. They are not taken one by one as indubitable. They are taken as a connected system. If you follow what he's been saying, it's really not possible for a person to say, I think I will construct a system of indubitable propositions, okay? And now upon this hinge of my form of life, those ways of reasoning that I've been taught, I move to this indubitable, okay? And that's number one. And now I go back and I use that hinge and I come to another one. No, you don't arrive at your indubitables one by one. All those indubitables form a system of thought, the worldview which is really the hinge on which everything else turns for your thinking. So he puts it this A totality of judgments is made plausible to us when we first begin to believe anything. What we believe is not a single proposition. It's a whole system of propositions. It is not single axioms that strike me as obviously, it is a system in which consequences and premises give one another mutual support. And for that reason, the grounds for adopting some world picture cannot be experience or outstanding success. As Pragmatism says, our indubitable propositions have a peculiar logical role in the system. They are not arrived at, the result of investigation. Instead, these indubitable propositions themselves form the foundation of all operating with thought, the matter of course, foundation for research, and the substratum of all inquiring and asserting. Therefore, they are the hinge on which disputes turn. They provide rules for testing. They are the foundation for all judging. And therefore we see that one cannot doubt everything, for doubting assumes certainty. And we all hold to some system of propositions. Taken as certain, they form our worldview, which functions as the presuppositional starting point for inquiry and as the presuppositional starting point determines our standards of verification. I think this is just incredible to me, having studied Van Til for so many years. You turn to Wittgenstein and you see this is the sort of thing he has forced when he looks at the modern epistemological process. I think it's interesting to note, however, that at the time Dr. Van Til began writing about his own particular point of view, in that very year, I guess it was the year before that, that Wittgenstein was only submitting his Tractatus for approval to his mentors. All right, so let me summarize what we've learned just by looking at Wittgenstein's discussion of language games and certainty. Definitions and standards are internal to a way of life. Epistemological justification is determined by that way of life or worldview. All systems must have their system of indubitables, their presuppositions. And these indubitables form a system of propositions, as they said, a worldview. Now, the next thing I'd like us to look at tonight is the history of philosophy and see what we can learn very quickly. I know I'm not going to say everything about the history of philosophy either, but hopefully a few relevant things will prove to be helpful. Because when you study the history of philosophy, what you'll find is that there are really only a few basic standard paradigms of reality and knowledge, that there are standard worldviews, the configurations of thought that keep recurring over and over and over again. And the amazing thing is that the people who hold to the differing worldview cannot profitably talk to one another. And the reason for that is that they differ not only in their metaphysics, not only in their view of reality, the way they see the world, but they differ also in the standards by which they would reason and dispute with one another. The difference between them is not just a difference in conclusion. It's a difference in how you arrive at your conclusion. And again, the person saying this is not someone with an axe to grind, a presuppositionalist Christian apologist. It is W.P. jones, perhaps the leading writer in the history of philosophy in America today. Dr. Jones points out that in the history of philosophy, we have those who hold to what might be called a static orientation toward questions. They like to focus on those enduring aspects of experience, those things which give permanence to their understanding and way of life. But then there are others in their philosophy who have more dynamic orientation, focusing on the changing aspects of experience. And they selectively ignore those things which seem to give permanence and endurance. Or, if you will, those who emphasize permanence, those who emphasize process. Moreover, there are those in the history of philosophy that might be called. Well, they might. You might say they call it. They take a discreteness orientation toward things, always emphasizing sharp differences in kind, so that the world is made up of a number of encapsulated entities, things that are separate and discontinuous from each other, often called atomism. And then there are those who hold to a continuity orientation. They focus on the unities between things so that all differences are only differences of degree, not differences of kind. Things are seen as united and continuous with each other. This is more of a monistic approach to life. So over here you have philosophers who see things in a static and permanent way, and everything in the world is discrete from everything else. And then there are philosophers on the other side who take a dynamic approach to things, a process approach to things, seeing continuity between everything. Let's just look at some of the differences and outlook for these kinds of philosophers. If you hold to this static, discrete orientation toward life and knowledge, what you're going to say is that change is an illusion or at death. It is a problem that needs to be explained. Since I hold to a static and discrete orientation toward life, anything that seems to be flowing or in process, anything that's changing, I have to say, is problematic. But that's not the way reality is. You see, that calls for an explanation. And the easiest way to explain it is that it's illusion. But if you hold to this other dynamic, monistic, continuous understanding of philosophy, change is so evident to you. It's so evident a feature of the world that what needs explanation is not changed, but that anybody should believe in fixity. Why should anybody think that anything's Permanent. Okay, so on this side you have Parmenides who says, look, rationally, you just know everything has to be one and unchanging. And on this side, Heraclitus, who says, look, if anything is taught to us by our census, is that all things are in flux. So the real world is characterized by stability and equilibrium on this side of the ledger. And over here, reality is basically unstable, tending toward this equilibrium. Now, let's look at some favorite metaphors here. I mean, I'm jumping up in the history of philosophy from the pre Socratic period. What was Hume's favorite metaphor? You read through his writings, you're going to find that Hume over and over and over again uses the metaphor of a billiard table, billiard ball. So when he wants to explain knowledge or explain reality or twine ethics, it's always a matter of this. Between hitting this discrete thing and having this kind of interaction, you have static, discrete things interacting, because everything is loose and separate, including ideas and impressions, by the way, that's why hue has such a terrible epistemology, because all thoughts and impressions are discrete and separate too, interacting like billiard balls. It's just because of that that induction was an installation. How could you ever conclude from a few incidents in the world what a generalization would be, what true generalization should be made about the world? All right, so I see the apple drop to the ground one time, and I pick it up and I drop it again. I pick it up and I drop it again. Now, can I be sure that when I drop it the fourth time that it will drop to the ground, or that when I let go of it, it will drop to the ground? Of course not. Because every thought and every impression is discrete and separate from every other one. We have only a random flux of disjointed states which are loosely collected together in my mind at any particular point. Okay, so here you have your billiard ball philosophy, if you will. Now, what is Hegel's favorite metaphor about? If you read Hegel, you notice that he loved to use the metaphor of unfolding. The unfolding of a bud into blossom, into the fruit. He's one of these dynamic process, continuous type philosophers. Everything is seen as working its way out. Everything is unfolding. And thus he saw things as merging into each other. Over here, even ideas don't merge into each other. They're like billiard balls that just have an external relation to one another. But in Hegel, everything is related to everything else. Everything's affected by everything else. And so he saw things as merging one another. There is no point where the bud becomes a blossom. There's only a continuous process of unfolding. And so Hegel emphasizes the unity of a single life, of which the various things in the world are but phases, are moments in the life of the total unity of everything. Now, what theory of truth would you expect from people who hold to static atomistic discreteness orientation? It's no surprise that they hold to a correspondence theory of truth. Always a correspondence theory of truth. You see, truth is having correspondence between a discrete idea in my head and a discrete point outside in the world. A situation, a fact in the world, corresponds to an idea in my head. And that's true. The problem then is how to get independent minds into correspondence with independently existing objects. And so those philosophers are always wondering, how can I get beyond my mind to the world and be sure that I do have that correspondence? What's called the egocentric predicament. But those who have this dynamic monistic continuity approach to philosophy will be found to hold to a coherent theory of truth instead. In some form, they say that truth is coherent. Minds and objects are already in relationship. You don't have to get from the idea in your head to the state outside in the world, because remember, the difference between everything is just a matter of degree. So I'm already in touch with the world. Now the problem is the existence of a finite mind. How can my mind, if it's finite, have grasped all these things and knows it? There's coherence to my way of thought. So there are standard configurations. And although I have many more notes here than I really have time to give to you, I can't omit telling you what this means for their views of logic. The reason I choose logic is because, as you'll see later in my lectures tonight, evangelical apologists have a terrible habit of saying what? Well, if there's anything that's beyond doubt, it's logic. I mean, the Aristotelian three laws of thought. Everybody accepts those. We can use it as just a standard approach to things. In fact, I was once on the platform in the program with another apologist, R.C. sproul, that I'll be talking about later. And I was giving a lecture similar to the one tonight where I was going to use logic as my illustration before I did. And as you might have expected, he chose his indubitable the one thing that is non negotiable as the laws of logic. We Christians agree with the non Christian world that the laws of logic are beyond negotiation. We accept them. That's Fine. But you see, you don't even have to be a Christian if you studied the issue to know that is not at all accurate. The history of philosophy does not show that unity when it comes to the study of logic. Let me show you just in terms of the two points of view we've been talking about. Let's say that you're one of these atomistic philosophers that has a discreteness, permanent orientation toward life. Now what's your view of logic? Well, for you there are two quite distinct discrete categories. There are those thoughts which are consistent and those thoughts which are contradictory. Those pigeonholes are tight. Every thought is either consistent or contradictory. Every statement is classified into one or the other, which you'd expect in one of these neat discreteness type philosophers, right? And when you don't know which the statement is, whether it's consistent or contradictory, then progress stops in philosophy until that assertion has been analyzed and classified. We don't go on until everything's sorted out. Analytical philosophy. But over here, you see, in this monistic process approach to philosophy, these two categories are not definitive. In fact, the two categories of consistent and contradictory are merely tentative. They're merely provisional categories. And between those two categories there's a dynamic tension. And the resolution of that tension between the categories result in a new kind of conflict, if you will. The Hegelian dialectic. Progress doesn't come to a once for all, doesn't come by means of a once for all sorting out of your proposition. Here you have the true, here you have the false, the consistent, the contradictory. And once we get everything all nicely sorted, then we're making progress in philosophy. But rather progress comes. Advance comes from one unstable equilibrium to another and higher level of unstable equilibrium. Now I'm sure most people in this room, because of your occidental Western approach to things, will favor the guys on this side of the podium, the discreteneous orientation. And well, that's alright for the time being. But what I want you to appreciate is that there are two ways of looking at this philosophical problem. Now let's pretend that you get one of these Hegelians and one of these followers, assume together, and they're going to settle this issue. Now how are they going to settle it? They have to have rules for settling disputes, don't they? They have to have rules of logic. What's the problem? Well, it's just about their view of logic that they're going to be arguing. So how are they going to settle it? The arguments between schools of thought here are totally unrewarding Believe me, they are unrewarding, especially when you're forced to read and read and read and you find out they just can't take care of it. You see, those people who are on this discrete atomistic side of the ledger are always going to be accusing the monistic process philosophers of muddle. They're always going to be saying, you people refuse to draw sharp distinctions. And so you're always confused in what you're saying, always ambiguous. But the people on this side are going to look at the other side and say, you falsify the whole truth. Yes, you get hold of little bits and pieces and get them nicely classified, but you don't have the total picture. And so you're guilty of oversimplification. Oh, yes, it may be over simple, the people over here say, but I can't even understand what you're saying because it's not clear, it's not distinct. Well, yes, but your very desire for clarity and distinction only shows that you want to oversimplify reality. Now, how are you ever going to get beyond that? You say, well, let's appeal to logic like evangelical apologists, you see, but it's just logic that's in dispute. You see, our arguments are not over how well you do your homework. The arguments are over what kind of homework you do in philosophy, that is, the arguments are over. What are the real problems in philosophy, what kind of analysis gets philosophers ahead, what is called for, what standards should be used, as Wittgenstein says, what should the hinge be in my worldview? And the fact of the matter is that you have schools of philosophy that have different hinges. And as long as they have different hinges, they are not going to be able to resolve the differences. Let me give you another example. I may be running over long here, but it's important to me. You need to understand that it's not just an act grinding presuppositionalist who says these things, that a study of the history of philosophy will lead you to no other conclusion. Unless of course, what you have a presupposition that the history of philosophy gives us only advance, you know, brick by brick by brick, generation by generation, school by school, we are getting closer to the truth. And if you have that view of philosophy, you read those history texts and philosophy, and lo and behold, the philosophers fit that pattern. But what does that show you? It shows you again that one's methods and one's conclusions are tied together. Well, I'll give you another illustration. There is what is sometimes called the outsider orientation to truth. A more objective approach to truth. Whereas there's stress laid on being distant and objective and neutral, a witness from outside things, gaining knowledge about states of affairs. And so we'll call this the spectator approach to truth. I'm in the sands and I'm watching the world out here, and I'm distant from it. I'm neutral, I'm objective. I see what's happening. And then there are others in the history of philosophy that might be called insiders to truth. They take a more subjective approach to truth, where preference is given not to being an observer, but to living through an experience, having direct contact, empathetic involvement with things, gaining an intimate acquaintance of the world rather than knowledge about the world. So here you have the spectator, here you have the participant. Here you have Plato on one side, objective approach to truth. Here you have John Dewey on the other. We need to get involved, we need to start solving problems. There you have Kant on one side, Kierkegaard on the other. Can you imagine what an argument between Kant and Cersegard would have sounded like? Why is it that Kant and Kierkegaard could not solve their problems? Why is it they would not be able to come to agreement, do you think? Is it because Kant did his homework so very well and Kierkegaard was really a slouch when it came to those things? No, it wasn't. The reason a follower of Kant and a follower of Kierkegaard cannot agree is because they don't even agree as to how philosophy should be done. What amounts to making a case for your position, what counts as plausible or not plausible depends on your initial perspective, on your initial orientation. So a follower of Kant would look at the Kierkegaardian here and look at that passionate commitment, that involvement, and say it's mere enthusiasm. I don't want to know about your emotions and your subjective involvement. I want to know what's true. The security guardian would call Kant's juridical approach to knowledge mere approximation. Because your problem is you never get close enough to the truth to know it. You're always standing out there neutral. As long as you're uninvolved, you'll never understand the world. Now, can we get behind the basic disputes and worldview by sitting down together and calmly exploring the relationship between language and reality? Will that solve it? Here's the 20th century analytical philosophy. What I've been trained in. Would we be able to do that if we just understood the relationship of language to reality? Could we solve these disputes? Well, you ought to be able to Anticipate my conclusion by now. I mean, I've gone over so many illustrations. The problem is they aren't going to be able to agree how you determine the relationship between language and reality, and therefore let me draw some conclusions. Maybe you're tired of the illustrations. Here's the bottom line for all of this. What you observe in the history of philosophy is that philosophical agreements tend to be inconclusive. If they weren't, there wouldn't be so many volumes on the shelf to be mastered by people who want PhDs in philosophy, philosophical disagreements tend to be inconclusive. A concentration of effort by acute and important minds leads not to a consensus of thought, but only to such a diversity of opinions that certain schools find it unrewarding, if not impossible to. To communicate with each other or convince each other. That's exactly what happens. Continental existentialists don't care to go to conferences where you have British analytical philosophers because it's just hopeless. We live in different worlds. And by the way, that's what I hear, you know, when I'm in philosophy departments, we live in different worlds, which is metaphorically. But I'm saying you're absolutely right. You live in different worldviews, and that's why you can't talk to each other. Underlying these inconclusive disagreements are profound differences. As the worldviews, these are different presuppositions. And those different presuppositions determine first what is problematic, what is puzzling about life, what is in need of explanation. They determine the problem. Your presuppositions, secondly, determine what is initially certain about experience or reality. They determine what is your starting point. For instance, Plato takes it for granted that knowledge is stable. Kierkegaard takes it for granted that it's not. Those are not conclusions. Those are starting points. And thirdly, your presuppositions determine what the nature of analysis must be, what explanation amounts to, how to use logic and argumentation. That is your presupposition to determine your method. Now, again, you can find this kind of analysis not just in Dr. Van Til's writings, but in the writings of W.P. jones. In fact, I would just encourage you to read his presidential address for the American Philosophical Association. He talked about disagreements in worldview. And it's precisely this kind of analysis. One's worldview determines the problem, the starting point and the method used to solve the problem. And that's why he says different schools will never come together. Of course, I have greater hopes than that. As a Christian, I. I do believe there's a Way to break through that, empath. And I, being a post millennialist, also think that we will gain consent to someday. But I'm not out here to give you a prophecy conference, so I won't talk anymore about that. Okay, let me move on quickly here to the third element of what I'd like to lay before you. In our philosophical the first thing we did is we looked at Wittgenstein, the modern view of language games and certainty. We saw that one's method is internal to his worldview, his way of life, that epistemological justifications are determined internally, that everybody has a system of indubitable. We look at the history of philosophy and we see there are standard worldviews, configurations which cannot profitably argue with each other because they differ not only in their metaphysics, but also in their epistemology. And so I'm going to go on thirdly now and make some applications from the dispute over the analytical synthetic distinction in modern philosophy. At this point, you're saying, getting late in the hour. And what is he talking about up there? The analytic synthetic distinction. The temptation would be to tell you this is the analytic synthetic distinction, and then go on to draw my conclusions. But you see, the problem is I don't believe the analytic synthetic distinction can be drawn. Well, let me tell you what some people think the analytics synthetic distinction is. There's no less than 15 different ways of doing this, by the way. So I'll only give you one. Analytic truths are truths which you can know to be true without exploring anything in the world. Okay? Synthetic truths are truths which are true in virtue of our experience of the world, known to be true in virtue of our experience of the world. So let me say I give you the proposition the barn is red. Is that true? There's only one way to know, and that's to go outside yourself, outside your conception, and to look at the barn and say, yes, that's red. The barn is red truth. That's a synthetic type of truth. An analytic truth, allegedly is a truth like this. The red barn is red. The red barn is red. Now you know that's true whether there's even such a thing as a barn just because of the meaning of the term allegedly. But now, in recent years, especially under the. Because of the writings of Willard Van Orman Quine at Harvard, there has been a very serious challenge made to the analytic synthetic distinction, to the effect that that distinction itself cannot be clearly drawn without begging the question. Philosophically, I happen to think that, although I don't agree with Everything quine as to say by any means. I do think that that is right. The analytic synthetic distinction can't be drawn and that what people take as analytically true has nothing to do with definition. It has to do with their presupposition. Analytic truths are those truths which people hold to be immune from revision. It so happens that I won't revise the red barn as red. My form of life and my worldview don't allow me to do that. But it's not because of the meaning of the term, but because I have a worldview that has me use my language in that way. Now, what all of this amounts to, and I don't have time to give you the long. I have about a 90 page article written on that. I can't possibly do that for you. But what it amounts to is this different people are going to set apart different truths which are to be accepted under any and all circumstances. These statements will be a subset of the whole system of their beliefs. Imagine that everybody has a network of beliefs. In that network of beliefs there are certain propositions that people are going to set out as immune from revision. These are the hinge propositions that we will not give up, are non negotiable. Now, because such statements are centrally located within the network of beliefs, they strongly resist revision. You give them up only as a last resort. Within that conceptual system, they'll be given special treatment. Then they represent my epistemological priority, what I take as logically primitive. The first point. These principles are employed when I make predictions, when I judge claims made by others in relating various beliefs to one another. As I said, they are the hinge on which my system turns. One system of thought as a corporate whole encounters now the tribunal of experience. I have this system of thought, this network, and when I come up against a recalcitrant or a falsifying experience in the world, that's going to force my system to be revised somewhere I'm going to have to make a change. But what's very important to know, especially if you're interested in epistemology and apologetics, is that I will choose where I change my system. All right, I believe that Apollo is a God and the gods are immortal. And then I have evidence presented to me that Apollo died. Obviously I have to change my system, don't I? Somebody says, well, that goes. That disproved it. Apollo's not a God. Well, that's too simplistic. It doesn't prove necessarily that Apollo's not a God. It proves that some gods Die. You see the point? I only have two propositions, but already you can't tell me which one. I will shift when I come up against a falsifying experience. Now it turns out that our whole worldview is like that. I have a lot of views. One very trivial one, especially in light of my belief in the virgin birth and the love of my wife and any number of other important thing, is that there's snow outside tonight. But if you were to present to me evidence that there is no snow outside tonight, I would much rather change that peripheral view about snow than to change my view that, for instance, my senses are reliable. But that's an option, isn't it? Let's think about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. What if Jesus had appeared to Caiaphas after he rose from the dead? And I'm not talking about a theological or historical situation. I'm just talking about logically. What were Caiaphas's options under that situation? Well, he could either say, we were wrong, he was the Messiah, he will be the judge on the final day. Or he could say, my senses deceived me. It's impossible for men to rise from the dead. Jesus certainly wouldn't be the man to rise from the dead, and therefore my eyes are misleading. Now that is logically a possibility. What's going to make the difference? You better know it. To say to this heart, it's going to be his form of life that's going to make the difference. And if he's not regenerated so that he has a believing form of life, he would use any other option. You know that's true, don't you? Did not the Jews pay the guards who lie about the resurrection? All right, so this is the point I'm making. People choose what their indubitables will be, their central conviction. And when they come up against a recalcitrant experience in the world, it's not possible to tell where they will change their system automatically. Now, what are their presuppositions? I will say their presuppositions are those propositions which are least likely to be changed, if you will, central to the web. Not out on the periphery. Easy to break the web out there. But the central ones, the ones they hold on to, the basic level in their thought, meaning, belief. There's no set portion of the system which must be revised in response to experience. Which beliefs will undergo alteration will depend on the presuppositions which are being used when the presuppositions are abandoned. By the way, when you finally do get to the point where a person changes their presuppositions. What you have is not just a change in attitude toward particular facts. You have an extensive shift in one's concepts, one's standards of thought and one's paradigm. When you change a person's presupposition, you've got a conversion, because they see the world differently. Now. Now, simply given a true statement in some natural language, German or French or English, just given a true statement in some natural language, who can say whether it should rank as immune from revision or not? By looking at the proposition, can you tell whether it's going to be immune from revision? Nobody can tell just from the isolated statement itself. It all depends on the place that that statement has in the network of one's thought, its position. In one conceptual system, which statement should be taken as certain. And granted revisionary immunity cannot be determined simply by the notations of a language, which is the error of the view of analytic truth. But if you can just look at the language mark here, you can know whether it's immune from revision, whether it's analytic or not. But which points of truth can be properly taken as the firmly entrenched release of a system of thought? Asking that question, asking a question like that is like asking which geographical points in a country can be taken as starting point for a trip. What's the answer? Any point can be a starting point for a trip. Now we know, because of human psychology and a common nature that men have, that not just any point turns out to be the starting point in philosophical systems. But believe me, my friends, any proposition could be a person's starting point. Any it might create what we would call madness, like Wittgenstein, prejudicialist, create an absurd system. But if that person wanted to hold on to his starting point, he'd revise anything. The reliability of senses, the universality of the laws of logic. He'd give up anything before he'd give up his starting point if he wanted to do that. The entrenched truths will vary from person to person, relative to one's manner of life, relative to one's goals, relative to one's experience. But any statement can be treated as immune from revision, immune no matter what a person observes, provided other appropriate changes are made in a conceptual system. Now, deciding which statements among the competing claims should be and properly are immune from revision is one of the most significant and difficult tasks of philosophy. The matter cannot be easily resolved by appeal to a muddled distinction between analytic and synthetic truths. Now, it's true that Dr. Van Till hasn't talked a whole lot about the analytic synthetic distinction. But you see, the conclusions he has come to are precisely these conclusions what should be in room for revision. Well, that's one of the most significant and difficult tasks in philosophy, to decide that the human epistemological condition is characterized by adherence to presuppositions. All of modern philosophy, I think, is telling us that. And those presuppositions resist falsification. And yet our presuppositions are not at all trivial. People have beliefs to which they will cling though everything else fail. Their thoughts and lives are governed by these presuppositional beliefs. Whatever is inconsistent with them they attempt to eliminate. The presuppositions of a system of thought will be the standard of truth and evidence in it. They will reflect a person's most basic commitments. They will affect all areas of his life. And so if you were to take a modern critic of Christianity and Dr. Bonson and then go about looking at the evidence pro and con about Christ's resurrection, you would find out that when all is said and done, I am not needful. I will resist anything. I will resist the conclusion that Jesus did not rise from the dead by changing just about anything in my system of thought before I would come to that conclusion. I'd rather believe that people were lying about the evidence than to give up my conviction about my Lord's resurrection. But you know, it's just the opposite with the critic of Christianity. He says the Christians were lying before he believed a man rose from the dead. Where's our neutrality? Where's our Objectivity? That's what Dr. Dan still has said. It just doesn't exist. And that due to the human epistemological condition, and all the more because of sin, the presuppositions of a system of thought will be the standard of truth and evidence in it. They will reflect a person's most basic commitments and will affect all areas of his life. Therefore, even though they will be taken as certain, they will not be trivial. They will not simply be conventions. Indeed, when all of the superficial, cosmetic of objective and unemotional academics are stripped away, you'll find that these presuppositions will be seen as matters of passion and highest personal concern. The meaning of one's life is tied up with his presupposition, his presuppositional belief, and consequently they make a difference in all of his concerns, his behavior and his thought. Revisionary immunity here does not imply that the presuppositions are vacuous of information are insignificant. It's just because these beliefs are granted revisionary immunity that they are significant. They are substantive. They're far reaching in their effect. One more observation about this and then we'll take a break. Because people have networks of beliefs, webs of belief, where the central part of their network of beliefs is protected. Their presupposition, the hinge on which their thought turns. It turns out that people do not accept and reject propositions one by one by one. I hope you can see almost in an intuitive sense that would be impossible. Dichtenstein had already said it. You can't doubt everything. You have to first learn something and then based on what you've learned, you can use it to doubt other things. Likewise, when a person comes to accept the proposition, they accept the worldview. That makes the proposition intelligible. You can be very sure that a person does not accept the proposition that Jesus Christ is the son of God risen from the dead without changing the worldview. You don't take it bit by bit by bit by bit. And that's true in mundane affairs of life too. You don't get an atomist to accept a view that challenges atomism without changing what its atomistic approach to life. So let me summarize. People grant revisionary immunity to certain of their beliefs. We'll call them their presupposition. These cannot be settled by empiricism. By mere definition. They are not gained by simple observation or defining your terms. People have a web of belief so that knowledge is theoretical in nature. Knowledge is not first and foremost observational in nature, knowledge is based on one's theory of observation. In life, claims are not tested one by one. They are accepted in groups and clusters. And finally, that shows us that when all is said and done, the difference between science and metaphysics is not what people have made it out to be. That science is observational and metaphysics is speculative. Because the whole knowing process is a combination of observation and speculation at every point. Whether I accept that there's snow outside or a triune God made this world. Let's take a five minute break and we'll come back for another hour.

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