It seems that the question of presuppositionalism vs evidentialism does get people, well, excited. The presupps don’t like being told they are taking a “leap of faith” and the evids don’t like being told that their work is insufficient. My question goes to the arguments from evidence and the steps taken to arrive at the conclusion — the proof of the assumption. Even so, I would like to explore one aspect of evidentialism. That aspect is the evidentialist’s supposed sufficiency of evidence, and my criticism is that inductive reasoning makes any claim of sufficiency suspect. < Flame Resistance ON >
It is the nature of inductive reasoning that conclusions are arrived at by way of probability. That is, the greater the accumulation of evidence, and the greater the percentage of evidence, to meet an end requirement, the more likely that requirement is true. For instance, there is a very high probability that 1+1 will always equal 2. Quite high, in fact. Yet because this approach inductive, it is not a necessarily absolute conclusion. Of course, nobody doubts that the accumulation of two singular elements amounts to the sum of two singular elements, though the nature of those elements is always assumed. That assumption can account for the low level of improbability, which makes the formula less than absolutely certain.
And though this is a point of minutiae, it goes to the leap needed to arrive at an inductive conclusion. There is an assumption which must be made regarding the nature of the elements. When the evidential apologist build his(/her) case that the evidence must lead to the conclusion that, for example, God exists, then I have to step back. Is there not an assumption being made that the evidence is either sufficient or even adequate? Is this assumption not the bridge between the evidence and the conclusion? It seems that the evidentialist, even in fields outside of Christian apologetics — like AGW — cannot provide the level of certainty necessary for the final conclusion. Evidence is not sufficient in and of itself, not in an inductive environment.
Even apart from interpretation and the human sense of knowledge, the logical character of induction seems to leave the evidentialist with that small lack. Still, it has its place, though the presuppositionalist here has an advantage. The assumption of the evidentialist i the real”leap of faith” from the evidence to the conclusion because it requires that a presupposition about the contextual reality be made. It is necessary for the assumption of sufficiency to have a base from which it is drawn, and that is the presupposition of the right character of the conclusion.
Let’s pretend that pi has not yet been resolved. (That happened only recently. But let’s ignore it, just for the sake of the argument.) With pi unresolved, pi R squared was not absolutely discernablebecause it was always inaccurate. (If you are dealing with an inaccurate representation of pi, then you were not really working with the real pi.) There is (was) a mathematical assumption made with regard to the relationship of pi to the circle, and the leap from the formula to the calculated area of a circle was assumed to adequately accurate for the given purposes. It was always less than 100% accurate, and even with today’s calculators, which do not fully resolve pi, the inaccuracy is automatic. Likewise, the assumption of adequacy must always be present.
The induction of the evidentialist must therefore not be taken as though it is a deductive conclusion. It is not automatic that there is a God. The Bible comes with that both as an assumption (Genesis 1:1) and as a presupposition (Heb. 11:6). The existence of God is not finally proved by any formulaic solution. Interestingly, though, one evolutionist has noted the necessity of some sort of creator. Hubert Yockey has noted:
The origin of matter occurred in the Big Bang 13.4 +/- 1.6 billion years ago (Cayrel et. al. 2001; Freedman and Feng, 1999; Krauss and Chaboyer, 2003; Lineweaver, 1999). Astronomers and physicists can trace the origin of matter to within the Planck time, about 10 -34 seconds, after the First Cause that originated the fire ball of the Big Bang. (1)
The probability of God is very high. High enough that even an evolutionist might support the premise, at least to a small degree. But the formulas of the evidentialist are not so automatic. God is not to be deduced. It seems that the evidentialist is, after all is said and done, just another type of presuppositionalist.
(1) Yockey, Hubert P., Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life, 2005, Cambridge, p. 133
December 10th, 2009 | 7:43 pm | #1
Colin,
Regarding Pi and “resolved/unresolved” to what are you referring? Perelemen’s proof of the Poincare Conjecture?
December 10th, 2009 | 9:14 pm | #2
First Cause is not equivalent to God. Your argument that it is, however, is built uopn a number of assumptions: that this universe 1) required causation outside itself to exist; and that 2) a single, 3) perfect being with 4) unlimited knowledge and power 5) must have been the source of the First Cause.
For more on the ambiguous nature of causation and its relation to the observer, see Causation and Counterfactuals by John David Collins, Edward Jonathan Hall, and Laurie Ann Paul, (MIT Press, 2004).
December 10th, 2009 | 10:04 pm | #3
There are other problems.
1) What standard determines probability?
2) The more complicated the argument gets, by definition, the probability lessens.
3) It assumes that reason is undamaged – a problematic assumption, considering Rom 1.
4) A potentially hostile witness is determining what evidence is, or is not, admissible.
I could go on. However, this applies to every evidential claim, not just theological ones. So – from the right *starting point* – which is the fundamental assertion of presuppositionalism – evidence is perfectly admissible. If we are thinking in accordance with God’s standards, all of the above has a solution. Be careful when you say “it’s just a leap of faith” – that’s not what the Transcendental argument says. It says that without believing in God, logical predication, morality, and all other things just aren’t *possible*.
Just my 2 cents.
December 11th, 2009 | 6:51 am | #4
Collin –
I’m sure I’m not telling you something you don’t know, but that’s actually the Presup apologist’s point: all unterpretations of evidence require a foundational epistemological axiom of some kind. The strongest form of Presup apologetics points the non-theist to all the theistic assumptions he has to make in order to even belly up to the podium and begin the debate.
December 11th, 2009 | 7:51 am | #5
[...] Probablity, presuppositionalism, and evidentialism. [...]
December 11th, 2009 | 9:30 am | #6
I’m not sure that this account gives a very fair treatment to the evidentialist. No empiricst would ever claim that his inductive claim is actually 100% conclusive. Rather, the claim is that the evidence gives a good reason to believe that x is true. Probabilities are not demonstration in the Aristotelian sense, but there are some things so improbable that we would consider them naturalistically impossible.
So in the question at hand, there is a good reason to believe God exists, and it is not merely that thinking so makes everything else work. It is an assumption, but it’s just the kind of assumption that we make about any number of other ordinary experiences.
I assume, for instance, that the world is more than 10 minutes old. But I can’t really *prove* it to be so. Nonetheless, I might try to marshall evidence to demonstrate the point. The argument would not show that my claim was *true,* merely that it is reasonable or not contradictory.
For purposes of apologetics, I fully agree that God’s existence cannot be proved conclusively. As Heb 11:6 asserts, belief in His existence is ultimately a matter of faith. But the Bible is nonetheless full of claims that suggest evidence is relevant (e.g. Rom 1:20). As I understand it, the evidentialist says that we are not wasting time by pointing to things that would reasonably follow from God’s existence. This isn’t really induction in the classical sense — it often gets called “inference to the best explanation” nowadays.
December 11th, 2009 | 10:07 am | #7
Collin,
So, are you saying that evidentialists don’t really start from a neutral position? And,as Van Til might say, there are no “brute facts”?
The evidentialist already has the conclusion in mind. It is there presuppositions that drive them to their conclusion while, at least some, would deny having a presuppositional base. :)
December 11th, 2009 | 10:38 am | #8
I would call myself a presuppositionalist if it were not for the habit of presuppositionalists to reject the tools of the evidentialist. I don’t see it as an either/or scenario, because in a certain way it really is true that the evidentialist is a presuppositionalist. Men such as R.C. Sproul and William Lane Craig would probably have regarded Cornelius Van Til as a kindred spirit if it were not for Van Til’s accusation that they are dabbling in worldliness and compromising their faith merely because they use evidence and reason to arrive at a conclusion.
December 11th, 2009 | 10:45 am | #9
[...] Probablity, presuppositionalism, and evidentialism. [...]
December 11th, 2009 | 11:02 am | #10
iMark,
Of course the evidentialist has the end in mind because this is not a deductive proces. Thus it is always necessary to maintain the sufficiency of the evidence. I do not believe that sufficiency to be the case.
December 11th, 2009 | 3:27 pm | #11
Anthony, Van Til never rejected the use of evidences, but rather was concerned with the manner in which they were presented. Van Til simply understood that all facts are interpreted through a worldview grid, so the evidences of Christianity need to be presented with an unapologetic appeal to the Christian worldview. There’s a great little book by a guy named Notaro called Van Til and the Use of Evidence…..or something like that. It sheds light on the use of evidences.
December 11th, 2009 | 5:25 pm | #12
This is tangential, sorry, but I want to ask along with Mark Olson (#1) what do you mean by pi being resolved? Just interested in this kind of stuff. And you brought it up! :)
December 11th, 2009 | 8:35 pm | #13
Mark and Bob,
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