Can Logic Be Presupposed Without God?

Daniel Morgan wrote:

In the same vein that your axiom “God exists” depends on nothing else, so my axiom “Logic is true, useful and valid” does. In the same way that you presuppose the former, I presuppose this latter.

But is it the case that “Logic is true, useful and valid” is an axiom like “God exists”?  Not at all (as I demonstrate below).

Daniel said:

Now, our presuppositions, as you love to say, must be tested against our own framework/worldview, and this leads to an internal critique. We accept our premises/presups/axioms until they fail in a reductio sense, although they can be questioned and contrasted against reality, of course.

Your last sentence is incorrect.  We cannot know what reality is without our presuppositions.  Thus, we cannot test our presuppositions “against reality.”  We assume what reality is based on our presuppositions.

In any case, when you say that our presuppositions must be tested “until they fail in a reductio sense” that is precisely what I have been doing with your idea of logic.  Again, my point is that if logic is true it cannot be properly basic.  It cannot be the starting point, because it does not allow itself to be the starting point.

This is clarified more below.

Daniel wrote:

It is not necessary to explain every last detail of our beliefs — indeed, even you admit as much when you try to “explain” God. You hit the same wall with your God that I hit with my axioms — the inability to sufficiently examine the concept without:
1) begging the question
2) committing an infinite regress
3) committing circularity
4) speaking intelligibly/coherently

Here’s the difference though.  I’m not starting with logic.  Therefore, my starting point isn’t violated by “begging the question”, “commiting an infinte regress” or “committing circularity.”  (Your 4th point depends a great deal on how one defines “intelligibility” and “coherence.”)  On the other hand, each of those are violations of logic, so if you say logic is your starting point you are again asserting that your starting point is non-logical.  In fact, it is anti-logical.

Daniel wrote:

I would also comment that tautologies are not false, they simply don’t take us anywhere in terms of establishing something beyond statement of the obvious.

A) I never said it was false.  In fact, I specifically said otherwise when I said: “Note: I do not say it is false; I say it is non-logical.”

B) It is also true that tautologies have no explanatory power.  You can say they point out the “obvious” but “obviousness” is a subjective idea.

Daniel continues:

This is extremely silly — surely you aren’t saying that something like, “God must exist because it can’t be true that God doesn’t exist” is false…? That is the very heart of your worldview and presuppositional defense! Your idea is the “impossibility of the contrary”!!!

You didn’t quite get what I was point at; but where you went is still fertile!  Again, my worldview doesn’t start with logic as being properly basic.  Yours does, by your own admission.  Thus, this isn’t a problem for me; it is a problem for you.

Daniel said:

I never made an argument, CalvinDude, I claimed that my belief in the validity of logic is justified.

And I said, “And by the way, yes I am asking you to justify your use of logic” to which you responded with “If you ‘use’ logic to disprove logic (which you didn’t accomplish, and can’t, by definition, since the concept of ‘proof’ is contingent upon logic itself being valid), you are committing the fallacy of the stolen concept” (which seems to be to be an argument on your part, the very argument I was addressing; but if you’re saying it’s not an argument then I’ll agree). :-)

Daniel quoted me as saying:

If it is the case then logic is accepted as valid apart from logic.

To which he responded:

This makes very little sense.

I’m not sure how much clearer I can make it, but I shall try.

1) Logic is assumed valid circularly.

2) Circular reasoning is not logical.

3) Therefore, the assumption of logic’s validity is not based on logic.

This seems fairly clear-cut to me.  I’m not sure where your disagreement is.

Daniel wrote:

My head is spinning…I said that I have a belief in the validity and truth of logic, one that is justified by pointing to the self-evident nature of logical claims, and to the incorrigible nature of logic itself. Therefore, I use logic and feel quite rational in doing so. What is it about this that requires further debate?

What requires further debate is the fact that logic does not allow itself to be used in that manner.  The reason that circular reasoning is invalid in logic is because if you allowed it then any argument becomes valid (including contradictory arguments), and thus logic cannot prove anything.  All I am pointing out is that if you accept logic as being true simply by assuming it, then you have to acknowledge that every single logical deduction is dependent upon your first assumption.  You claim that you’ve “justified” your use of logic, but you do so by using logic which results in you assuming what you are supposed to justify; which means that you are not using logic when you justify logic.

Now, if logic was not valid it would certainly be possible to “prove” logic in this manner; but if you are going to argue that logic is valid then you have to solve this problem.

Daniel wrote:

What I said is that you are assuming the validity of one of the premises of logic (that circular reasoning isn’t valid) in order to try to disprove it!!!!!

Exactly.  This is called the internal critique.  You assume the presuppositions of the system (in this case, the system is logic and its axioms are the presuppositions) and see if it’s consistent.  Logic isn’t consistent with its axioms if logic is the starting point, because it has to ignore its axioms in order to be right!  Logic is self-refuting if logic is the starting point.

Daniel wrote:

You are still assuming that circular arguments are invalid, which is part of logic, in order to say that validity is not found within it!!!!!! You are taking a part of logic (calling it valid) and using it as a criterion to establish that the rest of logic cannot “stand on its own grounds”. This is rather silly.

No, what would be silly would be if I argued that circular reasoning was VALID and then tried to show that logic was inconsistent with that idea (of course it would be).  Instead, I am taking the system and its axioms and demonstrating that the system does NOT follow its axioms at a root level.  This is what is self-evident.  You accept logic’s validity despite the fact that, at root, logic runs against it’s own requirements.

The only way for you to say that logic is self-consistent would be if you could demonstrate that logic does NOT violate its own axioms if we assume they are true.

In other words, put it in any other system than logic and you’ll see it immediately falls.  Any system that must be false in order to be true is flawed.

Daniel wrote:

Look, my point is this, CalvinDude — you want to get into the metaphysics. I will simply tell you that I am Platonic towards the universals. Period. End of story. Logic exists. Abstract mathematical truths exist. Reason exists. Morality exists.

And you believe it all on faith. :-)

Daniel wrote:

Trying to “account” for them by grounding them in God is both unnecessary and unsuccessful, in the sense that this provides us with no further explanatory information whatsoever.

Except I disagree.  Why are you right and I wrong?

Daniel wrote:

Further, you simply assert that God is X definitionally.

I simply say X is X definitionally.

Um…X is X is still true if God is X.

Your position is that X doesn’t exist at all, not that X is X.

Daniel wrote:

If God doesn’t have to be “grounded in anything”, if God somehow had “value” and “morality” and “goodness” even before God created the physical universe (and thus there was no context to place the concepts within), then the existence of value, morality, and goodness have still not been given any true “account of” — you’ve just said “God has/is/does them” without explaining how and why.

But didn’t you just say: “It is not necessary to explain every last detail of our beliefs”?  Why do you get a free pass on that but I have to explain it?

In any case, starting with something beyond logic that causes logic to be valid is necessitated by logic.  Thus, when you say:

SO while you push your explanation back a step, without really explaining anything at all, I just stop a step short of you, and say that those things exist.

…this is inaccurate.  My explanation does explain why logic is valid (it’s not the only position that could possibly do so, but your position of just saying that logic is valid does not explain why you accept the validity of logic when logic would require you to deny it’s validity).  So of the two positions, mine is the only one that accounts for logic.  Yours requires us to accept logic in a manner that violates logic.