I had hoped that Daniel Morgan would respond to parts 6 & 7 of my Witmer series (which I have now made it’s own page at http://calvindude.com/dude/responding-to-witmers-critique-of-presuppositionalism/) before I began to make a comprehensive response to his comments, but it appears that he does not have time at the moment.  (Actually, I’m going to assume he’s forgotten that he hasn’t responded to those parts since I recall reading a comment from him on a different blog about how he had responded to all my posts.)

In any case, since Daniel’s responses were (for the most part) quite lengthy, I am going to trim up the “fat” so to speak and deal with what I consider the most pertinent issues, with this caveat–if Daniel thinks that I missed something that he would really like me to respond to, he merely needs to point it out again and I shall do so.

Let us start in Part 1 where Daniel wrote:

Why hold any particular premise? Especially this one? What good reason do you have to suppose this?

Daniel is responding to my claim that Presuppositionalism is a largely Reformed-only apologetic.  Daniel asks why I hold to the premise found in my sentence: “Therefore, demonstrating the truth that men are not autonomous in thinking is going to create an automatic knee-jerk reaction (especially among non-Calvinists) against the position, regardless of the strength of the position.”  The premise being: “Men are not autonomous in thinking.”

This, however, is not a presuppositional foundation.  That is, I do not start with “men are not autonomous in thinking.”  Instead, my first presupposition regarding men’s thinking is that men are totally depraved.  This I explained in the opening section where I pointed out that Presuppositionalism begins with: “tak[ing] the doctrine of Total Depravity seriously (that is, the idea that all men are born depraved in all aspects of their being, including their thinking).”

Thus, the reason that I argue men are not autonomous in their thinking is because I have begun with the presupposition that men are depraved in their thinking.  This depravity, of course, means that a person is sinful even in his thoughts.  Now, if Daniel would like for me to establish this, I certainly can do so.  It is actually fairly simple to establish this concept, and I shall do so with two examples:

1. Everyone has done something that he or she thinks is wrong.  That is, regardless of whether the action actually is objectively right or wrong, the person who does it thinks that it is actually, objectively wrong.  Question: Would someone who is good do something that they thought was wrong?  (Note: I am not speaking of people who do something that they consider wrong under duress, or because of mitigating circumstances.  I’m speaking of an all-things-being-equal concept.  For a simple example: you visit your grandmother and she has baked some cookies.  She says you can have one.  You take three, despite your thinking that taking more than one is wrong because of what your grandmother said.  Would a good person actually do that?  Even if the argument becomes that it’s a trivial case–would a good person violate his morality in such an easy-to-obey trivial case?)

2. Suppose that we have twins.  One of the twins is raised in a home and given a strict moral code to live by.  The other twin is told to operate freely, with no moral restrictions.  Which child is going to be the better behaved?  Naturally, the first will be.  The second child, without a taught morality, is going to be the terrorist in the playpen.  This is demonstrated quite simply by the fact that while you never have to teach a child to hit another kid in the head with the Legos, you do have to teach him to not horde all the Legos and to share.  Or put it this way: if an adult did the behavior that children do, he would be rightly condemned and probably jailed.  It is only tolerated in children because “they do not know better.”  This means that the default mode of children is intrinsically evil, not good.

So I have many reasons to conclude that men are depraved.  And if men are depraved in their thinking, then one must acknowledge the affect that that depravity has on his thinking, which is that he is not autonomous in thought.  Instead, he is bound to his sinful nature.

Daniel then argues:

Is this premise a bit self-undermining? Can the premise be proven wrong? Any argument I try to bring against you, even if sound, is “just the result of corrupted thinking” if it contradicts your committed “standard” — the Bible. But what basis can you stand on to say that you know what you know (uncorrupted thinking)? You have to assume that human beings are able to “detect” truth in the one case (in the BIble) and not elsewhere (things that are contrary). Therefore, their “reasoning faculties” cannot really be at fault, can they?

There are a couple things wrong with this.  First, the epistemological questions that begin this paragraph are a problem for the atheist as well as for the Christian.  How does the atheist know that our minds evolved to correctly reason through what is objectively true?  After all, our minds evolved primarily for us to survive.  And if our survivability is increased due to useful fictions, then wouldn’t that mean our minds are incapable of determining which “truths” are objectively true and which are merely the ones our minds need to be true in order for us to survive?

Secondly, athiests likewise believe in standard that people ought to hold to in their thinking.  If this were not the case, then it would be impossible for the atheist to argue with the schizophrenic.  After all, if there is no standard of “correct” thinking, then who’s to argue that the schizophrenic is actually wrong?  So the atheist likewise has a burden to establish what that standard of “correct” thinking is.

Finally, it is merely semantic quibbling to argue that it is not their “reasoning facualties” to blame.  Indeed, ultimately I would level the blame at the entirety of the person, not just his reasoning ability.