{"id":1019,"date":"2024-01-16T14:31:09","date_gmt":"2024-01-16T14:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2024\/01\/16\/god-doubt-and-denial\/"},"modified":"2024-01-16T14:31:09","modified_gmt":"2024-01-16T14:31:09","slug":"god-doubt-and-denial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2024\/01\/16\/god-doubt-and-denial\/","title":{"rendered":"God, Doubt, Denial, and Truth: A Note on Van Til"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith<\/em>, 4th ed., P&R Publishing, 2008, p. 294: "To doubt God is to deny him."<\/span><\/p>\n

I take that to mean that to doubt that God exists is to deny that God exists. The obvious objection to this is that doubt and denial are very different propositional attitudes. In most cases, one can doubt that p<\/em> without denying that p<\/em>.  I can doubt that Biden will get a second term without denying that he will. <\/span><\/p>\n

In almost all cases. But in every case?  Suppose we replace 'p<\/em>' with 'truth exists.'  Can we doubt that truth exists without denying that truth exists.  No! In the case of truth, the distinction between doubt and denial collapses. <\/span><\/p>\n

To doubt that truth exists is to presuppose that truth exists. For if you doubt that truth exists, you are doubting whether it is true<\/em> that truth exists.  The same goes for denial. If you deny that truth exists, you affirm that it is true<\/em> that truth does not exist. <\/span><\/p>\n

Whether you doubt or deny that truth exists, you presuppose that truth exists. Truth is such that doubt and denial are the same. Truth cannot be doubted and it cannot be denied. The existence of truth is the ultimate transcendental condition of all our intellectual operations, doubt, denial, affirmation, predication, reasoning, and so on. So we may say:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

To doubt truth is to deny her.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Of course, it remains that case that doubt and denial are different propositional attitudes. But in the case of truth, doubt becomes denial. <\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, <\/span> if God is identical to truth, then Van Til is right: "To doubt God is to deny him." If God is identical to truth, then God is the ultimate transcendental condition of all our intellectual operations, including giving arguments for God's nonexistence! If so, then Van Til and his followers are not begging the question against atheists and agnostics by simply assuming what they need to prove; they are giving a noncircular transcendental argument for the existence of God.<\/span><\/p>\n

But is<\/em> God identical to truth? Is it true<\/em> that God is identical to truth? These remain open questions. I grant that if<\/em> God is identical to truth, then God exists as the necessary condition of all affirmation, denial, and argument, including atheistic argument.  But how do we know that the antecedent of this conditional is true?<\/span><\/p>\n

It may be that in reality apart from us, God and truth are the same. But from our point of view, the only POV available to us, God and truth are not the same. To see this, note that i<\/span>t is conceivable (thinkable without contradiction) that God not exist, but not<\/em> conceivable that truth not exist. So it might be true that God exists and it might be true that God does not exist.  The 'might' in the preceding sentence in both of its occurrences is epistemically modal. It is epistemically possible that God exist and epistemically possible that God not exist.  For all we know, either could be the case. But it is epistemically necessary<\/em> that truth exist: we cannot help presupposing it.  Given that we know anything at all, truth must exist. So the argument could be put like this:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

a) That truth exists is epistemically necessary: we cannot help presupposing that it exists.<\/span><\/p>\n

b) That God exists is not epistemically necessary: we can conceive the nonexistence of God.<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore<\/span><\/p>\n

c) God cannot be proven to exist by proving that truth exists.<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore<\/span><\/p>\n

d) The Transcendental Argument for God fails as a proof.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., P&R Publishing, 2008, p. 294: "To doubt God is to deny him." I take that to mean that to doubt that God exists is to deny that God exists. The obvious objection to this is that doubt and denial are very different propositional attitudes. In … Continue reading “God, Doubt, Denial, and Truth: A Note on Van Til”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,143,235,379,228,194],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith-and-reason","category-god","category-modal-matters","category-transcendental-arguments","category-truth","category-van-til-and-presuppositionalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}