Christocentric Philosophy

  The transcendental argument for Christian theism, as conceived by Cornelius Van Til, aims to demonstrate the necessity of the Christian worldview for any intelligible experience. One of the most fundamental elements of this transcendental program is the philosophical problem of the One and the Many. Apart from being a potent philosophical argument for Christianity, the One and Many problem is a useful conceptual tool for analyzing and spelling out the areas in which unbelieving philosophical systems fail. That is, a lot of the philosophical problems that plague the non-Christian worldview can be characterized, in one way or another, as instances of the One and Many problem.  A survey of the relevant literature surrounding the defense of the transcendental argument for Christian theism would reveal a tendency for Van Tilians to undermine unbelieving worldviews by pressing problems relating to the lack of order and unity in the objects of knowledge. Arguments that appeal to th...

Van Til claimed that one can begin with any fact of human experience and a transcendental analysis would show that God needs to be “back of” that fact in order for it to be intelligible. I appreciated this insight when I was lurking on the Internet during the week and came across a certain image. It’s a quite popular image and I had seen it in the past. However, it just recently occurred to me how that image contained a powerful argument for God.  The above image, and others like it, is commonly used as an argument for relativism. It is argued that truth is relative to perspective, and that “just because you’re right doesn’t mean I’m wrong”. But most people are smart enough to point out that there was someone who scribbled that number on the ground, thus implying that one of the two opinions is objectively false. This is true. However, most people fail to recognize that, as human thinkers, we are in an analogous position with respect to reality. Only in this case we have hundreds o...

Recent discussions surrounding Molinism and Calvinism, such as the Craig-White discussion that occurred recently on Justin Brierley’s Unbelievable? show, have got me thinking about the issues of God, human freedom, and determinism. I’m not going to comment on the discussion since I haven’t listened to it yet (and probably won’t for a long while). What I am going to do, is give a simple reason why I reject Molinism (and basically any view that rejects theological determinism).  One of the major reasons I reject Molinism (and other views like it) is that it undermines God’s self-sufficiency—His aseity. There have been various sophisticated treatments and critiques of Molinism by very able thinkers. But mine is a more layman’s reason for rejecting views such as Molinism. I believe Scripture teaches the self-sufficiency of God. But Molinism would seem to imply that God is not self-sufficient. Here’s a simple argument for that claim: If God knows X but does not determine X, then God’s ...

Imagine coming across a strange piece of art—say, a mysterious sculpture. You can either make sense of it on your own, giving it your preferred interpretation, or you could ask the maker of the sculpture. In the absence of information from the maker of the sculpture, the piece of art is subject to a variety of interpretations and one can only speculate as to the purpose, meaning, and proper interpretation of the sculpture.  This highlights the key difference between the Christian and unbelieving epistemological schemes. The Christian has information from the creator of the universe and interprets it based on that information. The unbeliever does not possess such information—in fact, the unbeliever says that the universe has no maker. But if the sculpture has no maker, then there is no proper interpretation of it. To try to make sense of it is to try and find meaning in a meaningless object. The unbeliever is relegated to the realm of speculation and guesswork. Imagine, once again, ...

In this post I’m going to provide a quick and powerful argument for the claim that atheism is self-defeating. This is so because if atheism is true, then atheism is rationally indefensible. The particular argument I’m going to be presenting can be re-formulated and repurposed to refute a variety of worldviews, but I am going to be deploying it specifically against atheism. It could also be repurposed and used to positively argue for Christian Theism. I will leave that task to the astute Van Tilian reader. The argument goes like this: The actuality of skeptical scenarios entail that no beliefs possess positive epistemic status. If (1), then in order to rationally assign a positive epistemic status to any belief, one must be able to decisively rule out skeptical scenarios. A subject can only decisively rule out skeptical scenarios if: a) said subject is a Self-Sufficient Knower (SSK), or b) said subject has epistemic access to information from a Self-Sufficient Knower. Therefore, the exi...

Presuppositionalists often appeal to skeptical scenarios in order to undermine unbelieving epistemological schemes. Typically, brain-in-vat or other similar scenarios are brought up. However, this particular approach is deeply flawed and I aim to show why. I’ll also present a more powerful alternative for Van Tilian thinkers. Perception-based Skeptical Scenarios “How do you know you’re not a brain in a vat?” This is a popular frequently question asked by lay presuppositionalists. The question can be asked in various forms. In general, it takes the form: “how do you know skeptical scenario x does not obtain?” The idea here is that the inability of the unbeliever to rule out the possibility that he/she is a brain in a vat implies that he/she has no basis for knowledge. This is so because, the reasoning goes, if  they were a brain in a vat then they could be wrong about anything they claim to know.  There are several problems with this strategy: First, it places a certainty/infal...

As I write this, this blog has clocked 10,000 all-time reads! This may not sound like much, but I want to celebrate it nonetheless. Even more so because of the amount of growth this blog has experienced over the last six months.  I published the first article on this blog on the 1st of May, 2018. Not up to two weeks later, the blog was dormant for close to three years! It wasn’t until the 20th of March this year that it was awakened from its slumber. As at April, it was at a total of about 1,700 all-time reads. But now it’s already reached 10,000 and I want to use this as an opportunity to thank every reader who has contributed to that!  You all give me the motivation to publish more and I hope for even more growth in the months to come! In the meantime, here’s a list of the Top 5 most read articles: 1. Why Atheists Can’t Know That 2 Apples + 2 Apples = 4 Apples  2. Brute Facts Are Mute Facts: A Van Tilian Transcendental Argument 3. The Epistemic Necessity of a Creator 4....

 If you didn’t know, I recently started a YouTube channel! Very soon more videos would roll out so make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss them! I have two videos up already. You can watch them: Towards a Christ-Centered Apologetic Without GOD You Can’t KNOW ANYTHING—here’s why

Something about professing Christians willingly espousing epistemological autonomy has always irked me. I always wonder what the motivation is for adopting such a stance. A few things come to mind. However, I believe such a view is always borne out of a faulty view of God. Professing Christians may say things like “God is necessary for knowledge because without Him we wouldn’t exist; however, we don’t need to know God to know things”. It seems to me that Christians that take such a stance either have not appreciated the interdependence of epistemology and metaphysics, leading them to understand the metaphysical implications of an autonomous view of epistemology, or they have such a low view of God that they do not care about such metaphysical consequences.  It should be noted that intellectual autonomy and epistemological autonomy are two different things. Intellectual autonomy is simply thinking for one’s self. Everyone human has intellectual autonomy and should strive towards it....