Christocentric Philosophy

The central claim of the Transcendental Argument for Christian Theism (TACT) is that Christian theism is transcendentally necessary . What this means is that Christianity is necessary for intelligible human experience to obtain. If human experience is intelligible, then Christianity must be true. This transcendental programme, as developed by Van Til and Bahnsen, is worldview-directed . That is, we are dealing with entire worldviews and not just isolated tenets or facts. So, it is the entire Christian worldview that is necessary for the intelligibility of human experience. Various arguments have been provided to support this central claim of the transcendental necessity of Christian theism (see: here , here , here , here , and here ). However, one may be inclined to ask what exactly would disprove this central claim and refute all the arguments that have been put forth in favor of it?  The answer is simple. As it turns out, this central claim is so strong and ambitious that it is e...

This is a short piece I wrote over a year ago. I thought it is important that it’s shared:

Chapter 7 of my new book, The Folly of Unbelief , is titled “The System and the Facts”. In that chapter, I point out that the enterprise of  human knowledge can be seen as an attempt to bring system and fact together. The “system” is characterized by order, continuity, law-like regularity, relation, and unity. While the “facts” are characterized by disorder, change, individuality, and plurality. I argue that both these components—system and fact—are absolutely necessary for knowledge to obtain. Giving one priority over the other leads to problems. Facts without a system are unintelligible—they would be wholly discrete and unknowable without a system to relate them. However, a system devoid of facts lacks content and becomes empty and purely abstract, bearing no relation to the objects of knowledge.  Thinking more about the relations between system and facts made me realize that a particular problem that traditional approaches to apologetics face can be expressed in terms of sa...

Sometimes I find myself wondering why the traditional arguments for God are so popular or mainstream. One reason I’ve come to accept is the inherent intuitive appeal of some of such arguments. Particularly, arguments from design and cosmological arguments tend to have some intuitive force that appeals to most people who want to defend their faith. I know this because I, like many others who were so-called classical apologists before becoming Van Tilian, was also convinced of the force of these arguments.  Even before delving really deep into the philosophical nuances of apologetics, I found myself firmly seeing the complex design and order of the universe as evidence for God. When I found out that atheists exist and that they do not believe the same things I do about God, I was shocked.  “How could they not believe in God?,” I would say as I looked around me, “look at how complex and intricate the entire universe is! Look at the order and the sheer awesomeness of the human bod...

This is a short discussion I had with Jimmy Stephens and a few others on the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) and brute facts. I have talked about brute facts before and highlighted the problems it poses for non-Christian epistemology . Here, Jimmy presents another perspective on the issue of brute facts and its relation to the problem of skepticism. Jimmy : I guess I would just make a much stronger claim. It seems to me that rational enquiry at all, and so any kind of inference whatsoever, presupposes some norm identical or sufficiently analogous to the PSR. If the PSR is false, there are brute facts. If there are brute facts, there is a global skeptical defeater for any and all inferences that they're just brutely undermined. Me : What if one makes a distinction between epistemic PSR and metaphysical PSR Jimmy : That's a good distinction. I briefly referred to that kind of distinction when I talked earlier about the universe accommodating an epistemic PSR. It does us no g...

The title of this article may be a bit misleading. There are obviously very capable and very knowledgeable mathematicians who are atheists. Such people do not only know that two apples plus two apples equals four apples, they can also provide elaborate proofs of the various mathematical theorems that undergird such a truth. This post is not meant as an attack on the intellect of atheists but rather as an attack on atheism as a philosophical system . A more accurate title would be “ Why Atheists Can’t Know that 2 Apples + 2 Apples = 4 Apples If They Were Being Consistent With Their Philosophical System ”. I know, not very catchy! But what is it about atheism as a philosophical system that precludes knowledge of a truth so basic and fundamental that even children know it? The short answer is that atheism commits one to an autonomous epistemology—an epistemology that rejects the necessity of divine revelation. Believing that two apples plus two apples equals four apples is easy enough. Th...