Christocentric Philosophy

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....

This is a discussion I had on Twitter on the topic of God’s relation to morality. I’ll paste the relevant parts of the discussions with my commentary afterwards. Me : ..so, for example, it may be morally good for God to take a human’s life, that does not mean that humans taking other humans’ lives is morally good. Person : Then God is not the standard of what is right and wrong for us to do. Me : I don’t see how that follows. Person : [pasted a link to a YouTube video] Me : Watched it but still don’t think what you say follows. It’s not God’s actions that are the standard. Rather, God’s nature is the archetypal Good while we humans deal with ectypal good. God is the standard and his actions are necessarily good [because] they’re consistent with his nature ...this doesn’t mean that a mere creature who performs the same actions would be morally good. No. Again, there’s a Creator/creature distinction. Person : If God’s actions/nature aren’t a guide to how we should behave, then God isn’t ...

Opponents of the presuppositional method of apologetics often criticize proponents of the method for not justifying their core claims with argument. It is claimed that presuppositionalists simply make unargued assertions and ask endless questions without ever giving arguments for their assertions. This claim is demonstrably false, as a cursory glance at the posts of this blog would show. However, there is a related idea amongst critics of the method. This is the idea that the burden of proof on the presuppositionalist’s shoulder is so great that one cannot even see how he could begin to meet it. The claim that Christian theism is the necessary precondition for intelligible human experience is said to be such a strong claim that the presupposutionalist would have to do serious philosophical heavy lifting in order to come close to justifying it. The presuppositionalist, it is said, would have to show that Christianity renders experience intelligible and that no other system can do the s...