Memes & Arguments for God

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 of millions of opinions and interpretations. How can one rationally settle the dispute?

Notice that in the absence of a person who wrote down the number, the two men in the above image would possess a correct interpretation. There would be no way to adjudicate between their conflicting opinions. Relativism would actually obtain. In order to avoid this relativism, there must be an authoritative interpretation available which their respective interpretations must mirror in order to be true. 

The same can be said for reality as a whole.

In the absence of an All-Conditioner who conditions all of reality, there would be no authoritative interpretation available. Relativism would obtain. One may interpret reality atheistically, or theistically, or Platonistically, or panentheistically, or however. But if there is no God at the back of reality, then all these conflicting interpretations are merely opinions. There would be no way to adjudicate between them. Knowledge about ultimate reality would be impossible. There must be a transcendent and infallible Perspective of reality as a whole, or else the multiplicity of human perspectives would inevitably end in relativism. 

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