Theism: Not the Foundation of Logic (TAG defeater)

[Astro Cat]

A common argument some theists use (particularly presuppositionalists) is that God is transcendentally required for logic (or "the laws of logic"), and that therefore non-theistic positions are doomed from the start since they must rely on logic to be argued.

Cornelius Van Til famously writes in A Survey of Christian Epistemology (p.205):

We must therefore give our opponents better treatment than they give us. We must point out to them that univocal reasoning itself leads to self-contradiction, not only from a theistic point of view, but from a non-theistic point of view as well. It is this that we ought to mean when we say that we must meet our enemy on their own ground. It is this that we ought to mean when we say that we reason from the impossibility of the contrary. The contrary is impossible only if it is self-contradictory when operating on the basis of its own assumptions.

A typical formulation of such a transcendental argument for God (or TAG) might go like this, lifted straight from Wikipedia's article on the same:

1. God is a necessary precondition for logic and morality (because these are immaterial, yet real universals).

2. People depend upon logic and morality, showing that they depend upon the universal, immaterial, and abstract realities which could not exist in a materialist universe but presupposes (presumes) the existence of an immaterial and absolute God.

3. Therefore, God exists. If He didn't, we could not rely upon logic, reason, morality, and other absolute universals (which are required and assumed to live in this universe, let alone to debate), and could not exist in a materialist universe where there are no absolute standards or an absolute Lawgiver.

The solution is to attack the first premise: that God is a necessary precondition for logic. This is the argument that presuppositionalists make in all kinds of different forms, and I submit that they are all putting the cart before the horse.

First, it is necessary for me to lay out what I mean when I say "the laws of logic." When I say this, I'm referring to the Aristotelian sort:
Identity (A = A, or something that exists, exists as what it is)
Excluded Middle (A v ¬A, or something is either itself or it is something else)
Non-Contradiction (¬(A ^ ¬A), or something can't be both itself and something else at the same time and in the same respect)

The presuppositionalist will say that these are actually laws of thought, and that in order for these things to be true, there must be a mind in which they obtain: God's. That by virtue of God's existence these things universally obtain.

I say that this is problematic, as mentioned before, because it puts the cart firmly before the horse. How could God be the foundation for anything at all without being God? In other words, doesn't it seem a necessary condition for God = God to be true before God can somehow make A = A to be true? But that is Identity: it seems as though identity is a necessary precondition for God to be God rather than the other way around!

The presuppositionalist might turn around and say that this is nonsense: God is a se, exists unto Himself, is not dependent on anything to exist by virtue of His aseity. But herein lies another riposte: I submit that God cannot exist a se because God is dependent on at least one thing transcendental to Himself: that which makes God, God (or limits God to being God and not from being not-God, however we want to phrase this).

Alvin Plantinga poses a little problem in his book, Does God Have a Nature?: we hold these two intuitions about God, that God has aseity and that God has absolute sovereignty. But these intuitions make a paradox when all that we do is we ask: could God have decided to have different properties?

The answer can't be "yes" (which would be the route where we agree with absolute sovereignty) as that also puts the cart before the horse: in order for God to have decided to have different properties "in the beginning" (and I don't mean temporally "the beginning," I just mean whatever "initial" properties God may have had) then God would have had to already have properties, such as the property of knowing what properties are possible to have, and the property of power to make it so. Put shortly, God couldn't have chosen His initial properties because the very act of choosing properties to have requires properties to already exist.

So God can't have absolute sovereignty: God's properties, at least initially, were beyond God's control, He couldn't help but to have those properties. But that means that God is relevantly dependent on something else, something transcendental to God: the thing that makes God God, and not anything else. That thing can't be God Himself (by way of the argument just above). So the presuppositionalist can no longer say that nothing is transcendental to God, because something has to be in order for God to be God in the first place.

Logic, or the "laws of logic," is one of those things that has to be transcendental to God. God is relevantly dependent on logic in order to be God and not the other way around. Thus God can't be the "foundation" or "source" of logic, and thus the Transcendental Argument for God fails before it ever gets off the ground.

[Atla]

All these weird ideas about apriori abstract things, and then getting to God from there. Whereas in reality, lots of people can't even process logic or abstract things properly, if at all. Many philosophers have this bad habit of treating the workings of their own minds as the one real transcendental system, they are so in love with their own cognitive processes that they see God itself in it.

"Logic" is much better explained by the Anthropic principle. To be a human being, one has to exist in a fairly stable, ordered observable universe. Otherwise we would die pretty fast, and we couldn't even have evolved in the first place. Logic is probably just a reflection, an exploitation of these stable, ordered workings. The left hemisphere of the human mind has evolved to "do" boolean logic, and the right hemisphere to do "fuzzy" logic, especially is males who have their two hemispheres more loosely connected.

[Astro Cat]

All these weird ideas about apriori abstract things, and then getting to God from there. Whereas in reality, lots of people can't even process logic or abstract things properly, if at all. Many philosophers have this bad habit of treating the workings of their own minds as the one real transcendental system, they are so in love with their own cognitive processes that they see God itself in it.

We love to hear ourselves talk. Can't say I'm not guilty.

"Logic" is much better explained by the Anthropic principle. To be a human being, one has to exist in a fairly stable, ordered observable universe. Otherwise we would die pretty fast, and we couldn't even have evolved in the first place. Logic is probably just a reflection, an exploitation of these stable, ordered workings.

Interesting thought. I go a little further and think that logic is self-evident, transcendental, and incorrigible: I don't think it's possible not to have logic, because even its absence would entail its presence (symbolically, if the existence of logic is x, isn't it weird that ¬x = ¬x?)

The left hemisphere of the human mind has evolved to "do" boolean logic, and the right hemisphere to do "fuzzy" logic, especially is males who have their two hemispheres more loosely connected.

As far as I understood, women have more connective white matter than men, who have more gray "thinking" matter (but also that this makes zero difference in bias-corrected cognitive tests, which find no effective difference between the sexes that isn't socially informed, and even this difference itself may be socially informed). What are you referring to?

[Atla]

"Logic" is much better explained by the Anthropic principle. To be a human being, one has to exist in a fairly stable, ordered observable universe. Otherwise we would die pretty fast, and we couldn't even have evolved in the first place. Logic is probably just a reflection, an exploitation of these stable, ordered workings.

Interesting thought. I go a little further and think that logic is self-evident, transcendental, and incorrigible: I don't think it's possible not to have logic, because even its absence would entail its presence (symbolically, if the existence of logic is x, isn't it weird that ¬x = ¬x?)

I tend to think that's just circular reasoning: using logic to show that we can't not have logic. Although I wonder if the law of identity could be absolute anyway.

[Astro Cat]

I tend to think that's just circular reasoning: using logic to show that we can't not have logic. Although I wonder if the law of identity could be absolute anyway.

Not all cases where the premise is also the conclusion are viciously circular logic, i.e. not fallacious. We are as transcendentally bound to agree that logic is incorrigible in the same way that we're transcendentally bound to agree that words have meaning if we make utterances with the hope of communicating something.

In other words, I'm saying that we need not prove logic is ontologically necessary, only that it's impossible to doubt that it is.

[Atla]

I tend to think that's just circular reasoning: using logic to show that we can't not have logic. Although I wonder if the law of identity could be absolute anyway.

Not all cases where the premise is also the conclusion are viciously circular logic, i.e. not fallacious. We are as transcendentally bound to agree that logic is incorrigible in the same way that we're transcendentally bound to agree that words have meaning if we make utterances with the hope of communicating something.

In other words, I'm saying that we need not prove logic is ontologically necessary, only that it's impossible to doubt that it is.

Logic is inherent in human thinking, communication, we can't get outsiude it. Hmm I can easily doubt though that it's also ontologically necessary, even though this doubt is a-logical.

[Astro Cat]

Logic is inherent in human thinking, communication, we can't get outsiude it. Hmm I can easily doubt though that it's also ontologically necessary, even though this doubt is a-logical.

It opens a whole can of worms to ask what is meant by a "doubt" to dig further, but I'm not sure we want to do that.

My point would have been that to form a thought, the thought would generally be a reference to some referent. But with illogical things, there's no referent to reference; so the thought is just nonsense: might as well be about slithey toves gyring and gimbling in wabes. I would then question whether that's what we want to call a "doubt."

[Atla]

Logic is inherent in human thinking, communication, we can't get outsiude it. Hmm I can easily doubt though that it's also ontologically necessary, even though this doubt is a-logical.

It opens a whole can of worms to ask what is meant by a "doubt" to dig further, but I'm not sure we want to do that.

My point would have been that to form a thought, the thought would generally be a reference to some referent. But with illogical things, there's no referent to reference; so the thought is just nonsense: might as well be about slithey toves gyring and gimbling in wabes. I would then question whether that's what we want to call a "doubt."

Yeah there is no can to be opened, and we can't dig further, because it's a-logical. So it's not really doubt, but also not really not doubt. It's just "outside" of making sense or not making sense. Kinda how like psychopaths think.

Maybe it would better to just go back to logic: how are you certain that logic is ontologically necessary? It's necessary for human thinking, but why would that imply that it's necessary reality itself?

[Astro Cat]

Yeah there is no can to be opened, and we can't dig further, because it's a-logical. So it's not really doubt, but also not really not doubt. It's just "outside" of making sense or not making sense. Kinda how like psychopaths think.

Maybe it would better to just go back to logic: how are you certain that logic is ontologically necessary? It's necessary for human thinking, but why would that imply that it's necessary reality itself?

This reminds me of a debate I had with a philosopher once that wrote a book on transcendental arguments.

On a sad side note, I just checked my email to remember his name and noticed that none of my emails exist prior to 2018, so it's long gone despite being "starred." That's sad. Anyway, I just googled the guy and his name is Robert Stern.

He asked the same question by quoting someone else that asked the same question, in our correspondence he called it "so-and-so's weakening objection." (I'm really sad that those emails are gone!)

Now of course this brings me back to my earlier statement: we don't have to prove that it's ontologically necessary, only that it's impossible for us to suggest otherwise. We must incorrigibly believe that it's ontologically necessary. Anyone that contradicts this assertion immediately self-contradicts, and so we find ourselves in the strange position of simply having to accept that it is the case.

[Atla]

Yeah there is no can to be opened, and we can't dig further, because it's a-logical. So it's not really doubt, but also not really not doubt. It's just "outside" of making sense or not making sense. Kinda how like psychopaths think.

Maybe it would better to just go back to logic: how are you certain that logic is ontologically necessary? It's necessary for human thinking, but why would that imply that it's necessary reality itself?

This reminds me of a debate I had with a philosopher once that wrote a book on transcendental arguments.

On a sad side note, I just checked my email to remember his name and noticed that none of my emails exist prior to 2018, so it's long gone despite being "starred." That's sad. Anyway, I just googled the guy and his name is Robert Stern.

He asked the same question by quoting someone else that asked the same question, in our correspondence he called it "so-and-so's weakening objection." (I'm really sad that those emails are gone!)

Now of course this brings me back to my earlier statement: we don't have to prove that it's ontologically necessary, only that it's impossible for us to suggest otherwise. We must incorrigibly believe that it's ontologically necessary. Anyone that contradicts this assertion immediately self-contradicts, and so we find ourselves in the strange position of simply having to accept that it is the case.

We'll have to disagree, I think that's just vicious circular reasoning again. We can't use logic to evaluate the possible non-existence of logic.

[Astro Cat]

We'll have to disagree, I think that's just vicious circular reasoning again. We can't use logic to evaluate the possible non-existence of logic.

Disagreeing is okay. ^_^

[Atla]

We'll have to disagree, I think that's just vicious circular reasoning again. We can't use logic to evaluate the possible non-existence of logic.

Maybe it would have been more accurate to say that this circularity is an infinite regress. Logic is looking into itself, but this looking into is done inherently logically. The infinite regress can be resolved positively and negatively, and I think circumstantial evidence favours the negative resolution.

[Astro Cat]

Maybe it would have been more accurate to say that this circularity is an infinite regress. Logic is looking into itself, but this looking into is done inherently logically. The infinite regress can be resolved positively and negatively, and I think circumstantial evidence favours the negative resolution.

I'm not quite making a picture of what you mean, particularly the last half of the last sentence. What circumstantial evidence favors the negative resolution, and to be clear, what does the "negative resolution" mean in this context?

[Atla]

Maybe it would have been more accurate to say that this circularity is an infinite regress. Logic is looking into itself, but this looking into is done inherently logically. The infinite regress can be resolved positively and negatively, and I think circumstantial evidence favours the negative resolution.

I'm not quite making a picture of what you mean, particularly the last half of the last sentence. What circumstantial evidence favors the negative resolution, and to be clear, what does the "negative resolution" mean in this context?

The positive resolution would be that logic objectively exists as an inherent feature of reality (or even as a precursor to reality).

The negative resolution would be that logic is a way how most humans think (especially male, middle-aged 18th century self-important philosophers named Kant), and this logic is as far as we can tell, also consistent with how the observable universe behaves, at least for the time being. But it's still not an inherent feature of reality, our observable universe may just approximate it beyond our ability to detect this, and outside it, logic may fall apart or not exist at all.

I think circumstancial evidence about how the human thinking works (especially abstract thinking), and how everything in the observable universe seems to be consistent with the Anthropic principle (we aren't here because the conditions were just right; instead, the conditions are the way they are because we are here now; science views everything backwards), seem to favour the latter resolution.

[Astro Cat]

The positive resolution would be that logic objectively exists as an inherent feature of reality (or even as a precursor to reality).

The negative resolution would be that logic is a way how most humans think (especially male, middle-aged 18th century self-important philosophers named Kant), and this logic is as far as we can tell, also consistent with how the observable universe behaves, at least for the time being. But it's still not an inherent feature of reality, our observable universe may just approximate it beyond our ability to detect this, and outside it, logic may fall apart or not exist at all.

I think circumstancial evidence about how the human thinking works (especially abstract thinking), and how everything in the observable universe seems to be consistent with the Anthropic principle (we aren't here because the conditions were just right; instead, the conditions are the way they are because we are here now; science views everything backwards), seem to favour the latter resolution.

I see.

My thoughts are that logic is just our description of limitation. To have identity (for A to = A), a thing has to be limited to what it is and limited from what it is not. Limitation seems to me to be a necessary aspect of reality; and as I've argued, even the proposed absence of it entails it (the proposed absence of limitation is itself a limitation, which self-refutes).

From my point of view, you can't even cogently say things like "logic is possibly not necessary" because of this: the phrase means just so much nonsense (and I'm not saying this in a mean or disparaging way, I mean it in a literal way, in the same way that "the set of all sets which do not contain themselves" is a nonsense phrase denoting nothing).

Limitation has to exist even if there are no people and no minds (because what it means not to have no people or minds is to have a universe limited from people and minds). It's not something that we create, limitation would still exist if every mind in the universe were snuffed out tomorrow.

But I worry this is a rehash of something we've already agreed to disagree on. Just spinning it in a different way for hopefully more clarity.