Lewis' Presuppositionalism (Part 2)

As promised, here's a quote from "Miracles" along the same lines as the quote from "The Case for Christianity" that I referred to in my previous post.

"Thus a strict materialism refutes itself for the reason given long ago by Professor Haldane: 'If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.' (Possible Worlds, p. 209)."

This quote, written by J.B.S. Haldane in 1927 is strikingly similar to the previous one from Lewis' "The Case for Christianity". The connection between this idea put forth by Lewis (and Haldane) and the Trancendental Argument for God (a fancy term for Greg Bahnsen's presuppositionalism), has been noted elsewhere (See footnote 10 on this article).

One thing that I haven't mentioned yet is the difference between the Bahnsenian presuppositionalism and the presuppositionalism advocated by my mentor at the Bible Church of Little Rock, Dr. George Zemek. Dr. Zemek's doctorial dissertation at Grace Theological Seminary was entitled "Exegetical and Theological Bases for a Consistantly Presuppositional Approach to Apologetics." Dr. Zemek's dissertation is one of many things that is on my list to read.


If you want to hear Dr. Zemek's explanation of apologetic methodology, you can listen to his three sermons on the topic given at the Bible Church. They were on 01/09/2005, 01/16/2005 and 01/23/2005.

Adjectivizing people

I think it's kinda funny how adjectives are made out of people's names. Most notably are the adjectival forms of the New Testament writers:

Matthew - Matthean
Mark - Markan
Luke - Lukan
John - Johannine
Paul - Pauline
James - Jacobian (remember, "James" is the Greek form of the Hebrew name "Jacob"
Peter - Petrine
Jude - Judan

Lewis' Presuppositionalism

I first noticed that Lewis had some things in common with the presuppositionalism of Bahnsen et al when I read this from "The Case for Christianity".

"There are all sorts of different reasons for believing in God, and here I will mention only one. It is this. Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen for physical or chemical reasons to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It is like upsetting a milk-jug and hoping that the way the splash arranges itself will give you a map of London. But if I cannot trust my own thinking, of course I cannot trust the arguments leading to atheism and therefore the reason to be an atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought or anything else: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God."

Interestingly, this quote is not in "Mere Christianity" even though "Mere" is supposed to be composed of "The Case for Christianity" and other smaller compilations. I bought several copies of "The Case for Christianity" when I was in college (and the book was still in print), but I wound up giving them all away.

Although this exact quote does not appear in "Miracles", the concept is given a whole chapter near the beginning of the book. I will look for similar quotes from "Miracles" when I get the chance.


One interesting thing about the similarity between Lewis' and Bahnsen's apologetic is that I had always associated Lewis with evidential apologetics because Josh McDowell (the quitensential evidentialist) uses Lewis' trilema (Lord, Liar, or Lunatic from "Mere") argument in many of his published works (e.g. Evidence that Demands a Verdict, and More than a Carpenter). It was only after I had digested the arguments of Bahnsen that I thought to myself "I've heard that somewhere before . . ."

**UPDATE 04/09/2005**
While visiting some friends in Baton Rouge, I noticed that they have a copy of "The Case for Christianity". The above quote is from Part II, What Christians Believe, Chapter 1, page 32. The quote is deleted from page 44 of the same section from "Mere Christianity" by the same publisher, Touchtone (Simon & Schuster Inc.) 1996 ed. I'm not sure why Touchtone deleted this quote from "Mere". It was a very enlightning concept to me when I first read it, and as I said above, when I was exposed to Bahnsen and his presuppositionalism, I realized that Lewis had generally the same argument. Although of course, Bahnsen's was much more Bibically based and exegetical than Lewis'.

Miracles (the book) by C.S. Lewis

I'm sorry. I promised all of you that I would write about the books I'm reading. I have failed to do so.

I need to get a better method of reading and retaining what I'm reading. I think that Justin Sink back at Louisiana Tech had a book called "How to Read a Book". I saw it a few months ago on Piper's web site. Maybe I'll pick it up or check it out and take a look.

Right now, I've got a few chapters left in Lewis' "Miracles". I really enjoy this book. This is chapter after chapter of the philosophical Lewis from Mere and The Problem of Pain. What really amazes me is the striking similarity between Lewis' arguments for the validity of reason based on the impossibility of the contrary and the "Transcendental Argument for the Existance of God" put forth by the late presuppositional Christian apologist Greg Bahnsen, as best seen in his debate with athiest Dr. Gordon Stein. Lewis, in his chapter entitled "On Probability" expresses the main point that Bahnsen was making in the debate:

"The whole idea of Probability (as Hume understands it) depends on the principle of the Uniformity of Nature. Unless Nature always goes on in the same way, the fact that a thing had happened ten million times would not make it a whit more probable that it would happen again. And how do we know the Uniformity of Nature? A moment's thought shows that we do not know it by experience. We observe many regularities in Nature. But of course all the observations that men have made or will make while the race lasts cover only a minute fraction of the events that actually go on. Our observations would therefore be of no use unless we felt sure that Nature when we are not watching her behaves in the same way as when we are: in other words, unless we believed in the Uniformity of Nature. Experience therefore cannot prove uniformity, because uniformity has to be assumed before experience proves anything."

That's why I love to read Lewis.

Bahnsen said essentially the same thing in his debate, calling "Uniformity of Nature" "The Laws of Logic" and saying that they have to be "presupposed" instead of "assumed." I just wonder how much, if any, that Bahnsen read Lewis' work?


It's late right now, but I want to finish this thought in a much more thorough way. Please remind me.

Baton Rouge Bound!

I just heard from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at LSU that I have been accepted as a graduate student in their masters program! I've been waiting for quite a while for a response to my application. I applied for the Ph.D program, but I guess they want me to prove myself worthy by letting me go through the master's program first.

It's going to be tough saying goodbye to all our good friends in Little Rock and Pine Bluff, and it's going to be especially tough leaving the Bible Church. But, I'm getting to do more advanced study in my field of expertise, and I'm grateful for the opportunity.

Forms 1040X and AR1000A

I admit it. I messed up.

Last night, I used H&R Block's Tax Cut to e-File my federal and my state income taxes. After I hit "Send" to e-File them, I was gathering up my forms to put them in my file cabinet. As I was doing this, I discovered a form that I had not noticed before. 1099-B. Hmmm, sounds important. So, I opened TaxCut back up and searched for the 1099-B page and filled out the information. Turns out, this form tells about the capital losses we had when we sold some stock early in 2004. I was very happy when my total refund increased by about $200! But, since I had already submitted my filing, I couldn't un-file it. So, I'm going to fill out the amended forms for the federal and for the state income taxes. I would be amending it no matter what (Rom 13:1), but since I'm going to get MORE money back, I'm especially motivated to do it.


Quote:
"A simpler tax code would reduce the considerable resources devoted to complying with current tax laws, and the freed up resources could be used for more productive purposes." - Alan Greenspan