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The Transcendental Argument for God’s Existence is an argument within the realm of presuppositional apologetics. In a nutshell, because Goddidit is the answer to every question in epistemology, God necessarily exists.
Formulation[edit]
It usually goes like this:
- (Various arguments that) laws of logic, science and morality exist
- (Various arguments that) laws of Logic, science and morality is immaterial, universal, and not changing
- (Assumption) foundation of human knowledge exist
- (Various arguments that) foundation of human knowledge has to assume the existence of the Christian God in order to be intelligible
- (Conclusion) laws of logic, science and morality presupposes the Christian God
Extension of the conclusions include:
- To not assume the christian view to be true[1] is circular reasoning
- If any arguments that goes against the christian view uses logic, science and/or morality, it already presupposes the christian view and thus becomes more proof for the truth of the argument.
Refutations (or more proof as they call it)[edit]
On laws of logic, science and morality[edit]
Arguing that the laws are not changing (given their argument that they are dependent on the Christian God) is then arguing that God is not omnipotent because at least one of the following:
- God cannot change (If God can change then one cannot argue that God cannot change these laws)
- God can change, but cannot change these laws, which implies these laws are independent from God
On Logic:
The suggestion is that laws of logic (The usual items on the list are Laws of identity, excluded middle and noncontradiction) require God because proving laws of logic would invoke logic, thus becoming self-refuting (and thus some external entities would have to be used). However, these "laws" are technically axioms or principles, which does not require proof (What one does instead is to observe how these axioms conform to practical situations and determine the efficacy of the conclusions derived from these axioms)
On Science:
- Even if laws of science exist, it is not observable at an arbitrary accuracy, and thus the observed laws are changing
On morality:
- The observation is that laws of morality are not universal on issues such as marriagable age and capital punishment.
- The observation is that laws of morality changes on various issues such as number of spouses, abortion, slavery, child labour, etc.
- There are schools of thought[2] that argues that laws of morality does not exist
- There are schools of thought that suggests that laws of morality is not universal
On foundation of human knowledge[edit]
One strange part of the transcendental argument is that it does not include the inquiry about whether the foundation of human knowledge exists at all; it simply assumes it exists and try to argue what such foundation presupposes/requires as assumptions.
On dependency of Christian view[edit]
Overload objection:
If one argues that A has to conform to the christian view, similar arguments can be constructed to argue that A has to conform to the view of any other sets of belief, including the agnostic one and the atheistic worldview.
Logic[edit]
If Logic is dependent on God then:
- Logic is not necessary;
- God can make the case which A and (not A) can coexist
In a response made by John M. Frame in this debate, Mr. Frame puts it as "... God's nature is the ultimate basis of logic. On this basis, God presupposes logic and logic presupposes God."
The response is fallacious for the following points:
- By asserting that L and G presupposes each other to prove the existence of G given L is begging the question.
- Is it God's nature or God that is the basis of logic? If it is God's nature, then there is no uniqueness proof - there isn't proof that God alone possess such nature.
Science[edit]
- Fundamentally science does not assume the existence of the supernatural[3] and thus arguing that foundation of science is contingent on any supernatural being is self-contradictory.
Morality[edit]
See divine command theory and argument from morality
Footnotes[edit]
- ↑ This is stronger than "to assume the Christian view false"
- ↑ See the Wikipedia article on Moral nihilism.
- ↑ See methodological naturalism and Scientific method.