Bill Vallicella – Anthony G. Flood

Rights political and epistemic: Biblical theism alone can account for them

Maverick Philosopher Bill Vallicella, a friend of this site (and its ancestor since 2004), posted recently about the source of rights in God, saying things about argumentation that loomed larger for me than any conclusion he drew about rights and their derivation.

Conservatives [Bill writes] regularly say that our rights come from God, not from the state. It is true that they do not come from the state. But if they come from God, then their existence is as questionable as the existence of God. Now discussions with leftists are not likely to lead anywhere; but they certainly won’t lead anywhere if we invoke premises leftists are sure to reject. The Left has always been reliably anti-religion and atheist, and so there is no chance of reaching them if we insist that rights come from God. So from a practical point of view, we should not bring up God in attempts to find common ground with leftists. It suffices to say that our rights are natural, not conventional. We could say that the right to life, say, is just there, inscribed in the nature of things, and leave it at that. Why wave a red flag before a leftist bull who suspects theists of being closet theocrats?

What “common ground” is there between the atheist and the theist? If I understand Bill correctly, it consists in a key worldview concession that the theist allegedly must make to the atheist if there is to be conversation.

For the Biblical theist, the “common ground” between him and his atheist dialogic partner is they’re both divine image-bearers (Genesis 1:26). The one acknowledges that status, the other suppresses it. Continue reading “Rights political and epistemic: Biblical theism alone can account for them”

Did the Apostle Paul argue for God’s existence?

Theistic philosopher Bill Vallicella recently posted again on Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Romans (1:18-20). Here are the concluding sentences:

It ought to be obvious that one cannot straightaway infer from the intelligibility, order, beauty, and existence of nature that ‘behind’ nature there is a supernatural personal being that is supremely intelligent, the source of all beauty, and the first cause of all existing things apart from itself. One cannot ‘read off’ the being instantiated of the divine attributes from contemplation of nature.

Suppose I see a woman. I am certain that if she is a wife, then there is a person who is her husband. Can I correctly infer from those two propositions that the woman I see is a wife? Can I ‘read off’ from my perception of the woman that she is a wife?”

No, we can’t read off “wife” (a relationship) from her body, but the prior question should be: can we can “read off” her being a woman from . . . what exactly? From nothing: we don’t infer “woman” (female person) from a congeries of sensory phenomena, but rather intuit “woman” immediately.

And we’re responsible for treating her with the respect due every person, and not treat her as though she were an insentient android (on the off chance that the “inference” to personhood is an inductive leap to a falsehood).

We don’t infer God from the world’s existence, organization and beauty, but that’s irrelevant to Paul’s claim. That is, Bill’s report of what’s obvious to him is not germane to Paul’s claim to have revealed something about our epistemological situation.

What is known (gnoston) of God (Roman 1:19) is understood (noumena) by the things that are made (Romans 1:20). It is not that the latter provide materials for an inference to God, but rather that they occasion the occurrence of insight (as Augustus Strong put it).

Continue reading “Did the Apostle Paul argue for God’s existence?”

Do atheists have an excuse?

In a short post few months ago, Bill Vallicella argued that “If God exists, and one is an atheist, then one is ignorant of God, but it does not follow that one is culpably ignorant.” (Italics added.)

Bill takes his definition of “culpable ignorance” from a Catholic dictionary: ignorance is blameworthy if the ignorant one could have “cleared up” his ignorance, but chose not to. “One is said to be simply (but culpably) ignorant,” the dictionary says, “if one fails to make enough effort to learn what should be known.”

Bill applies this to the atheist this way:

I hold that there is vincible ignorance on various matters. But I deny that atheists are vincibly ignorant. Some might be, but not qua atheists. Whether or not God exists, one is not morally culpable for denying the existence of God. Nor do I think one is morally culpable if one doubts the existence of God.

Bill acknowledges that his exculpation of the professing atheist “puts me at odds with St. Paul, at least on one interpretation of what he is saying at Romans 1: 18-20.”

I’ll say! As Bill wrote in the post he linked to: “There are sincere and decent atheists, and they have plenty of excuse for their unbelief. The best of them, if wrong in the end, are excusably wrong.”

Continue reading “Do atheists have an excuse?”

Bill Vallicella on Cornelius Van Til: An open mind and heart

Image result for bill vallicella Bill Vallicella, the Maverick Philosopher, is currently reading Cornelius Van Til’s The Defense of the Faith, and that delights me no end. Bill was the first philosopher to welcome my old site (now 15 years old) and greet the launching of this one (which occasioned his republishing a generous and stimulating critique of one of my efforts).

I thank Dave Lull (the “Omnipresent Wisconsin Librarian,” now retired) for alerting me not only to Bill’s “Van Til and Romans 1:18-20,” but also to “God, the Cosmos, Other Minds: In the Same Epistemological Boat? The latter is Bill’s response to my “God: “behind the scenes” (or “under the floorboards”) of every argument.” (I’m grateful to Dave for many other unsolicited yet invaluable leads he has sent my way over the years.) Image result for dave lull

After reading the second post, though, I wonder whether after a few chapters Bill’s thrown Defense against the wall in exasperation—one of my reactions, decades ago—figuratively speaking, of course.

In a blog post I can address only some of the issues Bill raise. That is, what follows does not answer Bill point for point. I’ll only suggest the lines of a fuller response.

Bill is ambivalent about Van Til: his “presuppositionalism is intriguing even if in places preposterous.” Bill doesn’t specify what merits that assessment. In any case Van Til’s distinctive charge was that all non-Christian thought—including much that is professedly Christian but infected with non-Christian presuppositions—is preposterous at its roots.

Continue reading “Bill Vallicella on Cornelius Van Til: An open mind and heart”