Originally posted by Bob Enyart...
Transcendental Proof for God
As soon as the atheist says he wants to resolve this Battle Royale in a rational way, he has lost. Here’s why:
God exists because of the impossibility of the alternative. Unbelievers require theists to provide evidence for God which is not circular, which does not beg the question, that is, they insist that we do not assume that which we should try to prove. They claim that faith puts theists at a disadvantage, because we trust in God. Contrariwise, they claim that they reject faith, and constrain themselves to the laws of logic and reason. Atheists claim that only evidence based upon logic and reason is valid. But how do atheists validate that claim? They cannot. For [BA10-9] if atheists attempt to justify “logic and reason” by logic and reason, then they have based their entire godless worldview on circular reasoning; and we find that rational atheism is an impossibility. And if they cannot defend the foundation of their worldview by logic or reason, they leave themselves only with the illogical and irrational, which accounts for arguments actually offered by atheists. To justify logic apart from circular reasoning, you must seek the foundation of logic outside of logic itself. Thus we learn that, apart from belief in God, nothing can be truly knowable. If an honest and consistent atheist could actually exist, he would not claim that atheism is defensible by logic, since logic itself is indefensible by logic apart from circular reasoning. Therefore on the one hand, if the atheist claims to know anything at all, he unwittingly has shown that atheism (the alternative to God) is an impossibility, because apart from God, nothing is knowable, as demonstrated in this paragraph.
On the other hand, as a last ditch attempt to consistently defend atheism, the atheist may claim to be a no-nothing, that is, to know nothing at all, because by atheism, actual knowledge is impossible. Popular atheism is moving in this general direction. When this happens, we theists point out that the pinnacle achievement of atheism is ignorance. As I have said, every observation provides direct evidence for God while atheism struggles to account for anything whatsoever. The honest thinker who wants to work out a systematic atheistic worldview will find that without God, the only things that are possible are nothing and ignorance (the lack of knowledge). Apart from God, nothing can be known or justified, not microevolution nor heliocentricity, not a wit of logic nor even a half-wit. No certainty can exist without Him who is the foundation of truth, and those who love truth, love Him. (Dr. Greg Bahnsen successfully used the transcendental proof for God while debating a leading atheist, Dr. Gordon Stein, at the University of California at Irvine.)
A fundamental difference between God and logic is that logic is a system of thought that attempts to rationally justify ideas, and as an idea itself, logic must somehow be justifiable, or found to be illogical. God is not a system of thought that needs to be justified. He is an actual being. And while the existence of logic apart from God is self-contradictory as just demonstrated in BA10-9, there exists no contradiction in the existence of the rational God whose very mind and thoughts provide the foundation for logic itself. And while we cannot see God, as we cannot see hope or love, the Bible defines “faith” as accepting “the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).
In giving my first eight lines of evidence (except for the epistemological part of [BA10-7]) I assume that atheists often use logic and reason (imitating Christians) even though they cannot logically defend doing so in their own godless worldview. But without a foundation for logic, I also realize that their intellectual discipline allows them to treat all evidence illogically, since they have no ultimate commitment to reason, not even to logic itself, and certainly not to truth or morality. So, in an atheist’s attempt to win a debate, there is nothing inherently inconsistent or wrong with lying, cheating, or quitting in an attempt to spoil the endeavor (which I will not let Zakath do); for there is no ultimate reason for honesty, no absolute commitment to truth, and no foundation for an unwavering determination to be logical. Word games, contradictions, unresponsiveness, slight of hand, obfuscation, misstatements, and ignoring arguments all can be used as consistent with atheism in order to attempt to win the debate, and in actual practice, such deception is the strength of the atheist’s ability to persuade.
Yet surely, God either exists or does not exist. (Ahh, see, there I go again! I said “surely!” I’ve used logic here, which a theist can use with certainty, whereas the atheist cannot absolutely defend even such simple logic.) The atheist worldview is dysfunctional, and they can only operate by borrowing the certainty that is possible with God. By the way, that is an insight we can find in Christ’s statement that, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26), by which He was not claiming that square circles could be drawn, nor defending any irrationality, but that all things knowable or doable, especially evident in the matter of salvation itself, are only possible because of God. In contrast to atheism, my theistic worldview is functional, because I recognize that logic and reason do exist, that they are absolutes, and that they are possible because they flow from the mind of God. Logic exists and can only exist as a consequence of the rational thoughts in the mind of God. God is non-contradictory, truthful, logical, reasonable, and knowledgeable, and there is no other epistemological basis upon which we can absolutely defend truth, logic, reason, and knowledge.
Popular atheism has come to accept that it rejects absolute morality. As mankind corporately continues to think through these matters, given enough time, popular atheism will also come to accept that atheism also rejects absolute truth, logic, reason, math, and science. Again: the pinnacle achievement of atheism is ignorance. We find examples of this in the early rounds of this debate and in the life of Bertrand Russell. Zakath readily talks about morality, and admits that he does not believe in absolute morality (although he recoils from the ramifications), whereas he is more hesitant to talk about truth, and posts 2a to 4b show that his intuition tells him that an atheist should resist defending even the existence of truth. While Zakath consciously acknowledges that atheism disallows absolute morality, only subconsciously does he fear that atheism also disallows truth, logic, and reason. So like most atheists, Zakath has yet to embrace the intellectual, though amoral, ramifications of atheism. Apart from a righteous God, as Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason rightly observed, no such thing as absolute morality can exist; and conversely, if Zakath admitted the existence of absolute morality, he would thereby concede the existence of God. What atheists disdain most about God is absolute right and wrong (because they pridefully rebel against His moral constraints, desiring immorality with impunity). So naturally, the atheist community is most ready to admit to the moral consequence of atheism that denies the possibility of ultimate righteousness. But as the intellectual ramifications of atheism continue to work their way into mankind’s corporate thinking, eventually, atheists will lose their hesitancy and admit the same effect regarding logic. Apart from God logic cannot exist, since it is illogical to prove something via circular reasoning, that is, you should not assume (or declare by faith) that which you are claiming to prove, so atheists cannot build a consistent, godless, logical worldview. Notice that it is with foundations and origins that atheists have the greatest difficulty in even attempting to construct a defense, as regarding the origins of the universe, life, consciousness, personality, higher biological functions, and now, even of logic itself. Why is this? Because God is the foundation of all that exists, physical and spiritual, rational and logical. So atheists are stuck beginning with faith in their origins, apart from any evidence, science, logic, reason, or laws which predict or justify their faith in atheist origins, and then by faith they construct arguments for origins which, unlike the theistic origins claims, defy all evidence, science, logic, reason, and law, superficially and fundamentally. So only with a rational God can the laws of logic can truly exist, as can math and the laws of science, and they can be known only because knowledge can exist. Bertrand Russell devoted his long life to providing an atheistic foundation for logic, reason, math, and knowledge, and after many decades, he became increasingly uncertain of almost all knowledge. Again, and again: the pinnacle achievement of atheism is ignorance.
With clarity Los Alamos scientist John Baumgartner reveals an implication of Einstein’s Gulf: “If something as real as linguistic information has existence independent of matter and energy, from causal considerations it is not unreasonable to suspect an entity [like God] capable of originating linguistic information also is ultimately non-material [i.e., spiritual] in its essential nature. An immediate conclusion of these observations concerning linguistic information [the existence of ideas, knowledge, logic, reason, law] is that materialism, which has long been the dominant philosophical perspective in scientific circles, with its foundational presupposition that there is no non-material reality, is simply and plainly false. It is amazing that its falsification is so trivial.”
What gives intelligibility to the world? Only the thoughts in the mind of God can make the cosmos understandable. Nothing but God can demonstrably or even conceivably allow for actual knowledge. The reason Einstein could not identify any way for matter to give meaning to symbols is that there is no way, for the physical laws have no symbolic logic function, and they cannot have any such function because logic is not physical and so is outside of the jurisdiction of physical laws. No physical law can even influence symbolic logic, yet the rules of logic constrain the physical laws, showing Baumgartner’s point that the spiritual takes precedence over the physical!
So try this: go and find an unsuspecting atheist, and ask him two questions. First, Q1: Is atheism logical? Second, Q2: Are the laws of logic absolute or has society only agreed upon them by convention? He will be happier with the first question than with the second. To the first, a typical atheist today will answer, yes! A1: Atheism is logical. (Why that answer? Atheists crave a foundation and so they are still substituting an indefensible, reasonless rationalism for the reasonable God whom they rebel against.) But for the second question, the atheist’s fear of the absolute will cause him to hesitate. If that phobia is strong enough, it could bring him to expose his own rejection of logic itself. A2-1: “No, the laws of logic are not absolute!” as the leading atheist Stein maintained in the above mentioned debate. And if logic is not absolute but rather a consensus of rules which some men have created, then any logical argument for atheism is really just an appeal to authority, an appeal to the authority of those men or those societies which agreed upon the current set of laws. And since atheists reject the source of all authority (God), they especially despise appeals to authority. (When pressing for an answer to Q2, expect some obfuscation, word games, or unresponsiveness.) When it dawns upon them, whether consciously or not, that denying its absolute nature turns logic into an argument from authority, some atheists then hesitate to say that logic is not absolute. But the unbeliever must step out of his own realm of atheism and become inconsistent to answer yes. A2-2: Yes, the laws of logic are absolute. He will then face the immediate follow-up question for which we will not permit him a circular justification: “What validates logic?” What justifies your faith in logic? Atheists tell the theist not to beg the question by using circular arguments. So by his own worldview, we will not allow him to assume (by faith) that which he claims he should be able to prove by logic (remember A1). This atheist finds himself with the same difficulty as his predecessors who tried to defend absolute morality apart from God: it can’t be done. And so, popular atheism has long ago yielded absolute morality to theists. (With even knowledge, logic, and reason falling victim to atheism, not surprisingly, the godless long ago discarded wisdom and righteousness.) Paralleling their loss of absolute morality, apart from God today’s atheist cannot defend the absolute laws of logic either. Regarding A2-1, as with morality, atheism will move toward a consensus against the existence of logic. For eventually, either atheism collapses, or its trust in logic collapses. They will redefine logic to mean just convention, as they have redefined right and wrong. As atheists fall into denial by increasingly rejecting the universality of logic, they will eventually yield logic to theists, just as they did with morality. Such intellectual schizophrenia demonstrates the claim of Christians that atheism is inherently self-contradictory, and more than just morality, atheism also undermines logic. For, rational atheism is easily demonstrated to be impossible [BA10-9], and the transcendental proof for God affirms His existence by the impossibility of the alternative. And so, which worldview is logical, theism or atheism? Once again I will grant that if right and wrong does not exist, and now if logic does not exist, then God does not exist. So if Zakath wanted to resolve this Battle Royale disagreement over God’s existence in a rational way, he has lost, for atheism has no rational basis.
