yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Answering Presuppositionalism: Basic


2m read
·Nov 8, 2024

Theists who subscribe to the presuppositionalist school of thought say that atheists can't account for inductive reasoning. They claim that, in fact, whenever an atheist uses inductive reasoning, she is borrowing from the Christian worldview, because according to them, it's the only worldview that can account for the uniformity of nature, which is needed for inductive reasoning to work.

But even if the Christian is correct in his claim that an atheist can't account for a given facet of nature that she nevertheless depends upon, this is not that urgent deal-breaking problem that the presuppositionalist tends to paint for us.

Imagine a primitive society where most people believe that spirit ancestors reward the ritual act of watering a plant by causing that plant to grow. A person in this society who didn't believe in the existence of spirit ancestors would still go ahead and water his plants, because otherwise they would die.

The skeptics' peers might ask him, "How can you account for the fact that applying water causes the plant to grow in your worldview?" The skeptic, ignorant of plant biology, would have no answer. His peers might then say, "Every time you water your plants, you're borrowing from our worldview, because ours is the only system that can account for the connection between applying water to a plant and that plant's growth."

I hope the points I wanted to illustrate with this analogy are already clear, but I'll spell them out:

One, having an explanation does not make your position superior to that of those who may lack one.

Two, not being able to explain a phenomenon doesn't preclude you from legitimately assuming the reliability of that phenomenon.

Three, assuming the reliability of a phenomenon without being able to account for it does not mean that you implicitly accept the worldview of people claiming that theirs is the only explanation of that phenomenon.

Four, the failure of a person to explain a phenomenon doesn't invalidate their worldview or render it inconsistent.

Five, acknowledging that you don't have an answer is better than making things up.

More Articles

View All
Visiting Jacob & Co. With Teddy Baldassarre - Hands-On With The World’s Most Expensive Watches
[Music] All right, everybody, here we are in a most remarkable place. We’re at the headquarters in New York City of Jacob and Co. Now we’ve got Mr. Jacob himself here. This guy’s a legend in the watch business. Why? Because he did a transition, a morph, i…
Pablo Escobar Goes to War | Narco Wars
INTERVIEWER: You learned English in Colombia or in the United States or– Watching TV, man. INTERVIEWER: Watching TV? Watching TV, hiding all the time. My name is Sebastián Marroquín, formerly Juan Pablo Escobar. I am the son of Pablo Escobar. I grew up…
Electronegativity and bond type | States of matter | High school chemistry | Khan Academy
Electro negativity is probably the most important concept to understand in organic chemistry. We’re going to use a definition that Linus Pauling gives in his book “The Nature of the Chemical Bond.” So, Linus Pauling says that electron negativity refers to…
2017 AP Calculus AB/BC 4b | AP Calculus AB solved exams | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy
We’re now going to tackle Part B of the potato problem. It says, “Use the second derivative of H with respect to time to determine whether your answer in part A is an underestimate or an overestimate of the internal temperature of the potato at time T equ…
Why Lionfish Should Be Your Favorite Fish to Eat | Nat Geo Live
When I was 17, I was diving off the coast of South Florida and I saw the most beautiful fish I had ever seen. It had these bold stripes and these big dramatic spines. And I had no idea what it was. So I went to the dive master and he told me I had just se…
This Journal Keeps Me Productive (& Maybe You Too)
This is the theme system journal. It’s something I helped design for me and maybe for you to help improve my life in a practical way. It’s a very flexible tool; there are intentionally almost no labels of what has to go where, so it can be adaptable. But …