By William Webster:

"The following lists demonstrate the parallels between Roman Catholicism and the Judaizers:

Judaizers 1. Belief in Jesus as Messiah and Son of God 2. Circumcision 3. Become a Jew 4. Sacrificial System 5. Priests 6. High Priests 7. Altars 8. Feast Days 9. Laver of Water 10. Dietary Regulations 11. Candles 12. Incense 13. Shew Bread 14. Keep the Ten Commandments 15. Tradition of the Elders

Roman Catholicism 1. Belief in Jesus as Messiah and Son of God 2. Baptism 3. Become a Roman Catholic 4. Sacrificial System 5. Priests 6. High Priests 7. Altars 8. Feast Days 9. Font of Holy Water 10. Dietary Regulations (Until recently) 11. Candles 12. Incense 13. The Eucharist Wafer 14. Keep the Ten Commandments 15. Tradition of the Church Fathers

"The parallels are obvious. The Roman Catholic teaching on salvation is essentially the same as that preached by the Judaizers. Paul warned the Galatian believers that if they embraced this false gospel they would actually desert Christ (Gal. 1:6). Those evangelicals who would promote spiritual cohabitation with the Church of Rome need to heed to the warning of Paul. He saw no basis for unity with the Judaizers even though they professed faith in Christ. Likewise, there is no basis for unity with the Church of Rome today. If evangelicals jettison the Reformation gospel distinctives for so called unity with Rome they will deny Christ. "

I cannot imagine how horribly troubled my conscience would be if I embraced the "gospel" as taught by Rome. Nor can I imagine why anyone who understands what was at stake during the Protestant Reformation would now seek union with Rome--as though they had really changed! The magisterium is still, to quote Luther, "the slaughterhouse of souls."

I recently read something by John G. Machen that really stirred me.  It was the last thing he ever wrotee. While on his death-bed he sent a telegram to his friend which closed with the words, "I am so thankful for the active obdedience of Christ. No hope without it." Love that!

Wittgenstein and language games

Few thinkers have been so influential on what is now called "postmodern" thought as Ludwig Wittgenstein. His theory of "language games" in particular has been used by several postmodern thinkers (and by Wittgenstein himself) in attempt to rid philosophy of metaphysics. Although, unlike the earlier logical positivists, he did not necessarily say that all metaphysical assertions were nonsense, he did hold that, due to ambiguities in language, that they were "gramatically impossible." He closes his 'Tractatus' with the words, "What we cannot speak about we must consign to silence," leading several critics to quip that Wittgenstein should have talked less... In any case, at present I just wish to discuss his theory of language games.

Although the 'Tractatus' does not to my knowledge refer to language games, the 'Investigations' refers to them constantly. Words, he says, mean what they are used for. They function like a pawn in a game of chess, being what they are because of the rules which govern their moves. Chess, however, is a different game than tennis, even as tennis is a different game than basketball. Some religious writer (whose name I cannot remember) will later use this analogy to say that the religious language game can be played as well as anyother--scientific, historical, sociological, etc. Since they are all games, there can be no compulsory reason to choose one instead of another: there is no compulsion in choosing basketball over baseball. But is language just a game?

Wittgenstein, in analyzing the notion of language games, came to the conclusion that there was nothing in common between the various games that were played. He writes, "Someone might object against me, 'You take the easy way out. You talk about all sorts of language games, but have nowhere said what the essense of a language game, and hence of language, is." This, says Wittgenstein, is true. "Instead of producing something common to all that we call language, I am saying that these phenomena have no one thing in common, [however], they are related to one another in many different ways. And it is because of this relationship, or these relationships, that we call them all 'language'."

But what is the nature of these relationships? Once this has been determined, could it not be said that the nature of the relationships would themselves be the common quality which Wittgenstein denies?

Wittgenstein does not believe that this common quality can be found. We are not simply to say that there MUST be some common quality or we could not all be called "games", but we are to "look and see whether there is anything common to all." Consider board games, card games, ball games, Olympic games, and so on--what is the common quality? Matters only become further complicated when one considers a child playing a game which ammounts to nothing more than throwing a ball up against the wall. In this latter case there are neither rules of procedure, fellow competiors, or even winning or losing.

Of course, we could say that the child was simply ammusing himself, and deny that he was playing a game. In this case, "rules" could be made a part of the sought for defenition of "game". Or might we not also say that the child who is throwing the ball against the wall, or putting a basketball through a hoop, is not playing a game persay, but practicing to play a game? Also, may we not say that a child who is first learning to speak is not so much speaking one language as distinct from another, but simply practicing, building toward, a more adult usage? More to the point, the language of psychology ought not be regarded as a separate language of its own, even as philosophy or theology should not be regarded as languages of their own. They are simply different subjects of conversation; they are not different "games." Of course, each subject has some terms of its own, but there is always some overlapping as well. And common to all, whatever subject we are discussing, are words such as "for", "when", "all" and "is", and "the". To paraphrase Gordon Clark, We are all playing the same game, using different color balls...(to be continued)

David Hume and The Problem of Induction

"All inferences from experience suppose, as their foundation, that the future will resemble the past, and that similar powers will be conjoined with similar sensible qualities. If there be any suspision that the course of nature may change and that the past may be no rule for the future, all experience becomes useless, and can give rise to no inference or conclusion. It is impossible, therefore, that any arguments from experience can prove this resemblace of the past to the future, since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance"--David Hume

Hume's "problem of induction" is well-known. Basically, the argument is that if we do not know WHY something happens as it does, we have no reason for supposing that it could not happen quite otherwise. It does no good, says Hume, to appeal to past experience in order to justify the inductive principle, for to do so only begs the question. Granted that in the past a thrown stone would fall back to the earth, bread would nourish us, and one billiard ball striking another would cause the latter to move. But the question is, Upon what basis do we assume that tomorrow, next week, month, or year, the same effects will follow? Perhaps tomorrow the stone will ascend out of sight, the bread will poison us, and the struck billiard ball will simply stop the one that struck it. No PAST observation can tell us what the future will bring; and the appeal to past experience for our justification of projecting the past into the future is to assume the very point at issue.

So far as I am aware, no secular philosopher has yet come up with an answer to Hume's criticism (Immanuel Kant, "awakened" by Hume from his "dogmatic slumbers" attempted to ground causation in the apriori, but in so doing, lost all contact with "theI world as it is" and left us only with "the world as it appears to us.") Most do not even make the attempt. Michael Martin, I believe, more-or-less chalked our expectation of natural uniformity up to mere habit of thought (actually, Hume took the same road). But is this not utterly subjective? Does science, then, rest ultimatly upon subjectivity?

More on this in my next post.

Epistemology/Descarte

Epistemology is basically the theory of how we know what we know, or at least, profess to know. As such, its primary aim is to elaborate a method by which to distinguish truth from falsehood. During the 17th century, Descarte attempted to establish knowledge by doubting everything until at last he arrived at what he took to be an indisputable truth. Do to hallucinations, the senses cannot be trusted. Right now I can might be hallucinating and not know it. Also, I might be dreaming. To be sure, it seems like I am facing waking reality, but when I am dreaming, I think this as well. This is why I wake up terrified when I have a nightmare: I thought it was real. And might I not awake at any moment from a coma in a hospital bed with my legs amputated? Further, even if it were possible to formulate a criteria by which to distinguish the dreaming from the waking world, can sensation furnish us with knowledge about the external world anyway? I am currently looking at my computer, but as I move further away it, my computer appears to grow smaller. Now an external computer is supposed to remain the same size. Hence, I did not perceive the computer itself. The computer itself is neither inside of my eye, nor is it in my head (this would cause an unendurable headache). What I saw was an image, perhaps on my retina. And does this image of a what I call a computer resemble the real, external computer? Alas! I cannot tell, for all I have ever seen is images. I have never been able to see an external computer (or any external object) so I have never been able to compare the image with the external object itself (if it even exists).

But how about mathamatics? Does not two plus two equal four? However, suppose there is an omnipotent demon whose chief delight it is to deceive us. So powerful is he that he can actually make us think that two plus two is four when it is really five. He chuckles violently at our mistaken mathamatics. Does this sound absurd? It very well may, but let us not be hasty. We can only judge absurdity on the basis of truth. If some proposition contradicts an established truth, then we may well say that it is absurd. But as of yet, we have not established any truth at all. Hence, there is no criteria by which we can judge what is or is not absurd.

Fortunatly, however, truth can be established. Although my senses may decieve me, although I may be dreaming, although my own senations may be all I perceive, and although a demon consistently deceive me, it is still I who am being deceived. Do I doubt? Splendid! for if I doubt, then I exist. "I think, therefore I am." Here I have established an absolutely certain truth, and--what is more--I have done so without making an appeal to God. I have done it by my own, unaided reason.

Come now you presuppositionalists, how would you answer Descarte?

(Continued)

"It is not right for you to impose your beliefs upon others for that is not what they believe."

 Is Elizabeth not right now in the process of "imposing" (if we really must use that word) her beliefs on Josh? It seems to me that when a person opens a sentence by telling someone that something they do is "not right" they are imposing their ethical beliefs on them--espeacially when the person they are speaking to does not accept their moral standard. But is this "imposing" not precisely the thing that Elizabeth says ought not be done?

"I say that if your Buddhist neighbor finds solace in a few aums now and then instead of prayers to Jesus, what gives you the right to critcize that?'

The Word of the all-knowing God gives us the right to criticize that. This is called idolatry. Elizabeth speaks as though everything is subjectivly relative. If this is true, why can we not criticize who we please? Presumably Elizabeth would not insist that we refrain from so doing on her own authority. Such imposition cannot be tolerated!

Although she is not quite clear on what Josh means by, "Christianity alone provides the preconditions of intelligibility for man's experience and reasoning, such as universal, immaterial, abstract, laws of logic, the uniformity of nature (science) reasoning on the basis of past induction, the reliability of one's sensory experience, moral absolutes as well as human dignity and freedom," she nonetheless attempts a response:

"I know exactly what my ethics are. Give me a situation and I will tell youwhat I think should and shouldn't happen. People have different beliefs and its insane to think they will all agree that (say abortion) is wrong. Details in situations have a huge factor in everything."

Here Elizabeth makes it all the more obvious that she believes ethics to be a matter of personal preference. She is quite prepared to tell us what SHE thinks should and shouldn't happen. Are ethics to be based, then, on whatever somebody thinks about a given situation? Since she is so against imposing beliefs on others, I am quite sure that she is not saying that her own beliefs are to serve as universal ethical norms. Ethics are relative to the individual. The Buddhist, his aums; the Christian his prayers, and the abortionists their murders. Of course it is insane to think that people with different beliefs will all agree that abortion is wrong; or theft, homicide, or torture (some of Stalins henchmen bragged that they could break every bone in a human body and yet keep the victim alive). This is simply description; it is to state a fact. But it is a terrible fallicy in reasoning to try to get an "ought" out of an "is." Granted, now that it IS the case that Elizabeth prefers peace and tolerance; let it also be granted that others prefer chaos and bigotry (and some, far worse things). Can Elizabeth justify her belief that peace and tolerance are the better, the more moral? Could she define "good" in such a way as to exclude things she would doubtless find very distasteful (bigotry, child molestation, rape, etc?) Can she account for any sort of moral obligation at all, or be consistent with her own beliefs? She has yet to show it if she can.