Dusman on Circularity on Dusman Part I

A blogger named Dusman from the Grace in the Triad blog recently posted on his blog a response to a question I posted in the comments sectionon his blog; “how do you know that presupposing the god of the bible is a good way to have knowledge”. Dusman is a reformed Christian and has a preference for using the presuppositional method of apologetics. In his world view (WV) it is the “biblical” way of doing apologetics so it’s important to understand where he is coming from when reading his responses. Basically the focus of his argument supporting his WV and against all other WVs is based on epistemology. He believes the only way one can justify knowing anything is by presupposing the god of the bible and that any other WV is unable to provide a solid foundation of knowledge. From what I can tell Dusman likes to employ the TAG argument which is the transcendental argument for the existence of God; specifically the god of the bible. There is also a moral component to the TAG however I do not intent to cover any of that here and will try to stay focused on the topic at hand.

Dusmans’ "short" response to my question was;“the proof that God exists is that without Him you can't prove anything”. My initial response is that this is an argument ad consequentiam or an argument to consequences. Dusman of course disagrees with me as he thinks it is a logical consequence of the proposition. He stated the following in protest:

“This isn't an argument to undesirable consequences; though the consequences of denying such should be undesirable for the rational person.  When an argument is about a certain proposition, it is reasonable to assess the truth-value of any logical consequences of it. Logical consequences should not be confused with causal consequences, and truth or falsity should not be confused with goodness or badness.  Since God is the necessary precondition for the intelligibility of reality, then it follows that one couldn't prove anything, much less His existence without first assuming His existence since His existence is the very thing needed for the concept of proof in the first place.  Thus, the proposition itself (i.e., the existence of God) is in question, not the logical relation of the proposition to the intelligibility of reality or the issue of whether the consequences are desirable or not. “

While his protest is expected, it should be obvious why it is missing the point. I had stated earlier to Dusman that I could just as easily take his statement and turn it back on him; “the proof that God does NOT exist is that if he did you could not prove anything”. We can see that the argument by itself is meaningless and is in fact an appeal to consequences since it provides nothing to support its self relies solely on the outcome. I do agree with Dusman that there is nothing illogical about the proposition, however just because it is logical does not mean it is valid. I would liken it to another similar proposition:

“The proof that pot roast exists is that without pot roast we could not have dinner.”

Notice the form is the same here, however instead of presupposing God to justify having knowledge; we are presupposing pot roast in order to justify having dinner. The problem is, it is a meaningless proposition and only an appeal to consequences until we are able to show that the only thing in the fridge is in fact pot roast and then we need not presuppose it anyway.

Dusman goes on to talk about circular reasoning and how it is unavoidable:

“Everybody reasons in a circle and doing so isn't always fallacious.  There are two things we need to discuss about circular reasoning: It is (1) absolutely unavoidable and (2) not necessarily fallacious. Circular reasoning is unavoidable to some degree when proving one's ultimate standard. An ultimate standard cannot be proved from anything else, otherwise it wouldn't be ultimate. Therefore, if it is to be proved, it must use itself as its own standard of judgment by which any decision is made.”

Also:

“Second, all circles aren't necessarily fallacious. Begging the question is often considered a fallacy because it is usually arbitrary. But it can be non-arbitrary if it goes beyond a simple circle (i.e., the Bible is true because it says so) and uses additional information to support its conclusion. If the ultimate authority is first assumed and you find out later you have good reasons for it because without it you cannot make sense out of anything, then its perfectly legitimate to reason in a circle.”

While it may be true that circular reasoning is sometimes unavoidable, if we take a closer look we can see where Dusman misses his own point. He states that if he first assumes his ultimate authority (GOB) and later finds out that without his assumption he cannot make sense out of anything then he has good reason for his assumption. It’s clear though that the reason he gives for claiming that without out his assumption he cannot make sense out of anything is because that is a part of his original assumption of the GOB. Dusman is really just assuming the GOB is the way to make sense out of anything and then claiming that he has good reason for assuming the GOB because of his assumption that without the GOB he cannot make sense out of anything. If this does not fit the category of arbitrary I don’t know what would.

Dusman continues down the path of trying to justify his circular reasoning:

“In fact, any true ultimate authority must use itself as part of its own proof. Again, some degree of circular reasoning is involved, but it cannot be a simple "vicious" circle. It must be non-arbitrary. Consider logic: 

1 - If there were no laws of logic, we couldn't make an argument.
2 - We can make an argument.
3 - Therefore, there must be laws of logic. 

This argument is perfectly sound yet it is subtly circular.  It's what is known as a modus tollens syllogism (i.e., denying the consequent) and in this "proof", we have assumed that there are laws of logic. Modus tollens is a law of inference in logic, and we have used it as part of the proof that there are laws of logic. In this case we had no other choice; in order to get anywhere in any argument we must presuppose that there are laws of logic.”

Here he has given us a simple syllogism trying to make his case, however; we can see he has pulled a bait and switch. Now he is trying to equate his argument that without the GOB we could not make sense of anything to without logic we couldn’t make an argument. These two are just not even close and he has now given us a false analogy.

He continues on:

“However, this example argument doesn't merely assume what its trying to prove; it imports additional information to support its conclusion. What makes this circular argument a powerful one is that to deny it would be to assume it, thus any potential rebuttal would be self-defeating. A great way to show that a particular presupposition must be true is to show that one would have to assume that the presupposition is true even to argue against it in the first place. “

It is not clear what “additional information” he is referring to here as I see none in the syllogism provided.  He then goes from claiming “additional information” to claiming it is circular and that to deny it would be to assume it. Of course I think he has missed that it really isn’t even circular since the first proposition is meaningless. If we look closely we can see that “laws of logic” assume “logic” and “argument[s]” also assumes logic, so the first premise is essentially; if there were no logic, we couldn’t use logic. This is obviously absurd.

Dusman goes on to reaffirm to us his “ultimate standard” of the GOB and attempt to show how any attempted refutation of it must assume it. Once again he is back with the “the proof that God exists is that without Him you can't prove anything” argument.

“The Christian's ultimate standard is like this; any attempt to refute the Bible must assume things about the world that could only be true if the Bible were true in order to get started. The Bible not only provides the criteria for itself, but it does so for all other facts, hence, the reasoning isn't viciously circular. It gives us a foundation (the Biblical God) for rational reasoning (including laws of logic), science, morality, reliability of our senses and memory, and so on.”

After some additional pleading of his position Dusman goes on to seal the deal:

“As with the argument for laws of logic, any attempted rebuttal would be self-refuting, because it would have to use things (laws of logic, the charge to be consistent, etc.) that presuppose a universe that can only exist if Christian theism is true. Thus, we are not merely arguing "The Bible must be the word of God because it says so". Rather, we are saying, "The Bible must be the word of God not only because it says it is, but if you reject this claim you are reduced to absurdity."”

We are now back to the bait and switch and here is where Dusman tries to bring it all together in hopes that we don’t see what is really going on (I think David Blaine would be impressed; is he still around?). As I have already pointed out, equating GOB and logic just doesn’t add up. Sure, one cannot deny logic without assuming it, however we can deny the GOB without assuming it and Dusman has yet to prove otherwise. So far, he has only been able to assert that we must assume the GOB and given us circular argument after circular argument along with some bait and switch to try to make his case. I hope he can do better than this in future posts.

In conclusion I hope to have made it clear how the argument Dusman has put forth not only doesn’t meet Dusmans’ own requirements for a non-fallacious argument but still leaves the original question unanswered. I have shown how the justification put forth for presupposing the GOB does not meet the standard of non-arbitrary circularity put forth by Dusman as well as demonstrating how it has no meaningful content. Dusmans’ position amounts to nothing more than; one must presuppose the GOB because presupposing the GOB says you cannot know anything unless you presuppose the GOB.