L'Abri 101: Living in the shadow of the fall. Jock McGregor & Greg Jesson

Beskrivelse

(Handout from Greg Jesson follows below) L'Abri 101: Living in the Shadow of the Fall This Summer we are trying something new! We are beginning our Summer series of lectures with a short five-week course on the essentials of L'Abri teaching, what we sometimes refer to as the 'Five Themes of L'Abri'. Each Friday, Greg Jesson and Jock McGregor will co-teach one of these themes. For those of you who have wondered about what makes L'Abri's teaching distinctive or who want to learn more, this will be a good opportunity. Each lecture is stand alone, but if you can attend all five lectures that make up this short course, that would be best. This week we continue with our third theme, which looks at the Fall - Dr. Schaeffer felt strongly that we cannot understand the fullness of Salvation unless we understand the full significance of the Fall. Greg Jesson's journey from Los Angeles took him to Switzerland, where he studied at L'Abri with Francis Schaeffer, back to LA where he earned a BA at UCLA and an MA at USC under Dallas Willard, and finally to the University of Iowa for a Ph.D. in philosophy. Most recently, he was a professor of philosophy and director of the Center for Ethics and Public Life at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. Having decided to leave the university, he now spends his time writing, lecturing, restoring an old home, and looking after his dog, Dr. Watson. Jock McGregor and his wife Alison direct the Rochester L'Abri where they have lived for the past 25 years. They met at Swiss L'Abri and previously worked at English L'Abri for ten years. Jock has a B.Sc. and an M.Div from Regent College in Vancouver. He lectures widely on many topics that bear on the relationship between Christianity and contemporary culture. (Handout from Greg Jesson follows) Pondering the Five Themes of L’Abri: #3: Living in the Shadow of the Fall Dr. Greg Jesson gregrjesson@gmail.com [gregrjesson@gmail.com] 1. Opening comments on L’Abri themes 2. When I began looking at Christianity: First, the person of Jesus, but then general themes: the moral order, the logical order, the soul (personhood), God’s revelation in history, progressive revelation, Old Testament context for the coming of the Messiah, grace, redemption, character transformation, cognitive space, freedom, God’s sovereignty, the Fall, etc. This is why I’m arguing for Following Clues, Signposts, Hints, and Insights 3. Methodological points: Move from the reality of something to the details of an in-depth analysis of it—not the other way around. Two common mistakes in philosophy and theology: a. the thing to be explained gets reduced into something else: Physical objects get reduced to experiences (Berkeley, Hume, Ayer, Carnap) The self gets reduced to experiences (Hume) Knowledge gets reduced to groundless opinion (countless skeptics) Experiences get reduced to brain states (Dennett, Smart, the Churchlands, etc.) The University of Iowa Philosophy Department: “we are seeking to reduce everything” b. one gets hopelessly lost in the details: (our descriptions of knowledge, God, time, whatever, are never the thing itself) Example: Edmund Husserl 4. The theme of the Fall is really looking at God’s relationship to the world What does the Fall mean? The catastrophic results of human rebellion against God What is the evidence for the Fall? Whatever Became of Sin? By Karl Menninger M.D., “Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.” G.K. Chesterton What implications does the Fall have for our lives? It touches every point of our lives We are each immersed in a vast moral order This is a key element of C.S. Lewis’ case for Christianity People often begin by getting unnecessarily tangled up in the details while missing the wide, general themes. C.S. Lewis: Why I Am Not an Atheist, From Mere Christianity, pp. 38-39 “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But, how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet. Of course, I could have given up my idea of justice by saying that it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But, if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too—for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist—in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless—I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality—namely my idea of justice—was full of sense. Consequently, atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.” 5. Why does God allow the evil and brokenness of our world? The Problem of Evil Problem of evil: not meant to obliterate the suffering Not is it meant to explain away specific evils, specific sufferings: that would be trivial The world is an unfathomable mixture of good and evil: and We are each a curious amalgam of good and evil. Everyone’s problem: You cannot be a mature human being without facing the issue of evil and suffering 1. If God is all-powerful, then he is able to eliminate all evil. 2. If God is all-good, then he would want to eliminate all evil. 3. Evil exists. 4. Therefore, an all-powerful, all-good God does not exist. Moral evil vs. Natural evil; Human evil not decreasing with education and technology Never underestimate the potential for evil in each person, nor the potential for good in the human heart Augustinian accounts of evil (causal explanation) vs. Irenaean theodicies (a rational justification for natural evils). Evil is metaphysically and logically necessary for the achievement of some unique good. An adequate answer must tell us something about God. Why did he allow this? The afflicted man naively seeks an answer, from men, from things, from God, even if he disbelieves in Him, from anything and everything. Why is it necessary precisely that he should have nothing to eat, to be worn out with fatigue and brutal treatment, or about to be executed, or be ill, or be in prison? If one explained to him the causes which have produced his present situation, and this is in any case seldom possible because of the complex interaction of circumstances, it will not seem to him to be an answer. For his question “Why” does not mean “By what cause?” but “For what purpose?” Simone Weil, Waiting for God Life crushes all the illusions out of us—that is what it was designed to do. Evil a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for recognition of two facts that we continually forget: 1) The folly and futility of the human enterprise in establishing hope in the world (Sin) 2) If there is any hope for humanity, it must come from outside the human sphere (The possibility of Redemption) Anthony Flew: Parable of the Gardner: “What would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute for you a disproof of the love of, or of the existence of, God?” 1. God would not be acting in love if the world and human life were completely futile and frustrating, in which progress towards the good would be impossible. 2. God would not be acting in love if the illusions of humanity could not be confronted and addressed. 3. God would not be acting in love if people could not see the tragedy of their rebellion. Thus the necessity of natural and moral evils. 4. God would not be acting in love if moral and natural evils, which teach us the tragedy of our ways could be avoided. 5. God would not be acting in love if He instantly changed our evil dispositions, incorrect beliefs, and prejudices to the right and the true. Character is chosen; it is not born, given, or ready-made. 6. God would not be acting in love if He immediately punished everyone for doing wrong. 7. God would not be acting in love if He allowed evil people and structures to become so powerful that they utterly block God’s grace in the world. 8. God would not be acting in love if he did not provide examples of how His love can transform and empower lives, and thus overcome evil. 9. God would not be acting in love if He made us and the world in such a way that change would be impossible, difficult or highly improbable, and available to only a few, such as those with superior intelligence or education, etc. 10. Finally, God would not be acting in love if He did not provide the means by which we could be transformed. This is the meaning of the life and mission of Jesus. 6. Living in the Shadow of the Fall: As stressed in the last two lectures, L’Abri is committed to each of these themes because they are essential elements of the historic Christian faith. Because of this, the members of the L’Abri community are committed to living out these themes in both their individual and corporate lives. Part of the calling of L’Abri is to point the way for others to follow. With respect to the Fall: Understand that every part of creation is flawed, broken, and mangled Recognize that every person is a remarkable mixture of beauty and brokenness (an image bearer of God that has been disfigured by the Fall) Practically this means that every person will often be disappointing to others, and even to oneself. (James 3.2) Everyday we can experience God’s redemptive presence throughout the details of life in a non-utopian way. To live like Christ means intentionally loving others by moving beyond knee-jerk condemnation and criticism. Francis Schaeffer: “If you require perfection or nothing, you will get nothing every time.” The broken nature of the world is not what God desired, so we can oppose evil without opposing God. The objective nature of the Good is always presented against the vivid background of our broken world. Healing, reconciliation, and transformation of character never happen by chance. The Creation and the Fall provide the two reference points to understand every person and each social situation. Permanent transformation (not be confused with perfect transformation) only comes by God’s loving grace. The only way to thoroughly and effectively resist the Fall is by laying down our lives for others by being apprentices of Jesus in all he said and did. Blindly living for one’s self merely perpetuates endless brokenness and evil. For Further Study: Francis Schaeffer: True Spirituality, No Little People Dallas Willard: Renovation of the Heart: Putting on Christ’s Character, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering our Hidden Life in God

L'Abri 101: The Reality of the Supernatural

(Lecture Syllabus follows the Blurb.) L'Abri 101: The Reality of the Supernatural This Summer we are trying something new! We are beginning our Summer series of lectures with a short five-week course on the essentials of L'Abri teaching, what we sometimes refer to as the 'Five Themes of L'Abri'. Each Friday, Greg Jesson and Jock McGregor will co-teach one of these themes. For those of you who have wondered about what makes L'Abri's teaching distinctive or who want to learn more, this will be a good opportunity. Each lecture is stand alone, but if you can attend all five lectures that make up this short course, that would be best. This week we continue with our second theme - what Dr. Schaeffer described as the Reality of the Supernatural. Greg Jesson's journey from Los Angeles took him to Switzerland, where he studied at L'Abri with Francis Schaeffer, back to LA where he earned a BA at UCLA and an MA at USC under Dallas Willard, and finally to the University of Iowa for a Ph.D. in philosophy. Most recently, he was a professor of philosophy and director of the Center for Ethics and Public Life at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. Having decided to leave the university, he now spends his time writing, lecturing, restoring an old home, and looking after his dog, Dr. Watson. Jock McGregor and his wife Alison direct the Rochester L'Abri where they have lived for the past 25 years. They met at Swiss L'Abri and previously worked at English L'Abri for ten years. Jock has a B.Sc. and an M.Div from Regent College in Vancouver. He lectures widely on many topics that bear on the relationship between Christianity and contemporary culture. Greg Jesson Syllabus as follows: Pondering the Five Themes of L’Abri: #2: The Reality of the Supernatural Dr. Greg Jesson gregrjesson@gmail.com Plan for the Lecture: 1. Opening comments on L’Abri themes 2. Why it’s not a simple matter of evidence. Why? One’s presuppositions and assumptions can greatly determine what one will allow as evidence. At best, evidence without the true framework produces moderate, and often only temporary, curiosity. This is why I’m suggesting Following Clues, Signposts, Hints, and Insights This is Lewis’ point in The Screwtape Letters. “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.” The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, Preface 3. Carefully define supernatural 4. Evidence for the supernatural is everywhere. It’s right in front of our faces—we just look right past it. Some examples: our experiences and thoughts, our identity through time, knowledge, abstract realities (truth, logic, math, morality), and finally historical miracles 5. Christianity only makes sense in the context of the supernatural. Demythologizing theologians, such as Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976), rejected the miraculous element (“mythical world picture”) in the scriptures, often arguing that they are incompatible with our current scientific understanding of the world, but traditional Christianity has always maintained that the miraculous is only discernable in the context of the common, everyday view of nature. (e.g. when St. Joseph learned Mary was pregnant). 6. L’Abri deliberately attempts to live daily in the reality of the supernatural: prayer, our expectations, our hopes, and our understanding of everything in the context that we each live our lives in the reality of God, Acts 17.28. The central point in this lecture: When Ranald Macaulay first heard Francis Schaeffer speak at Cambridge University, (5 June 1958, Wednesday): “The supernatural is right here.” Defining “Supernatural” The natural and supernatural worlds overlap Natural world: physical objects and their properties Supernatural world: minds, experiences, abstract realities (not physical, don’t exist in space) It appears that some parts of reality are objective while other parts appear to be subjective. (Logic, mathematics, and the physical objects that make up the subject matter of the various sciences appear to be objective. To conceive of these realms as being subjective, or in some sense mind-dependent, is just to render these realms utterly unintelligible and absurd. However, mathematical and logical objects cannot just be any kind of objective reality. It would be absurd to conceive of mathematical and logical truths as nothing more than mere marks on a sheet of paper.) The common, everyday world of our experience, consisting primarily of the physical world in space and time is thoroughly intertwined with the supernatural realities including God and human persons, angelic beings, and abstract objects (math, logic, geometry, and universals—Plato’s forms). The underlying assumption of the entire secular world: everything is physical Modern connection between empiricism and materialism (naturalism) Empiricism: All knowledge comes from sense experience, things you can see, touch, taste, hear, and smell. This has to be challenged. Only three possibilities: Materialism (Everything is physical)(Weak on the mental) Dualism (both physical and non-physical, mental things exist) (What is the connection between the two realms?) Idealism (everything is mental) (weak on the physical) 1926: The Mind and Its Place in the World, by C.D. Broad The Reality of Minds and Knowledge: C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed: “If Joy ‘is not’, then she never was. I mistook a cloud of atoms for a person. There aren’t, and never were, any people. Death only reveals the vacuity that was always there. What we call the living are simply those who have not yet been unmasked. All equally bankrupt, but some yet not declared. But this must be nonsense, vacuity revealed to whom? Bankruptcy declared to whom? To other boxes of fireworks or clouds of atoms? I will never believe—more strictly I can’t believe—that one set of physical events could be, or make, a mistake about other sets.” (pp. 25-26) Lewis’ point: a person can’t be just a series of chemical and electrical events. More to the point: Lewis himself, having knowledge, can’t simply be a series of brain events. Is the mind identical to (the same thing as) the brain? (mind=brain) Are mental states (pains, perceptions, and thoughts) identical to brain states? (mental states=brain states?) Are there two different things (a mind and a brain) or is there just one thing (mind=brain)? How Is It Possible to Believe in God? William F. Buckley, Jr. “I've always liked the exchange featuring the excited young Darwinian at the end of the 19th century. He said grandly to the elderly scholar, “How is it possible to believe in God?” The imperishable answer was, ‘I find it easier to believe in God than to believe that Hamlet was deduced from the molecular structure of a mutton chop’… Granted, that to look up at the stars comes close to compelling disbelief—how can such a chance arrangement be other than an elaboration—near infinite—of natural causes? On the other hand, who is to say that the arrangement of the stars is more easily traceable to nature, than to nature’s molder? What is the greater miracle: the raising of the dead man in Lazarus, or the mere existence of the man who died and of the witnesses who swore to his revival? The skeptics get away with fixing the odds against the believer, mostly by pointing to phenomena which are only explainable by the belief that there was merely a physical cause for them. But how can mindless forces be the ultimate cause of Hamlet? Or, of St. Matthew's Passion? What is the cause of inspiration? This I believe: that it is intellectually easier to credit a divine intelligence than to submit dumbly to felicitous congeries about nature...” Materialism and Empiricism Eliminate the Mind (the self): Here is Hume’s account, which is driven by empiricism. The mind or self gets reduced to experiences. “For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception.” A Treatise of Human Nature, Selby-Bigge edition, p. 252. “When I turn my reflection on myself, I never can perceive this self without some one or more perceptions; nor can I ever perceive anything but the perceptions. ’Tis’ the composition [the bundle] of these, therefore, which forms the self.” p. 634. This is just another way of saying that the mind is identical to the brain (brain=mind) and (mental events = brain events) But this has to be wrong. Leibnitz’s factory: the brain is a giant factory that we could walk through; we never could see experiences We could have a complete description of the human body and not know that mental events and minds even existed. In summary: 1. All mental events are known only by introspection, but no physical objects or events (the objects and events of science) are known by introspection. 2. All mental events are of or about something (i.e. exhibit intentionality), but no physical objects or events (the objects and events of science) are of or about anything. 3. Mental events can be known with certainty (incorrigibility), but physical objects and events cannot be known with certainty. 4. Therefore, mental events are not identical to physical objects or events. If it appears that there are two things that seem to be completely different the best explanation, given that there is no other direct evidence to the contrary, is that they are different. The burden of proof lies with those that deny that there are two things. But most people, even Christians, hold onto materialism at all costs. Many Christians are just functional materialists. At another ministry: “As a neuroscientist I think all those things [sense of self, sense of an overriding purpose, our values and ethics, a sense of continuous identity] and more are inextricably linked to the biology of the brain...The thoughts that guide our lives—our purpose, sense of self, values, etc. are also products of organized patterns of activity in the brain. I don’t see the soul as something separate that lives out there in the ether and has found some way to interact with the brain. Dualistic thinking is very common and easy to slip into without even being aware of it.” In fact, the author is doing some dualistic thinking of his own. He says that conscious states “are inextricably linked to the biology of the brain” and are “products of organized patterns of activity in the brain.” But, if A causes B, than A and B are not identical. If brain activity causes mental states then brain activity and mental states are not the same thing. In fact, the author is simply outlining the position of Property Dualism: mental states, as opposed to physical states, are properties that are caused by brain activity. Many people have tried to avoid this problematic dualistic conclusion, but the only way to do this seems to be either some form of Eliminative Materialism, in which conscious mental states do not exist (a la´ Churchland or Dennett), or the equally improbable view of Panpsychism in which everything is conscious at some level. These are obviously moves of desperation, but those who hold them understand they are the only consistent way to avoid the bothersome realm of the dualism, which involves the interaction of the non-physical mental with the physical brain. The confusion is further supported by claiming that life after death can be accounted for by means of “some kind of reproduction of that [brain] organization.” Of course, any reproduction just means that the result is not the original. You will not live after your death even if a copy of you is produced by God. That is what reproduction means. A reproduction is not the original. The author is operating under the confused idea that consciousness requires some kind of physical ground. But, just by considering the brain alone we would never even know that consciousness exists. This is an important point worth contemplating. There is nothing in the mere structure of the brain that would lead us to believe that it is conscious. Aristotle, who was a pretty accomplished observer, thought that the brain might be for cooling the blood. Does the author think that God has a brain? If not, does he believe that God is conscious? To deny that God is conscious is to leave the confines of Biblical Christianity. Of course—a thousand times over—everyone is correct to claim that brain activity can change the nature of conscious experience, but a causal connection between one thing and another does not show that they are the same thing. Trying to transform mental realities into physical ones has historically resulted in the mental being eliminated. The author certainly has explored how changes in the brain affect experience, but that work is incapable of showing that experience itself and the one having the experiences are just products of brain activity. See: John Searle Rediscovery of the Mind, chapter 1, for the same confusion. Colin McGinn: The Mysterious Flame: Conscious Minds in a Material World, pp. 11-13 “Some people like to harp on the complexity of the brain, as if this gave a clue to its mental productivity. But sheer complexity is irrelevant: merely adding more neurons with more synaptic connections doesn’t explain our problem a bit. The problem is how any collection of cells, no matter how large and intricately related, could generate consciousness…How did evolution convert the water of biological tissue into the wine of consciousness?” According to McGinn we have not the slightest idea, and we will never have the slightest idea, even in 10 billion years if humans live that long. The Universal Fact of Objective Moral Truths: (The law written in the heart.) This is what the first 5 chapters of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis are about. Moral truths, like logic, mathematics, and geometry are abstract, therefore, they cannot be physical. (prescriptive vs. descriptive facts) “Everyone is indignant when he hears the Germans define justice as that which is to the interest of the Third Reich. But it is not always remembered that this indignation is perfectly groundless if we ourselves regard morality as a subjective sentiment to be altered at will. Unless there is some objective standard of good, over-arching Germans, Japanese and ourselves alike whether any of us obey it or not, then of course the Germans are as competent to create their ideology as we are to create ours...Unless the measuring rod is independent of the things measured, we can do no measuring.” C.S. Lewis “The Poison of Subjectivism,” Christian Reflections, p. 73 Miracles, which are interruptions to the natural physical order, are evidence that God is involved in human affairs. This kind of supernatural occurrence must be rare, because it is always against the backdrop of the natural. Jesus’ resurrection was in the highest possible contrast to the universal reign of death in biological life. Here is the Bottom Line: People often first approach the question of God through the perspective of a thorough-going naturalism with a little Sunday School thrown in: “We just know that everything is physical, but we have a few pesky, recalcitrant conundrums such as consciousness, logic, math, and this irksome guy Jesus that don’t easily fit in. These issues will probably be solved in a few months.” This presupposition will be crucial in next week’s theme: Living in the Shadow of the Fall The L’Abri Theme of Living in the Reality of the Supernatural Francis and Edith Schaeffer founded L’Abri to demonstrate the possibility of living in the reality of the supernatural; a universe governed by God to bring about His plans; all the good and the bad, “all things work together for good for those who love God” Romans 8.28. 1. Live as if the supernatural is real and that people are not just physical objects that get in my way. 2. Live as if every person is of infinite and wondrously irreducible value. 3. Live as if we can have true-truth about the physical world, the abstract world, and God’s revelation. 4. Live as if the context of life is an objective moral order: a real battle between good and evil. 5. Live as if God is ever-present to redeem our lives and to enable us bring about concrete goods to His glory. 6. Live as if evidence always matters and how we follow it reveals the state of our epistemological humility. 7. Live as if God is never further away than one uttering a simple and sincere prayer in faith. 8. Live as if our lives, and all we do, have eternal significance. 9. Live as if God has given us astonishing co-laborers so we can toil together in His redemptive work. 10. Live as if Jesus showed us how to live an objectively successful life. (“Well done, good and faithful servants.”) 11. Live as if nothing in this world can give so much joy and meaning as living for God who gave His life for us. 12. Live as if we’ve been given the chance of a lifetime. For Further Study: 1. Dick Keyes: “Five Themes of L’Abri” at L’Abri Ideas Library 2. Benjamin Keyes: “Five Themes at L’Abri Revisited” at L’Abri Ideas Library 3. C.S. Lewis’s Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason by Victor Reppert, 2003 4. The Freedom of the Will by J.R. Lucas, esp. chapter 21, “The Presupposition of Thought” 5. C.S. Lewis: A Life by Alistair McGrath, esp. chapter 10 6. Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge by Dallas Willard 7. Body & Soul: Human Nature & the Crisis in Ethics by J.P. Moreland and Scott Rae 8. Miracles: A Preliminary Study by C.S. Lewis. For those who want a shorter treatment see Lewis’ God in the Dock, chapter 1 “Miracles”, chapter 9 “The Grand Miracle,” chapter 16 “Religion without Dogma?,” and chapter 4 “Answers to Questions on Christianity”: Question 6: “Materialists and some astronomers suggest that the solar planetary system and life as we know it was brought about by an accidental stellar collision. What is the Christian view of this theory?” Lewis: If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents—the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts – i.e., of materialism and astronomy – are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all other accidents. It’s like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk-jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.”

17. juni 20261 h 29 min

L'Abri 101: The Christian Faith as Truth

L'Abri 101: The Christian Faith as Truth We have a short five-week course on the essentials of L'Abri teaching, what we sometimes refer to as the 'Five Themes of L'Abri'. Each Friday, Greg Jesson and Jock McGregor will co-teach one of these themes. For those of you who have wondered about what makes L'Abri's teaching distinctive or who want to learn more, this will be a good opportunity. Each lecture is stand alone, but if you can listen to all five lectures that make up this short course, that would be best. This week we start with what Dr. Schaeffer called 'True Truth'. {Text of Greg Jesson's Handout follows} Pondering the Five Themes of L’Abri: #1: On Truth & Knowledge Dr. Greg Jesson gregrjesson@gmail.com Plan for the Lecture: 1. Opening comments on L’Abri themes 2. What is at stake? 3. Carefully define truth and then knowledge, which requires truth (15 points) 4. Common Misconceptions concerning truth and knowledge (the following 15 points) 5. How did truth and knowledge get undermined? 6. Primary reasons that truth is rejected: naturalism and skepticism 7. Francis Schaeffer’s pivotal insight concerning apologetics, life at L’Abri, and living in what is true Truth, Reality, and Knowledge: Following Clues, Signposts, Hints, and Insights 1. Only certain kinds of things can be true, such as beliefs, thoughts, and indirectly sentences. (Propositions) 2. Truth is the correspondence between a belief and reality. (Correspondence Theory of Truth.) Schaeffer called this “true-truth” and Dallas Willard called it “real-truth”. 3. Reality is everything that exists. Therefore, there are not different realities. (There are differing conceptions of reality, but only one reality. Reality is objective; it has nothing to do with how you feel or what you wish.) 4. Truth requires a truth-bearer (a belief, thought, or sentence) and a truth-maker (reality). 5. When a thought matches reality, it is true. 6. When a thought does not match reality, it is false. 7. Every thought must be true or false. 8. Because reality is objective, truth is objective. (Truth has nothing to do with how you feel or what you wish.) 9. Therefore, saying that something is “true for me” is literally non-sense. (Willard’s compass example.) 10. Saying something “is true for me,” is just a confused way of saying, “I believe it.” 11. Believing something (even really hard), does not make it true. 12. Knowledge is more than truth. 13. Knowledge requires three things: You must have a belief, the belief must be true, & the belief must be justified. 14. Justification comes in degrees; therefore, knowledge comes in degrees. 15. The value of knowledge is that it “gets hold of” reality. The rest is the adventure of your life! Some Misconceptions and Confusions: (Examples of misconceptions and confusions are taken from Jamie Smith’s book, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism) 1. That nobody knows anything. Rather, everyone starts by knowing a lot. (Romans 1: 18 ff.) 2. If you can’t prove something then you can’t know it. (Rather, every argument must come to an end. The real issue between presuppositionalism and evidentialism is what is required for adequate justification.) 3. That we need philosophy in order to know if we know anything. 4. That knowledge is impersonal, mechanical, and always simple. (Rather, knowledge is always an achievement of a person wherein the individual grasps the objective on the basis of adequate evidence. Therefore, knowledge is always a grasping of the objective from a perspective, and perceiving and understanding the objective within the context of one’s history, education, culture, motives, language, preconceptions, presuppositions, agendas, values, other knowledge, other beliefs, and physical and mental condition, etc.) 5. That knowledge is complete or perfect. (We can have perfect knowledge of very small matters, e.g., a phone number, but complete knowledge only belongs to God.) 6. That knowledge does not require humility, patience, and work. (Rather, what one can see is always dependent on the condition of that person. As one famous epistemologist said, “Take heed how you hear” Luke 8.18) “What I, a sinner saved by grace, need is not so much answers as reformation of my will and heart.” Smith, p. 30 [In fact, we need all of these things! Reformation of the will and heart often comes through answers.] 7. If something is an interpretation, then we can’t know it is true. This is simply false. In fact, we test our interpretations countless of times everyday against reality to see if our interpretations match reality. “I would agree that the gospel is an interpretation and that we can’t know the gospel is true, if by knowledge we mean unmediated objectivity or pure access to the ‘way things are.’” P. 44. 8. If something is true, then everyone could/would know it. 9. That one’s presuppositions, preconceptions, and beliefs cannot be challenged by the facts. “…I am, in some sense, carrying on the Schaefferian legacy…I want to demonstrate that, perhaps to Schaeffer’s surprise (and chagrin), the claims of postmodernists such as Derrida and Foucault have something in common with his own account of knowledge and truth (insofar as Schaeffer recognized the role of presuppositions.” p. 27, cf. p. 50 “Unless our apologetic proclamation begins from revelation, we have conceded the game to modernity.” Smith, p. 28 10. That all knowledge comes from sense experience (empiricism)—things we see, smell, taste, touch, and hear. After all, this claim itself is not derived from sense experience. 11. That knowledge requires certainty. Certainty is psychological not epistemic; it has nothing to do with knowledge. 12. Knowledge need not be objective. Subjective truth and subjective knowledge are incoherent. Notice how people who talk of these don’t define them. Is subjective knowledge different from mere belief? If so, how? “However, we need to consider these deep differences in interpretation rather than glibly supposing that the Christian account is objectively true and then castigating the Buddhist account for being merely an interpretation. In fact, both are interpretations; neither is objectively true.” P. 50, emphasis in the original. “Language is a lens through which we see the world, albeit with some distortion, simply because this lens stands between us and the world. As soon as there is a lens, there is distortion.” p. 36 13. Claiming objective knowledge necessarily leads to oppression and abuses. “To assert that our interpretation is not an interpretation but objectively true often translates into the worst kinds of imperial and colonial agendas, even within a pluralistic culture.” p. 51 14. If one has objective knowledge then one has not made an interpretive judgment. Knowledge is always an interpretation, but it offers itself as the correct (i.e. true) interpretation. “If everything is interpretation, then even the gospel is only an interpretation and not objectively true.” p. 42 15. If it is logically possible that one is wrong, then one cannot know it. Rather, simply because it is logically possible that one is wrong, it does not follow that one is wrong. The Train Wreck of Truth and Knowledge: 1. Aristotle, Aquinas, and the Biblical writers: Knowledge Blind faith 1. God 1. nothing 2. the soul 3. values 4. what other people think, feel, perceive 5. the real world of science 2. Empiricism: Knowledge Blind faith 1. the real world of science 1. God 2. other people 2. the soul 3. values 3. Relativism: Knowledge Blind faith 1. the “world” as my group sees it 1. God 2. group values 2. the soul 3. universal values 4. the real word of science 4. Subjectivism: Knowledge Blind faith 1. my feelings 1. God 2. the soul 3. values 4. the real of science 5. what other people, think, feel, & perceive 5. Postmodernism: Secular and Religious Fideism: The categories of truth, knowledge, justified belief, evidence, and logic simply drop out. Every set of beliefs is just as “rational” as any other. Knowledge Blind faith All that is available for everyone, Faith systems, Worldviews, Language games, Paradigms, As rational as anything else, Presuppositions, Mere Traditions, etc., etc. There are two basic lines of argument against truth: 1. The correspondence relation does not look like a physical (causal) relation: The truth bearer (a true belief, thought, or sentence) -----Corresponds to----- The truth maker (some fact) “It [naturalism] refutes itself. Whatever else we may come to believe about the universe, at least we can’t believe in naturalism. The validity of rational thought, accepted in an utterly non-naturalistic, transcendental (if you will), supernatural sense, is the necessary presupposition of all other theorizing.” C.S. Lewis, “Religion Without Dogma?” in God in the Dock, p. 107 “Christianity claims to be telling us about another world, about something behind the world we can touch and hear and see. You may think the claim is false; but if it were true, what it tells us would be bound to be difficult—at least as difficult as modern physics, and for the same reason.” C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 121 2. Skepticism: Global philosophical skepticism always makes a knowledge claim (“It is impossible to know reality as it is” or “All we can know is our experiences, never reality itself,” etc.), but it requires some knowledge of the world to establish this conclusion. Descartes: How do you know that you are not now dreaming? Contemporary philosophy, where it is often claimed that everything is subjective “How do you know that you are not a brain in vat?” Hilary Putnam, Harvard University It is almost universally accepted among philosophers today that the only objects which we can be acquainted with are beliefs or something best described as mental. According to Keith Lehrer: “In whatever way a man might attempt to justify his beliefs, whether to himself or to another, he must always appeal to some belief. There is nothing other than one's belief to which one can appeal in the justification of belief. There is no exit from the circle of one’s beliefs.” Knowledge pp. 187-188 According to Lawrence BonJour: “Now it is a familiar but still forceful idealist objection to the correspondence theory of truth that if the theory were correct we could never know whether any of our beliefs were true, since we have no perspective outside our system of beliefs from which to see that they do or do not correspond.” “Can Empirical Knowledge Have a Foundation?” in American Philosophical Quarterly, 1978 pp.1-8 According to Michael Williams: “Justification is a matter of accommodating beliefs that are being questioned to a body of accepted beliefs. Justification always terminates with other beliefs and not with our confronting raw chunks of reality, for that idea is incoherent.” Groundless Belief p.112 And, according to John Pollock: “What is it that justifies a belief? Suppose someone justifiably believes some fact about the world on the basis of some other fact. Philosophers have often wanted to say that it is the second fact that justifies one’s belief in the first fact . . . But this is misleading. What is important in deciding whether the person is justified in his belief is not the fact itself but rather the person’s belief that it is a fact.” Knowledge and Justification p.25 *“Skepticism presupposes an ontology of the mind (a view of the mind) that makes knowledge impossible.” GJ *“Once one is driven to hold that logic itself is merely subjective the entire enterprise of philosophical inquiry collapses into incoherence and impossibility.” GJ G.E. Moore: A) 1. The skeptic's principles are correct. 2. If the skeptic's principle are correct then I cannot know of the existence of this pencil. 3. Therefore I cannot know of the existence of this pencil. A) 1. P 2. P > not Q 3. therefore, not Q ( valid by modus ponens) B) 1. I can know that this pencil exists. 2 2. If the skeptic's principles are correct then I cannot know of the existence of this pencil. 3. Therefore the skeptic's principles (at least one) must be incorrect. B) 1. Q 2. P > not Q 3. therefore, not P (valid by modus tollens) Moore’s point: Both A and B are logically valid, but we can still ask, “Which do we know better, A1 or B1? A1 is a long line of questionable philosophical reasoning (such as David Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding), whereas B1 is not. (Compare Hume’s account to Screwtape’s advice to Wormwood in The Screwtape Letters, the first letter), (See also G.E. Moore: “Refutation of Idealism” and “Proof of an External World”) What was Francis Schaeffer’s great insight about apologetics? Schaeffer was inspired by Romans 1. 18ff. People dishonestly suppress truths, which they know to be true (e.g. that people, including oneself, are not merely biological robots, that ethics is nothing but personal preference, that the external world is unjustified opinion, that logic and math are nothing but feelings, etc., etc.). In many areas of life, non-believers live as if those beliefs are true but they deny their truth (or that truth even exists). So, Schaeffer would encourage them to live consistently with their non- Christian views. What people often surprisingly discovered was that they couldn’t live consistently with their non-Christian worldview. For many, this was the first moment when they were open to the evidence that they were wrong. (See The God Who Is There pp. 126-130) In other words, Schaeffer thought the greatest danger was that the non-believer didn’t take his or her views seriously enough. If non-Christians really took their beliefs and the logical implications seriously, they couldn’t continue to live in the world, thus they have to cheat by living inconsistently with their beliefs. Schaeffer’s challenge to Christians: What about us? Are we intentionally living by taking our Christian beliefs seriously? The founding of L’Abri For Further Study: Dick Keyes: “Five Themes of L’Abri” at https://www.labriideaslibrary.org/IdeasLibraryDatabase/five-themes-of-l'abri Benjamin Keyes: “Five Themes at L’Abri Revisited” at https://www.labriideaslibrary.org/IdeasLibraryDatabase/five-themes-of-l'abri-revisited Gresham Machen: “Christianity and Culture, delivered at Princeton Seminary 1912” at https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Christianity-and-Culture-Machen/0f7b3f26fdf92a941d7c11226b0de25ee939fa1c Jim Paul: “True Truth in a Post Truth Culture” at https://englishlabri.substack.com/p/true-truth-in-a-post-truth-culture-c85 Greg Jesson: “It All Comes down to ‘True-truth’” in He Still Speaks: Francis Schaeffer’s Enduring Relevance, 2021 Greg Jesson: “The Impossibility of Philosophical Skepticism” in Defending Realism: Ontological and Epistemological Essay, 2014

11. juni 20261 h 22 min

L'Abri 101: Living in the shadow of the fall. Jock McGregor & Greg Jesson

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