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slickwombat t1_iwhwnyb wrote

Reply to comment by aChristianPhilosophy in /r/philosophy Open Discussion Thread | November 14, 2022 by BernardJOrtcutt

As given your argument isn't valid, but we can make it valid with some minor tweaks:

  1. Philosophy is likely to demonstrate anything which is true.
  2. (Assume for the purposes of argument that) Christian beliefs are true.
  3. Therefore, philosophy is likely to demonstrate Christian beliefs.

As for soundness, (2) is meant as a supposition here so we can leave it aside.

But is (1) even plausibly true? Philosophy is certainly a search for certain kinds of truths, but not necessarily any kind. We can of course modify that premise to be at least a bit more specific, e.g., "philosophy is likely to demonstrate any truths which are knowable via reason." But would that include Christian beliefs? Only if we assume exactly what you mean to demonstrate, i.e., that these are not instead justified by things like divine experience or revelation.

And of course, even assuming that philosophy is engaged in the relevant kind of enterprise, are we warranted in thinking it's likely to succeed? What if Kant is right, and any philosophical attempt to demonstrate via pure reason, e.g., the existence of God or the immortality of the soul results inescapably in antinomies and thus fails?

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aChristianPhilosophy t1_iwniph3 wrote

Hi. I agree with pretty much everything you said. The argument on its own has holes. I can give you an answer that stands outside of the argument though.

Each individual Christian claim either falls under the set of topics that (1) can be found with natural reason alone (which includes science), or (2) needs to be supported by divine revelation such as the Bible.

If (1), then the argument stands. If (2), then fortunately arguments can be made to defend that the Bible is a reliable source: If all the verifiable claims from a source or method are verified to be true, then, by induction, it is reasonable to conclude that the remaining unverifiable claims from that same source or method are also true.

As an analogy: If all the planets we have observed so far are round, then it is reasonable to predict that the next planet we discover will also be round.

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