Does Empiricism Make a Logically Valid Standard of Proof? What Do You Think?

  • Thread starter Thread starter warpspeedpetey
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
warpspeedpetey said:
This isn’t the case with Christianity we have a lot of evidence. More than enough for any reasonable man to make a decision.
Click to expand...
Supposing, however, that one were to construct a deductively valid argument regarding the major source of evidence we have for Christianity (by which I mean the belief in Christian theological claims, apart from what might be considered as the historical case for the existence of Jesus the man) - being the Gospels and the various epistles, which indicated that such evidence was unreliable?

Such an argument might go as follows:
  1. Humans are susceptible to bias.
  2. The Gospels and epistles are human-generated documents.
    2.a. The Gospels and epistles are susceptible to bias.
  3. The presence of bias in a document renders said document unreliable as primary evidence for its inherent claims.
    3.a. The presence of bias is apparent in the Gospels and epistles.
  4. Therefore, the Gospels and epistles are unreliable as primary evidence for Christian theism.
Now, you may wish to dispute the above argument, but unless I’m much mistaken, it’s deductively valid. That would mean that it was necessary to attack the premises as being unsound, but I’m not sure how you would do that without recourse to empirical evidence. You’ll notice here that I’m taking a slightly broader view of what constitutes empirical evidence to that adopted by strict empiricists, but of course I’m not a strict empiricist. I think the pursuit of knowledge is best served by the interplay of perception and reason, since each can - and should - be used to support the other.

Nevertheless, I would think that it is quite possible to rationally doubt the claims of Christian theism, even whilst accepting the possibility - as we would with Socrates - that Jesus the man existed, on the basis of such evidence as we possess. That in itself is a relatively mundane claim in terms of familiar possibilities, and one that I see no particular reason to dispute.
 
Sair said:
Supposing, however, that one were to construct a deductively valid argument regarding the major source of evidence we have for Christianity (by which I mean the belief in Christian theological claims, apart from what might be considered as the historical case for the existence of Jesus the man) - being the Gospels and the various epistles, which indicated that such evidence was unreliable?

Such an argument might go as follows:
  1. Humans are susceptible to bias.
  2. The Gospels and epistles are human-generated documents.
    2.a. The Gospels and epistles are susceptible to bias.
  3. The presence of bias in a document renders said document unreliable as primary evidence for its inherent claims.
    3.a. The presence of bias is apparent in the Gospels and epistles.
  4. Therefore, the Gospels and epistles are unreliable as primary evidence for Christian theism.
Now, you may wish to dispute the above argument, but unless I’m much mistaken, it’s deductively valid. That would mean that it was necessary to attack the premises as being unsound, but I’m not sure how you would do that without recourse to empirical evidence. You’ll notice here that I’m taking a slightly broader view of what constitutes empirical evidence to that adopted by strict empiricists, but of course I’m not a strict empiricist. I think the pursuit of knowledge is best served by the interplay of perception and reason, since each can - and should - be used to support the other.

Nevertheless, I would think that it is quite possible to rationally doubt the claims of Christian theism, even whilst accepting the possibility - as we would with Socrates - that Jesus the man existed, on the basis of such evidence as we possess. That in itself is a relatively mundane claim in terms of familiar possibilities, and one that I see no particular reason to dispute.
Click to expand...
That would make an excellent topic for another thread, where I would be sure to participate. I feel It is outside the scope of this thread however, where I hope to keep it on the sole issue of the logical validity of empiricism. I can’t stop others from replying of course, but I would really like to see that in another thread where I can focus solely on the arguments that you have provided. Thanks 🙂
 
warpspeedpetey said:
In almost every conversation has with atheists, you will be asked to meet their empirical standard of proof. This standard may be formulated as this

How does this affect the Catholic apologist?

Empiricism is little more than a lie, it is essentially meaningless. Therefore any atheist position based on it is necessarily invalid as well. So when an atheist attempts to use Empiricism as the standard of proof, he is really asking you to meet a logically invalid standard. Pointing this out generally leaves them at a loss for words. If they cannot defend this standard, I see no reason that we should try to meet it. Instead we should attack that standard at every turn. It pains me to see Christian after Christian respond to atheist arguments by trying to meet a standard that is logically invalid. How many souls have been lost to atheist arguments based on what is ultimately a lie? :mad:

Does anyone have any other ideas on this?

Here are some other resources to look at.

inform.nu/Articles/Vol8/v8p189-210Mende.pdf
Click to expand...
By the way, your argument is not sound. Don’t let me forget to explain why sometime. 😉
 
warpspeedpetey said:
In almost every conversation has with atheists, you will be asked to meet their empirical standard of proof. This standard may be formulated as this

Quote:

A statement can only be considered true if it can be proven with empirically verifiable evidence.
This is clearly self refuting and illogical, allow me to demonstrate.

Premise 1: A statement can only be considered true if it can be proven with empirically verifiable evidence.

Premise 2: There is no empirically verifiable evidence to prove the statement “A statement can only be considered true if it can be proven with empirically verifiable evidence.” is true

Conclusion: Therefore the statement “A statement is only true if it can be proven with empirically verifiable evidence” is false.
Click to expand...
Your conclusion doesn’t follow from your premisses. Your conclusion is a fudge. To accord with your premisses, it should read:

Conclusion: Therefore the statement “A statement can only be considered true if it can be proven with empirically verifiable evidence” cannot be considered true. (But this need not exclude the possibility that it should be considered normative.)
 
Betterave said:
Your conclusion doesn’t follow from your premisses. Your conclusion is a fudge. To accord with your premisses, it should read:

Conclusion: Therefore the statement “A statement can only be considered true if it can be proven with empirically verifiable evidence” cannot be considered true. (But this need not exclude the possibility that it should be considered normative.)
Click to expand...
A=notA 🤷
 
warpspeedpetey said:
It means its a contradiction, it negates itself. Simply declaring it normative doesn’t change that.
Click to expand...
Simply declaring “A=notA” isn’t an argument and doesn’t explain whatever it is that you’re talking about. Try to spell it out: What is A? And where did I imply that “A=not-A”?
 
Betterave said:
Simply declaring “A=notA” isn’t an argument and doesn’t explain whatever it is that you’re talking about. Try to spell it out: What is A? And where did I imply that “A=not-A”?
Click to expand...
I demonstrated the contradiction in the OP.
 
warpspeedpetey said:
I demonstrated the contradiction in the OP.
Click to expand...
I demonstrated the fallaciousness of your demonstration in post 84. Why not just answer the question: what is A? Answer the question - it’s the honest thing to do; your tergiversation, not so much.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top