The Presuppositional worldview cannot justify its knowledge claims

The resolution of the debate was "The Presuppositional worldview cannot justify its knowledge claims" and although Hezekiah responded to my contentions he has not rebutted them adequately. " You sure? In your conclusion you said "Hezekiah has refuted my contentions". But I will just assume that it was a mere oversight. "Unfortunately this response does not actually deal with the primary problem – if we cannot trust our own autonomous reasoning then we have no means of determining what God could be thinking, nor could we trust that we are measuring our reasoning in accord with God's thoughts. " First of all I don't beleive in "autonomous reasoning". This is something that I have been waiting for you to provide an argument for, that is, that our reasoning is "autonomous". Secondly, God's thoughts are in the bible. This is confimed by internal testimony of God himself. It it also confirmed by the external testimony. That is, that no other philosophy can account for existence. "Another problem with this response is that it's entirely unclear. What does it mean to ‘think God's thoughts after him'? Surely God does not think the way human beings think. God is timeless; there is no sequence of thoughts for us to ‘follow'. Another difficulty with this statement of Hezekiah's is that it excludes one of the major methods of thought that mankind deploys – inferential knowledge. " You're right God doesn't think like a human being. Human beings think like God. Our thoughts are a derivative of his thoughts. I would say that God is timefilled. He is the source of time. "Being omniscient, God does not derive knowledge from inference – but if our only means of true knowledge is knowledge that essentially mirrors God's thoughts, then all inferential knowledge is absurd – if this is the case, then Hezekiah cannot appeal to it in order to argue that we can know what the Bible means hermeneutically. " See above. "Clearly Hermeneutics then requires us to presuppose that we can trust our autonomous reasoning – otherwise, there would be no interpretation required! Further, Hezekiah merely asserts that the Church created a Canon with God's help. What reason do we have to believe this though? If the Church fathers could not trust their autonomous reasoning, then how could they determine that it was God doing the leading as opposed to Satan or simple misunderstanding? As to the follow up questions, they are simply red herrings as any answer to them would not refute the proposition under debate. " Like I said above. You are going to have to argue for "autonomous reasoning". What I mean by God's word being "self-attesting" is that I don't have to appeal to anything outside of the bible to confirm its truthfulness. It confirms itself. There is no higher authority than the word of God. If you want to argue for the "possibilty" that Satan was the one that lead the church, go right ahead. It won't be an easy task. Once again how does clark know that his reasoning about interpretations is correct? "The ending of Mark, with the resurrection appearances seems very significant to me, contra Hezekiah's claims. Further, one of the very early schools of Christian thought did contest those "clear" Biblical claims, it was called Gnosticism. " This is a loaded statement and border line dishonest. "Gnosticism" was considered heretical early on. It is no Christianity at all. Here is a brief overview and refutation of it: . http://www.gotquestions.org... "Hezekiah does not tell us what the revelation of the Holy Spirit is. Instead he responds to issue 1 by saying that we must rely on faith alone. This does not absolve Hezekiah since in order to have faith in X, you must be able to know something about X – but Hezekiah rejects this by rejecting autonomous reasoning. We have no way to discern what God's promises are, what to have faith in, and what God says without being able to trust our own autonomous reasoning. " Yes we do. Read the bible. "Further, Hezekiah's notion of faith seems at odds with Bahnsen's, who writes:" No it's not. Our faith is grounded in God. "As we have seen, Hezekiah cannot appeal to scripture to get him around Dena's revelation since appealing to scripture presupposes that we can trust our autonomous reason so that we can interpret what scripture says. So clearly this cannot be a method of discerning whether or not Dena's revelation was false – but if not this then what? How can Hezekiah be certain that his interpretation of scripture is correct in light of Dena's claim to have a direct revelation from God? Perhaps Hezekiah is being misled in his understanding of scripture in a similar way that the Gnostics were. What means does Hezekiah have outside of reason to support his reading of scripture? " 1. See above in regard's to "autonomous" reasoning. 2. Like I said earlier we have every reason to reject Dena's claim since we believe God has last spoken in Christ. What's her scriptural support? How would she distuinguish her "revalation" from something she was simply imagining? I take my reasoning for granted. However, this is not some arbitrary move. I ground my reasoning on God's promises. That is, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge. Now, how do I know that this is true? From the impossibilty of the contrary. "Hezekiah has refuted my contentions. In his conclusion he affirms my position, that we must presuppose autonomous reasoning prior to anything else, when he says "That if you don't start with God's promises you cannot know anything", since in order to know what God is promising you must first presuppose that you can trust your own ability to reason. " See above. Now, besides all the questions you evaded. You are going to have to argue for "autonomous reasoning". That could simply be something you are imagining. So, how is it that you are not? Blessings.