A Priori Knowledge and the ability to Prove God's existence

This is part two to the Ravi Zecharias website. This is on A Priori knowledge, and how it assists us in proving the Existence of God. Hope you enjoy this one :). Thanks for your patience in regards to my limited posting time as of late (I have been hard at work with internet debating..I should have several of these debates posted soon on the site, and its some very VERY good news for the Young Earth Creation Science position :).

God bless,

Casey Powell

Writing 2:
Mr. Zecharias,
First off, I'd like to state that I think your writings are truly inspiring and that I think your resources are awesome on your site. I was reading on your paper regarding A Priori knowledge, in that most of what we do not know is not gained through A Priori knowledge. I am in a similar boat, but...somewhat different than your approach. I think A Priori knowledge does not need to be proven. BUT, I do think that it CAN be proven through deductive reasoning. What I do not believe is that inductive reasoning is possible without the use of deductive reasoning to provide its foundation. In other words, we'd have to deny all foundations, which would provide us with a foundation of nonfoundation...not possible in any regards. So if this is not possible, then Pragmatism is not possible. If pragmatisms is not possible, there goes a HUGE tenet of Atheism, since Science, Experience and Nonfoudationalism are now out the window as the foundation of our knowledge base. However, the only way we can derive an accurate knowledge base of reality is to use cause and effect. When we actually derive this as a crucial element to noting how we gain knowledge in the first place, we can deductively arrive at conclusions that can be traced to a foundation, or foundationalism itself (i.e. the laws of logic). Now, I have never been one too afraid to examine the truth of ANYTHING. I have always gone with a notion that if it is possible, then it potentially can follow that it is true if given enough evidence. However, stacking the deck here is a problem I find too often when we consider what proves a certain thing. Simple, to prove something, we must have logic, i.e. a priori reasoning, and evidence, i.e. a posteriori reasoning. These are the only two ways that we can make sense out of anything in the world. To conclude that anything can be known through habit and custom is relevant to an extent that it can show us a practicality of our everyday experiences. In other words, we can use evidence of people who have experienced God through their daily habits and customs to come to a conclusion of God alone...and this would be fine. However, why stop here? Why not expand our minds to Moral conclusions? Axiology firmly supports the necessity of Objective Morality, so a cause and effect for this would be God. And this, having been established deductively, which takes precedence over Axiology itself, would then lead us to a conclusion that God exists, and is necessary for Morality....i.e. the Moral argument for the Existence of God. The Anthropological Argument proves that these things are necessarily true, through the soundness of its argument. Any sound argument is of course a true argument, and thus can be now framed within the framework of an A Priori Necessity. In other words, A Priori/Intuition deals with the Origin of Knowledge. Any A Priori premise can be established, but unless followed through to its conclusion is henceforth proven false. And the only arguments that can do this in defining the existence of God, and the knowledge we have of him is Christianity. Sound arguments with no counter, simply entail Silence as Acceptance as a necesssary premise. Now, how further can we take proof to demonstrate the existence of God? Young Earth Creation Science is a well documented fact. In fact, there is more evidence for this Science than anything else we have out there. It is the most overlooked of all of the arguments, but in fact, settles the arguments that all Christians have been debating all along. With the acceptance of Natural Selection, Variation, and Speciation as all being the byproduct of God's creation, delivered to Mr. Edward Blythe, have we any reason to doubt these essential Scientific conclusions? No. All we have to doubt would in essence be that of the Naturalistic Hypothesis of Evolution itself, which is an Argument from Silence. We can not prove a negative, henceforth, it is unprovable, and can be demonstrated to be false through the reasoning of providing sound arguments for the existence of God. Since to provide proof of God, we would therefore have to state that I deny what is necessarily absolutely proven to be true, we have no argument and the premise is nonsense. As such, we can further continue along the Cause and Effect chain through the utmost of priority, naturally established throughout all of humankind (as humans can all be demonstrated to prioritize something, why can this not be applied to knowledge? Inherently, it is.) Knowledge henceforth not being dependent upon the mind can be demonstrated to be true through the proof of Direct Realism as a base, and the demonstrating that Metaphysical Realism is true. Direct Realism can be proven as such: homepage.ntu.edu.tw/.../200612winter/ Perceptual%20Phenomenology%20and%20the%20Problem%20of%20Perception.doc. Very important to establish this. Now to state that we can not know things a priori is simply nonsense, for this one thing would have to be known a priori in order to make sense out of the subject actually knowing what a priori knowledge is to begin with. And any attempt to put a limit to our knowledge, whether positive or negative, can not be utilized, in which case we may know the totality of what can be known in this lifetime, but of course, this does not entail that we know all things (i.e., we can only speculate about what heaven consists of, we can't actually know anything about it except for what the Bible tells us regarding its existence). As such, we need never appeal to a god of the gaps. If something can be explained in regards to the nature of God, we should have no problem demonstrating how God is involved within the process through the use of deductive reasoning. However, it is necessary to first question the existence of God in order to establish an Analytical relationship between our A Priori knowledge and Deductive and Inductive Reasoning. We may derive our foundational knowledge through a proof for that foundational knowledge, which should only seek to confirm what we already knew to be the case. Is this circular you may wonder? Well, not at all, if what we presume to be the case turns out to be the case, this should not be circular as knowledge would not depend upon the subject, but rather the subject coming to terms with this knowledge. We must also have objective standards on which to evaluate our evidence (i.e. sources, Philosophical bases, Epistemological proofs). It is well documented that everyone will use the laws of logic, and that this is a universal principle which must be come to terms with. One can never start with our environment and expect to move to its first cause, nay, for this would entail an infinite regress of effects to an unknown cause, and would violate the principle of cause and effect. Inductive Reasoning shall be thought of to be self defeating on its own, for Inductive Reasoning IS a first cause of sorts, and can not be known but through deductive reasoning. Hence, we must start with a logical assumption that is not self defeating and work from there as a starting point. Hence in order to make sense of this Inductive Reasoning, Empiricism could never work to establish its foundational knowledge, neither Kant's Gap between our minds and reality hypothesis (for this conclusion must also be reached through the start of reality...i.e. at least the mind is realized to be real). Which is to be valued then more highly, that of Evidence or Logic? Evidence on its own can not speak, and as such, we can demonstrate that logic would take priority over the evidence presented. However, no Logic entails no evidence to be possible, but this conclusion must also be recognized as a logical statement, and can not be possible, and as such is false. Hence, we are stuck with only logic, lest we can demonstrate Skeptical Liberalism, Pantheism and Idealism to be true in fashion. Liberalism, as such, entails we are given a free choice to decide which axioms perhaps to start with. None of this is ingrained, nor anything given intrinsic value of worth, and the implications and inferences we draw are therefore worthless as such the demonstrations to show it. One must be clever enough to ask, if this in itself is not an inference of sorts and if one is compelled to say no, his statement fails, and the axiom may be rejected. Of course, one may be compelled to respond with, well, thats fine, but I'm more focused on the Externalistic modes of Experience, and in interreacting with people, as I perceive this to be the truth of life, though we can most certainly demonstrate this to be a red herring of sorts, and quite ambiguous as to what the meaning might be. As such, a stupified silence must be entailed next, lest the person put absolutely no emphasis on his reasoning capabilities at all, which to that extent would be drawn from his reasoning capabilities and must be enacted to be false. If a person insists therefore to draw from his argument that he may use his reasoning capabilities in order to demonstrate a rejection of his reasoning capabilities, this must again be demonstrated to be self-defeating and false. No reasonable objection to our hypothesis as such may be made from this stance. If one insists on Idealism, it must be rejected as Idealism entails a concrete standard by which to base its conclusion that we must turn all concretes into conceptual instances. When presented with this, it can be demonstrated false by entailing that concrete knowledge is necessary. For one to claim that concrete knowledge is not necessary would then to claim at least that one concrete as necessarily true. The only position that may be established is that of nothing necessarily true, but can one truly conceive of that which is nothing? If nothing were to exist, we would never come to know about this, and such, nothing is necessarily true would be demonstrated to be necessarily false. One may then respond with Pantheism, that everything is all the same. Again, the initial premise having already failed, we may reject this with no need to move on any further. One may point to a genetic fallacy being the reason for our direct realism, but nay, for a genetic fallacy may never tell us the truth of a situation. The origin of belief can be demonstrated to be necessarily separate from the origin of a thing, as such belief is a conceptual and a thing is a concrete, there is a necessary dichotomy, yet not entailing that of a mutually exclusive condition. To state that nothing conceptual is truly real would therefore entail a necessary conceptual in and of itself, and a skeptic has now run out of options for debate on this matter. One other matter of debate regarding a starting point however is whether there is a universally solid only one starting point to be dealt with? To answer yes to this would entail this be the one starting point to deal with, whatever that may be. One must start with a belief, not perception, lest he may actually conceive of his perception, in which case, the conception entails a self defeating notion as the base of our knowledge. If one feel compelled to move to this point of direct perception as a starting point, we may then infer of those who have hallucinations and such to reconsider this decision. As such...one may only start with a Direct Reality of substances. No other position is possible. But I digress, how may we perform the magnificence of this proof of God you may wonder? First a consideration of God is all one may need to prove God. Has not everyone since the beginning of time considered there to be a God? This again through a conceptual basis of reality may demonstrate an idea to be concrete. As such, any concrete idea must correspond to reality, as only a concrete idea may entail the truth of any given situation. Teleological Arguments, Moral Arguments, Ontological Arguments, Cosmological Arguments and many numerous other arguments for God's existence from St. Thomas Aquinas himself need be the final cut to any skeptical position on our issue, with the rebuttal of the contraries as necessarily all one need in order to prove God's existence. The question may remain, can one truly hold to these positions that he claims to have? Is he simply living a denial of reality? Of course, the answer of yes must apply to both of these distinctions. A solid worldview must take precedence before one may consider evidence of any kind. Evidence may not be forced into one's worldview, but instead must be forced into a true worldview of things. Once one has established a correct Epistemological premise to start from, one may progress with enough necessary evidence to consider all things of God's existence. In other words, one may be thoroughly convinced through proof and evidence of God's nature through a starting point of logic. A rational inference and a rational inquiry of discernment are all but one needs to establish this firm foundational truth. As such, one may be compelled to hold to this one truth with universal extent, no matter how far fetched to the ignorance of others to his position. In one truth may be found all one needs for all other truths. In like manner, all other truths must point to the one truth, and that one truth being God. One need only a shallow mind, which must be established through reason to begin with and a hardened heart, which at least demonstrates a compelling to follow Satan in the beginning, but at least a demonstration of some sort taking place may lead us to believe that there is hope for that one individual in coming to terms with the actual Truth...the Truth with a capital T. One need only know one thing in order to know God. That being, "Knowledge begins with God." Once one knows this one thing, he is well on the way to knowing God, and since knowledge entails a trust, one must be absolutely ignorant to not know God (as can be demonstrated to be false). I know nothing is self defeating, as we would know that one thing (as demonstrated before, the acknowledgement of nothing is impossible). A natural inclination in everyone's heart (i.e. heart and cognitive functions) to follow God must be recognized as our ministerial focus. Our minds are predisposed to truth, in this I mean all minds are predisposed to truth. One mind may not be thought of to be not thinking of a truth of sorts. And any truth is a truth of God, thereby conclusively proving God's existence. For the consciousness shall always be consious (eliminating a notion of a tabula rasa). We always know, we never do not know. In like manner, a liar could only conclude otherwise. For "8 The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways, but the folly of fools is deception." Psalm 14:8