Cold Case Christianity: Wallace's question-begging attempt to salvage the argument from logic

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Cold Case Christianity: Is God Real?

Examining Atheistic Explanations for the Laws of Logic as “Brute Realities”        

Posted: 11 Jan 2019 01:38 AM PST

All rational discussions (even those related to the existence or non-existence of God) require the prior foundation of logical absolutes.

Which is precisely why you are never going to "show" that such a foundation has a foundation.

And by the way, Wallace, your answers here are logically consistent...meaning your attempt to account for the laws of logic are already presupposing the validity of the very logic you pretend to be giving an independent accounting of. 

That's called begging the question.  You can coherently talk about the time before Billy tied his shoe, but you cannot coherently talk about the time before time.  Likewise, you can coherently talk about where babies come from, because the answer wouldn't require you to beg the question of the baby's existence, but you cannot coherently talk about where logic comes from, because your answer would have to be in conformity to logic first, before anybody would be intellectually obligated to pay attention to it. 

You can possibly do that, of course, by giving a non-logical explanation for the laws of logic.  That will safeguard you from begging the question, but then the fact that the answer is "non-logical" is more than sufficient to reasonably justify the atheist to toss it aside immediately without even bothering with it.  

Face it buddy, you cannot coherently talk about where logic comes from, unless you wish to get stupid and pretend that some non-logical explanations are superior to the pro-logical explanations?

Only theism, however, can adequately account for the existence of the transcendent Laws of Logic. If God exists, He is the absolute, objective, transcendent standard of truth; the Laws of Logic are simply a reflection of His nature.

Not true. God's existence doesn't tell you to what degree he controls reality, anymore than saying "space alien" necessarily implies an eternal intelligence that can create other worlds with a snap of their fingers. All you are doing is blindly insisting on the conservative Christian definition of God (i.e., classical theism), and pretending such definition is the only one that is plausible.  All you are doing is appealing to presuppositions your mostly conservative Christian audience already hold.   You are like the open-theist who tells his followers: "If God exists, he is changeable, imperfect, and learns."

God did not create these laws. They exist as an extension of His rational thinking, and for this reason, they are as eternal as God Himself.

You provide no biblical basis for this, you are just preaching to the choir.  Furthermore, there are sufficient problems with the general concept of theism, that you are foolish to pretend that a theory of an intelligent invisible immaterial spaceless timeless thing is supposed to be "better" than any theory atheists might have, which would necessarily be somewhat more plausible by being grounded in empirical realities that can be checked and verified, at least somewhat more so than your invisible undetectable "god".

Is God real?

No.  But like the prosperity gospel and voodoo, as long as you think god is real, you can help yourself feel better about the cold cruel world.  The same is true with respect to Hinduism and Mormonism.  These aren't true religions either, but that does precisely nothing to ebb their popularity.  Mormons are often confronted with hard times just like any Christian, and just like Christians, Mormons find great comfort and solace in prayer and in fellowship with others who share their specific theological presuppositions.  But since you don't believe God is really giving them any comfort, we discover then the ability of human beings to be so deceived, they can feel comforted by mere thoughts about something that doesn't exist, in this case, the Mormon god.

Without God as a source for the transcendent Laws of Logic, this question (and any logical journey toward the answer) would be impossible to examine.

 Logic is axiomatic.  You don't "examine" it, because the framework you'd have to use for analysis would be the assumption that the laws of logic are indeed valid, otherwise known as begging the question.

As an atheist, I rejected the existence of God and offered a number of objections and alternative explanations in an effort to account for the Laws of Logic.

No doubt because you were an ignorant atheist and didn't realize what axioms were, and why they are exempt from explanatory theories.

In yesterday’s post we outlined the theistic explanation for these laws. Today and tomorrow we’ll examine several naturalistic objections to see if any of them might offer a viable alternative. We’ll begin with efforts to describe the Laws of Logic as “brute realities” of the universe:

Objection:

Aren’t the Laws of Logic simply the “brute” characteristics of reality? Both material and immaterial things must abide by boundaries of existence in order to exist in the first place. The “Laws of Logic” are simply a part of these boundaries. They are not transcendent laws from a Transcendent Mind; they are simply among the natural boundaries of existence.

Both theists and atheists agree the Laws of Logic are brute somethings.

Correct.

Atheists might claim Logic is a brute, innate fact of existence, while theists might argue Logic is a brute, innate reflection of the nature and thinking of God. In either case, these laws would have to be eternal, uncaused and necessary.

 Correct.

Nothing can exist without the simultaneous existence of these laws.

Which means arguments about why logic exists, cannot exist without the simultaneous existence of these laws.

But let’s now look at how both sides account for their existence:

On Atheism

The brute Laws of Logic simply exist. They are eternal and uncaused. Nothing can exist without them. That’s just the way it is.

On Theism

God is eternal, uncaused, omniscient and omnipotent.

Your explanation is far more complex, controversial and contradictory than anything the atheist has to offer.  The whole idea of a spaceless timeless immaterial intelligence is just stupid, and there is no compelling evidence that any such thing has ever existed, I don't give a shit how many times you refer to the mysterious deaths that occurred on the set of the Exorcist, or how the Lutz's seemed to be telling the truth about things that go bump in the night.  You simply recite "eternal, uncaused, omniscient and omnipotent", and your devoted Christian followers come running to you like hungry cowboys come running at the sound of the dinner bell.  You are preaching the choir, you are not refuting the atheist position.  You are not a scholar providing rebuttal to another theory.  You are a pastor banging his fist in church.

He is the all-knowing and all-powerful Creator; the necessary, uncaused first cause of all matter, space and time.

 Is this the part where your audience is supposed to shout "amen!" ?

There is no such thing as the universe being caused, the universe is eternal and infinite.  Otherwise, you'd have to admit it can be coherent t talk about the time before God created time, which is, of course, not coherent.  Feel free to google William Lane Craig for the next 50 years, his foolish distinctions between logical and temporal causality do not make it possible to talk coherently about the beginning of time.  The beginning of "time" is necessarily stupid and question-begging.  Not to mention that "time" is completely man-made, and the bible does not express or imply God lives in some type of eternal "now" that is different than the temporal progression of events we experience on earth.  That's just modern Christianity finding it irresistable to go beyond biblical revelation in their spiritually immature zeal to provide more specific rebuttal to the world than what God saw fit to authorize.

Unless you are a Pentecostal and you think every time you set forth theology not specifically backed up in the bible, this is supposed to be new revelation?

By the way, the bible never teaches that god created time, in fact, every biblical description of heavenly events portrays them as being limited to temporal progression no less than biblical authors describe earth-based events to be.  Before you impress the babies with talk about God creating time, be sure you are on biblical footing.  You aren't. 

He has thoughts and possesses a particular character, essence and nature.

Which only make sense if he is physical, since your alleged "evidence" that intelligence can exist without physicality, is absurd, I don't care how many books by J.P. Moreland are on your library shelf.

Because He is all-powerful and all-knowing, these attributes are perfected (an all-powerful and all-knowing God has the power to eliminate imperfection).

I'm an atheist, yet you are asking me to now suddenly discover that the Christians who are open-theist are wrong.  Gee, how long would it take for us to get over that hurdle before you could legitimately continue to blindly presume the truth of your classical theism?  5 minutes?  50 years?

And if god has the power to eliminate imperfection, then he is no less responsible for continued imperfection on this earth, than the parent is responsible for the house burning down if they knew their kids were playing with matches, and chose to do nothing but sit there and watch...like god does.  We call it "neglect".

The Laws of Logic are simply an attribute and reflection of God’s perfect existence; God does not create these laws, they are an innate and immutable aspect of His nature.

 Then the bible cannot be the word of god, because it contradicts itself.   Compare John 3:16 with Psalm 5:5, and check a thesaurus before you assure me that the opposite of love isn't hate but apathy.   And be sure to specifically note: Psalm 5:5 doesn't say God merely hates the sin.  In that verse God's hatred in upon the sinner or "worker" of iniquity, i.e., the person themself, not merely their sin.  But there is no law against using your faulty concept of the NT to blind yourself to unChristian OT realities.  There's also no law preventing toddlers from dumping a full bowl of cereal on their face and thinking this is the proper way to relieve hunger.

As God is necessary for all else to exist, so are the Laws of Logic. They are merely a reflection of His Being, and they permeate all of His creation.

No, that's the fallacy of begging the question.  Your answer is already presupposing the validity of logic, when in fact you are supposed to be independently accounting for logic itself.  Either break the circle by giving a non-logical answer, or admit that you cannot answer the question of why logic exists, without committing the fallacy of begging the question.

Both the atheist and the theist agree something is eternal, uncaused and necessary.

yup, the universe.

But when the atheist says the Laws of Logic “simply exist”, he’s begging the question; he’s not providing an explanation for the eternal, uncaused and necessary existence of the laws (saying they exist does not provide us with an explanation for their existence).

 That's your fault for asking us to give a logical answer to the question of where logic comes from.  Your asking of such question is the problem, since what you ask cannot be answered without begging the question, which means the problem is with the person formulating the question.  Any question that requires your answer to take the form of a logical fallacy, is therefore a fallacious question. 

When you blame God for logic, you say so with words that conform to the laws of logic...hence, begging the validity of the very logic that you are pretending to provide an independent accounting for.

Theists, on the other hand, can make a case for God’s existence from a number of evidential lines, providing a reasonable foundation from which logical absolutes can then be elucidated.

 Your case for theism sucks, as I've shown repeatedly at this blog.  While god might be one explanation for what you perceive to be intelligent design, he isn't the only explanation, and by god being so complex himself, Ocaam's Razor would counsel that the god-explanation is less likely than any other.

In addition, atheism fails to explain how the Laws of Logic can be eternal and uncaused and what role they play in causing all other contingent realities.

That's your fault.  If you correctly realized that logic is axiomatic, you'd understand why it is stupid and illogical to even ask why logic exists. Axioms are not subject to analysis.  If they were, they wouldn't be "axioms".

Theism, on the other hand, accounts for the existence of the Laws of Logic by pointing to the existence of an omniscient and omnipotent uncaused, first cause possessing perfect rationality (by virtue of His limitless power) who also acts as the first cause of all other dependent (contingent) creations.

Sorry, Wallace, but you are preaching to a narrow choir, there are plenty of Christian scholars who deny the bible-gods omniscience and omnipotence.  You need to stop talking all bigoted like that if you wish to take on atheists. They are not going to shove aside every other viable Christian interpretation of the bible and "just" allow your blind assumption of classical theism to slide by without criticism. God's imperfection is clear from Genesis 6:6-7.  The entire chapter is believed by classical theist Christians to be describing literal history, so there's no contextual justification to pretend that this particular passage therein is an "anthropomorphism" or something other than literal language.  And the original recipients of that story certainly wouldn't have had systematic theology or bible inerrancy on the brain, so they more than likely took the claim at face value, without trifling about semantics the way an inerrantist or jailhouse lawyer would.  So the passage is reasonably understood to be literal, and thus, God's regretting his own prior decision to create man is a strong indication of his imperfection.  Did he know from all eternity that he would regret creating man?  If God does things he knows he will regret, he has more in common with the impulsive teenager than he has with intelligence.

Objection:

Aren’t the “Laws of Logic” simply the result of observations we make of the world in which we live? We discovered the Laws of Physics from our observations of the natural world; can’t we discover the Laws of Logic in a similar way?

I've deleted your answer here because I'm one of those atheists who doesn't account for logic that way.


Your argument to God from logic does precisely nothing to intellectually obligate the atheist to admit God's existence.  You would have glorified your god more had you simply quoted the bible.  Going beyond what is written is dangerous, and the devil can make you think your intellect is sufficient to fill up the theological gaps left by your bible.  Don't be stupid.