0:00 PRAYER
1:06 THE IMPORTANCE FOR CHRISTIANS TO UNDERSTAND TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENTS (TA) TRANSCENDENTAL REASONING (TR)…Its Relationship To Worldview Considerations: Metaphysics, Epistemology, & Ethics
2:17 Modern Philosophy’s Abandonment Of WV Considerations…Preview Of Lecture Series:..The Significance Of Kant’s TR
4:17 Van Til
4:56 GLB Explains That He Will Show Why He Cares About TR In Terms Of Arguments For GOD’s Existence…DECLARES, GOD’s EXISTENCE IS NOT ONLY OBJECTIVELY TRUE, IT’S OBJECTIVELY PROVABLE.
5:38 (PREPARATORY REMARKS)
5:39 THE NATURE OF PROOF…Epistemological Studies: Fallibilist Tradition
7:10 – Separating The Question Of The Truth Of GOD’s Existence From Personal Prejudice…
11:45 – An Argument Need Not Be Accepted By Everyone To Be Conclusive…O.J. Simpson Trial…Court System…Cultural Acknowledgment That Proof Is Available; The Difference Between Proof & Persuasion…
14:26 Ad Hominem eg, “I Don’t Like Your Tie”…Fallibilist, All Arguments Are Less Than Conclusive
16:14 The Distinction Between METAPHYSICS & EPISTEMOLOGY
16:35 – Something Can Exist/Can Be Real, Without Us Knowing It
16:57 – Something Existing & A Person Being Able To Prove It…eg, Planet Uranus
17:30 – Something Can Exist Even Though A Person Offers Reasons Against It…eg, GLB’s Having/Not Having Diabetes
18:28 SUMMARY
19:10 (Introductory Consideration) THE RELATIONSHIP OF FAITH & REASON
21:02 – GLB Opposes FIDEISM. It’s Defined As Christian Faith Being Independent Of Reason…On The Contrary, GLB Maintains That Christian Faith Is Demanded By Reason
21:46 – REASON Can Be Affirmed Without Endorsing RATIONALISM, Which (In The Broad Sense) Says That Man’s Mind Is The Highest Authority/Is Autonomous
22:19 – THE AUTONOMOUS MAN/AUTONOMY … Wrong-Headed Christians Who Want To Promote Autonomous Reasoning To Get People To Believe In The Christian GOD
24:35 – RATIONALISM Vs. RATIONALITY, Which Refers To Man’s Intellectual Capability…GLB Affirms RATIONALITY Because GOD Made Us To THINK! WE’RE TO USE OUR MINDS TO GLORIFY GOD.(2Cor10:5)
25:42 – The Christian Use Of RATIONALITY Refutes RATIONALISM
25:58 – (GLB Turns The Table On The AUTONOMOUS/RATIONALIST MAN) GLB Argues That All REASONING Rests Upon FAITH (Note: Faith Doesn’t Go Beyond Reason) …You Can’t Justify REASONING Without A Broader WORLDVIEW. & The Only WV That Will Allow For RATIONAL Procedures Is The Christian WV
26:45 – WE’RE ARGUING THAT IF ANYBODY REASONS AT ALL, ULTIMATELY THEY’RE BORROWING FROM/ACTUALLY WORKING IN TERMS OF THE CHRISTIAN OUTLOOK ON LIFE!
27:05 HOW ARE WE TO PROVE THAT RATIONALITY ITSELF IS ONLY INTELLIGIBLE/RATIONAL WITHIN THE CHRISTIAN WV?
27:44 THE FOUR GENERAL KINDS OF PROOF/REASONING: 1) RATIONALIST 2) EMPIRICIST 3) PRAGMATIST 4) TRANSCENDENTAL
29:16 1) …Attempts To Prove Things By Showing They Can Be Deduced Into Self-Evidential Truths That Are Known In A Rational Way…(Dualist) Rene’ Descartes (I think, therefore I am)…Refuted By Bertrand Russell…Continental Rationalism…Spinoza (Theory of Attributes: Substance…Monist)…Leibniz (Infinite Plurality of Substances: Monads)
32:42 SUMMARY: Reduce To Subjectivism
33:01 2)…Seeing Is Believing…To Know Anything Is To Be Able To Trace What You’re Claiming To Know & Every Aspect Of It, Back To Some Kind Of Observational Certainty…Considerations Of Cognitive Psychology…Refuted By David Hume…John Locke…
36:03 SUMMARY: Falls Apart At The Receptor & Interpretation Angle…Who Knows If There’s Sensorial Unity To Arrive At The Truth…Leads To Categorization Problems…Language Problems…Cultural Relativism…Concept Formation Problems…Can’t Live Up To Its Own Requirements…Ludwig Wittgenstein
42:01 Note The Pattern: Rationalism Reduces To Subjectivism, Therefore Skepticism (RTS,TS). Empiricism (RTS,TS)…The Autonomous Attempt To Find Irrefutable “Common Sense Notions” (RTS,TS)
44:55 Disloyalty & Loyalty To Philosophical Approaches…Naturalizing Epistemology…Kurt Godel
48:14 The Naive Philosophy Novice…Gordon Stein
50:44 3)…Who Cares As Long As A Certain Procedure Allows Us To Make Progress, Then Its Rational…Willard Van Orman Quine
52:07 SUMMARY:..Falls Apart Because It Presumes We Know What Ends To Seek…No Justification For The Normativity Of The End That’s Pursued By What They Call Rationality…(RTS,TS)…GLB Adds More Criticism…John Dewey
55:15 All Fields Are Reducing To Relativism…When Skepticism Wins Out, You Always End Up With Either Anarchism & Dogmatism…Deconstructivism
58:11 4)…REASONING WHICH SEEKS THE PRECONDITIONS OF THE INTELLIGIBILITY OF EXPERIENCE (OF THE BROADEST SENSE)…SAYS, THE TRUTH CAN BE KNOWN
1:06:06 …Translates Into The Christian Context, Where THE EXISTENCE OF GOD CAN ALSO BE PROVEN
1:06:23 GLB Demonstrates THE TA By Contrasting The Cosmological Argument
1:11:46 Inductive Argument eg
1:12:50 Cosmological Argument Revisited
1:18:19 THE PROOF FOR THE RATIONALITY OF CHRISTIANITY…THE NEXT LECTURE HAS ALL THE DETAILS
Dr. Bahnsen and Michael Butler co-teach a 1995 summer seminar on transcendental arguments. With clear and jargon-free analysis, this course critiques various traditional theistic proofs, unpacks the philosophical background of transcendental reasoning, defends Cornelius Van Til’s presuppositional apologetic over against his critics, and above all, equips the saints to prove the objective truth of God’s existence—apart from which one cannot reason, make sense of reasoning, or prove anything at all.
- Four Types of Proof (1 of 10)
- Van Til’s Why I Believe in God (2 of 10)
- Kant in Context (3 of 10)
- Contemporary Transcendental Arguments, Part 1 (4 of 10)
- Contemporary Transcendental Arguments, Part 2 (5 of 10)
- Summary of Transcendental Arguments, Part 1 (6 of 10)
- Summary of Transcendental Arguments, Part 2 (7 of 10)
- Apologetical Transcendental Argument (8 of 10)
- Back to Basics (9 of 10)
- Van Til’s Critics: Hoover, Dooyeweerd, Frame (10 of 10)
