Behold, The Argument from Truth

[Dardedar]

I've been having a little round and round with a fellow who calls himself a "Libertarian Theocrat." He also believes in Bigfoot and a few other wild and woolly things. In a separate thread I'll post a big dump of my exchanges with him but I thought I would share this doosey he just posted the on the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers Facebook site. See what you think:

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ED
Gordon Clark being a presuppositionalist normally did not argue for the existence of God, but in this case he thought it was valuable. Taking his cue from Augustine, he developed this argument. This argument is also given by Alvin Plantinga in a slightly different way. The following is Ronald Nash's explanation of Clark's argument.

Gordon Clark's account of the argument from truth utilizes six steps:

1. Truth Exists... See More
2. Truth is immutable
3. Truth is eternal
4. Truth is mental
5. Truth is superior to the human mind
6. Truth is God

1. "Truth exists." Clark establishes this point by reminding us of the self-defeating nature of any attempt to deny the existence of truth. Since skepticism is false, there must be knowledge; and if there is knowledge, there must exist the object of knowledge, namely truth.

2. "Truth is immutable." It is impossible for truth to change. As Clark says, "Truth must be unchangeable. What is true today always has been and always will be true." For Clark, all true propositions are eternal and immutable truths. He has no use for pragmatic views of truth that imply that what is true today may be false tomorrow. If truth changes, then pragmatism will be false tomorrow-if, indeed, it could ever be true. Truth itself is unaffected by the fact that sentences like "I am now typing" are sometimes true and usually false. Since I'll present a rather long argument in defense of this claim later in this chapter, I'll assume that this possible problem can be answered and move on to Clark's next point.

3. "Truth is eternal." It would be self-contradictory to deny the eternity of truth. If the world will never cease to exist, it is true that the world will never cease to exist. If the world will someday perish, then that is true. But truth itself will abide even though every created thing should perish. But suppose someone asks, "what if truth itself should perish?" Then it would still be true that truth had perished. Any denial of the eternity of truth turns out to be an affirmation of its eternity.

4. "Truth is Mental." The existence of truth presupposes the existence of minds. "Without a mind, truth could not exist. The object of knowledge is a proposition, a meaning, a significance; it is a thought." For Clark, the existence of truth is incompatible with any materialistic view of man. If the materialist admits the existence of consciousness at all, he regards it as an effect and not a cause. For a materialist, thoughts are always the result of bodily changes. This materialism implies that all thinking, including logical reasoning, is merely the result of mechanical necessity. But bodily changes can be neither true nor false. One set of physical motions cannot be truer than another. Therefore, if there is no mind, there can be no truth; and if there is no truth, materialism cannot be true. Likewise, if there is no mind, there can be no such thing as logical reasoning from which it follows that no materialist can possible provide a valid argument for his position. No reason can possible be given to justify an acceptance of materialism. Hence, for Clark, any denial of the mental nature of truth is self-stultifying. In Clarks words,

"If a truth, a proposition, or a thought were some physical motion in the brain, no two persons could have the same thought. A physical motion is a fleeting event numerically distinct from every other. Two persons cannot have the same motion, nor can one person have it twice. If this is what thought were, memory and communication would be impossible…It is a peculiarity of mind and not of body that the past can be made present. Accordingly, if one may thing the same thought twice, truth must be mental or spiritual. Not only does [truth] defy time; it defies space as well, for if communication is to be possible, the identical truth must be in two minds at once. If, in opposition, anyone wished to deny that an immaterial idea can exist in two minds at once, his denial must be conceived to exist in his own mind only; and since it has not registered in any other mind, it does not occur to us to refute it."

To summarize Clark's argument thus far, truth exists and is both eternal and immutable. Furthermore, truth can exist only in some mind.

5. "Truth is superior to the human mind." By this, Clark means that by its very nature, truth cannot be subjective and individualistic. Humans know certain truths that are not only necessary but universal. While these truths are immutable, the human mind is changeable. Even though beliefs vary from one person to another, truth itself cannot change. Moreover, the human mind does not stand in judgment of truth: rather truth judges our reason. While we often judge other human minds (as when we say, for example, that someone's mind is not a keen as it should be), we do not judge truth. If truth and the human mind were equal, truth could not be eternal and immutable since the human mind is finite, mutable, and subject to error. Therefore, truth must transcend human reason; truth must be superior to any individual human mind as well as to the sum total of human minds. From this it follows that there must be a mind higher than the human mind in which truth resides.

6. "Truth is God." There must be an ontological ground for truth. But the ground of truth cannot be anything perishable or contingent. Since truth is eternal and immutable, it must exist in an eternal Mind. And since only God possesses these attributes, God must be truth.

"Is all this any more than the assertion that there is an eternal, immutable Mind, as Supreme Reason, a personal, living God? The truths or propositions that may be known are the thoughts of God, the eternal thoughts of God. And insofar as man knows anything he is in contact with God's mind. Since further, God's mind is God, we may… say, we have a vision of God."

Therefore, When human beings know truth, we also know something of God's nature. There is a sense in which all knowledge is a knowledge of God.

-Ronald Nash – Faith and Reason - p. 161

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http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000026547562

[Doug]

1. "Truth exists." Clark establishes this point by reminding us of the self-defeating nature of any attempt to deny the existence of truth. Since skepticism is false, there must be knowledge; and if there is knowledge, there must exist the object of knowledge, namely truth.

DOUG
Even granting that skepticism (presumably, what is meant here is skepticism as the denial of the possibility of knowledge) is false, it does not follow that we have knowledge, although it would follow that there is the possibility of knowledge. Further, it is not clear that the "object of knowledge" is truth in the sense that the proponent of the argument wants to suggest. Truth doesn't end up resembling anything like what this person would understand. This guy seems to have a Platonic view of truth, that truths are objects that are immutable and eternal. That ends up making no sense at all, and it is only in the 20th century that philosophers started to break the stranglehold such a mixed-up view of truth has had on the field of epistemology (theories of knowledge).

"Obama is the first one." With regard to black presidents, this is false. Many other countries have had black presidents before Obama became one. With regard to women serving in Congress, it is also false. Ditto with men on the moon. Only on one interpretation of the statement is it true. The notion that truth obtains only within an interpretation is something that wreaks havoc with the Platonic view. If truth exists within an interpretation, it can't be eternal, among other things, since there were no interpretations until humans had language and then could have interpretations. And that's not the end of its troubles.

2. "Truth is immutable." It is impossible for truth to change. As Clark says, "Truth must be unchangeable. What is true today always has been and always will be true."

DOUG
Big problem: Free will. If it has always been true that I would be typing this sentence at this moment, then there is no way that I could avoid typing this sentence. If there is no way I could avoid it, then I was not free to refrain from typing this sentence, in which case I had no choice about whether or not to type this sentence. And if I had no choice then I am not doing it freely.

Another problem: if truth is within an interpretation, then what sense does it make to say that a statement's truth cannot change? "My wife is from Kansas City" may be true for a person on one occasion but false when he remarries. So the truth of a statement CAN change, obviously.

Philosophers in the 20th century tried to salvage the Platonic view by saying that when someone says "My wife is from Kansas City" what I really mean is "The sole known spouse of Douglas E. Krueger, address such-and-such, on May 28th 2010, according to the Gregorian calendar, lived a significant portion of her life and had her legal residence, from ages such-and-such to such-and-such, in such-and-such part of Kansas City, USA" etc. And it must be even more specific to be accurate (what is a legal residence? for example) But the obvious problem is that this long sentence is NOT what I was thinking of when I said "My wife is from Kansas City" and it is not what I meant. Those are the lengths to which some people have gone to salvage the notion that truth cannot change.

3. "Truth is eternal." It would be self-contradictory to deny the eternity of truth. If the world will never cease to exist, it is true that the world will never cease to exist. If the world will someday perish, then that is true. But truth itself will abide even though every created thing should perish. But suppose someone asks, "what if truth itself should perish?" Then it would still be true that truth had perished. Any denial of the eternity of truth turns out to be an affirmation of its eternity.

DOUG
If everything perished, no one could say that truth had perished. For me, truth is a linguistic phenomenon. Nothing more. No other view of truth makes sense. If there is no language, there is no truth. Period.

And again, to say that truth is eternal and immutable does away with any possibility of free will. If you want free will, you can't find it among immutable, unchanging truths about what you will or won't do during your life.

4. "Truth is Mental." The existence of truth presupposes the existence of minds. "Without a mind, truth could not exist. The object of knowledge is a proposition, a meaning, a significance; it is a thought." For Clark, the existence of truth is incompatible with any materialistic view of man. If the materialist admits the existence of consciousness at all, he regards it as an effect and not a cause. For a materialist, thoughts are always the result of bodily changes. This materialism implies that all thinking, including logical reasoning, is merely the result of mechanical necessity. But bodily changes can be neither true nor false. One set of physical motions cannot be truer than another.

This is just the fallacy of division. "What is true of the whole must be true of the parts." So the person reasons that since the physical parts can't be individually true or false, therefore the whole body can't be true or false, hence truth is not physical. I agree that truth is not a physical thing, just as being the winner of a race is not a wholly physical thing. My foot can't be the winner of a race, and neither can my fingers or my spleen. But it does not follow that I as an entity cannot win a race. Whether I am the winner of a race is a matter of physical motion as well as the rules used in the game. Similarly, whether something is true is a function of my beliefs, which may be physical, and how my beliefs fit in with the current interpretations being used. No physicalist believes that truth is just a matter of the arrangement of atoms in your body or your brain.

Therefore, if there is no mind, there can be no truth; and if there is no truth, materialism cannot be true.

There are materialist views of mind, so one can easily be a materialist, believe in minds, and believe that propositions are true or false. This person has no awareness of the field of philosophy on this matter.

Likewise, if there is no mind, there can be no such thing as logical reasoning from which it follows that no materialist can possible provide a valid argument for his position.

Again, there are materialist views of mind, so one can easily be a materialist and use logic without being inconsistent.

To summarize Clark's argument thus far, truth exists and is both eternal and immutable. Furthermore, truth can exist only in some mind.

DOUG
Clark is wrong so far.

5. "Truth is superior to the human mind." By this, Clark means that by its very nature, truth cannot be subjective and individualistic. Humans know certain truths that are not only necessary but universal. While these truths are immutable, the human mind is changeable. Even though beliefs vary from one person to another, truth itself cannot change. Moreover, the human mind does not stand in judgment of truth: rather truth judges our reason. While we often judge other human minds (as when we say, for example, that someone's mind is not a keen as it should be), we do not judge truth. If truth and the human mind were equal, truth could not be eternal and immutable since the human mind is finite, mutable, and subject to error. Therefore, truth must transcend human reason; truth must be superior to any individual human mind as well as to the sum total of human minds. From this it follows that there must be a mind higher than the human mind in which truth resides.

DOUG
Since Clark has given no good reason to think that truth is immutable and unchanging, all of the latter is moot.

6. "Truth is God." There must be an ontological ground for truth. But the ground of truth cannot be anything perishable or contingent. Since truth is eternal and immutable, it must exist in an eternal Mind. And since only God possesses these attributes, God must be truth.

DOUG
Since the claim that truth is eternal and immutable is unsupported, the argument fails. But more than that, it does not follow from the (alleged) fact that truth must be in a mind, that it must be in one mind, or that it must always be in the same mind. Why couldn't truth be in a billion eternal minds, divided up so that each one just has a little bit of truth, and no one mind has all truth? This would satisfy the requirement that all truths are eternal and mental. As you can see, Clark has his conclusion all laid out, and he stretches logic to try to get there.

Besides, this is just another version of what I call the Mindreading View of Truth. On this view, truth must exist in God's mind in order for us to know it. We can only know something if we read God's mind.

But why should we believe that we can only think that 1 + 1 = 2 if God believes it first? We have to read God's mind, apparently. How do we do that? What is the mechanism for this? How can we know when we've done it correctly or incorrectly? And how can we check our criteria for the latter? And if we don't have reliable access, the truth in God's mind is worthless to us.

Besides, if God can believe that 1 + 1 = 2 without someone else having to believe it first, then there is no reason in principle that we can't believe something without God believing it first also.

The end result of this Platonic view of truth is a completely useless position. What good would it do for truth to be in some eternal mind if we don't have reliable access to that mind? The history of the failure of religion to provide moral and scientific truths is proof of the futility of this approach.

[Dardedar]

A most excellent dissection of these arguments Doug. I'll make sure the facebook thread where this was posted has a link to your rebuttal.

Here's what I posted, in this thread (scroll down):

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Good news. My friend Doug, co-founder of the Fayetteville Freethinkers, has a taken a few moments to walk through and carefully respond to this "Argument from Truth" Ed posted. Quite accessible, informative and polite. I encourage anyone interested in the questions brought up by Ed's material to take a few moments to read it. It's posted here:

viewtopic.php?p=21591#p21591

Doug has been a professional philosoph[er] and educator for almost 20 years. He is putting the final touches on his dissertation at the U of A, which will complete his Ph.D in philosophy.

I travel with Doug around the US as he debates various Christians on different topics. See a list of them here:

http://fayfreethinkers.com/debates/

We hope to have many of them online soon. In 2001, he and I traveled to Maryland (4th debate down) where Doug debated a presuppositionalist. Of all of the debates I have attended, I don't think I have ever seen a Christian lose this bad. Doug positively wiped the floor with the guy. And they knew it. There is a reason presuppers aren't even taken seriously in Christian circles.

D.