Re: Murder and free will
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The original statement:
What you describe is what I meant by "irrational skepticism." If you make the statement that "the universe is unintelligible" That is an intelligent statement about the universe, and thus is self-contradictory, it cannot logically stand. Now of course, you can deny logic, but this needs to be logically sound itself in order to stand "logic is false" means "logic is true" (now that you throw out the laws of logic). But if you say there is some possibility of knowledge, then it is necessary to presuppose the entire biblical worldview.
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Responding to each statement you have made in response:
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1)Logic does not need to be ultimate form of knowledge that you suppose that it must.
Umm ok. I am unclear as to what you mean by "ultimate form of knowledge." Could you clarify this? This confusion is reflected in my responses to your other statements, so do forgive me if I misunderstand what you're saying.
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***I used the term ultimate form of knowledge because you seem to think that logic must represent truth and falsity in their Platonic form. Logic is the main tool humans have to understand existence. However, I do not think that since something is logically true that is is true in the Platonic sense. In short, existence itself is irrational and not bound by logic. Human understanding is bound by logic, and therefore is not an ultimate form of understanding because it is only superficial truth and falsity that we perceive.
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2)I take a Kantian view and think that we cannot have ultimate knowledge about existence as a whole, but instead we use the human faculty of reason to make sense of the world as best we can.
I'm saying that apart from God there is no sense. You cannot do "as best you can" because you don't know what is true or false apart from God soveign will.
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***We do know what is true and false by utilizing our tool for understanding the world: logic. I stated we understand the world as best we can since logic itself cannot fully describe existence since logic does not represent truth and falsity in Platonic form. However, within human experience, the truth and falsity that can be determined by logic is both good enough and all we have.
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3)It is not contradictory to believe that humans use rationality to understand existence but that existence itself is not fully comprehendible by the human rational faculty.
I agree. I never said existence was fully comprehendible, but just that the only way for existence to be comprehendible in part or whole is the soveignty of God.
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***You make no argument here. You simply state your opinion. Having read my epistemological views, you can see that I disagree with your opinion.
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4) I do not presuppose that the universe is bound by logic -- it appears you do -- but I do think that human knowledge of the universe is bound by logic.
I must say I am having trouble understanding the difference between what you mean by the statements "the universe is not bound by logic" but "human knowledge of the universe is bound by logic". could you explain this?
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I think I already have answered this question above, but I will summarize. Humans come to know the world through our faculty of logic. Existence itself is not fully bound by logic. Essentially, we are the people in Plato's cave, with logic being the lens through which we view the shadows on the wall, which are representative of reality, but only in a very limited sense. We do come to know the world partially through logic, but it is only a shadow of all that is actually there. I have no problem with that. It appears to me to be a universal characteristic of Christians that they do have a problem with that.
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