Biblical circularity.

[Faith No More]

I would disagree though, before I became a Christian I was opposed to and an enemy of God, after my conversion I was adopted as God’s child through Christ. So even the person who claims to be open-minded and neutral on these matters is really not neutral because they are claiming that scripture is wrong when it says there is no neutrality.

But that is just your experience. You went from one end of bias, to the other, but that doesn't mean everyone has to. In my experience, I was raised Christian but parents never discussed religion with me at all. The only part religion played in our lives was going to church every Sunday. Consequently, I had no real presupposition either way on the legitimacy of the bible, except for the fact I was being taught it during Sunday school. It is impossible for anyone to be completely free of bias, as we are biased beings by nature, but it is possible for a person to be as unbiased as possible when interpreting the bible.

You are one of the straightest shooters on this site , and I really appreciate it. I think we are arriving at a similar conclusion but by different means. I say the playing field is equal because everyone is biased, you say the playing field is equal because people on both sides are not biased.

Thank you for the compliment and I appreciate the civil debate. The point I was trying to make was not so much that people on either side are unbiased, but that people on either side can be unbiased as much as humanly possible. There are, however, also biased people on both sides. To clarify, when I'm saying bias here, I am talking about a conscious bias, not the bias that comes from our own personal perspective.

Either way I think we can agree that both sides are allowed to use their own ammunition right?

Wouldn't have it any other way.

You see what I am saying is that if scripture were inerrant there would be no way to test for this. So I think it really has to be a presupposition.

There would be no empirical way to test for it, but one can use their intuition as to what their concept of the word of god would look like. I think 'personal interpretation' would be a better label for this than presupposition.

However, I do not believe this is incorrect reasoning because presupposing that scripture is what it claims to be offers a foundation for a host of other presuppositions that are also required to gain knowledge. I actually cannot think of a way to account for these other presuppositions in a world that the God of the Bible does not reside over.

This is where I have to disagree, because if this were true, you would also have to agree that it is not incorrect reasoning to presuppose the scripture is not what it claims. I think the only way to come to a conclusion of the bible's validity that is true to yourself is to make up one's mind after learning about it.

Could you clarify further into what you mean with that last sentence?