Theistic Argument Against Apologetics

[MindForgedManacle]

There was a new thread on God's hiddenness, which reminded me of these 2 videos showing why God's hiddenness is something like a deathblow to religious apologetics:

Theistic Argument Against Apologetics





The Futility of Religious Apologetics






They're pretty good I think. :p

[MindForgedManacle]

-cricket-

What did you all think of the argument pushed in the first video?

Theistic Argument Against Apologetics (the lulzy name is patterned after Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism):

P1) If God exists, he remains hidden.

1a) One could assert that we all know God exists deep down, but this seems too hard a line to take. And if we all know, why the apparent hiddenness?

P2) God hides because he does not want us to be forced to accept his existence on pain of irrationality, in order to preserve human freewill and moral autonomy.

P3) Giventhat God is omniscient and omnipotent, there can be no argument which forces a nonbeliever to accept God's existence on pain of irrationality.

C) There can be no conclusive proof of God's existence.

His argument boils down to that so long as theists answer the problem of divine hiddenness with an appeal to the preservation of freewill, they necessarily cannot establish God's existence because in the process it would do the very thing God is supposed to be avoiding. Even an inference to the best explanation is beyond them with that response.

[Angrboda]

I don't remember the specifics of the videos, but I found both good, one more so than the other.

It parallels an argument that I've made previously. Apologists usually advance arguments for belief that bear no relation to the reasons why they first came to believe. If the reasons they first came to believe were sound and compelling, why don't they use those reasons instead? If the arguments they are advancing weren't responsible for persuading them, then why do they conclude that they should be persuasive? If they came to believe for reasons that aren't compelling, why should we come to believe for those reason? Either way you look at it, the apologist is tacitly admitting that his original reasons for belief are insufficient, because if they were sufficient, he would be using them as an argument instead (as they are proven to persuade, at least in the apologist's case).

[MindForgedManacle]

I don't remember the specifics of the videos, but I found both good, one more so than the other.

Yeah, those two YT users do some great work. Heck, the maker of the 2nd video (KnownNoMore) is crazy in-depth (yet accessible): he has a growing series of a dozen-plus videos on every way that Presuppositional Apologetics is complete crap, a comprehensive video cutting through theistic morality, etc. He's really quite polished and I love his Dutch accent. /slight fanboy

It parallels an argument that I've made previously. Apologists usually advance arguments for belief that bear no relation to the reasons why they first came to believe. If the reasons they first came to believe were sound and compelling, why don't they use those reasons instead? If the arguments they are advancing weren't responsible for persuading them, then why do they conclude that they should be persuasive? If they came to believe for reasons that aren't compelling, why should we come to believe for those reason? Either way you look at it, the apologist is tacitly admitting that his original reasons for belief are insufficient, because if they were sufficient, he would be using them as an argument instead (as they are proven to persuade, at least in the apologist's case).

Good work. It really does give voice to the absurdity of apologetics.

The apologist William Craig, for example, has stated that his own conversion was a result of the testimony of a girl in his high school, and that should all the evidence turn against Christianity, he can dismiss that as "historically contigent" because that does not "controvert the witness of the Holy Spirit, in my heart".

/headache

[Esquilax]

It parallels an argument that I've made previously. Apologists usually advance arguments for belief that bear no relation to the reasons why they first came to believe. If the reasons they first came to believe were sound and compelling, why don't they use those reasons instead? If the arguments they are advancing weren't responsible for persuading them, then why do they conclude that they should be persuasive? If they came to believe for reasons that aren't compelling, why should we come to believe for those reason? Either way you look at it, the apologist is tacitly admitting that his original reasons for belief are insufficient, because if they were sufficient, he would be using them as an argument instead (as they are proven to persuade, at least in the apologist's case).

Well, the mean-spirited part of me thinks that apologists are just desperately trying to legitimize a belief that has no legitimacy with their arguments, but in truth it's probably more to do with all this personal experience stuff that every theist backpedals to when they've got no more arguments to give; they've witnessed the holy spirit and so they know that god is real, but being that they're currently unable to demonstrate this knowledge, here's a bunch of apologetic arguments that should tide you over until you have your own personal experience that justifies this belief that you should have now, because of these apologetics.

It's just a consequence of the weakness of the position that all of those arguments fall away under critical analysis.

[Faith No More]

It parallels an argument that I've made previously. Apologists usually advance arguments for belief that bear no relation to the reasons why they first came to believe. If the reasons they first came to believe were sound and compelling, why don't they use those reasons instead? If the arguments they are advancing weren't responsible for persuading them, then why do they conclude that they should be persuasive? If they came to believe for reasons that aren't compelling, why should we come to believe for those reason? Either way you look at it, the apologist is tacitly admitting that his original reasons for belief are insufficient, because if they were sufficient, he would be using them as an argument instead (as they are proven to persuade, at least in the apologist's case).

I am of the opinion that engaging in apologetics is simply an attempt to justify a conclusion with post-hoc rationalization. In other words, it may be that the apologist isn't so much defending their faith to others as they are subconsciously defending it to themselves, which would render the initial reasons for their conclusion useless, as that is the very thing they are attempting to justify. Or maybe they simply fear having their initial reasons properly criticized, which would bring the whole house of cards crashing down.

Either way, the whole charade definitely appears to be more for the benefit of the apologist than anyone else.

[Faith No More]

Well, the mean-spirited part of me thinks that apologists are just desperately trying to legitimize a belief that has no legitimacy with their arguments, but in truth it's probably more to do with all this personal experience stuff that every theist backpedals to when they've got no more arguments to give;

I think it has more to do with rationalizing a conclusion drawn from personal experience. In their heart they feel god exists, and all of these other arguments are an attempt to justify that feeling.