Paradox Part 1

I’m not sure about you, but I’ve heard the term used in Christian circles a lot lately. Those who use the word paradox are usually referring to a type of mystery or tension between two biblical truths. Here’s how J.I. Packer defines antinomy (another word for paradox) in his book Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. Notice he also makes a clear judgment about how we should handle such things:

“An antinomy – in theology, at any rate – is…not a real contradiction, though it looks like one. It is an apparent incompatibility between two apparent truths. An antinomy exists when a pair of principlies stand side by side, seemingly irreconcilable, yet both undeniable…[An antinomy] is insoluble…What should one do, then, with an antinomy? Accept it for what it is, and learn to live with it. Refuse to regard the apparent contradiction as real.”

Robert Reymond, former professor of Systematics at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, agrees with Packer’s definition, but not with his conclusion. Here’s part of what Reymond had to say about paradox in his work A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith:

“…many of our finest modern evangelical scholars are insisting that even after the human interpreter has understood the Bible correctly, it will often represent its truths to the human existent – even the believing human existent – in paradoxical terms, that is, in terms “taught unmistakably in the infallible Word of God,” which, while not actually contradictory, nevertheless “cannot possibly be reconciled before the bar of human reason.”

However… “bible students should be solicitous to interpret the Scriptures in a noncontradictory way; they should strive to harmonize Scripture with Scripture because the Scriptures reflect the thought of a single divine mind.”

I’ll be attempting to explore the implications of both views in a short series of upcoming posts. I hope you’ll be challenged to think critically about these things, even if you’ve never heard of them before now.

Empiricism: More Glaring Issues

In the previous post, I mentioned a couple of glaring problems with Empiricism, and I would like to offer two more.

1) The Empirical Claim cannot be proven by the claim itself

Empiricists say that we can only know things by sense perception. However, what sense did they use to construct the proposition: we can only know things by sense perception? They are then impaled on the horns of an epistemological dilemma. If they hold to their proposition, they become irrational because they cannot justify their beliefs. If they try to prove empiricism by some other sort of philosophical system, they self-refute their own argument: we can only know things by sense perception because they are now use some higher presuppositional standard to prove Empiricism.

2) Infinite regression of “evidence”

Since Empiricism relies on material evidence, we see a second problem. If one says that in order to believe P we must provide evidence A for it, the person would then need new evidence A’ to justify evidence A. Then in order to justify A’, they would need evidence A”, ad nauseam.

Empiricism: A Tree Without Roots

Epistemology, the theory of knowledge, can be seen as a subdivision of ethics because it is concerned with justification – what right do we have to believe what we believe, what we ought to believe, and why others ought to believe as well.

Empiricism is a particular school of epistemology that emphasizes the role of evidence through the means of sensory perception in attempting to justify how we know things. Empiricists claim that we can only know things that can be observed by using our senses. Therefore, that which is immaterial in nature (God, morality, logic, etc.) either:

1) cannot exist in an empiricist’s worldview because it cannot be observed by using one’s senses.
or
2) the empiricist does not deny its existence (such as morality and logic) but is unable to intelligibly account for such things in their worldview.

The presuppositions of the empiricist are quite glaring.

1) The Problem of Justification
David Hume, the famous Scottish and atheistic philosopher, made some very interesting statements concerning empiricism, though he was an empiricist himself.

First of all, Hume pointed out the “is-ought problem.” That is, how does one get from “what is” to “what ought to be?” The difference between “is” and “ought” are referred to as “descriptive” and “prescriptive” statements. Hume noted that though empiricism uses descriptive statements, it cannot justify ethical values (prescriptive statements). Statements about observed facts using our senses does not tell us anything about good or bad, right or wrong.

I mentioned the beginning that epistemology is related to ethics because it concerns what we ought (ethical prescription) to believe and why we ought to believe it. Therefore, if empiricism can only tell us facts but cannot justify what, why, and how we ought to believe by sense perception, then empiricism cannot justify empiricism. This is like a tree without roots, without any grounding or foundation. Better yet, it is as steadfast and secure as having one’s feet planted firmly in mid-air.

2) Logical Laws and Mathematics
Further, empiricism cannot account for logical laws such as the law of non-contradiction because logical laws are immaterial in nature. Same goes with mathematics. The number 3 is immaterial in nature. Which of the five senses do we use to account for the number 3? Obviously, we can represent the number 3 and the law of non-contradiction on paper, but before we even write it down, they exist in nature. If I throw the paper away, they still exist, and therefore, they are immaterial in nature. The empiricist finds themselves in trouble quite quickly because they use logic and mathematics daily, but the problem is, they cannot account for it in their worldview because it cannot be observed using their senses.

3) The Uniformity of Nature
Lastly, the empiricist cannot account for anything in the future because the future cannot be known by sense experience. This quickly creates another problem referred to as the uniformity of nature. The uniformity of nature says that nature acts in a predictable and uniform way. As long as we can remember, the sun has always risen in the east and drinking water has always been necessary to prevent dehydration. When we wake up, do we wonder if water will today nurture us or kill us? If we squeeze the bottle of toothpaste, do we expect the toothpaste to behave in a unchanging law-like way that it always comes out onto our toothbrush and doesn’t shoot straight up onto the ceiling? You see, these are all things that are assumed each day, but the empiricist cannot account for such things. They may respond, “Well, it’s always been like that in the past.” But this is to simply beg the question and to make a blind leap of faith into the dark.

When an internal critique is performed on a philosophical system and is shown to have glaring contradictions, either one must embrace their inconsistencies and become a skeptic or relinquish their prior presuppositions and beliefs.