Timothy McGrew - The Formal Epistemology of Testimony: Beyond Hume and Earman

[@slamrn9689]

Wonderful lecture. Thank you Dr. Tim McGrew.

[@philochristos]

That Timothy McGrew is a smart dude!

[@Koran90123]

Matt Dillahunty needs to watch this.

[@carsonwall2400]

Dillahunty doesn't interact with serious thinkers in any field.

[@vojislavbelic896]

He would just start being toxic and scream that he isn't convinced, as if that is our problem.

[@barryjones9362]

Here's a skeptical argument McGrew likely hasn't dealt with: What's more important? An atheist's need to drive to work? Or his being in danger of divine judgment? McGrew probably wouldn't say that the atheist needs to stop taking the shuttle van to work so as to free up more time to read the bible, so McGrew commits himself to the premise that an atheist can reasonably justify ignoring Christianity for at least part of the day. So we have to wonder: how many other aspects of an atheist's daily life would similarly make it reasonable for him to avoid the issue of Christianity? McGrew likely wouldn't say the atheist should stop taking the kids to school, stop going to the bathroom, stop answering knocks at the door, get divorced from an atheist wife, etc, etc, merely to free up more time to study the bible. But if so, well how many hours would be left in the day to study the bible? Suppose the atheist is in the middle of putting the kids in the car to take them to the park. McGrew walks up and says he would like to discuss the gospel. The atheist says "sorry, I'm on my way to the park to bond with my kids". If McGrew would walk away, then here's another bit of time in the atheist's life that he an reasonably ignore Christianity. So we have to wonder whether, if we ask enough such questions, would McGrew be forced to admit that sometimes atheists can be so busy with the affairs of earthly life, that they can justify NEVER reading the bible? If McGrew cannot justify telling an atheist what he or she must do to free up more time to study the bible, doesn't he forfeit the right to balk if those busy atheists decide for themselves whether or not they will try to make room for Jesus in their schedules? McGrew might know a lot about Christian apologetics, but he fails miserably in trying to refute arguments like this, which are called pragmatic counter-apologetics. He could avoid the e problem by saying Jesus is more important than the atheist's own kids (Matthew 19:29, give up custody of your kids so you can free up more time to follow Jesus around), but McGrew refuses to be this fanatical, and therefore, unless he plans to increase the number of hours in a day beyond 24, the atheist's concerns in this daily life really do succeed as a superior pragmatic justification for ignoring Christianity.

[@Jimmy-iy9pl]

I'm not sure why this wouldn't be susceptible to a response based on a parody argument that says atheists, and people more generally, may justifiably be able to ignore their spouse in favor of spending time with their children and other blood relatives, so they can pragmatically choose to abandon their spouse in favor of the daily concerns of caring for their blood family. This is nonsensical. If an atheist is presented with good reasons for at least considering Christianity, the onus is on him to at least dedicate a few minutes of his day to researching the truth claims of Christianity. In a way, your analogy does serve to highlight a few interesting points though: 1. Time management and prioritizing. Truth be told, most Americans are super bad at both of these things. As a country, we spend an inordinate amount of time on things like television, sports, creating humor, etc. Most people could afford to restructure their daily schedules around pursuing knowledge and discussing life's most important issues. 2. It's not always up to the believer to change someone's mind. If an atheist wants to wither away in spiritual death, that's not our problem. We can lead a horse to water, but we can't make them drink. He'll have to deal with the consequences of his idleness soon enough.

[@barryjones9362]

@@Jimmy-iy9pl "I'm not sure why this wouldn't be susceptible to a response based on a parody argument that says atheists, and people more generally, may justifiably be able to ignore their spouse in favor of spending time with their children and other blood relatives, so they can pragmatically choose to abandon their spouse in favor of the daily concerns of caring for their blood family. " ------------That happens quite a bit. It's called divorce. And since I'm not a Christian, I do not agree with your assumption that it is always wrong to abandon a spouse to free up more time to spend with blood relatives. From the atheist perspective, whether a spouse's motive for divorce violates basic American ethics or the bible, is none of my concern. Regardless, your analogy fails, as the spouse and relatives obviously are what they are. The divorce-decision you are talking about is being based on empirically demonstrable reality. There is no comparison to a person's choice to ignore the bible, the divine status of which is manifestly NOT empirically demonstrable. So however immoral you think it is for a spouse to obtain a divorce just to spend more time with blood relatives, it's probably more justified than the atheist who would cancel family plans just to free up more time to read the bible. "This is nonsensical. If an atheist is presented with good reasons for at least considering Christianity, the onus is on him to at least dedicate a few minutes of his day to researching the truth claims of Christianity." ----------But you can't tell him how much time out of his day he should spend doing that, and god won't even tell you what part of the bible god wants him to start with (do you claim visions from god? Does God give you that information with the same degree of infallibility that you think he infused the human bible authors with? How much time should an atheist spend researching the Christian claim that God works through Christians today but only in a way less direct than he did the biblical authors?, etc) so you forfeit the right to balk if the atheist answers the "should I read the bible?" question for himself in a way you don't approve of. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe God gave you a vision and instructed you that atheists must spend at least 4 minutes of their day reading John 8:58? By the way, the bible teaches that it is spiritually dangerous to "get saved". Paul curses the people who converted under his gospel but then apostatized over to the Judaizer gospel, Galatians 1:6-9. And of course, we are jumping the gun, since "good reasons for at least considering Christianity" could not possibly exist, given the numerous conflicting denominations and their finger-pointing scholars. Answering that question would take more years than humans are expected to live and it wouldn't matter if I chose one belief system, other equally Christian scholars would continually balk that I'm ignoring clear biblical teaching. So even if I got serious about accepting Christianity, it appears to be a fool's theological paradise. You also forget that you don't cause people to revert back in time just because you show up in their lives. The atheist you are talking to may have spent thousands of hours in bible study decades before you came along, in which case he is not obligated to "refute" your arguments. " In a way, your analogy does serve to highlight a few interesting points though: 1. Time management and prioritizing. Truth be told, most Americans are super bad at both of these things. As a country, we spend an inordinate amount of time on things like television, sports, creating humor, etc. Most people could afford to restructure their daily schedules around pursuing knowledge and discussing life's most important issues. " ------------Agreed, and Christians are so guilty of this, we have no reason to think they are spiritually regenerate. Christians are forever allocating time to God and time to earthly concerns, and would probably feel God was punishing them if they couldn't get their Starbuck's Mocha on the way to the office. "2. It's not always up to the believer to change someone's mind." ----------That truth is not relevant here, where McGrew and many other Chjristains take the initiative to do just that. The issue is not whether the lazy Christian can justify walking away from an apologetics opportunity, but whether the Christian who has made initial arguments has imposed any degree of obligation upon the listening unbeliever to either concede or refute. The answer is "no", unless you think that every time an atheist comes across some Christian offering apologetics arguments, the atheist has a burden to reply, which would by silly. And the more you live out the "it's not always up to the believer to change someone's mind" ethic, the less Christians will try to change my mind, and thus the more excuse the atheist will have. Yes, I am aware of what Paul says in Romans 1:20, and I see no reason to view Paul as anything more than a heretical attention-whore. " If an atheist wants to wither away in spiritual death, that's not our problem." -------------Wow, that's an interesting interpretation of the Good Samaritan parable. It's an even more interesting interpretation of the golden rule. " We can lead a horse to water, but we can't make them drink." --------------Blame it on your god, whose power to change the minds of unbelievers is clear (Ezra 1:1) and therefore, is capable of convincing them to convert, whether that involves destroying or preserving their freewill. You'll excuse me if I make the embarrassing point that you Christians appear more interested in unbelievers than even y our god is. YOU are doing all the talking. "He'll have to deal with the consequences of his idleness soon enough." ----------------There is no force to this comment. You are assuming the biblical warnings about hell and god's judgement are sufficiently clear and frightening that any sensible person would heed or at at least investigate them. Well I've investigated them. I find that the NT teaching of eternal conscious torment contradicts the OT teachings on God's sense of justice, meaning I have good reason to say the NT authors were deluded on the subject. And in my replies to Licona and Habermas I've pummeled Jesus' resurrection plenty. So, you want me to consider Christ? Great: which denomination or group should I consider first, and how long will god want me to study it before he will expect me to start drawing ultimate conclusions? And what if I die in a car wreck on the way to the library to check out any books you recommend? Will I go to heaven because I was trying to find the truth? Or will I go to hell because I was still technically an unbeliever at the point of death? Or are you a 7th day Adventist? And what If I need to get junior from school before checked out the books you recommend? Is that sensible, or would I be violating Matthew 19:29 by refusing to give up custody of my son to free up more time to follow Jesus around? LOL.

[@Jimmy-iy9pl]

@@barryjones9362 My analogy wasn't dependent on the husband being a Christian. He could be an atheist Buddhist, Muslim, etc. The point still stands: there's a potentially infinite amount of reasons for someone to play the pragmatist and abandon their wives, families, jobs, friends, etc. That's why your argument is subject to a parody argument that has conclusions that you would never agree with. Of course you don't think it's rational for a married man to divorce his wife simply because he wants to spend more time with his mom, dad, and other biological relatives.

[@Jimmy-iy9pl]

@@barryjones9362 But some people do have veridical experiences with the Bible and God. (Feeling God's presence while reading the Bible, having a prayer answered, etc.) Although that doesn't do anything for an outside observer, it just means that person is a part of the privileged few. Besides, this is all a red herring. An atheist shouldn't read the Bible expecting for its divine revelation to be empirically detected. They must be given reasons for why it's divinely inspired, and that's the job of the Christian apologist. An atheist taking away family time to study the Bible may or may not be commendable. It depends on the situation. If it's some frivolous Saturday night football game watch party, I'm not going to complain about it.

[@Jimmy-iy9pl]

@@barryjones9362 I think a good minimum would be a page per day. That will take him less than a day. Read through the Bible, or, if he's not convinced, he can read an introduction to apologetics like Tim McGrew's contributions to the Four Views on Christianity and Philosophy book or Van Til's Christian Apologetics. Unless you want to suggest atheists should be anti-learning, I would think you should not push this point too hard. Also, I think hovering in the background there's an assumption of libertarianism. As if I think it's entirely on the part of man to decide to bring about his salvation. I shun that view.

[@derjogderjog8031]

I think this....have you ever heard any more wishy washy explanation ... This guy is very good at this...but my opinion...is his arrogance is not deserved based on his intelligence...

[@evanstein3011]

Lol Earman