Tag Archives: skepticism

Skepticism Just Ate Its Own Lunch

It is always dumb to disagree with the bible.

A rational, public starting point given by an omniscient God—who causes His elect to know it by His power—is the only coherent definition of a worldview axiom. There is no other way to define it without the Bible, which declares itself true and every rival false.

“Axioms are the product of not being omniscient, and being capable of assenting to propositions. Any first principle would lead to skepticism under such a standard.” – Johnny Billy

The reply looks tidy on the surface. He claims axioms are merely the product of finite, non-omniscient minds that can still assent to propositions. Under the demand that a starting point deliver knowledge, he concludes that any first principle collapses into skepticism. That is the claim. It is also the problem.

Start with the self-refutation, because it is immediate. If every first principle under that standard leads to skepticism, then the first principle underwriting his own sentence also leads to skepticism. The statement “any first principle leads to skepticism” is itself advanced as knowledge. By the rule he just announced, that statement has no ground left. It cancels itself. You cannot know that all knowledge foundations fail without already standing on a foundation that, according to you, fails. That is not a minor technicality. It is the claim eating its own lunch. Skepticism of this kind is impossible for the same reason the law of non-contradiction is non-negotiable: you cannot affirm knowledge while denying it. The biblical system treats the law of non-contradiction as part of the Logos Himself. Jesus appeals to it. Paul distinguishes grace as grace and law as law. A position that requires you to know what it says cannot be known is already finished.

Even if we set the self-refutation aside for a moment, the conclusion still does not follow from the premise. He moves from “the mind is finite and not omniscient” to “therefore any first principle collapses into skepticism.” That leap only works if the first principle is treated as a bare human product limited by the same finitude that produced it. The biblical first principle does not fit that description. It only logically follows if you assume empiricism.

On its own terms the starting point is not merely a set of propositions. It includes the full metaphysical package: an omniscient, omnipotent God who actively causes finite minds to know those propositions and to assent to them. The limitation of the human mind is real, in that it cannot hold a true beginningless infinite amount of propositions as God does. However, this is already accounted for inside the system. God supplies both the content (the Bible as the public starting point revealed by God) and the ability to grasp it with certainty. The bible is a subset of propositions from the Mind of God revealed to man as a public starting point. It is so substantial that it covers all life and godliness. It is so extensive and perfect it labels itself as interchangeable with God. It is a worldview.

So what about the finite human mind? The finite is not left to bootstrap its own knowledge. The infinite Source does the causing. Finitude is swallowed by the infinite power already articulated in the first principle itself. That is why the “not omniscient” premise does not force the skeptical conclusion. Human-originated axioms have no such resource. They remain products of limited minds trying to generate certainty from limited materials, and they collapse. The biblical first principle starts with the unlimited Mind and includes the claim that this Mind sovereignly causes knowledge in limited minds. Once that metaphysical claim is part of the axiom, the limitation of the receiver no longer functions as a barrier to certainty.

This is exactly the move Vincent Cheung called out years ago in “Blinded by Atheism.” A critic treated Scripture as a locked safe and occasionalism as the combination sealed inside it, then complained of a vicious circle. Cheung’s reply was simple and devastating: Where is God in the analogy? God is the defining factor in both the metaphysics and the epistemology. The Almighty tears the door open or simply imparts the knowledge. Once you quietly delete God from the picture, of course the system fails. The whole thing is about God. Cheung even grants the point without embarrassment: remove God and the apologetic collapses; with God it stands.

He is running the same pattern. He defines an axiom as the product of a non-omniscient mind, then treats the limitation of that finite mind as an inescapable barrier that sinks every first principle. But that framing evaluates the biblical starting point while God is already removed from the equation. On the system’s own terms the limitation of the finite mind is real, yet it is completely overcome and dominated by God’s limitless power to cause the mind to know and to assent. The first principle itself includes that claim. So the critique is testing a God-powered epistemology under the assumption that God is not there. Of course it looks broken once the central Agent is deleted. It would be like doing an internal critique of empiricism while completely ignoring sensation. You cannot internally critique empiricism without the definition of the senses. The same thing is happening here. Without God nothing in the apologetic works. With God everything does. That is not a hidden weakness. It makes Christian apologetics unstoppable.

There is still a deeper problem. His definition of what an axiom even is already contradicts the only standard that matters under the biblical system. Scripture is not human interpretation or a finite mind’s invention. It is given by God. The Christian public revelation is produced by omniscience and given to finite minds. God does not need an axiom for Himself. He creates and supplies one for us. The origin is the unlimited Mind; the recipients are the limited ones. So the axiom is not a product of non-omniscience. It is a product of omniscience designed to help those who are not omniscient.

Once the Bible is the sole public standard for knowledge, that is the only coherent way to define a real axiom: the infallible one the omniscient God gives. Anything that originates from finite minds instead of from that divine source is not a true axiom. It is an anti-axiom—a starting point that cannot deliver knowledge and therefore collapses. The production line is the other way around. The omniscient One is the source, not the customer who needs the product. That single reversal undercuts the premise that leads to his skeptical conclusion.

The Christian system is a system of propositions. God Himself is also a system of propositions—His infinite, eternal, and immutable. Ours is finite. God’s sovereignty is involved in knowledge absolutely and directly, as He is with everything else. With our finite minds and our system of propositions, He makes us know which propositions align with the Bible and are indeed true. The Bible says we can know, and the sovereignty of God ensures it. That is occasionalism. God does not leave finite minds to guess which propositions are true. He causes the knowledge and the assent. The limitation is real, but it is dominated by the One who is not limited.

This is also why the Christian apologetic is the Bible itself. Showing the self-refuting nature of opposing positions is a useful method, but the apologetic is the Word of God. That is why the definition of an axiom can only be intelligently defined as coming from an omniscient mind—because that is how the Bible defines it. Every other way is an anti-definition of axiom. It is the same pattern we see with the Trinity. The biblical definition of monotheism is the Trinity. Every other definition is an anti-monotheism. The Bible defines it one way, and that is the only intelligent, non-refuting definition. The same holds for “axiom.” On biblical terms an axiom is the infallible revelation produced by the omniscient God and given to finite minds. Anything else is not an axiom at all.

God’s sovereignty is not an afterthought added to shore up a weak epistemology. It is the center. The finite mind’s limits are real, but they are not decisive because the infinite God is the one who causes the knowledge, the assent, and the coherence of the proposition in our system of propositions. God’s power swallows up all human limitations. The system does not pretend to work without Him. It insists that only with the omniscient, omnipotent God who reveals and causes knowledge does any of it stand. Once that is left in place, the finite-mind limitation is only a problem if you leave the biblical worldview.

The claim that every first principle collapses, the inference from finitude to skepticism, the definition of axiom as a product of non-omniscience, and the quiet removal of God from the critique all fail for the same underlying reason. They evaluate a God-centered starting point under assumptions that have already deleted the God who makes the starting point possible. The biblical system does not apologize for that dependence. It announces it with triumph. Without Him there is no knowledge. With Him all limitations for the elect are lost under an sea of God’s endless power and ability. That is not a side point. It is the entire point.

Empiricism, Induction and Science Is Anti-Logic

If a system-of-thinking’s epistemology ends with a skepticism, “I know that I don’t know,” then that epistemology does not exist. It does not mean knowledge does not exist, but empiricism as an epistemology is false. Knowledge is from another epistemology. The answer for knowledge is of course the bible. It is the only first principle for knowledge.

To conclude that “I know that I do not know,” is an impossibility of reality and of thinking. A contradiction, because it affirms and denies the same thing, affirms nothing. To affirm Y and then deny Y, gives no knowledge. There is no knowledge, no subjects, or predicates if an epistemology ends in skepticism, which denies the law of contradiction. I cannot deny my own existence, nor can I do it in my thoughts, without using my existence. I cannot deny the law of contradiction without using it. A contradiction does not exist. A doctrine of knowledge that leads to skepticism, which denies the law of contradiction does not exist. Any starting point that reduces to skepticism when scrutinized must be rejected, because skepticism, by its own merit, cannot assert its own truth without contradiction.

Empiricism is a logical fallacy. Sensation is not subjects or predicates, nor can one assert that it does without a category fallacy, which when taken to their essential attributes would deny the law of contradiction. To deny the law of contradiction is anti-logic. The same is for logic and mathematics. A visual input, which is a copy of something else, is not the category of logic.

Also, to use sensation to justify knowledge ends in an infinite regress of more sensations. How do you prove a sensation, except with another sensation, and so on. How do you sense you are not sensing? With a sensation? Also, transient, momentary descriptions of sensations as premises always leads to a logical fallacy when the conclusion ends with universals. To say some and all is the same thing denying the law of contradiction. To deny the law of contradiction is anti-logic. Thus, Empiricism and conclusions from them is anti-logic.

To have more information in the conclusion than the premises is a non-sequitur fallacy, because the conclusion does not logically follow if your conclusion has more information than your premises. Thus, all induction is technically a non-sequitur fallacy, because all conclusions of induction has more information than the premises. If your conclusion does not logically follow the premises, then it leads to skepticism; “you know that you do not know.” But this denies the law of contradiction. Thus, induction makes knowledge impossible because it leads to skepticism. Induction is anti-logic because it violates the law of contradiction.

Science relies on Empiricism and Induction, and thus science by extension also denies the law of contradiction by leading to skepticism. Thus, science is anti-logic. In addition to these two fallacies, scientific experimentation commits the fallacy of affirming the consequent. Affirming the consequent takes a sufficient connection in the premise, but then in the conclusion states it as a necessary one. Thus, the conclusion has more information in it than what the premise provides. This additional information makes the conclusion not logically follow from the premises. Thus, experimentation is by definition a non-sequitur fallacy. This means the conclusion leads to skepticism; it leads to, I know that I do not know. This is anti-logic, because it violates the law of contradiction. There is no logical justification to say otherwise, other than mindlessly asserting so.

Science is a triple anti-logic enterprise. There is no knowledge in the conclusions of science; there are no subjects or predicates in science. It is logically impossible to say science has knowledge without denying the laws of logic. What is worst, to attack science or deny logic? But without the law of contradiction you cannot even think. This does not mean science has no role, but it cannot be used for knowledge.

I asked Grok AI to show in formal validity,– a necessary conclusion, without additional information being added into the conclusion or committing a category error from the premises to conclusion,– sensations (empiricism) to laws of logic in the conclusion. It said it was technically impossible. It said if one includes the Socratic method or abstraction (which allows induction and category leaps not included in the premises) then you could, but if one is being strict with categories and the laws of logic, then you cannot logically go from sensation in the premise to a conclusion of something like logic, or math, ethics, universals (etc).

 This just goes to show that the Socratic method is still the intellectual fudge factor morons use to manufacture knowledge when there is none. It is an intellectual ass wipe, to make their crappy conclusion seem legit.  Whether it was the Socratic method or Aristotle or David Hume, or Science, all of them involve the same magical moment where one category, without justification, turns into another category and where conclusions that do not necessarily follow from the premises, do follow from the premise without logical warrant. Of course, by this irrational thinking I can define reality however I want, and this has always been the end game for fools.  

Lastly, when asking the difference between definitions of Rational and Irrational, the AI said Aristotle and Russel, in the realm of logic used rational to be about deduction and necessary inference, and thus, irrational was the opposite. Irrational is about inference that do not necessarily follow from the premises. But when I asked if science was irrational, it denied it. Despite telling me the conclusions from induction and affirming the consequent do not logically follow from the premises, which is what Grok defined as irrational, it wanted to say science was not irrational. After probing it more, I again found out that it considered the Socratic method or the modern use of it called abstraction, rational. This is of course nonsense, because it involves induction and category errors.  As Vincent Cheung says in Professional Morons, they have abandoned trying to be rational and magically make the irrational manufacture knowledge. Even though such a prosses violets the laws of logic, they are under the delusion they have knowledge, or they know they don’t have knowledge and will just pretend they do. And yet, these are the ones telling us they are smart, and Christians are dumb? Lol.