Egnor of the propogandist discovery institute has made a very bold claim, namely, that only God can provide a basis for reason. This article will dispel with his article’s nonsense.
One may ask: how do we know that what we perceive or what we believe corresponds to reality? The answer is that we can’t know, in the sense that we can’t use our perceptive or intellectual abilities to prove the validity of our perceptions or concepts. To do so would be to reason in a circle. If our perceptions and our concepts are not reliable, then how could we use them to validate their reliability?
The skepticism Thomas requires is radical indeed. For example, even Descartes’s assertion, “I think therefore I am,” is not something we can prove without faith. The problem lies in the “therefore.” We must tacitly assume the validity of logic — specifically the logic of non-contradiction — to link “I think” to “I am.”
Well, if we accept phenomenal conservatism and non inferential justification it’s pretty easy. If it seems like P, I’m prima facie justified in believing P. That’s why I’m more justified in believing things that seem true to me than ones that seem false. Why do I accept this principle? Well, it seems true, and arguments against it will be less intuitive than the principle itself is. I also think I’m non inferentially justified in believing certain truths like that 1+1=2. Given that one can continually question premises, one has to either be a coherentist or have some brute axioms that they accept. But why can’t atheists account for this?
I will speak here from the Christian perspective as it is the one with which I am the most familiar. The Christian has faith that he has access to truth because he believes that he has been created by a wise and loving God who guarantees this access to truth to him. Indeed this is a radical faith — we can be certain of nothing — but faith in God provides us with a coherent warrant to trust our capacity for reason. Christians have faith, and their faith makes a sensible and grounded belief in reason possible.
Atheists have just as much faith as Christians have — they believe that they have access to truth as well. But atheism provides no coherent warrant to trust the capacity for reason. In this sense, atheist faith is much more radical and much less coherent than the faith of Christians.
Christian faith in God provides a justifiable belief in the validity of reason. Atheist faith in the validity of reason is ungrounded and unjustifiable, and is therefore a much more radical and a much less credible faith.
We all lack a direct and self-validating knowledge of truth. Faith in God is the only coherent basis for trust in our capacity to know the truth. Atheist faith in the capacity to know the truth is incoherent.
Only atheist faith is opposed to fact; faith in God is the only reliable basis on which to trust our ability to know the truth. Thus, faith in God is the only coherent basis for reason.
Well, evolution produced us to be able to reason well. Those who were bad at reasoning didn’t pass on their genes. However, this makes our reasoning fallible. On theism, it’s hard to explain why our reasoning is so fallible, frequently subject to biases and other non rational factors.
How does god trust his reason? Presumably he just finds himself acquainted with knowledge and seemings. We’re the same. So no, reasoning doesn’t need god.