Top Ten Reasons to Reject the “Scripturalist Package”

(Aquascum, aquascumSPAMMENOT at gmail dot com)

By the “Scripturalist Package” I mean the combination of the following theses about knowledge: Scripturalism, infallibilism, internalism, and occasionalism. These ideas will be defined below.

The following points are a simplification and a summary of many points made in my original Response. For further documentation and a more complete statement of the argument, please see that Response.

1) Scripturalism is self-referentially incoherent. The idea that all knowledge is restricted to propositions of Scripture and valid deductions from propositions of Scripture is itself neither a proposition of Scripture nor validly deducible from propositions of Scripture. Therefore, if Scripturalism were true, Scripturalists would have a good reason to reject Scripturalism.

2) Scripturalism is refuted by Scripture itself. According to Mt 24:32, humans know a variety of propositions not contained in Scripture or validly deducible from Scripture. This is because Jesus makes relatively unspecified reference to these known propositions by means of a temporal indexical. Therefore, what is known by Jesus’ hearers cannot be deduced from Scripture alone.

3) The infallibilist constraint on knowledge is in conflict with Scripturalism and yet is regularly employed by Scripturalists against alternative modes of knowledge. The infallibilist constraint on knowledge – that is, the idea that knowledge can only be obtained by a process that is guaranteed to exclude error – is neither a proposition of Scripture nor validly deducible from propositions of Scripture. Although Scripturalists ought to reject this non-revelational epistemological principle on the basis of their Scripturalism, they regularly employ it to argue that intuition, induction, and other sources of belief cannot be sources of knowledge.

4) The internalist constraint on knowledge is in conflict with Scripturalism and yet is regularly employed by Scripturalists in arguments against non-Christians. The internalist constraint on knowledge – that is, the idea that someone must know how he knows p or that he knows p, in order to know p – is neither a proposition of Scripture nor validly deducible from propositions of Scripture. Although Scripturalists ought to reject this non-revelational epistemological principle on the basis of their Scripturalism, they regularly employ it to argue that no one can have knowledge apart from assuming the Christian worldview. (That is, they believe that failure to answer “How do you know that?” is sufficient to defeat non-Christian claims and challenges on a variety of topics.)

5) The occasionalist psychology of belief is in conflict with Scripturalism and yet is regularly appealed to by Scripturalists as an alternative to genuinely empirical modes of knowledge. Occasionalism – that is, the idea that God is the only cause in the universe and is therefore the sole cause of all human beliefs apart from mediation – is neither a proposition of Scripture nor validly deducible from propositions of Scripture. Although Scripturalists ought to reject this psychology of belief on the basis of their Scripturalism, they regularly employ it to explain their knowledge of empirical claims.

6) The occasionalist psychology of belief is in conflict with Scripturalists’ reliance on the infallibilist constraint on knowledge. If God immediately causes all human beliefs whatsoever, then he regularly causes millions of false beliefs. Thus, the means by which we obtain our beliefs (divine illumination) is a highly fallible process, since it is not guaranteed to exclude error. Therefore, given the infallibilist constraint on knowledge, divine illumination does not give us knowledge after all, and cannot serve Scripturalists’ purposes in providing a credible alternative to genuinely empirical modes of knowledge.

7) The occasionalist psychology of belief is in conflict with Scripturalists’ reliance on the internalist constraint on knowledge. If someone (including the non-Christian) has knowledge simply in virtue of God producing a true belief in him, then additional constraints on knowledge are superfluous. In particular, the idea that someone must know how he knows p or that he knows p, in order to know p, is falsified by occasionalism. Therefore, much knowledge can be had by a person quite apart from that person assuming the Christian worldview. Of course, if God’s producing a true belief in someone is not sufficient for the production of knowledge, then occasionalism isn’t even a theory of knowledge at all.

8) Scripturalists cannot show how a Christian worldview solves various philosophical and ethical problems raised for non-Christian worldviews.

a) For instance, the law of non-contradiction (that “A is not non-A”) is a perfectly general law nowhere contained in Scripture nor validly deducible from propositions of Scripture. Therefore, Scripturalists cannot so much as know the law of non-contradiction, much less claim that the Christian worldview accounts for it. (Neither an intuitive defense nor an inductive derivation of this law is open to the Scripturalist, for obvious reasons.)

b) Similarly, the notion that “nature is uniform and stable” (implicit in any inductive inference about the future) is neither a proposition of Scripture nor deducible from propositions of Scripture. At best, it can be given only an inductive defense on the basis of passages like Ge 8:22, which makes reference not to all of nature but to a couple of natural processes (passing seasons, day and night). Therefore, Scripturalists cannot account for induction by means of the Christian worldview.

c) Likewise for various ethical claims, such that infanticide or racism is immoral. These may admit of a defense which involves intuition or induction, but their truth cannot be validly deduced from such texts as Ex 20:13 or Ac 17:26.

9) A Scripturalist cannot know that he exists, cannot have assurance of salvation, and cannot know how to apply God’s ethical requirements to his life.

a) A proposition asserting the existence of any Scripturalist in particular (say, “Vincent Cheung exists”) is neither contained in Scripture nor validly deducible from propositions of Scripture. Therefore, no Scripturalist can know that he exists.

b) Assurance that one is saved (a key component of Reformed, as opposed to Roman Catholic, doctrine) involves, at the very least, knowledge that one has repented and believed. But that is knowledge of a proposition neither contained in Scripture nor validly deducible from propositions of Scripture. Therefore, no Scripturalist can have assurance of salvation.

c) Finally, a married man can know how to apply God’s ethical requirements to his life – specifically, following the command “You shall not commit adultery” – only if he knows that the woman he is sleeping with is his wife. Since the proposition that some particular person is his wife is a proposition neither contained in Scripture nor validly deducible from propositions of Scripture, no Scripturalist can know how to apply God’s ethical requirements to his life. (Obviously, all of these examples could be multiplied.)

10) A Scripturalist must reject historic Christian doctrine as something unknowable. There are precious few deductively valid arguments for the various Christian doctrines, from the proof-texts adduced in their favor. Rather, the vast majority of Scriptural exegesis proceeds by way of inductive or abductive arguments, not strict deduction. Therefore, a Scripturalist must hold that most historic Christian doctrine is unknowable. Indeed, I would challenge Scripturalists to provide a strictly valid deduction of any significant Christian doctrine, from the propositions of Scripture themselves, using no extra-Scriptural premises.

-- Aquascum