Over at Evangelical Realism, we’re looking at Pastor Stephen Feinstein’s presuppositional apologetic for God, as presented during his debate with Russell Glasser from The Atheist Experience. This week’s installment: the Christian “metaphysical” understanding of God. Stop by if you find that sort of discussion interesting.
Alethian Worldview
If it's not reality, it's not the truth
Pixies live up my nose. Unless you can agree with me on this, we cannot discuss the fact that pixies live up my nose.
This is the crux of the presuppositionalist argument. It all boils down to pixies.
Pixies? Phffaah! What you need is dragons.
I have one. It is a full fledged (yes, feathered), flying, fire breathing dragon. It is also purple and invisible.
It lives in the corner where two walls and the ceiling intersect. Not, as you might first suppose, this side of the corner but its abode is exactly the corner itself.
The three planes, this wall, that wall and the ceiling, all meet at a geometric point, an ideal construct having no dimension. That most specific point possesses only position which is described by a three dimensional matrix.
That matrix is precisely the same one that we inhabit. It is the specificity of that point, or vertex, that is responsible for the invisibility of my dragon since it is, by definition, smaller than any wavelength possible in the EM spectrum. You and I and the mundane accoutrements of this multi dimensional existence dwell in many uncountable numbers of points simultaneously to the extent that all are larger than the smallest EM wavelength and thus are visible.
My dragon moves from vertex to vertex without regard to time or acceleration. Specifically, it is always in the vertex that is most congruent to a line drawn between my right eye and my right shoulder. The particular vertex is wholly dependent upon the rotation of my posture and which way I look. Such predictable, even faithful, positioning is not only a comfort but also faithfully predictable, allowing me to know just where it is no matter how I turn, no matter which way I look.
What makes my dragon so useful and worthy of praise is that it is always predictable with reference to its position, such that I never have to really think about where it is or, in modern parlance, where it is coming from. It is always just there, to my right and just slightly behind me. Forever peering over my shoulder, as it were. It is a great comfort. Much more faithful than, say, human opinion or that great heaving sea of so-called knowledge.
I have yet to discern the full purpose of its wings or its fire breathing ability though insights occur daily. The insights vary from one day to the next and are, indeed, sometimes in direct conflict on consecutive days. Nonetheless, the insights themselves are sustaining while being also deeply instructive and emotionally moving.
I’d like to share my dragon with you. If you will simply open your mind and think of vanishingly small spaces and transit times perhaps you will find your own. Just look over your right shoulder and slightly upwards, the upward angle depending on the dimensions of your room and your location in it. You’ll find your dragon there, all purple and winged, fluffy as a newborn songbird, hot breathed and vigilant, ever watching and ever remembering.
Just one word of caution, though. Don’t go outside. Ever. Never leave the rooms that you call home or abode. Dragons need corners and, as should be self evident, outside has no walls or ceilings and thus has no corners over your shoulder. If you go outside your dragon will feel so lost, so unconstrained, so undefined. That wouldn’t be fair to the dragon, now would it?