Dan's 2nd response to Marty

I have included Marty's complete comments (in italics) for clarification:

1. A. "The definition of truth, as I use the term, is that which corresponds with reality."

This is the quandary I arrived at via relative truth long before I ever submitted my life to Christ: If your truth is in opposition to my truth, I know we cannot both be right. In other words, if what's right and true for you is right and true for you, and what's right and true for me is right and true for me, and what's right for each of us is that the other is wrong (in this case most conspicuously "the God question"), then obviously we can't both be right. 

I’m not arguing for “relative” truth. I believe, as apparently you do too, that there is a single reality, and that we are both, in some way, interacting with it.

The way I got to this quandary originally was by coming to the conclusion that if any given event occurs, even though there may be one hundred or more differing accounts of said event, there is still what actually DID occur, regardless if it matches any of the accounts testified about it. There HAS to be objective, ultimate truth (what really IS and what really HAS been and DID happen, etc., and I believe it can ONLY be THIS which TRULY corresponds to reality. This may indeed correspond with what we perceive through our senses, but only IF there is some way for us to interpret our senses in a manner that corresponds with ultimate truth. 

I agree with you until you introduce “ultimate truth”. Reality simply is, and a statement is true in as much as it corresponds to reality. To posit an “ultimate truth” suggests that there is a mere pedestrian truth that corresponds to some common reality, while “ultimate truth” corresponds to an “ultimate reality”. No doubt this ultimate reality is spiritual / supernatural. But such a proposition is totally without merit. If we are to have any truth, then we must believe that our senses are interacting with reality… the one and only reality.

Enter reason. Yet, reason also must be based on that which may correctly correspond to actual reality. What mechanism do we have biologically that "codes for truth" as some have put it?

We are biological organisms, and we have mutually agreed to the meaning of truth. Therefore we “code for truth” when we compare the evidence to the proposition. Now the context in which the “coding” question typically is raised has to do with a moral obligation for truth. In this sense determining true statements from false statements has survival advantages, and if your goal is to survive, then you ought to seek the truth.

B. I asked if we must arbitrarily accept/assume that your interpretation of reality is correct and you replied, 

"No, of course not. You can use the same procedure, and by inference I can conclude we are accessing the same reality."

But, once again, how do we resolve problems that arise if my interpretive conclusions about the same real event differ from yours? One could say, "Consult the evidence." but what if we both have had equal access to said evidence yet come to opposing conclusions? How can you say you have truth if it differs from my interpretation which I also claim to be true? I see this only resolved via the existence of ultimate or objective truth.

I think you give up much too easily. If we both have different conclusions about the same event, then we can re-examine the evidence, find more evidence and/or re-check our chain of reasoning. In addition there are psychological biases that we deal with that may cloud our judgment or elevate dubious evidence while dismissing compelling evidence. Quite simply there is an inexhaustible range of errors or missed evidences that could prevent us from improving our understanding, and bring us closer to mutual agreement. To simply assume that there is some ultimate arbiter of the truth that is accessed by a book or through meditation is an unjustified appeal to authority.

2. I asked you, "On what do you base your assumption that you can match your claims for what is true to reality?"

You replied, "The foundation, or the end to the infinite regress if you would, are those things that I believe because of the impossibility of the contrary."

On the surface, this seems a fair enough answer. But what I can't seem to overlook is that there are still huge jumps being made between senses and reason and being able to justify how we know our reason is valid in order to understand such things as a logical contradiction. Back to "How do chemical reactions code for truth?" What mechanism can you point to that accounts for this and how exactly could it have evolved PHYSICALLY?

I believe I answered the “code for truth” question, but the question of “how” it evolved can be a very long and complex answer. Cosmologists can trace our universe back 13.72 billion years to when all matter was in a pre-atomic plasma state. Since that time matter has grown colder (on average) while there are localized increases in complexity as a natural consequence of energy dissipation. The process from pre-atomic plasma to humans is a giant conceptual leap that many people find too difficult to comprehend. But as the Chinese proverb goes, the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, and the more you understand the forces involved, and the vastness of time traversed, the more you can begin to appreciate our cosmic origins.

3. A. I asked what is the known mechanism for reason and how did it originate, and you replied, "The form of your question seems to assume that reason is some type of product manufactured and shipped out to the universe. Reason (logic) is a description of an aspect of reality. To ask for the origin of reason is like asking for the origin of “red”. “Red” is just a description of some aspect of reality."

That doesn't seem to quite work for me. There are red mammals and birds and reddish reptiles, etc. and there are red-haired human-beings and even some with reddish skin (my neck is currently rather red from working outdoors under the sun lol) but fish, frogs, cats and dogs and even chimps have shown no ability to reason to truth. I am not simply saying that reason was "shipped out to the universe", but rather that reason was implanted in human kind when God made the first man "a living soul" (Gen. 2:7). That makes sense to account for reason and how we can code for truth--- if the One who knows ALL implanted a mechanism into us whereby we might correctly interpret our senses and trust our reason--- evolutionary naturalism seems directly at odds with it.

I’m not sure what animal research you are referring to, but animals reason correctly all the time. When my dog watches me put on my shoes and jacket he excitedly runs over to his leash. He’s just used his senses to make a logical inference. Humans may have the largest pre-frontal cortexes, but this is just one type of evolutionary adaptation. The Cheetah is the fastest runner, and the elephant survives by being large and having complex social structures. Animals adapt to their own environmental niche, and there is no reason to believe that our cognitive abilities are anything other than a straight forward evolutionary adaptation like any other animal.

B. I wrote, "From your worldview you can be no more certain of your reason than the patient at Bellevue strapped to his bed."

You replied, "I can be confident in my perception of reality, because as I mentioned above, we can infer that others perceive the same reality. After all, one of the reasons someone would be in Bellevue is because their perception of reality differs in some dramatic way from those around them."

So the question then becomes, How do you KNOW that you are not one of the Bellevue patients whose perception of reality differs dramatically from those around you?

The same way I know anything… my sense information indicates that I am sitting in my living room about 400 miles from Bellevue.

I think you would say (as you wrote later on), "I start with the necessary truths, the beliefs that I accept because the contrary is incoherent. From there I use evidence from my senses and my understanding of reason to establish what I know."

But, once again, we have leap-frogged how and why reasoning exists and how it codes for truth, straight into "It exists, therefore..." That is fine if you have no curiosity concerning the "big questions in life" (who are we?, why are we here? what is the meaning and purpose of existence? Is there an afterlife? etc.), but it is totally unsatisfying to most, myself included. My entire being from my earliest remembrances cried out for meaning and purpose. This seems strange if we are really merely the children of starguts that exploded across the universe and somehow became ALIVE and then conscious and then a living being with thoughts and reason and a means of communicating and expressing ourselves. 

You seemed to have missed my example of “red” earlier, so let me try it again here. Apply the how and why questions you say I leap frogged regarding reason to red. Why is red red. How did red get to be red. I’m not talking about why a light is a particular wavelength, but from whence did a particular wavelength of light get its redness? If this sounds like nonsense, it’s because it is. How and why don’t apply to descriptions, other than to say that we labeled something that way. A particular wavelength of light exists, and we label it red / rouge / rojo / vermelho.

I’m also not sure why you would conclude that I’m not interested in the “big” questions. I find it quite inspiring to think of humans as possibly the first conscious creatures to contemplate our origins in the universe. As I’ve heard it put, we are the universe becoming conscious of itself. What meaning will I create? How can I act today that will ripple through time when I am gone? What new way is there to conceive of reality that opens up greater understanding?

You are making a purely emotional appeal to speculate of our origins as being “merely the children of starguts”. Not only is the fact that every atom on our bodies came from an exploded star apparent from the evidence, but understanding that we have a physical connection the universe and such amazing origins sure beats a mythical story about a deity blowing into a clump of mud.

My God lives in no imaginary gaps. There is ONE "gap" and it is filled and enveloped by the living God revealed in nature and Scripture. There is no way any of it makes sense otherwise. LOL,  now I am using your "because believing the contrary is incoherent" argument--- but I have a basis for it: In, by and through the One by which we "live and move and have our being." (Acts 17:28)

The difference here is that those axioms I accept as foundational are the only coherent option. Not only have you opted for an argument from ignorance (whether one gap or many), you have rested your “impossibility of the contrary” at a point where the contrary is still quite coherent, and therefore not impossible.  Take ominipotent for example. Is it coherent to speak of a less than omnipotent god? Of course, therefore an omnipotent god isn’t the only coherent option. 

Nonetheless we can still have common ground. The verse with which you end your last response for example…”by and through the One by which we ‘live and move and have our being’”. Yes, the “One” is reality / existence / the universe itself.