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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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)
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