TILL Beale directed these comments to someone else, but I want to reply to them. He says that "the presupposition of the existence of God provides a ground for justifying belief in an external world," but why would it? Could God exist without the universe existing? Indeed, theists must argue that he can, because their position is that God is eternal but that the universe exists in finite time. He further argues that "[o]n the atheistic basis, no such ground other than pure prejudice would accept the one and reject the other," but this is nothing more than "theistic prejudice." I can perceive the external world through my senses. I can smell flowers, hear thunder, see lightning, feel rocks, taste sugar, etc., etc., etc. If I hit Beale over the head with my jar of marbles, he will feel it. If in weather 50 degrees below zero, I tossed him naked out of the only heated shelter for miles around and told him that I wouldn't let him back inside until he said he believed that the world around him was real, I wonder how long it would take him to admit the obvious. In other words, there are millions and millions of sensory perceptions that living things experience to tell them that the external world is real. Now how many sensory perceptions can Beale cite that would give us reasonable evidence that his invisible, nonmaterial deity exists "outside of space and time"?
He further argued that "[i]f God exists as Creator, a fortiori, the universe exists." Well, not necessarily, because there is nothing inherent in the proposition of a god who creates that would require him to create a universe. Indeed, Beale must contend that the Bible is either false or that his god created things long before he created the external universe. Colossians 1:16 asserts, "For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him." For the Bible to be true, some of these "invisible things" were necessarily created before the world and the universe was created. Genesis 1:16 says (almost as an afterthought) of the fourth day of creation, "He made the stars also." Here by direct implication, we have the Genesis writer saying that the universe (stars) were made four days after God had begun the work of creating the world. Job 38:7 states that "the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy" *when* God laid the "foundations of the earth." This, of course, is contradictory to what is said in Genesis 1:16, which would have required no stars to exist when the foundations of the earth were laid. Perhaps Beale's god will "transcendentally" give him the knowledge to clear up this inconsistency, but be that as it may, the Bible teaches (at least in some places) that invisible beings existed before the creation of the universe. If this is true and if God created all things, both visible and invisible, then he necessarily created some things before he created the universe. If not, why not? It doesn't follow "a fortiori," then that "if God exists as a creator, the universe exists," because "the inerrant word" of Beale's god teaches that he created things before he created the universe. So perhaps Beale should look up the meaning of a fortiori argumentation. It simply means that one conclusion follows by greater necessity than one already assumed in the argument. In this case, Beale assumes that a creating God exists and then argues that if this God's existence is true, then the existence of the external universe must also be true by greater necessity. However, his argument doesn't agree with his "inerrant word" of his god who creates things "visible and invisible."
There is no reasonable evidence at all that his proposition is true, but for the sake of argument, let's just assume that it is true: "If God exists as a creator, a fortiori, the universe exists." We are back to modus ponens argumentation again. This statement would be a conditional sentence, the antecedent of which would be the "if" statement, "If God exists as a creator...." The rest of the statement ("The universe exists") would be the consequent or conclusion drawn from the antecedent, but in order for the consequent to be true, the antecedent must also be true AND must absolutely necessitate the consequent. We have already seen that the antecedent of this conditional sentence does NOT necessitate the consequent, but even more critical than that is the obvious fact that Beale has shown us no reasonable evidence that the antecedent (if a God who creates exists) is true. You see this is just an if, an IF, a very big IF. As I said in response to similar argumentation from a subscriber to the list who has since gone the way of all theistic flesh, a Spanish proverb says, "If my aunt had balls, she wouldn't be my aunt."
He further argues that "[i]f He [Beale's god] created us in His image, then the possibility of propositional knowledge exists," but again Beale is arguing a proposition that even his inerrant word of God disputes. Adam and Eve were allegedly created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27), yet their creation in the image of God did not give them an understanding of the difference in good and evil until they learned this through experience.
Eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (can you imagine an intelligent person who prides himself on being a greater logician than Russell actually believing this stuff?) gave them that understanding (Gen. 3:22-23). In other words, they acquired knowledge through experience, and any reasonable person will understand that this is how knowledge is obtained.
Once again, I will ask Beale to answer a question about chimpanzees: Can chimpanzees acquire propositional knowledge?