That is no different than saying they are "facts" revealed by the pink uniconrns on Jupiter because a books says so. Who are you kidding?
The a priori lies only within the self-revealing God
That's right, once you a priori accept that there is a God and that He "wrote" the Bible, the rest simply falls in place, by design.
Without the triune God as the starting point all other (natural) theologies must start with man and are nothing more than tail chasing
No, man is still the one who a priori accepts or rejects God. Those who accept God cannot prove it and those who reject Him ca not disprove it. The final arbiter is still man in his mind, no matter what the truth is. The difference is simply in the a priori rejection or acceptance.
If we assume that A is true, then we can draw corrollariess from that "truth." The initial presumption of veracity is a leap of (blind) faith, and becomes a starting point of any theology, within which all things are "true" as long as we stay with the a priori initial assumption.
Kosta: One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church is the Church that defined Christan God as Divine Trinity, and Christ as one Person, in two natures.***
TC: Ya, that’s an example of tail chasing.
That answer tells me that your beliefs are contrary not only to the Apostolic Church but to all mainline Protestant assemblies.
You: That is no different than saying they are "facts" revealed by the pink uniconrns on Jupiter because a books says so. Who are you kidding?
Me: No, my statement did not state that the only way God revealed himself was through Scripture but that Scripture backs up what has already been revealed and is known by all men. So for example, I could use the teleological argument for the existence of God and prove that God exists independent of Scripture. Scripture is the supporting evidence that proves the only true God. This is precisely what Paul did on Mars Hill.
That's right, once you a priori accept that there is a God and that He "wrote" the Bible, the rest simply falls in place, by design.
True enough. But that does not necessarly preclude that sense experience or even subjective states are not functional within a rationalist way of knowing. One can know by a priori and still use sense experience and subjectivism to complement the a priori. What is for certain is that both empiricism and subjectivism are meaningless without an a priori principle.
No, man is still the one who a priori accepts or rejects God. Those who accept God cannot prove it and those who reject Him ca not disprove it. The final arbiter is still man in his mind, no matter what the truth is. The difference is simply in the a priori rejection or acceptance.
This is good news! I think we are making progress here. I'll take that as a tacit acceptance of the a priori way of knowing. We can now dump empiricism as a stand-alone way of knowing as has been so thouroghly demonstrated by the likes of Thomas Kuhn who showed in his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), that the claim of being able to come to the facts in an objective and neutral fashion is all an allusion because everybody brings their own cultural experiences, group loyalities, prejudices and precommitments. There is no such thing as brute, uninterpreted facts.
As far as man being the final arbiter, I mean, c'mon man, haven't we had enough of Kantian subjectivism with it's disassociative dualism? It is rather fascinating watching those advocating natural theology through a postori reasoning falling into inner-subjectivity as they must necessarily complaining about our spiritualist friends who base their knowledge almost exclusively on subjective states. You each start in a different starting point but end up in the same place.
All we Scripturalist are saying is that the God who revealed himself through Creation and our conscience has more fully revealed himself through Scripture and he revealed that he is the Creator of all facts and that all facts must be interpreted based on the creator and determiner of all facts. So no, there is no "leap of faith" since all men know there is a God even though they might repress that knowledge in unrighteousness. Faith merely hears the evidence and it is confirmed by Him who is the ground of all facts. Without that a priori your either lost in relativity or an artificial construct that gives the a priori to a human institution.
Finally, as to your attempt to mischaracterize my analysis of your statement by cutting a portion of your own quote, I'll leave that to your conscience.