I have challenged the idea that we can have absolute certainty of the things Gangadean claims to have. More precisely, I have tried to show that whatever system or method that Gangadean appeals to in trying to attain certainty turns out to be inconsistent. Notice my claim needn't be that we can't have certainty. It's simply that Gangadean hasn't shown us a way to certainty. This is so, even if the kind of certainty he is after is logically possible--he hasn't shown us the way to it. His account ultimately fails its own test. This is because his most basic beliefs end up being grounded in intuitions or otherwise groundless. Unfortunately, I've heard no direct answer to any of my objections. Often I have asked for supporting arguments for a number of the central claims that Gangadean rests his worldview on, but have heard nothing. For instance, I have asked Gangadean to rationally support his theory of knowledge. He tells us what his theory is (though he doesn't recognize it as just one of many theories), but he doesn't tell us why we should think his theory is correct. He still hasn't answered this.
Instead, one psuedo-response has been to shift the direction of the discussion in the following way. He says that the kind of knowledge he is interested in, is the kind that makes sense of the inexcusability of unbelief according to Christian Theism or the bible. In other words, he's sort of conceding in a roundabout way that there are many different conceptions of knowledge out there. But rather than prove that his theory is the correct one, he's saying that his theory plays a particular role in his theorizing about a particular Christian doctrine. Furthermore, he's claiming that it's the only kind of conception of knowledge that will do this job and it's the kind of knowledge that we should have regarding our most basic beliefs, according to Christianity.
So let me put a little pressure on this line of "response."
1) Just because a particular conception or theory fits one's philosophical/theological project, it doesn't mean it's true. These are just two entirely different things.
2) Gangadean hasn't proven from reason alone that we should care about explaining the inexcusability of unbelief. In fact, he derives the notion from the bible (Romans 1:20). But the issue of whether he's got the right kind of theory of knowledge, and whether it must be clearly knowable by reason alone that God exists, are supposed to be known via reason alone. So it achieves nothing on that front to merely appeal to scripture as if they support his claims-- that's putting the cart in front of the horse. He's got to prove these claims via reason. How does Gangadean know by reason alone that i) unbelief in God leads to maximal consequences, ii) unbelief in God is inexcusable and iii) that maximal consequences implies maximal clarity? That is, he can't just insist these things are true, he ought to prove them and should not appeal to the bible to do so. I have raised these and related concerns before.
3) As I've written about in this post, his Calvinism implies that, even if it were clear that God exists, unbelief is still excusable because the unregenerate can't possibly desire to seek God. This desire to know what is clear is requisite (and sufficient) according to Gangadean to know what is clear, but it's also entirely out of the unbelievers hands whether they have this desire to know/seek or not to begin with. Pair these considerations with the fact that Gangadean maintains the ought-implies-can principle, and you have the following result. If I ought to desire to seek God, then I can desire to see, which is false given his commitment to soft determinism/Calvinism (the unregenerate cannot desire to seek, because they are dead in their trespasses). And so if it isn't the case that they can seek, it follows that they are not required to seek, which means they shouldn't be held responsible for not seeking. So the unbeliever is with excuse or rather, they need no excuse because they haven't done anything wrong.
4) Now even supposing that it were legitimate for Gangadean to reach into the bible for a proof text (which it certainly isn't), we still have the problem of interpretation. I've written about this issue before as well. Briefly, the problem is that Gangadean has a particular conception of "without excuse" and "clear" when he reads Romans 1:20 which states that "being clear from what is made so that man is without excuse." And he's got a particular doctrine of the consequences of unbelief in mind which inform what he draws from this text. But there is controversy all along the way. Why should we think that Paul was thinking of "clear" and "without excuse" in the way that Gangadean has in mind? Can Gangadean prove that he was? Again take a look at this post where I discuss these matters in more detail.
5) The reason that Gangadean thinks inexcusability of unbelief implies clarity is because he thinks that there are maximal consequences (spiritual death) that is part and parcel of unbelief in what is clear. So we can derive from that that any belief which failure to have results in maximal consequences/spiritual death are going to be absolutely clear or can be known with certainty.
However, according to the most common forumlations of Christianity including Gangadean's, spiritual life (avoiding spiritual death/maximal consequences) requires more than belief or knowledge that God exists. It requires, among other things, belief in Christ's redemptive work, which requires that one believes that Christ actually existed, took on the sins of the world and the like. And I take it that Gangadean is committed to the further view that belief in these claims is not enough, but one must have knowledge, his kind of knowledge. But one can't possibly know that Jesus existed, was the incarnation of God and died for our sins just by thinking about it. We need the divine revelation of God, the message of the gospel via the bible. So now it seems like according to Gangadean's standards one must also know (with certainty) that the bible (at least with respect to what it says about Christ's redemptive work) is true. So there is a lot to know here, and to know with absolute certainty according to Gangadean. Since failure to know any of these things leads to maximal consequences, it follows from Gangadean's position that each and every one of these propositions must be provable via a deductively sound argument. In other words, Gangadean must be able to prove how he can know that Jesus existed, was the incarnation of God, and took on the sins of the world and that the bible is true (at least insofar as it speaks of Christ). Can he prove each of these via reason? Here again is the post where I explain this objection and here is another that shows how Gangadean's can't prove that the bible is special revelation (i.e., actually the word of God).
6) Since Gangadean is so keen on citing Romans 1:20 as a proof text and appealing to particular words (in English translations) such as "without excuse" and "clearly" to make substantive philosophical claims, I wonder why he ignores the fact that Paul is speaking about unbelief with respect to God, rather than knowledge. Knowledge according to Gangadean requires certainty, but belief does not. We have all sorts of beliefs and not all of what we believe counts as knowledge. So perhaps all Paul is saying in that passage is that one ought to believe that God exists, because there are compelling reasons to believe even if these reasons don't provide knowledge or Gangadeanian knowledge (certainty).
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