Virtuous vs. Vicious Circular Reasoning?

I recently read a comment by a Christian friend of mine in which he urged his liberal friends to reveal their 'objective standard for truth.' He was referring to the Christian claim to objective, absolute truth, and challenging liberals to produce anything similar.

I wrote him to ask if he had an objective standard for truth that he did not subjectively determine, which I think is fundamentally absurd and a tacit admission of ignorance on the subject of basic psychology and/or philosophy. All objectivity is subjectively experienced, defined, and expressed. There is no object without subject, as there is no subject without object. In the words of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (of all people), "Subject and object marry and mutually transform each other in the act of knowledge." Pretending to be able to separate out subject an object is a fool's errand. We may get as close as we can to setting general boundaries on what we best understand as the categories of "me" and "not me", but any dogmatism on the subject is complete nonsense.

My friend answered back by somewhat dodging the question which, to be fair, he probably only barely understood because he has not trained himself to think outside of the Bible and Christian doctrine. He ended up quoting New Testament verses in the Bible stating that we can "know" God, and he interpolated the bracketed word "[objectively]" in each passage before the word "know". I tried learning the meaning of his terms "know" "believe" and "faith", but he hedged by referring back to objectivity in knowing God. When asked what he meant by subjectivity, he responded that he believed subjectivity dealt with those things which couldn't be "proven beyond doubt" like dreams, intuitions, feelings, and opinions on non-essential matters of doctrine. I asked him if he intended to say that objective knowledge, then, is impersonal without human emotions and intuitions, is the way in which we are meant, as human beings, to know God. He said 'no', because even demons believe in God, but they aren't saved by it. He said that 'knowing' is more like a relationship in the sense that Adam and Eve "knew" each other...in the Biblical sense.

Now, other than the fact that he flat-out contradicted himself here (personal vs. impersonal "knowing"), it's clear that he is not thinking through these matters logically, but rather Scripturally with the tools and terms someone else had indoctrinated him with. I realized he had no concept of the differentiation between subjectivity and objectivity other than his understanding that subjectivity is human and therefore cannot be trusted a priori.  I finally gave up and asked him how he knew this. He referred to God making it known to us, and confirming it in the Bible. I, of course, asked him about his understanding of circular reasoning.

"So truth supports our rationality, God supports truth, and... how do you know this? "The Bible says"? That just pushes this back another level, so the pyramid of how we are certain of anything would be: 1) Bible, 2) God, 3) Truth, 4) Rationality...and then things like intuition/feelings/dreams/opinions. Right? So how do you know the Bible is true? God makes it known? And how do you know this? Because the Bible says so? And how do you know the Bible is true? God makes it known? And how do you know? The Bible says?

And this doesn't sound like circular reasoning to you?"

He responded by saying that this is indeed circular reasoning, which he said all religions are. But here's the real kicker...he referenced the difference between circular reasoning that is 'virtuous' and circular reasoning that is 'vicious' ('question-begging'). He linked me here: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/scriptorium/2007/07/running-in-virtuous-circles-the-truth-of-the-bible/. 

If you've read this far, please complete your jedi training by reading that article. It is very informative, though fairly condemning for the fundamentalist religion positions. Basically, it says that Christians sometime make the mistake of believing the Bible without having a theology 'of'' the Bible...or in other words... some people just believe it on the surface without trying to understand why they believe it. This is 'vicious' circular reasoning and question-begging (from Latin "petitio principia”, “assuming the initial point”, where the conclusion that one is attempting to prove is included in the initial premises of an argument); whereas virtuous circular reasoning is legitimate.

Basically, non-question-begging circular reasoning is something you and your debate partner are allowed to assume is true (for a better treatment of this principle, see http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~morourke/404-phil/Summer-99/Handouts/Philosophical/Circularity-and-Begging-the-Question.htm). These 'things people assume' are something like what Aristotle referred to as First Principles, though not exactly the same thing as the author of the first article mentioned above illustrates. Principles of intuitive logic and religious ideas aren’t necessarily both First Principles.

My friend and the author of the first article mentioned above both assume, SUBJECTIVELY, that the truth of the Bible is a First Principle, although they would probably both admit that a knowledge of ‘Jesus saving us from our sins so we can go to Heaven’ is not anything at all like a First Principle. The author maintains that Christians can avoid vicious circular reasoning because most people have to start with something, but Christians aren’t just starting with something; they are starting with something that they feel disproves all the other somethings of other people’s religions, and contrary to many First Principles to boot! Not only do many people believe in a priori convictions that are fundamentally different from Christians, but many, many people have started with this idea of the Bible being true as a First Principle, and have later changed their mind. Where does that put this 'foundational truth' now that it has become not so foundational?

It doesn’t really help matters to adduce that God tells us what is true, therefore the Bible is absolute Truth. Why doesn’t that help? Because it is obviously still a vicious cycle!! Acknowledging vicious circular reasoning does not transform your reasoning into virtuous circular reasoning! Some dedicated Christian is pretending to care about philosophy and is now just playing with people’s brains!

BUT, even if this were a way out of ‘vicious circular reasoning’ (more commonly referred to simply as ‘circular reasoning’), this doesn’t get my friend out of his troubles. The idea of First Principles and a theology of Scripture is subjective through and through. Even if you could establish a distinction between subject and object, objective truth can’t force itself into a subject’s brain and set itself up as absolute truth without subjective cognitive-emotive processing. By appealing to circular reasoning of any kind, my friend has capitulated to the idea that we cannot know anything purely objectively, which is to say that our appeal to Truth is always tainted by our imperfect (finite) humanity. No getting out of this situation we’ve found ourselves in. We must admit it, deal with it the best we can, and love ourselves the best we can. No amount of self-loathing in all its myriad forms excuses us from the fact that I am stuck with me, and you are stuck with you. For better or for worse. Till death do us part.