Listen to this post NOW on Beyond Everything Radio!

Agrippa’s Trilemma is a philosophical argument which postulates that any theory of knowledge (epistemology) cannot be proven without appealing one of three things: 1. infinite regression, 2. circular reasoning, or 3. dogmatism, thus leaving all axioms unprovable. Sounds great, but what if there are other ways to prove an axiom, for example, the impossibility of the contrary?

An axiom is a self-evident truth, established rule, or foundational principle that is accepted as true without requiring proof. This this is this is intellectualisms philosophy of disproving God. But the problem is that mathematics itself relies upon axioms. As math becomes more complex, the use of axioms are needed to build and test new theorems, but the axioms themselves are presupposed to be true, and not tested. “The shortest distance between any two points is a straight line.”

On the surface the trilemma seems logical. It appears to debunk or at least challenge the way people know something. It presses all axioms (fundamental truths that in themselves are presupposed as true) even those in mathematics and science, but primarily those in philosophy and religion, into unprovable assumptions. The goal of the trilemma isn’t to conclude that we cannot know anything for certain, but that’s the common conclusion drawn by many people. Yet somehow, they just go back to living as though axioms exist, and that’s the practical point here. I even watched a person defend the trilemma by insisting mathematics could have no provable axioms, but of course she still balances her checkbook.

In my estimation, this just misses the point. Yes, if we press an epistemological (way of knowing) construct through the grid of the trilemma, then “philosophically” speaking, epistemologies become unjustifiable axioms. That in and of itself doesn’t end the discussion, but to me, reveals the biggest portal through which there actually is a provable epistemology of truth.

For starters, one can ask if Agrippa’s trilemma is justifiable. Meaning, is the trilemma axiomatic in itself? Those who place their faith in the trilemma in order to disprove belief systems are usually those who are blind to their belief system built upon the axiomatic presupposition of the trilemma.

Second, we need to consider why a person wants to employ the trilemma as a justification for their position. This is a tell. The issue is not about getting it right, it’s usually about being right. This reveals that they are no more committed to the trilemma than they are to any other epistemology, because when pressed, they can simply ride their position into absurdity and act like the four year old who keeps asking: “why?” This only proves my assertion that appealing to the trilemma as a basis for logic is foundational completely illogical. Furthermore, those who do so, fail to consider that even if it is philosophically viable, it’s functionally impossible in that no person actually lives in fidelity to the trilemma, it’s impossible to do so. This means the greatest argument against this trilemma is the impossibility of the contrary.

The easiest way to debunk Agrippa’s Trilemma is to ask if there is any epistemology in which an axiom actually exists. Why does mathematics work if its axioms are unprovable. The answer is that every person upholds axioms as unquestionable truths and math is impossible without axioms…impossibility of the contrary.

Advanced mathematics ultimately proves the axioms as verifiable and reliable, but the axiom in its own right is always presupposed. This is not circular reasoning as the trilemma may suppose. Thus an axiom is justified (proven) functionally, even if it’s not justified philosophically. For example, the trilemma may philosophically argue against the axioms of gravity, but there is no way to functionally live apart from the effects of gravity. Thus a person walks around in a world that where gravity and mathematics are functionally true for them, but want to philosophically pretend they don’t exist. This creates a dilemma far more dire than Agrippa, it is a full scale denial of reality.

The trilemma isn’t used to debunk mathematics and science as much as it is used to devalue truth claims that surround faith, orthodoxy, and orthopraxy. In other words, when a person doesn’t want to live under the moral constraints of right and wrong, the trilemma is a convenient argument which elevates ones pride and certainty that their own rebellious heart is not in error and is superior to others. The psychological and spiritual dilemma of the trilemma is its greatest error and area of exposure. If a person has any integrity to the basis for why they want to employ the trilemma, they must agree that there could never be a sense of injustice in the world, for one could come and kill another and take his or her possessions under the umbrella of the trilemma. No one really wants to push it this far, and this proves that the trilemma is motivated on moral claims, not philosophy, nor pursuit of the truth.

The impossibility of the contrary is not only how we debunk the trilemma, but it’s how we prove that God exists. Thus Agrippa’s Trilemma is a gateway to revealing precisely how God can be proven to exist in the world, and how it’s impossible to live in a world where the axiom of God doesn’t exist. Axioms do in fact exist, but not in philosophical epistemologies, not even in scientific ones, but always in spiritual, or non-physical realities that bear morally upon everyone within a cosmos that cannot be experienced apart from their existence.

There is literally no corner of life, philosophy, logic, mathematics, spirituality, and humanity where God cannot exists. This should be a basis for our faith, and the exploration of our true selves hidden in God.