....... God bless

I think Truth shouldn't bother us. I believe it's not about better or worse; Truth is about love and devotion.

"However, the more that a theory is tested and "passes" the tests, the more that a theory successfully explains and accounts for the data that we continue to gather, the more that a theory agrees with other successful theories that we hold about the universe, the more probable it becomes that the theory is correct in explaining the phenomenon that it purports to explain."

As much as I agree with that, I'd like to point out that this process is itself derived from experience.  Also, its significance is a complete abstraction.   Why SHOULD it be more probable?  That it seems to be the case is derived from the same assessing we do to derive 'cause and effect.'  The conclusion that it is significant is more or less ad hoc and a priori.  It is an intuition.

Not even that.

You laid out the following sequence:  observations, more observations, more confirmed observations =more probable.

I was only pointing out that epistemologically, you have a principle here derived a posteriori, and a significance attached to it that is derived a priori.  'Probabilities' are rooted in a priori assessments about reality.

I didn't really explain why I wanted to point it out, but I will now.  What you laid out is essentially the much lauded underpinnings to the classical scientific method.  Proponents often like to think that their method is strictly empirical, but it is not.  Hume cannot escape Kant.  Kant cannot dismiss Hume.

Simply put, I had a narrower scope.  You are speaking of induction in general, which is fine.  I'm speaking of a very specific induction, and one which I find materialists- especially the atheists who trumpet the scientific method- are either unaware of or refuse to acknowledge for apologetical reasons.

So, I'm drawing on other experiences and arguments that have sprung up here and there on these boards, attempting to illustrate that the underpinnings of the 'scientific method' is really categorically like the underpinnings of other methods of inquiry.

"sntjohnny -- I've never understood why some theists, although certainly not all, seem to believe that because there is an ongoing inquiry concerning the justification of induction, that that's somehow a reason to believe that a god exists."

It's really not that hard to understand.  Abstractions, especially pure ones, do not belong to the material universe.  Attempts to reduce them to the material universe result in the fatal error you already mentioned:  "Induction cannot rely on induction for its justification for then the justification for induction becomes fatally circular."  

How is that a reason to believe a god exists?  There are several different ways you can go from this platform, usually depending on the atheist you are talking about.  Atheists come in all flavors.  I have certainly met some who would refuse to acknowledge even basic logi-rational principles in order to undermine an argument for theism.  I think we'd have to put the Churchlands in this category.  It sounds like you aren't.

"We can know that a god exists only a priori or a posteriori. We, of course, know claims to be true a posteriori through experience. If our experience cannot justify our claims, then the belief that a god exists as a result of experience is unjustified just as every other a posteriori claim is unjustified."

Ok.

"If OTOH it's possible to imagine a world in which a god doesn't exist, then a god's existence is not a priori true, either."

The problem with these two paragraphs put together like this is that in the first paragraph you ask us to assume ("If our...") a proposition wherein we decide that we cannot gain a posteriori knowledge of God.  Your next paragraph, in contrast to that, makes it sound as though the argument for a god is therefore assumed a priori.  But that last paragraph is a reaction to an ontological argument, but I have never seen an ontological argument that begins with assuming that God exists to prove that God exists.

We must be talking past each other.  I was just trying to throw in a cautionary notation, not launch a side discussion!  Ah well, no one else is posting.

"In a nutshell, this is what I am saying: If inductive argument is unjustified, as some argue that it is,"

And who are those 'some' ?  Not theists.

"then the proposition "God exists" must be a priori true or it cannot be known to be true at all."

I wasn't making any arguments for the existence of God.  I was only pointing out that the underpinning to the scientific method which you briefly described rests on something that is itself a priori.  

"I'm curious to know whether your personal belief that God exists is based on inductive argument, deductive argument, or both."

Both.

I'm declining to answer your other questions mainly to not hijack the thread, but also because I think you read into my comments an attempt to argue for the existence of God, while all I was trying to do was point out that the rational basis for philosophical naturalism and all it entails is itself non-natural.

"Yes, many theists DO use the question of the justification of induction"

Perhaps we are suffering from equivocation.  Do you mean ''question" as in 'is' skeptical of?  That is what I mean- people who question, are skeptical, dispute, debate, won't accept, the validity of induction.  Is that what you mean?

"They try to argue that inductive argument can be justified only by first assuming the existence of a god."

Which is not what I meant by 'questioning.'

"This is unknown. In fact, this IS the problem of the justification of induction"

Of course it is known.  Perhaps you forget the specific example.  You seem to keep gravitating to the broader issue.  You brought up the scientific methodology as a means of gaining assurance about a proposition. Summed up: "The more times something meets the prediction, the more probable it is right."   The first half of that is clearly a posteriori.  But the second half is drawing a significance from the first.  Just exactly WHY does multiple observations specifically, logically, rationally, MEAN something is more probable?  This is not mere induction.  This is an intuition.  When we think more closely about it, and lay it out as a principle, we see that it is, whether we think about it or not, deriving significance from the a priori realm.  So, it is not unknown.

Thanks for allowing me to defer your questions.