.
1 Pet.3.15: "but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect"
Argument by Truth, Part 1) Begin by aksing the Atheist/Naturalist where the Universe came from. You will be backing him into a corner with facts and logic, but it is crucial to understand here at the onset that what you consider "factual" and "logical" will not necessarily be considered so by someone coming from a different philosophy / worldview / set of assumptions / presuppostitions. In other words, "facts" will always be consciously or unconsciously filtered through a worldview before they are even analyzed. So, the overall task here with Presuppositional Apologetics is to expose unargued philosophical bias and then systematically dismantle those biases.
Anyway, I digressed there but what you are wanting to do at this stage is to get the Atheist/Naturalist to the point where he has to reveal his belief in transdimensional alien overlords creating the Big Bang singularity (Xenu, perhaps?, then where did he come from?), or the fact that "real science simply isn't obligated to discuss the origin of the Big Bang singularity because it occurred outside of our current time-space continuum before scientific measurement was possible, therefore anything that attempts to do so (that is, religion) by definition simply isn't science." (By the way, this lame attempt at redefinition of terms has a couple of problems: 1) Naturalism is a religious philosophy, so this statement is self-refuting, 2) It's a total copout, what kind of science is it that refuses to answer the most ultimate question of all?) Analyze the Atheists statements and point out the inherent inconsistencies and contradictions in his facts and logic. Here are a few key ones:
a) Scientific procedure assumes that the natural world operates in a uniform fashion, therefore, our observational knowledge of past cases provides a basis for predicting what will happen in the future. But, if there is no God, then the Universe operates strictly by chance; you can not reconcile the view that nature is ultimately random with the fact that nature is so uniform. Basically, you are knee-capping your opponent from the getgo by pointing out the complete contradiction between the findings of scientific inquiry and his Atheism/Naturalism, although he will likely have something to get around it.
b) Related to point 'a' directly above, the fact that the Atheist is even sitting there arguing with you presupposes an orderly created Universe. The alternative is pure chaos and unintelligibility. Explain to the atheist that he is therefore actually using Theistic philosophical presuppositions in order to try to disprove Theism. This is exactly the same thing as a little girl trying to slap her father in the face but being unable to do so unless the father lets her climb up and sit in his lap to reach his face.
c) You can also use any number of argument types here, a popular one is reductio ad absurdum, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_absurdum , this is where you show the absurd ultimate result of Atheism, a good example is the Atheist Communist regimes that don't work and eventually fall apart. The point here is that the logical methods of Atheism ultimately lead to nothing but incoherence and internal contradiction. If followed to their ulimate conclusion they lead to unintelligibility which leads to the destruction of all the foundations of knowledge.
You guys will go back and forth with this facts and logic portion of this debate for awhile and eventually the Atheist may even admit that science and logic don't support Atheism, so he will then likely appeal to the moral issues he has with God. "How can a loving God allow the suffering of innocent children," etc. Address those objections with facts and logic with another round of Argument by Truth just as you did as above with your arguments from science. After that has all played out you will move to the next phase of the debate.
Argument by Truth, Part 2) If the Atheist remains unconvinced, explain to him that the reason he doesn't acknowledge God isn't due to lack of evidence or due to a deficiency in Theistic logic, but rather simply because he doesn't want to subscribe to any authority other than his own personal independent opinion. "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul."--Invictus. (For example, I've encountered Atheists that are so concerned with sexual freedom that the concern prevents them from subscribing to a traditional religion that would interfere with their sexual morays. This is a major factor in the Secular Progressive movement occurring right now in the West.) By contrast, for the Christian the ultimate authority is not individual autonomous independence. Rather, their ultimate authority is the Bible (Protestant), or Bible + OralTradition + Magisterium (Catholic). So anyway, at this point you point out that the Atheists beliefs are solely founded upon his commitment to independence alone -- he wants to be his own god. (If you like, you can explain to him that this commitment to independence is part of the sin of Adam in the Garden, where he thought he could be a god and thereby tried to blur the Creator / creation distinction by disobeying God at the Tree. You may or may not actually say this in your argument, but this blurring/confusing of the Creator / creation distinction is the root and foundation of Presuppositional Apologetics.)
End of Argument by Truth, continue on to Argument by Folly
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Argument by Folly, Part 1) The next step is to show the Atheist that his commitment to independence cannot be justified philosophically / technically. It can't be justified for the simple fact that he is not a deity. Let me explain: the Atheist will try to justify his independence and Atheism one of two ways:
a) If he attempts to justify his independence by his "absolute certainty" that there is no God, show him that, philosophically and technically speaking, he has not and cannot verify his absolute certainty because he has not been to every corner of this Universe(s) to verify that there is no God. He cannot do this sort of research because he does not possess the necessary deific powers that such a task would require. (Just a note of irony here that in trying to discount the existence of a deity he has to take up the mantle of omniscience via absolute certainty, which is a characteristic of deity.)
b) If he attempts to justify his independence by "agnosticism / uncertainty" regarding existence of God, point out to him that He is not a god and therefore is not omniscient and therefore cannot know enough to be sure about his uncertainty. ('b' here is just another form of 'a' above.)
This is an unsolvable dilemma for the Atheist. Whether he wears the mask of "absolute certainty" or the mask of "Agnosticism / total uncertainty," in both cases he is always caught in the unsolvable dilemma of having to be absolutely certain and totally uncertain at the same time. That is, if he claims to have "absolute certainty," he can do so only by ignoring his total uncertainty (that he cannot scientifically verify all things everywhere because he is only a finite creature and not a god. Absolute certainty for the unbeliver is impossible because he has rejected the only true source of knowledge (Christianity) and is left with only finite speculation.) If at this point he starts claiming that "probable knowledge" is sufficient, it must be pointed out that "probable knowledge" is not sufficient for this debate as we are dealing with ultimacies and not mere probabilities. If on the flip side he says that he is certain that he must be uncertain (Agnostic), then he has just generated an oxymoron that refutes itself.
Argument by Folly, Part 2) The conclusion of the debate occurs when you reveal that for $50,000 the Atheist can meet Xenu where we have him held captive in the mountains of Nevada. Kidding. No, it occurs when we contrast the choice of the limited unbelieving individual with the omniscient choice of a loving God found in the doctrines of Predestination and Election held by Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin. In short, Christians don’t individualistically chose any philosophy, rather, the "philosophy" (God) literally chooses them. Explain to the unbeliever that Christianity is the only reasonable and sustainable philosophy that exists, and it is the source of all culture, government, economics, etc. All other philosophies may flower for a time but they all eventually crumble under their own internal inconsistencies and contradictions.
End of argument
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Postscript notes:
1) You will notice here that I've made a jump from general Thesim to Christianity. If you have gotten an Atheist to come over into Theism, the next step is to start over again at the top with historical proofs and logic, but this time around you will be comparing the consistency and sustainability of different Theistic worldviews. For example Christianity versus Hinduism or Islam., etc. That being said, a fantastic article on the Kalam Cosmological argument for general Theism is William Lane Craig's article @ http://www.leaderu.com/truth/3truth11.html , I plan to incorporate that here more when I get a chance.
2) The use of Presuppositional Apologetics will open you up to the criticism of "begging the question," a term used to describe a certain type of logical fallacy. In other words, to beg the question is to begin with the assumption you are attempting to prove, it's also call circular reasoning. All religious beliefs (including Naturalism) appeal ultimately to circular logic in a large sense; its when circular logic is used in a smaller circle that its illegitimate.
For more info on Presuppositional Apologetics, every Christian should read these couple books:
http://www.amazon.com/Every-Thought-Captive-Defense-Christian/dp/0875523528/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214282465&sr=8-1 , by Richard Pratt
http://www.amazon.com/Always-Ready-Directions-Defending-Faith/dp/0915815281/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214282496&sr=1-1 , by Greg Bahnsen
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment