Sorry it has been so long! A couple weeks ago Juliann and I adopted a new puppy and he has put quite a strain on our time. But, it’s time to get the blogging ball rolling again. Something that has been on my mind a lot in recent weeks is the growing amount of secular, godless reasoning in our culture. Christians need to be able to articulate a rational and defensible explanation for why Christianity is true. There are many Christians who have no problem saying, “What’s good for you is good for you, and what’s good for me is good for me.” Though there is an element of secularized humility wrapped up in that expression, it’s not an accurate understanding of Christian truth. The Bible doesn’t position itself as one way to truth but as the way to truth. So if you’re going to believe the Bible, you have to be ready to believe and defend its claim to authority. We don’t defend the Bible because it needs defense. We defend God’s Word because we’re commanded to share the gospel. Part of that involves tearing down intellectual strongholds and providing an answer for the hope that is in us (2 Corinthians 10:1-6 and 1 Peter 3:15).
Non-believers often point out the supposed circularity in Christian defenses of the Bible. They say that you can’t defend the authority of the Bible with the Bible itself because that is circular reasoning. My intent in this post is to explain the hypocrisy behind this statement so that Christians can be equipped to expose this same line of reasoning behind every worldview’s truth claims. I think this will be best accomplished through giving you a chance to sit in on a discussion between Charles, a Christian, and Eric, an atheist.
Eric: So Charles, you believe the Bible is God’s word right?
Charles: Absolutely! I think the Bible is the Word of God which He has given to men to teach us about truth, His character, and the gospel.
Eric: All right. So why do you believe the Bible is God’s word? Why do you believe that your holy book is the one that contains divine revelation from God?
Charles: The Bible itself claims to be the word of God! If you look at 2 Timothy 3:16 you’ll see that all Scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching and training in righteousness. All throughout the Bible, God is speaking to and through man.
Eric: You can’t defend the Bible with itself! How can you say that the Bible is God’s word just because that’s what it claims to be?
Charles: Well I didn’t say that was the only reason that I believe it is God’s word, but it’s certainly the essential reason. Let me ask you a question, Eric. How do you believe that we come to know truth?
Eric: Through reason. If everyone would just use reason to examine the evidence then people would see things for what they really are.
Charles: Okay so you believe that reason is how we discover truth. Why do you believe that reason is the way to truth?
Eric: Because it uses logic and evidence and…
Charles: Aha! See, you’re giving a defense of reason by using reason. You’re opening your “bible” to defend it while not extending that same right to me. Why can you defend reason and logic by using reason and logic while I can’t use the Bible to defend the Bible?
The truth is that everyone has their own “bible”. Your bible is whatever basic presuppositions you believe to be absolutely true. Eventually, if you trace back why you believe certain things, you will reach a point where you can’t go any farther. There is something at the root of all your thoughts that you believe to be true based on nothing else other than faith. For the atheist, it might be rationality and reason. But that takes a step of faith because there is nothing to suggest that all of the biological responses in our brain are firing off in a reasonable way that would produce reasonable thoughts. The atheist trusts reason as his bible with the same faith that the Christian trusts in the Word of God. This is why Christians shouldn’t be afraid to defend the authority of the Bible using the Bible itself. There is a tendency to want to provide a defense of Scripture’s authority by stepping outside of its authority and using fallen secular reasoning. Ask yourself, why must you reason on the turf of secularism?
You might be left asking, so how does this help defend Christianity? Isn’t this just an admission that we’re all using circular reasoning? I’m going to explore that in a subsequent post later on. The point of this post is to teach believers how to expose worldview hypocrisy when the Word of God is being attacked. The ability to see this sort of flawed reasoning shouldn’t be used to win debates or humiliate non-Christians. 2 Corinthians 10 shows us that “the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ…” The purpose of any debate with a non-believer is to point him to the gospel of Christ. In order to do this, we must be faithful to tear down strongholds of intellectual folly that are muddling the truth of Scripture in the non-believer’s mind. When you’re defending the Bible, don’t be afraid to defend it on its own terms. You won’t be doing anything different than anyone else in the world who is defending their own “bible.”
I’m indebted to Doug Wilson, Greg Bahnsen, and Van Til for the initial exposure to this type of reasoning. I would highly recommend watching “Collision” for a live version of this type of Christian reasoning. “Always Ready” by Greg Bahnsen is a short book centered around helping Christians defend the Bible without resorting to secular reasoning.
Sarah
/ May 3, 2012Why does someone who reads the Bible assume that they’re reading the same book during Genesis as they are during Revelations?
Why do they assume that every time they go back and read it again, the words won’t have changed while they were away?
Why do they assume that Jesus is the still the son of God on every page of the New Testament, even though it doesn’t say so on every page of the New Testament? Why do they even assume this Jesus is the same one they were reading about 2 chapters ago?
Why do they assume that just because (1) God said X is a sin, and (2) people who sin go to hell, therefore (3) people who do X will go to hell?
Because of reason.
You need reason to understand the implications of the Bible, to understand the experience of reading the Bible, and to understand the experience of life itself. All people, including Christians, use processes of rational thought that their brains have been developing by observation of the world around them since the day they were born. These processes are essential to the mere act of reading scripture. It is something that you take for granted. You don’t question it. You don’t constantly stop and check to see if you really have justification in thinking that the book in your hands hasn’t changed since the last time you saw it. Why would it? Evidence shows that books tend not to change in between readings, so reason leads us to believe that this one hasn’t, either. You automatically assume (unless shown otherwise) that not only is your assumption sound, but the reasoning your brain used to make it is valid.
Reason is also then not only an atheist’s lower-case “bible,” by this logic, but the “bible” of every human on the face of the planet, including Christians. So why does that make it okay to suspend those same reasoning faculties that are otherwise taken for granted when arguing in favor of Christian doctrine?
Blaine
/ May 3, 2012This is false. Reason is based on observation. All understanding of the world requires that we observe an objective reality. Without the assumption that the universe does behave in a predictable manner, we cannot safely evaluate the truth of anything, including our senses; much less the truth of the Gospel. If we can accept that our senses represent the truth of reality, we must accept that logic represents truth because logic consistently and unfailingly produces accurate predictions about reality as we perceive it with our senses. If we do not accept that logic is the path to truth, we are implicitly accepting that there is no way to determine truth at all.
Ross Parmly
/ May 7, 2012Blaine, you assume too much. Sure, I’ll give you that reason is based off of observation, but how do you know that your senses are functioning properly and are accurately conveying the truth about reality? My point stands. The atheist assumes a framework about the world (that it’s rational and properly interpreted through our senses) and then they go from there to make sense out of it. I don’t believe the atheist can escape the fact that their framework has no rational explanation for how rationality can exist! If everything must be based on reason and observation then you must provide an infinitely long chain of reasons to defend your position. This is untenable and tedious.
Christianity provides a rock solid foundation for rationality, logic, and the trustworthiness of our senses. God has revealed himself through creation and has created us with these faculties so that we could worship him and appreciate his indescribably complex and beautifully created universe. Atheism presupposes just as much as the Christian, but the Christian’s presuppositions give a rational explanation for why we can believe anything at all. The atheist, based on their reliance on reason alone, is left with irrationality because no one can give an infinite chain of reasons to defend their beliefs. The Christian can provide a rational explanation for their epistemology, whereas the atheist is left with irrationality.
Sarah
/ May 7, 2012Ross, I really don’t understand what you mean when you say “If everything must be based on reason and observation then you must provide an infinitely long chain of reasons to defend your position.” I must disagree. You only need a few baseline assumptions to defend the rational method, which cuts short the infinite regression at the same place every other philosophy’s regression is cut short, including Christianity’s: “I think, therefore I am.”
It is true that in order to use reason, you are assuming three things which cannot be proven. They are (1) that your mind exists, (2) that anything exists outside of your own mind, and (3) that you have the power to perceive it accurately. Yes, these assumptions could be wrong; we could all be living in an elaborate computer simulation right now. But those are the only three assumption you have to make.
Observation-based reason can be derived from those three things. It is the action of your mind acting on what it has perceived of the external world. This is no guarantee that reason is accurate, of course, but we have assumed that our observation is accurate, so if we fail in our reasoning, our observation will tell us so, and we’ll be able to try different lines of reasoning until one produces good results. It’s beautiful in its elegance.
Alternatively, if you want to argue for a supernatural being as the source of rationality, you must still argue those three things, because you claim that God created your mind if you don’t presuppose that you already have a mind, or that God created the world if you haven’t presupposed there is a world, or that God gave you senses if you haven’t presupposed you have senses. Setting aside the fact that these three things are sufficient to explain reason, you can then argue further for the origin of these things by arguing something along the lines of (4) that there is a supernatural entity who is responsible for the existence of all of these things, (5) that one of the things this supernatural entity created is another entity called Reason, which is the objective form of rational thought, and gave you the ability to use it.
You can’t omit the last bit about Reason being separate from your mind and power of observation unless you want to allow that the existence of a mind and the power of observation enables Reason, in which case we’re back to the original method (1-3).
These are far fewer assumptions in the first method than in the second. In fact, the second just seems unnecessarily complicated to me. Even if you rearrange it so that the creating force comes first, followed by all of its creations (your mind, your senses, Reason, and the external world) as one condensed argument, you haven’t made this method any more concise, because I can do the same thing and turn the original three propositions into one, in which I assume that there is a world inside which is a mind with the power to observe it. Changing the formatting of the list won’t change the fact that the argument from supernatural creation still proposes the existence of more entities.
It also doesn’t say anything about the nature of the creating force (whether it’s Jehovah or Krishna or Zeus or something else), each of which requires still more baseline assumptions.
And it also doesn’t solve the problem of the computer simulation. That is, we could both be wrong, and nothing outside of our own minds exists at all. Assuming the existence of a deity who could fix this problem doesn’t fix the problem if the assumption turns out to be incorrect.
I apologize for the length of this post, it got a little out of hand.
Sarah
/ May 7, 2012And in the paragraph where it says “because you claim that God created your mind if you don’t presuppose that you already have a mind,” it was supposed to read “because you CAN’T claim…”
Ross Parmly
/ May 7, 2012Sarah,
Thanks for taking the time to interact with this post. The things we are talking about are important, that is one thing that we both agree on, I’m sure.
The issue with Descartes “I think, therefore I am” is that it is begging the question. The first word is “I” and so before Descartes even lays out his foundation he is presupposing his own existence. Before he thinks he is presupposing himself. He assumes what he is trying to prove.
You speak of three things which you must presume in order to use reason: 1) that your mind exists, 2) that anything exists outside of your own mind, 3) that you have the power to perceive it accurately. I’m sorry but why should we assume these three things? That is quite a lot of assuming, and I don’t think you can claim to solely rely on evidence for your understanding of the world if you are going to assume three things without the basis of any evidence.
I’m not trying to argue that the world is irrational. I’m trying to show that it’s irrational based on the presuppositions of rationalism. Atheistic rationalism is self defeating. It can’t hold itself up. The only way the atheist can reason is by borrowing from the Christian and presupposing a foundation.
I agree with you that our minds exist and that we can perceive things outside the mind and that we can perceive these things accurately. But that’s because God has created us in His ordered and fine-tuned universe as rational beings with properly functioning cognitive faculties that can accurately observe and make sense out of our world.
So my question for you is: how can you defend a rational and reasonable world given without betraying your own presuppositions? Is reason and observation the way we can determine what is true? If so then how do we know that reason and observation is the determining factor without relying on reason and observation?
The only way to escape atheistic irrationality is through acknowledging God first in all things. It is the acknowledgement that unless God has revealed himself to us and unless he has created us in a certain way, rationality cannot exist. God has created man in his image with the ability to perceive him and know him. Indeed, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse” (Romans 1:20). The only worldview that is rational or tenable is the Christian one. It’s the only worldview where wisdom can be found. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight” (Proverbs 9:10).
Sarah
/ May 7, 2012I really can’t see how presupposing that God exists is any different from presupposing that logic exists. You still have to assume that X exists in order to use X in your argument. You say “why should we assume these three things? That is quite a lot of assuming,” which is exactly what I say in response to your self-proving assumption that God exists. Why should I assume that God exists? It doesn’t fix the problem of reason resting on an irrational basis. You still can’t know if your assumption is correct, because the conclusion is founded on the assumption and there is no way to resolve the problem.
And I still don’t see why assuming the existence of God lets you make all of your other arguments, either. “The only worldview that is rational or tenable is the Christian one” does not seem to follow, to me. Why not “the only worldview that is rational or tenable is the Muslim one”? You are assuming God, then using that assumption to prove God, and then assuming even more about the nature of God that doesn’t follow even if you accept the original baseless assumption.
Ross Parmly
/ May 7, 2012Sarah, let me clarify. My goal isn’t to presuppose God exists in order to prove that God exists. I’m simply saying that rationality isn’t possible without presupposing God. I’m saying that Christianity has a rational explanation for its epistemological conclusions that isn’t self defeating. Atheism attempts to be rational through asserting that everything must be based off of reason, observation and sensory experience but then cannot escape the fact that it must support that assertion by assuming what it is trying to prove.
I believe God exists apart from this abstract philosophical discussion. Plenty of things speak of His existence: man’s natural sense of the divine, the fine tuning of the universe, the existence of morality, the natural tendency to believe things are reasonable and orderly, the fact that everything in the natural world has a cause, etc. The list can go on and on.
My goal in the blog post was to show that both Christians and atheists have a foundation. The atheists foundation is self-defeating whereas the Christian foundation offers a tenable explanation for rationality.