In The Same Boat or Rocking the Boat?: A snippet from a post-radio debate

After going on Backpack Radio last week I have been involved, on and off, with a debate that occurred on an atheist's Facebook post. The individual who posted, posted a link to the interview, and then tagged me with the phrase "In the Same Boat." He has been laboring, unsuccessfully, to prove that even based on Christian presuppositions, one cannot have certainty or a foundation for knowledge. A lot of the ensuing discussion revolved around the nature of presuppositional debates. As I said in the interview, a presupp debate is effective when one states their worldview, and then critiques the opposing worldview by its internal merits. Most of the debate was me pointing out that their critique of the Christian worldview was not an internal critique, but an insertion of their own faulty categories into the Christian worldview in order to damage it. They kept claiming I was also evaluating their worldview by inserting my own categories into it, yet without being specific as to how I was doing that. At the end of the debate they finally gave me specifics, and it was quite revealing. Apparently, the very categories of coherence and correspondence with an objective reality, they reject as a purely Christian concept, as they openly embrace an ultimate irrationalism. That is a stunning admission to the fact that atheism produces no coherence, correspondence, and has no foundation for knowledge. Below is the last bit of exchange. I decided to post it, while hiding their names, in order to illustrate the effectiveness of the presuppositional argument.

Atheist 1: Colin S, Is having an internally consistent, justified and coherent worldview of value to you? Is it a standard by which you evaluate the worth of your worldview? Yes?

Further, are you obligated to justify your worldview by my worldview's standards? No?

Cool, ya see what I did there? I just exposed your blindspot.

Because, ya see, for the same reasons you're worldview isn't susceptible to evaluation from standards in my wv, mine is impervious to evaluation from standards in yours.

What if, using your internal critique method, I don't care that my worldview is not absolutely consistent, justifies or coherent?

What if i accept philosophical dilemmas and scientific mysteries as items that actually strengthen my worldview, such that it's incompleteness allows for room for growth and awe?

I don't engage in your spitting contest. Atheists haven't dropped the ball, they firmly place it down.

CSmall: Ah. I see what your saying. Thanks for your honestly.

Atheist 2: Colin, I agree, you are operating under a number of double-standards. As Christopher has just pointed out, you are applying your own standards within your worldview to other worldviews, while claiming this is not allowed for other people. I find it rather ironic that you will go to great lengths to argue that atheists are not "incapable of comparing and contrasting comparative worldviews" - well look no further.

We have done just that. And to the point where we have exposed your own double-standards, inconsistencies and absurdities within your own worldview.

//Well, Colin, the SAME THING could be said about your assertions. You assume correspondence between your thoughts and God. You have not demonstrated that such is the case, but merely asserted it... such a claim is not axiomatic.//

"Yes, according to YOUR worldview God is something that just exists in my head."

Another dodge, and another appeal to a definition with NO justification. And I wasn't even talking about your lack of justification in terms of my worldview, I was talking about your own standards - that "assumption of correspondence" which you fail to demonstrate but merely assert (and which you don't "know" according to your own definition of knowledge). Why is it you can say this to other people while being guilty of THE VERY SAME THING?

There are a few simple facts we both share regarding our 'abilities' and the 'conditions' of our epistemologies within our worldviews:

1. we are both 'stuck' on the receiving end of a stream of information, whether that be sensory data from the external world, or a "revelation" directly from a deity.

2. we are both fallible, yet we both rely heavily on our senses and experiences to form our worldviews.

3. we both must assume certain axioms in order to experience and make sense of the external world (the world at the other end of the stream of information), and we both cannot "get behind", or "justify" those axioms.

The problem is, while you are raging war with non-Christians for not being able to justify certain axioms, you yourself are hiding behind a baseless claim of "absolute certain knowledge".... with no ultimate justification of your own, other than a viciously circular argument. Instead of admitting this, you tap dance around the questions and continue to beg the question with every response.

CSmall: "We have done just that. And to the point where we have exposed your own double-standards, inconsistencies and absurdities within your own worldview."

Actually you haven't done that at all. You have failed to critique my worldview from the inside out, and I have taken care to break down how that is so. Never once have you brought a charge against me that I was misrepresenting your worldview in its metaphysic or epistemology. I called you a logical positivist once and you denounced that charge. I wasn't satisfied with your explanation on how you aren't LP, but I dropped the label. However, when you speak like an empiricist, I critique you as one. Most of my answers have been on the defensive of you inserting your own assumptions in my worldview. I have seen a few accusations, but no specifics, of what exactly I was inserting from my worldview into my critique of yours... Until Christopher posted above....

Christopher just stated that he basically doesn't care if his worldview is incoherent and not correspondent with reality. If that is what you are saying as well, and if you are claiming that the general category of correspondence and coherence is something that only exists in my worldview, and thus cannot be applied to yours; then the conversation is over. You have conceded that intelligibility and rationality are only possible if my worldview is true, and that the under currents of such things (ie coherence and correspondence) have no place in your worldview.

"Another dodge, and another appeal to a definition with NO justification. And I wasn't even talking about your lack of justification in terms of my worldview, I was talking about your own standards - that "assumption of correspondence" which you fail to demonstrate but merely assert (and which you don't "know" according to your own definition of knowledge). Why is it you can say this to other people while being guilty of THE VERY SAME THING?"

We've gone over this before. I explained the difference between my axiom, and yours. My axiom (God) is self-sustaining and under girds the axioms and preconditions necessary for human predication, ontologically and not arbitrarily. Your axioms aren't axioms and need outside entities and realities in order to justify themselves, so they aren't a proper starting point for knowledge. Furthermore, you are an inherently mental creature who knows through verbal constructs. Yet you believe that reality is made up of non-mental realities (matter) which cannot engage in verbal communication. The problem there is that one needs to know something about the basic nature of reality, before they can investigate particulars or more specific information about it. We need to know what reality is, before we can know how we can know it. In other words, we need revelation about reality, from an outside source, before we can begin predicating. Your problem is that what you believe reality to be outside of yourself is fundamentally incommunicable and disjointed from what you are as a thinking, human subject. What follows from that is that reality cannot come to you and verbally express it's nature to you so that you can know, or even define it (matter is defined as "stuff"), and thus truly know it or begin predicating about it. So you're two problems are, your axioms aren't axiomatic, they implicate outside realities to justify themselves; and also what you say reality is, is fundamentally different from what you are, causing a fundamental epistemological problem that further estranges you from correspondence.

In contradistinction, the Christian will say that knowledge and reality begins with, and comes from the self-contained Trinity, who is self-existent and not referential to any other reality than Himself, and whose very ontological properties provides a foundation for human reason and sense experience to be justified sources of knowledge in their appropriate spheres. Furthermore we are made in God's image and likeness, and are thus "like him" at a finite level, particularly when it comes to our mental life. So therefore, there can be revelation or communication from His mind to ours pertaining to his own nature, the nature reality which he made, and the nature of ourselves.

Atheist 1: Colin, thanks for your understanding. Would love to chat sometime. PM me if interested.

Atheist 1: //Christopher just stated that he basically doesn't care if his worldview is incoherent and not correspondent with reality.// Mostly yes

//If that is what you are saying as well, and if you are claiming that the general category of correspondence and coherence is something that only exists in my worldview, and thus cannot be applied to yours; then the conversation is over. You have conceded that intelligibility and rationality are only possible if my worldview is true, and that the under currents of such things (ie coherence and correspondence) have no place in your worldview.// No

That is where you are crossing over from internal critique to external critique. Correspondence and coherence exist in atheist worldviews, but a fetishized obsession with absolute correspondence and coherence is not valued. That absolute value may exist in your worldview, whereas it's relative cousin exists in ours.

CSmall: So what does that mean? How does that play out?

CSmall: And to help you clarify your thoughts here, from my perspective that sounds like: "Okay, okay, no we are not totally irrational and we don't reject correspondence and coherence totally. Rather, we believe there is correspondishness and coherenceness out there somewhere along with truthiness." It seems you don't want to loose those category now, but are leaving them open ended and vague so that if someone wants to interact with you about it, it will be like hammering jello to a wall. Not to be derogatory, but that is how it sounds. So what do you mean?

Atheist 1: Oh no, I think we're all irrational. Seriously.

Are Atheists Just Guessing? A follow up on a broken thought.

This past Thursday, I had the privilege of joining Vocab Malone and Pastor Vermon on Backpack Radio. The topic revolved around Facebook debates, epistemology and apologetics. To make a long story short, after having debated a few local atheists on their facebook page, I was asked if I would like to come on the show and speak to above subjects. The show is known for having both well-known scholars on, as well as the "average Joe" (fyi, I fall into the latter category ;). While the show is prerecorded, it is recorded as if it is live. I was not given a list of specific questions to answer, just general themes which we would be dealing with in each segment. Being my first time on the radio, and also being a seminary student who loves to preach right out of his manuscript, one can imagine that there were a few times when I got ahead of myself and felt a little "jumbled" in my answesr. One answer stuck out to me almost immediately after having given it, which I would like to clarify/address with this post.

In the second segment, I believe it was Vermon who asked me what exactly epistemology was. After defining epistemology ("a theory of knowledge"), and opening up the components of having "justified true belief," I made a statement that was somewhat unclear and may sound unfair or inaccurate without some clarification. In describing what it means for true belief to be "justified," I used the analogy of me and someone else taking a quiz. In the scenario the correct answer was (b), which both me and my neighbor got correct. However, in my case I simply guessed, whereas my neighbor studied and "knew" the answer was (b). I simply had a "hunch" or a "guess," juxtaposed to my neighbor who had a reason for his selection. In the analogy, we both got the answer right, but only my neighbor;s answer was justifiably right, in epistemological terms. I then made the claim that atheists who justify their belief in unchanging, universal laws of logic and science, based off of the fact that they "work;" are like the person who guesses on quiz, gets the right answer, and assumes that they were justified in being right. I had indeed jotted down this point in my notes, as I had planned on making it. However, in the context in which I said it, it felt premature and requiring more explanation. Not wanting to go on a deeper rabbit trail from the original question (what is epistemology?), I sort of panicked and gave a broken explanation of the point and tried to move on. So with the background aside, I think I need to clarify my point.

At the very best my thought seemed broken, at the very worst, it seemed as if I was accusing atheists of being purely arbitrary or erratic in their formulations. I know that most atheists value the scientific method, and believe they have reasons for their unbelief, so I want to make it clear that that is not what I was trying to convey. My intended point was this. The atheist claims that reality is fundamentally unguided, unconscious, and irrational (or at least non-rational). Furthermore, they believe that the human mind has arisen through non-rational processes, by means of a mechanism for survival, not a mechanism for arriving at "truth" (namely, natural selection). And yet the entire scientific enterprise rests upon the presumption that the functioning of the human mind corresponds to reality, and that reality operates according to regularities. They are saying that reality is one way (based upon their worldview), but they are talking and acting in it, as if it is another way. When questioned as to what grounds they have for believing in unchanging, universal laws given their worldview; atheists often say something to the effect that it "works to act as if reality is that way" (ie ordered and rational).

However, there are two main problems with this answer. First, that answer does not resolve the tension in their worldview. After all, how can the way reality behaves, or "works" (as if it is rational reflecting order around universals) be reconciled with what they presuppose about it (that it is non-rational and composed of chaotically interacting particulars)? But secondly, and most importantly, it also doesn't answer the question. Do laws of logic, and rational regularities in nature, have some sort of ontological grounding or existence? Or, are these merely human concepts that find some correspondence 'here and there?' If it is the former, then the atheist needs to explain how such structures can exist in their metaphysical worldview. However, if it is the latter, which is the answer I normally get from atheists, then they have a problem of justification. A handful of human observations, in comparison to the vast age of the universe (according to the atheist), does not "justify" belief in universal laws of thought or science. One could only justify such a claim if they had observed every square inch of the universe, for every second, in the life of the universe. But in the big picture, all we have are a few observations, which appear as if they correspond to the concept of rational "laws" and regularities. So if the atheist is right, we are like the person who picked a few answer on a test that happened to be right. But there is no justification there. And if you do not have justification for universal laws of thought or science, then you have no knowledge. Greg Bahnsen elaborates:

"It should be noted here that by "justified" we mean that the person actually has sound reasons (good evidence), not simply that he thinks his evidence is good or sufficient in light of the pool of information available to him [...] Accordingly, having a warrant for one's belief(s) is essential to knowledge. This explains why the issue of justification has always been a critical one throughout the history of epistemology. E.g., when and how are claims that we make well founded? Or, how do we acquire, or what is the source of, reliable beliefs? On what basis is intellectual authority conferred upon our ideas? By what standard are our judgments to be evaluated? How do we know what we know?" (Bahnsen,"Van Til's Apologetics," 178)

In answer to those questions, Dr. Bahnsen, and all sounds Christians, will say that the answer to all of those questions is God's revelation. The infinite, personal God of Christianity has revealed some things pertaining to Himself, ourselves, and reality; such that we can be certain. Furthermore, he sends the Holy Spirit into our hearts, to "internalize" the Word of God, so that it becomes not just a distant object, or a hypothetical, but immanently apparent to us as subjects made in His image. When God's revelation is presupposed, and the content of it believed, one has a justification for true belief in laws of logic, and laws of science (as well as a whole host of other things). Anything else is just guess work, commonly known as speculation. Furthermore, history itself attests to the fact that science arose out of the worldview of Christendom, not atheism. No one took an unbiased "leap in the dark" about reality and discovered that science "works." No, we have a much more certain ground to stand on than that. And thankfully, so does the atheist, which is exactly how he knows what he knows, because in his heart of hearts, he truly knows God.

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened." (Rom. 1:18-21)

(P.S. More follow up posts pertaining to my interview may be forthcoming :)

Penn Jillete and Rape

I recently came across this "meme" while perusing through Facebook. I've seen this kind of argument made by several of the "new atheists." Not only does it completely miss the point, but it simply is not honest. I've never seen this meme before, but I found it a little ironic in light of recent revelations about skeptic Michael Shermer's behavior towards women, which I covered here. As I said, I do not think these kind of arguments are honest about human nature. For example, multiple times a week I have the unfortunate privilege of hearing men check out women and talk out loud about all the things they would like to do to them. In their external dialogue about their internal desires, there is not one care for the woman's soul, or "romance" or whatever. All one finds is an aggressive considerations of how their bodies could gratify them. Indeed, with most men in the "dating" culture, most of the time, all outward demonstrations of care for a woman's personality, or romantic appreciations of them, is simply a means to get the gratification they think they deserve. THAT is the heart of a rapist. In my experience, most women in the dating culture are keenly aware of this. However, the reason why most of those men will not engage in rape, and will even condemn it consciously/publicly, is because they have been conditioned by a civilization with broadly Christian roots to find rape aesthetically displeasing. The desire's of their hearts say otherwise. So what happens when the worldview that framed rape as bad disintegrates? When we are pictured as mere biological robots, who evolved from pond scum, that then progressed up the evolutionary chain in many species through rape; how can one still call rape "wrong" in the true sense of the word? Can anything be considered "wrong" in such a world? On top of that, Mr. Jillette is a supporter of the prostitution industry in Nevada, which feeds into the very instincts that he apparently denies the majority of men even have. So I do not find that Penn is honest with himself in how he frames this objection.

On top of that, even if he was "sinless" in this regard, never having had a desire to exploit women; in his universe that is absolutely meaningless. Rape and consensual sex are nothing but atoms banging into one another. Nothing is "wrong" or "right," for that matter, in such a world. Saying rape is wrong is just an opinion, like saying that blue is a better color than red. Even if one wants to go the existentialist route and say that it is up to the individual to create morality, one cannot argue that their self-generated moral system extends beyond their 3 pound brain. Much less can they claim that it corroborates with abstract concepts like "truth," "goodness," or "beauty." They certainly cannot congratulate themselves for their tastes above others who go a different route, as Mr. Jillette seemingly does here. "I don't need God, because I know how to live a 'good life' without Him," isn't an argument in the atheist's own world. It is just brain fizz. These kind of arguments only appeal to people in a post-Christian society where they still enjoy some of the fruit left over from the Biblical worldview. You don't have to look very far to see what happens when that foundation is officially abolished.

The thing is, the Christian worldview can account for why even an atheist knows that rape is wrong. The Christian will claim that even the rapist knows that rape is wrong. That is because the law is written on everyone's heart, as they are made in the image of God (See Romans 2:1-16). Even apart from the influence of the Christian church, one sees a recognition of deity, accountability, and the law of God in all cultures. However, time and time again, when a culture consciously rejects the light of biblical religion, they condescend to depths worse than pre-Christian pagans. So not only can the Christian worldview give a better account of Mr. Jilette's claims here, it can also give a better account of why man is prone to such evil. Scripture informs us that simple lust of the heart is directly related to sins such as adultery, rape, and much worse things as well. Apart from God's restraining grace we would all descend into such debauchery. But even further, Scripture ends up giving us not just a better picture of the moral law, and man's sin, but it also gives us the solution as well. Christ crucified, buried, resurrected and ascended.

A Monument to the Fool

Starke, Fla--On Sunday, June 30th, a monument to Atheism was unveiled at the Bradford County Courthouse. The unveiling comes after an unsuccessful effort by atheists to remove a five ton granite slab that contains the Ten Commandments.

Atheists sued to have the Ten Commandments removed, but, during mediation on the case, they were told they could have a monument too. So the atheists took the stance that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

The monument was designed to be functional and has a bench for people to sit on. This is supposed to reflect the atheist focus on the real and tangible. The monument has several quotes by Madelyn Murray O'Hair, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams. It also has a list of punishments for breaking the Ten Commandments. The atheists made sure to point out that the punishment for atheism is death.

Atheists have hailed this monument as a victory for free speech and atheism. Local Christians see it as an intrusion of outsiders upon local values of those who live in the "Bible Belt." Freedom of Speech is granted to the atheist as well as the Christian, but I do wonder why atheists from Washington DC, have to go out of their way to put up a monument in Florida? It seems to me to be an in-your-face reaction to Bible Belt values. It is interesting that there are some atheists who do not agree with the approach of those who have erected the monument. I wish more atheists would take a less in-your-face approach and take a more humble approach to dialogue. I say the same for Christians, too. We need to be more gentle and respectful, as the Apostle Peter tells us (1 Pet. 3:15), when we give an account of the hope within us.

At any rate, I'm actually fine with atheists putting up monuments to their godlessness. Let atheists boldly portray their irrational belief in a materialistic universe so others can view for themselves how utterly nonsensical atheism is. If they want to be fools and say there is no God, let them be fools publicly. The public nature of their foolishness allows Christians, then, to publicly expose atheism as an irrational belief.

I am appreciative of one of the quotes on the monument from Benjamin Franklin, who was not an atheist. The quote says, "When religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its supporters are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."

I see some wisdom in this quote. Christians need to remember that for over 2,000 years the gates of hell have not been able to prevail against the Church, and as far as Christ is concerned, the future doesn't look good for the gates of hell either. So when an atheist organization places their monument next to the Ten Commandments, we don't have any reason to worry. Let atheists erect their monuments to the fool. In the end, all their monuments will be ground to rubble, and all their foolishness will be exposed when Christ appears in glory.