Christian Polemics and Desiring God

The problem with Christian theological polemics is that it leaves the impression that the end of the pursuit of Christian truth is to be right about what we believe. While it is good to be right, and we need to be right about certain key things, it’s not always necessary to be right. Or from another angle: many people pursue truth so they can satisfy their itch to master the knowledge of God rather than to know God in such a way as to be satisfied with him. It’s better to ignorantly be wrong about some things and still desire the glory of God than to knowledgeably be right about these things and stop short of God’s glory in a desire for mere knowledge. And if you desire God, then you will want to improve your understanding of him.

Of Rocks and Grass - The Hitchens/Craig Debate

There was a recent debate between atheist apologist Christopher Hitchens and Christian apologist William Lane Craig. There are so many bits being spilled in the blogosphere on this debate that I'm not going to bother trying to link to any of them. Try searching this, this and this for starters. I only want to focus on one point. Namely, that Hitchens admitted that his contention against the existence of God is that if there were a God we wouldn't be free.

He then attempted to approach Craig on logical terms, but was barely able to mount answers to the excellent cosmological foundation Craig laid from the beginning for framing the debate.

But I consider it hopefully honest of Hitchens to admit such a illogical primary reason for denying the existence of God. to whit:

Regarding freedom, what comes to mind is the belly of a slave ship where a slave in shackles might deny the existence of the slave trader because that would mean that he were a slave. I'm sure I could point to a half-dozen fallacies that could sum up this rationale:

"I want to be morally free. Therefore, there is no superior entity that can hold me to any moral obligation."

It's a ridiculous argument, but I would guess that it is true of most who deny God. Interestingly, what is also true is that most of the same people who hold this as true would argue for some morality not based on God. They want their own moral rules to hold sway over the world. Hitchens astonishingly did just this in the debate arguing that atheists were more moral than theists.

Hitchens also said that if theism were true, he'd be depressed. So he should thank God for keeping him ignorant of the truth so his short life in this world is happier? I would rather know the hard truth than live in blissful ignorance.

Craig's side of the debate was won in the opening comments. It seemed that he spent the rest of the debate sweeping off the verbal grass Hitchens kept throwing at his rock solid position.

The Duplicity of the Human Mind

I get into the occasional debate. As a Christian, one thing I notice is that people often don't believe what they believe for the reasons they say they believe. Let me unpack this somewhat.

People most often believe a thing for the reason that such a thing was normalized in their life. Through a continuity of exposure to a lifestyle or an ideology people become convinced that something is normal or true.

This is often not enough to create a firm belief especially when this exposure is unpleasant in some way. For example, many children rebel against the ideology of their parents when the ideology is enforced in an unpleasant way. Let's say a couple are involved in a church that is legalistic. They may observe that some of the children of the church grow up to be as legalistic as their parents because the legalism is positively reinforced in the home. However, this particular couple don't themselves joyfully adhere to the legal requirements of their church and only negatively reinforce them in the home. The children will grow up resenting the legalism and develop a reactionary ideology.

In either case, adherence to an ideology is initially formed in the human mind through experiential means.

Down deep, most people realize that these experiential beliefs need to have a more solid foundation to reinforce them. They need a better reason for believing these things to be true. This is often not even a conscious realization in people. What happens is that as similar beliefs are espoused in the marketplace of ideas through media, education, and associations with likeminded people more intellectual reasons are developed for believing something to be true.

When a person takes the challenge of their beliefs to a debate, it is these intellectual arguments that they offer for why they believe something to be true. The real reason they believe it to be true is often never espoused. By this time, most people are barely aware of why they really believe something to be true.

If the belief is strong enough and the belief is untrue, they will cling even to irrational intellectual arguments as though they are rational. Often, this clinging serves to distort their capacity to reason.

In a later post I hope to look at some of Christ's wise answers to people and observe how he answered them. All the arguments He made that I can think of off the top of my head suggest that He answered their hidden reason for believing something to be true while ignoring the intellectual obfuscation we too often get involved with.

More later...

Winning the Debate Against Straw Men

I don't debate as much as I used to. The reason is that most of the topics I've debated haven't changed and neither has the level of the debate. In other words, most debates pretty much rehash the same arguments over and over. One reason is that people aren't generally convinced.

As an example, in many debates I often see one side or the other make “straw man” arguments. That means that they misconstrue what the other side believes and attack this misconception as though to win the debate. For example, many Arminians accuse compatibilistic Calvinists of hyper-Calvinistic beliefs. Muslims often use straw man arguments because Mohammad was not exposed to authentic Christianity and only knew the pseudo-Christian heretics that lived in his area. Therefore, when he dictated the Koran he made arguments against the only “Christianity” he knew.

It's easy to win a debate against someone who uses straw man arguments if your purpose is to win the debate on logical terms. If your purpose is to convince someone that your conclusions are true, then you must first help them to understand your conclusions. Typically, someone who makes straw man arguments either believes that his opponent actually believes it or thinks his opponent's position is logically dissonant. This is because he's using a different set of presuppositions and doesn't understand his opponents presuppositions.

Therefore, if your goal is to actually convince your opponent to change his mind, then the prospect of waging a debate becomes more difficult. It's not enough to simply call a straw man a straw man. You must help your opponent understand your presuppositions.

Perhaps the most interesting debate I ever had was with a college fellow who wasn't quite settled on the issue of Reformed theology. As a compatibilist, I argued from one extreme to the other working him into a mind frenzy until he realized that hyper-Calvinism and libertarian free will are both untenable. He was then willing to consider compatibilism.

The most difficult people I've debated are Darwinists. The problem is that Darwinists typically refuse to discuss presuppositions. They have a set of mid-level presuppositions that they use as an acid test. If you accept these, then they'll talk. If you challenge them, they shut down and resort to ad hominems and are generally dismissive. The reason they don't go any deeper than these mid-level presuppositions is that down deep they are afraid they might be wrong. This is where Dawkins is instructive. He goes deeper and verbalizes it. Then, when he all but admits that the more foundational presuppositions to Darwinism are conflicted, he becomes dismissive and retreats back up to his mid-level presuppositions.

All you can do at that point is say that you gave it a try, but your opponent was unwilling. As it goes, for those of us who know the Holy Spirit, a desire to assent to the truth requires no foreknowledge of the truth, because that desire cannot be debated into someone either evidentially or presupposition ally. That desire is only given by the grace of God.

The Power of Humility

My brother in Christ, Lionel Woods, has one of the best articles I've read recently, and I've read many great articles. He shares with us his growth as a minister of theological debate on the Internet. Some excerpts:

I originally started blogging due to my frustration with the Health and Wealth movement. I was utterly abused by Legalism, Word of Faith teaching, and a slew of false doctrine. I used to spend all of my time as a lion looking to pounce on the first lonely sheep that disagreed with me. I would love to get into debates at barbershops, with family, and love to tell my wife how much I disagreed with Jakes, Olsteen, Meyers, Price, Dollar and their affiliates. I enjoyed destroying their doctrinal positions and anyone who would side with them. Okay I really, really enjoyed it. I would take my arguments to church and debate with anyone who would defend even an ounce of this doctrine.

As I looked back over all of the dead bodies, and the body count report came back, I realized that there were friendlies in the count. Not just a couple, but just as many friendlies as there were enemies. I started to look at the bridges I burned, the relationships that I sacrificed in the name of truth, and the hearts I broke standing for “God’s truth” and my heart became heavy... The babies (young in the faith) the elderly (those who were helpless), and even friendlies (those who agreed with me, but were not ready to split but would rather be patient seeking prayer over division).

I thought that I could go on there and infuse truth, but I would find myself falling back into sarcasm and condescending remarks. I enjoyed being a “Heresy Hunter” because it made me feel better about myself, by expressing my disdain for them (I guess). As long as I got one enemy I didn’t mind taking out 5 allies!

Father, if I have written anything with “selfish motives”, or vain conceit, I repent and I pray that you would fix my mess... So going forward I pray that this blog will proclaim the Glory of Christ above anything else. I pray that as you read this blog, your heart is warmed and you want to proclaim the excellencies of Christ even more. Finally I hope to engage in critical (but ultimately loving) dialogue with those who disagree.

Lets proclaim the truth of God in love.

Read the whole article here.

A Good Philosophy for Christian Apologetical Debate

A Good Philosophy for Christian Apologetical Debate

Apologetics is not for the faint-hearted, the weak-minded or the thin-skinned. Perhaps this is why so few choose to engage in apologetical debate. When one forms a worldview and displays it openly on the block for all to see, one can expect it to be challenged with the coldness of exceptional erudition. Occasionally, those who stop to observe the debate may wring tender hands and beg the mental carnage to stop. Steve Hays answered one such yesterday at Triablogue and finished by expounding on a good well-balanced philosophy for engaging in the academic art of apologetical debate.

You can read his post here:

Hecklers for humanism