Eight Steps to Popularizing Presuppositional Apologetics

A presuppositional apologetic is a method of defending the Christian faith. Presuppositional apologetics are based on a recognition of the need to be committed to God and Scripture even when chatting with unbelievers who raise supposed intellectual objections to the faith. The result is that God and His Word are presupposed while arguments and evidence are presented. Other methods of apologetics start with presenting arguments and evidence before concluding that God exists or that Christianity is true. Presuppositional apologetics start with the existence of God and truth of Christianity before presenting arguments and evidence. Do not misunderstand; presuppostional apologetics do not do away with arguments and evidence, they just do not use them in the same way as other methods.

Presuppositional apologetics are quickly gaining popularity. This may be linked to some denominations returning to a belief in the inerrancy (and hence the importance) of Scripture. It may be linked as well to the so-called “New Calvinism” that is sweeping through the generation of young people born in the 70’s and 80’s. Presuppositionalism places great emphasis upon the Word of God and certain Calvinistic tenets like Total Depravity and the sovereignty of God so that it is interlinked with them. If the Word of God is taken as a sure thing and if Calvinism is “the gateway to Reformed theology” then we should not be surprised that this apologetic method will follow on the tail end of the two movements mentioned. Nevertheless, there is a great deal of work to be done if presuppositional apologetics are to grow as we might desire.

Currently, presuppositional apologetics are almost completely inaccessible. There are also few books to be had on the subject and these are rarely ever available in bookstores. Due to the emphasis on epistemology presuppositional apologetics are seen as rather difficult to all but those who have taken several courses in philosophy. There are massive terms and difficult arguments involved. Ivory tower intellectualism is typically not appealing to laypeople who find themselves supporting their families in busy and stressful work environments every day. We should not be concerned with stopping this method from doing its job so well in higher academic thought; there is certainly a place for this. However, we should be concerned about how seemingly impractical this method is currently. In response to this observation, I present eight suggestions for your consideration.

1.Presup must be presented in a more evidentialist format.

Ever seen those “[Insert topic here.] For Dummies” books? Surely there are people buying them or they would not continue to fill almost any bookstore one enters. People like “how-to” books. Most evidentialist literature is written somewhat like how-to books. There is clarity, organization, and step-by-step instruction. People need arguments spelled out rather than presented subtly amidst discussions of the history of philosophy. One book I highly recommend that is along the lines of what I have in mind here is Pushing the Antithesis by Greg Bahnsen (Gary DeMar). We need more books of this nature.

2.Presup must use a greater variety of simpler arguments not directly pertaining to epistemology.

The unbeliever cannot find intelligibility in anything if he or she is consistent. Human dignity and free will are just two areas that I have seen explored with great results in terms of presenting presup arguments that are not completely epistemological. We should seek to tap into many more arguments of this nature. There is more room for putting arguments of this kind that do not directly pertain to logic or induction into simpler terms. We do not need to dumb down our method, but we do not need to remove it so far from human experience that no one cares either.

3.Presup must have its terms unpacked for clarity and comprehension by the layperson.

Terms are nice for those in the know to quickly summarize a deeper point but they can easily turn others away. I do not doubt that many beginning presuppers get into the middle of debates and find some mantra they have been repeating getting challenged by their opponent with no response being able to be made by them. The great task of breaking our terms down into common language and explaining what they mean for the apologetic encounter is almost completely before us and not behind.

4.Presup must stop being used almost exclusively against materialistic atheism.

It is cool to point out that logic does not smell like dung or taste like chicken, but for those who want to subscribe to some weird two-worlds doctrine there is not much of an argument there. You can also find this argument in many non-presup books. Let us be honest, atheists are fun to debate and usually make themselves ready for any opportunity to debate with us, but atheism is hardly the position of most unbelievers we encounter each and every day. We need more literature, more debates, and more arguments pertaining to other versions of unbelieving thought. The method is made to appear weak and incapable of dealing with other views when it is focused so much upon atheism and is so rarely placed against other positions.

5.Presup must be taught exclusively to greater extent by “new blood” not necessarily connected to narrower Reformed movements.

Many of the finer groups who adhere to the presup method have seen it lead them into many other areas of related thought that they often find entailed by presup. I do not have a problem with this, but it does draw the discussion quickly away from presup as an apologetic. Further, there are not many very well known apologists who are also strong proponents of presup. There are also not many obscure individuals or groups promoting the method. We need people willing to learn and to teach presup.

6.Presup must be taught in churches.

If the Word of God is being taught, so is presup. We should bring this out of the texts we preach and teach when they pertain to such subjects as anthropology, epistemology, creation, Lordship, Christology, etc. Our people are hungry for a certainty in the things of God, and Sunday School or small groups is another great avenue for teaching how to defend the faith biblically rather than according to worldly standards. We need to take the opportunities God gives us.

7.Presup must be used to critique evidentialist methods.

If people do not think that their method is broken, then they will not see any reason to fix it, much less replace it. This one is not going to win a lot of friends, but we must cast secular “science”, opinions of liberal theologians, mysticism, spiritualism, Aristotelian and Roman Catholic philosophy out of our churches yesterday. Aside from being offensive to God, traditional arguments do not work anyway! Our people need something more sure than this, and they have it, they just need to be shown that this is the case.

8.Presup must be taught from the Bible.

If presup is truly the biblical method of defending the faith, then there is absolutely no excuse for the absence of Scripture from so many presentations of it. There are loads of passages in Scripture which directly bear upon our apologetic that require exegesis and application in a more explicitly apologetic way. We read, memorize, study, and overlook relevant passages all the time! There is a massive amount of extremely careful work to be done in this regard.

Are sunglasses evidence of God?

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.”
Psalms 19:1-4 (ESV)

The other day I jumped into a conversation about the presuppositional approach to hermeneutics. One of the individuals involved in the conversation was talking a bit about the use of evidence and saying that evidences are not always bad.

Well, I must agree. Evidences are never “bad”! It is when someone fails to utilize evidences properly that they can become problematic. My contention in the discussion was that the presuppositionalist is more evidentialist than the evidentialist. The evidence of God is not hidden in syllogistic arguments. Everything is evidence of the existence of God. I cited the relevant portion of Psalm 19 above and received one nod. I could not tell whether the other gentleman was being sarcastic or not, but he grinned and exclaimed, “Your sunglasses are evidence!” and pointed to the other student before walking off.

Of course, I find nothing absurd about holding that sunglasses are evidence of the existence of God. Indeed, everything is created by Him and for Him and hence His glory is revealed in all. There is the intuitive need to locate the origin of the created matter itself which is used in making sunglasses. There is the human ingenuity which went into designing and forming a pair of sunglasses. There is the purpose for which sunglasses are made and their function which meshes with this purpose, in and of itself enough to boggle the mind in terms of the science involved. Surely these constitute evidential characteristics of a pair of sunglasses, howbeit only when viewed according to the proper presuppositions of the Christian worldview. We need cut a bit deeper to get at the root of the problem for those who still do not see the glasses as evidencing the God whom we serve.

There are the reliable senses by which our perceptions of sunglasses are formed, the universals by which we categorize our experience and the trustworthy memory with which we approach these and other cognitive processes. There are the extrapolations contingent upon the inductive processes that fill our every thought of sunglasses and there is the language we use to communicate to others regarding sunglasses, even if it is to scoff at the idea that they constitute evidence of the existence and nature of God.

Every fact of existence screams about God. Sunglasses are not excluded, and what we have reviewed barely scratches the surface. Sunglasses constitute massive problems for those who would rebel against God. The evidence does not get us to our conclusions. We all have our presuppositions by which we evaluate the evidence. We must thus argue transcendentally. We may start from any fact and ask, “What are the preconditions for intelligibility in this instance? How do we come to understand this fact at all?” This world is created, sustained, and controlled by God and hence we argue on His turf. There is none other to argue on.

Come now, sunglasses evidence our Creator? Yes, and such is an extremely malleable bullet to bite.

“There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’” – Abraham Kuyper

Irrelevance

I was listening to a snippet of a debate this morning between the atheist Dan Barker and a Christian whose name I do not recall (sorry). Throughout much of the cross examination portion of the debate, Barker kept appealing to the audience with statements that essentially stated “you all know this is true” or “I know you would agree with me when I say …” (While these are not exact quotes, they present the essence of what Barker was saying.) The tactic is a common one when trying to convince someone else of your opinion. The problem is, whether or not someone already agrees with you is entirely irrelevant to the truth or falsity of the point you are arguing for. Truth is not, after all, determined by majority rule.

Let me offer a more specific example of irrelevance – one that I see presented over and over again in debates between atheists and Christians.

Quite often a statement such as “well you believe in a book that was written thousands of years ago by people lacking the scientific insights we have today” is presented as a counter to a Christian’s appeal to the Bible as a useful source of knowledge. The statement is typically made in passing, so as to not draw too much scrutiny, but I fear it often has it’s intended impact nonetheless – namely to discredit the authority that the Christian is drawing on in their argument. The problem with this type of assertion is twofold.

First, it is irrelevant to the question normally under debate, namely whether or not the Christian God exists. Recall that the Christian’s position is that God himself inspired these writers to write the words they penned, meaning that it wouldn’t matter how much scientific knowledge the writers possessed. All they would need to be able to do is to write what God inspired them to write. The atheist that happens to follow this line of reasoning demonstrates either a lack of understanding of the claims that Christians make, or a complete disregard for the lack of relevance of the argument.

Second, it can be used against the atheist’s own position. There are, as expected, examples of atheist writers in the far past – some as far back as 600 BCE. If not possessing the scientific knowledge we have today was a shortcoming of those penning the scripture of the OT and NT, then why would it also not be a shortcoming of those who held to a non-theistic position? To claim that Theistic writings during this time period are suspect due to lack of present-day scientific knowledge, but non-Theistic writings are not, is to hold a double-standard and be guilty of the fallacy of Special Pleading.

The fallacies of relevance are numerous – too numerous to cover in a short post on this blog. However, they are something each of us should be aware of. Not only for the sake of correcting others when they use them, but also to be certain that we do not fall into the trap of using them ourselves. We are not only interested in the end, but the means we employ as well.

BK

The New Presuppositionalists

I have noticed as of late that there is an increase in discussion amongst atheists about the subject of presuppositions. I think this is just great. After all, one of the most difficult tasks in debate (formal or otherwise) with unbelievers is getting them to understand the role that presuppositions play in their thinking. We’ve talked about this here at Choosing Hats in great detail, both in posts and in our Bible Study on Bahnsen’s “Always Ready”. This is the good news.

The bad news is that I do not believe that these same atheists understand how completely foundational these very presuppositions are to their reasoning process. Despite their concurrence that such things exist, and their commentary about the role they play, the atheists that I have read or listened to fall prey to the same thing many Christians do – assuming the very presuppositions they are defending, without the realization they are doing so.

Presuppositions exist at many levels, but it is the foundational ones (those which are most basic) that I am interested in highlighting here. It is just the nature of these particular presuppositions that makes them impossible to step outside of while evaluating them. For the Christian, the most basic of all presuppositions is the existence of God. That means that logically speaking it is not possible for a Christian to evaluate anything at all without ultimately presupposing God, including the belief that God exists. This is, after all, the very source of the complaint of circularity against those presuppositionalists who employ TAG.

The unbeliever has their basic presuppositions, too. One of the most basic is the belief that they are able to reason without a foundational appeal to the God of the Bible. It isn’t that they necessarily deny God’s existence directly as part of their reasoning process, but rather it is the fact that they presume to even question whether God exists at all. Doing so implies that they believe it is possible to know at least one thing (whether or not God exists) without ultimately relying upon God to answer that question.

Van Til uses the analogy of a telescope, where the telescope is God and the star is any fact that a person wishes to investigate. The epistemologically self-conscious Christian will always look through the telescope anytime they wish to investigate a “fact”. The unbeliever on the other hand attempts to look directly at the star without the aid of the telescope, thinking they will be able to have an accurate view of the fact. The real problem is uncovered when the “star” in question is the existence of God.

The unbeliever assumes that there is no telescope that is required in order to determine whether there exists a telescope which is required to “see” any “fact”. They attempt to look directly at the “fact” of the star in order to see whether or not there is a telescope which is required in order to see any facts at all. The problem is self-evident. If the Bible is true and such a God as this exists, the unbeliever is never going to conclude that such a God exists simply by looking directly at the “stars” (i.e. using un-aided human reason).

This is, to me, the clearest example of a foundational presupposition that no matter how hard they try, the atheist cannot *logically* “put aside” in order to question whether or not God exists.

– BK

More on John Loftus and Control Beliefs

A recent post by Chris not only gained my interest as a contributor, but also the interest of the individual whose article Chris was commenting on. This led me to dig a bit deeper into the article referenced at http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/john_loftus/christianity.html to see what all the fuss was about. In doing so, I came across a rather interesting treatise by John Loftus on why it is unreasonable to be a Christian.

Due to the size of the article, and the limits I currently have on time (which I hope will be lifted once the new year comes around) I have determined to respond to just one paragraph from a single section that Loftus titles “Philosophical Reasons (1)” for not being a Christian. I chose the paragraph I did because it demonstrates a variety of problems that I find with his line of reasoning.

To provide some context for the paragraph I critique in a moment, consider what Loftus says early on in his article:

“Let me begin by talking about “control beliefs”—beliefs that control how one views the evidence. Everyone has them, especially in metaphysical belief systems where there isn’t a mutually agreed upon scientific test to decide between alternatives. While we are largely unaware of them, they color how we see the world. Whether regarded as assumptions, presuppositions, or biases (depending on the context), they form the basis for the way we “see” things. As Alfred North Whitehead noted, “Some assumptions appear so obvious that people do not know that they are assuming because no other way of putting things has ever occurred to them.””

On the one hand, I am very excited to see Loftus speak about “control beliefs” or “presuppositions”, as there too many on both sides of the debate don’t realize they exist, and don’t realize the impact they have. Furthermore, I specifically like the term “control beliefs” as it makes the point so clear that these beliefs actually do control, to a great deal, the conclusions that we come to. On the other hand, I don’t think that Loftus notices that these very beliefs control his own argument against Christianity to the point that he engages in circular reasoning on more than one occasion.

Here then is the paragraph in question, broken into individual thoughts, and my comments on each:

“For instance, Christianity claims that God is a triune God, though no simultaneously orthodox and reasonable understanding of the Trinity seems possible.”

As Loftus never tells us just what he believes is unreasonable about the Orthodox view of the Trinity, I am going to have to go out on a limb and guess that it is the claim that there is one God existing as three persons. If I am correct in my guess, then I am stymied as to what Loftus finds unreasonable about this. Unless he misunderstands the position (as some do) to mean that God is both 3 and 1 at the same time and in the same sense, I see no grounds at all for his charge of unreasonableness.

“Though Christians usually think of God as a free agent, God is not free to decide his own nature.”

The question over what it means to be a “free agent” has been argued for a very, very long time. Christianity itself has different views, although I believe the Bible clearly presents a compatibilistic (i.e. non-libertarian) view of the will. What this means, in short, is that people are free just as long as they are not coerced in the choices they make. Furthermore, their choices are themselves ultimately determined by their nature. For instance, God cannot lie, as it is not within his nature to do so. Unregenerate man cannot help but sin, because it is his nature to do so.

Whether or not Loftus agrees with me on the nature of the will, he is clearly arguing from within his own set of control beliefs (or beliefs derived from them) when he claims that God cannot be properly called a “free agent” as God is unable to determine his own nature. The Bible states otherwise, and for Loftus to argue that his set of control beliefs are more appropriate based on appealing to his own definition of “free agent” is ultimately begging the question.

“Though conceived of as a “spiritual” being that created matter, no known “point of contact” between spirit and matter can be found.”

This is nothing more than an argument from personal conviction. The inability to identify the metaphysical mechanics behind how the material and immaterial interact does not, in and of itself, lend credibility one way or another. It only appears to do so from within the set of control beliefs that one is relying upon. The control beliefs Loftus subscribes to has an “answer” to this issue, but so do Christians, namely that God is ultimately behind any and all interaction of not only the material realm, but the immaterial as well.

The most that this objection can do for Loftus is further convince him that his set of control beliefs are correct, when already viewed from within his set of control beliefs. It doesn’t do anything to the Christian who has their own answer as well.

“Though Christians take it as a brute fact that God never began to exist, if we apply Ockham’s razor a simpler brute fact is to presume that nature itself never began to exist.“

It is no more “simple” for Loftus to assume the universe has always existed than it is for a Christian to assume that God has always existed. For the Christian, the existence of God is the most basic and ultimate control belief, and so any other explanation is going to be more complex (i.e. it will introduce unnecessary entities). For Loftus, God is by no means the most basic control belief, and so any introduction of God into anything at all will always seem more complex than leaving him out of the picture entirely. Loftus appeals to a non-Christian set of control beliefs in framing his argument, and therefore ultimately begs the question at hand.

“God evidently never learned any new truths and cannot think, since thinking demands weighing temporal alternatives.”

It is true that God has never learned any new truths, as learning something “new” implies you did not know it prior to learning it. Given that God is omniscient, there was never a time he was in a position of needing to learn anything at all. I’m not really sure of the relevance of this to the discussion. It certainly isn’t a reason, even from within the control beliefs that Loftus subscribes to, to believe God does not exist.

As to God’s “thinking”, Loftus makes a general assertion as to what thinking demands, without apparently ever giving thought to what the Bible says about God’s own thoughts. Furthermore (and more importantly) he apparently does not consider what the Bible says about his own thinking process as an unregenerate individual. The very fact that Loftus believes he can accurately evaluate God against some standard external to God himself demonstrates quite clearly that Loftus is again framing his argument from a non-Christian set of control beliefs, and therefore (once again) begging the question at hand.

“This God is everywhere, yet could not even know what time it is since time is a function of placement and acceleration in the universe; or if timeless, this God cannot act in time.“

I will not address this particular item at this time and in this critique, as the question of the nature of time, what it means to be timeless, etc. is an extremely complex subject and is worthy of a separate discussion. However, lest Mr. Loftus think I am conceding this point, let me make it clear that I am not. I believe he is guilty of the same problem as seen above, arguing against something by appealing to a contrary set of control beliefs, and therefore begging the question.

I will address this item in a separate post as time permits.

“He evidently allows intense suffering in this world and does not follow the same moral code that he commands his believers to follow.”

How does God’s allowing of intense suffering in the world (which he most certainly does) make it unreasonable to believe in God? If Loftus is attempting to argue the Problem of Evil here, then he should spell it out in detail. A passing allusion to a common argument against God, especially one which has been refuted time and time again, is insufficient.

As to God following the same code he has given to all mankind (not simply his believers), why is this an issue for Loftus? Rather than argue whether God does or does not follow this code, or whether he should follow it if he does not, I would like to know why it would be a problem if he did not? How would this make it any less reasonable to accept the existence of God as a control belief?

“And so on.”

Loftus seems to imply here that there are even more “reasons” to accept his set of control beliefs over those of the Christian, yet he doesn’t share them with us. I certainly appreciate the fact that we all must stop writing at some point and move on to other priorities, but “and so on” is a mere statement of opinion – it doesn’t give us anything to evaluate, and so it adds nothing of any substance to this discussion.

I have no doubt that I make my own set of assumptions about Mr. Loftus in this critique, given that I know very little about him, and have read very little of his writings. I hope that he will feel free to correct any misrepresentations I may have made, and that he will also feel free to interact with those of us here at Choosing Hats.

– BK

The Problem of Evil – Part 4

Two Considerations for a Solution

There are two considerations when offering a solution to the Problem of Evil from a Presuppositional standpoint. In order to look at the first, let’s reconsider the formalized statement of the problem:

a) God is all powerful
b) God is all loving
c) God knows that evil exists
d) Evil does exist
e) Therefore, God does not exist

Notice that this takes the form of a deductive argument, meaning that the conclusion “God does not exist” follows with necessity just as long as every one of the premises is true, and just as long as the form of the argument itself is valid (which in this case, it is).

An important aspect of the argument above to recognize is the difference between premises a-c, and premise d. In presenting this argument, the unbeliever is stating premises a-c as hypotheticals; that is, according to the claims of Christianity, premises a-c are true. However, premise d is presented as fact. 9 times out of 10 the unbeliever does not say “the Bible claims that evil exists”, but rather “evil exists”. Let’s consider why this distinction matters.

When presenting the argument above, the unbeliever is attempting to demonstrate the truth of all of his/her premises in order to demonstrate the conclusion is true. We, as believers, “give” premises a-c to the unbeliever, since those are the attributes of God found in the Bible. However, we don’t need to “give” premise d to the unbeliever, at least not at the outset.

Please note that I am not claiming that we, as Christians, do not believe evil exists – we obviously do. However, as the burden is on the unbeliever to make their case, there is a real benefit in pressing them to demonstrate that premise d is true. After all, if a demonstration of the existence of evil is not forthcoming from the unbeliever, then they have failed to prove that God does not exist. The purpose in taking this tack is not to avoid the question of whether evil exists, but rather to press the unbeliever’s worldview to demonstrate their inability to make the argument in the first place.

With that said, ask the unbeliever to demonstrate that evil exists. In doing so, be sure to clarify that they must offer an objective demonstration of this, if they wish to demonstrate their conclusion that God does not exist. This is exactly the point at which you can press the issue of worldviews, as the unbeliever does not have an objective, non-arbitrary set of presuppositions to use as a foundation to demonstrate that evil exists.

Short of offering an objective foundation for the existence of evil, the best the unbeliever can do is turn to you and state “but don’t you believe evil exists?” This is exactly what you want them to ask!

We will cover the second consideration next time around, and offer the Biblical answer to the problem.

– BK

Succinct

It never ceases to amaze me how difficult it is to reason about our presuppositions.

The most natural approach to reasoning, I believe, is to rest upon our presuppositions blindly, without thinking about them at all. This is apparent to me time and time again in discussions I have with unbelievers. A rather enormous challenge in presuppositional apologetics, therefore, is getting your opponent to see that they have presuppositions, and that they must give an account for them. This is no easy task, believe me! The discussion I had two days ago was no exception.

There is this discussion board that I literally “lived” on for the past 7 years, that I have only now begun to wean myself from. It hasn’t been all bad, actually – I learned a great deal about the beliefs of others, and about what I didn’t know about my own beliefs by spending time on that board. My skin grew thick from the constant abuse I took there, and my skills as an apologist grew greatly from what they were when I started out.

Two days ago I ventured back to that board, and entered into a discussion about prayer. Never one to give even an inch to Christianity, this individual latched on to one of my comments and immediately challenged me to prove that “my god” answers prayer. Seeing an opportunity to challenge his presuppositions, I responded – and we were off!

After a few exchanges, where he challenged me to prove the truth of the Bible, I said to him “I’m not trying to prove the authority of scripture – I am relying upon it“, realizing – hoping actually – that he would challenge me to account for what I was relying upon. Sure enough, he responded with “Well, before you can rely on it, you must prove it is valid“. After some more back and forth, he set the bar with the following – “The ONLY way to demonstrate that the bible is true is by hard evidence and facts“. This was the perfect lead-in to start to challenge him about his standard, which I proceeded to do.

I then asked him “what standard are you measuring [your standard] against” and “why should you use this standard, and not another?” His response? “The validity of my standard can be validated in every observation that that has ever been made that resulted in a hypothesis that was tested and validated (or not) since the beginning of history.“

This was just what I was hoping for. I countered with “So your standard is validated by using the very thing your standard relies upon – evidence, reasoning, and the scientific method“, hoping that he would see the circular nature of his argument. He didn’t. It required another few rounds of back and forth before he finally realized he couldn’t simply assume that his standard was valid, and responded with “Okay then, how would you suggest demonstrating the validity of the scientific method?“.

I will likely return to the board in the next day or so to respond, at which point I have no idea how far I will get with him.

Regardless, this conversation got me thinking. There has to be a way to make presuppositionalism succinct. There has to be a way to get right to the heart of the matter, within just a few minutes, because there is so much time to spend after you reach that point. What is that “heart of the matter” of which I speak? Getting your opponent to realize that they are arguing from a standard – a worldview – that itself needs to be accounted for.

This is one of my goals to tackle – to figure out a “formula” (for lack of a better word) to accomplish this.

Thoughts?

– BK

Audio is Ready for "Always Ready" Study – Part 3

Well, the great people at eCamm came through and assisted me in repairing the corrupted audio from our last study recording. I have been able to mix and edit the audio, and now have it available for those who would like to listen.

Click here for audio.

– BK

A Study of "Always Ready" – Part 2

waYesterday afternoon, three of us here at Choosing Hats conducted our second Study of the book “Always Ready” by Dr. Greg Bahnsen. This time we kept it under an hour!

Click on the link below to hear our study.

Skype-recorded Audio of Study

By the way, please feel free to leave any comments or questions you wish after listening to the audio. We would love to hear from you!

– BK

The Problem of Evil – Part 2

The Argument Formalized

Sometimes it is useful to formalize an argument in order to work through it. The argument we have presented already can easily be placed in such a form as follows:

a) God is all powerful
b) God is all loving
c) God knows that evil exists
d) Evil does exist
e) Therefore, God does not exist

What we can see here is that the first three premises seem to describe a being that knows evil exists, wants it to go away, and is able to make it disappear. Therefore, the introduction of the fourth premise, that evil actually exists, seems to form a contradictory state of affairs. That is, the seeming conclusion is that if evil does exist then it is logically impossible for a being described by the first three premises to exist. If this is the case then it is indeed a problem for Christians!

The Weight of the Problem

Although it should be apparent it is worth clarifying that the Problem of Evil does not simply claim that it is most likely the case that the Christian God does not exist based on the preponderance of evil. Rather, it boldly asserts that such a God as described in the Bible cannot and does not exist. In other words, since God and evil cannot both exist, and evil does exist, then God does not exist.

It is at this point that the average Christian may simply write this problem off as irrelevant. After all, for him it is clear that God does exist and so any argument which seems to dispute God’s existence must be invalid and isn’t worthy of discussion. Furthermore, this Christian may be quick to remind the unbeliever that we believe in God based on faith[1], not on logical arguments. For as God transcends everything, even our understanding, any argument that disproves God’s existence can simply be ignored as coming up short in relationship to God’s transcendent nature.[2]

What is particularly ironic about this situation is that the Christian in this example has made use of a very specific logical truth (that a contradictory state of affairs cannot exist) in order to justify a dismissal of the claim that the existence of the God of the Bible (along with evil) is a contradictory state of affairs! He has made a practical use of logic in ignoring this problem thereby implying that logic is necessary in some situations but unnecessary in others. To be consistent, the Christian must confront this issue head on in a logical manner.

Furthermore, although this Christian may be able to satisfy himself that no problem exists, it is the unbeliever (who doesn’t already believe in God) who is presenting this challenge to the Christian. Therefore, it is the unbeliever who can rightly[3] say that God logically cannot exist, based on this line of argumentation. In fact, it is very possible that the Problem of Evil, if not properly dealt with, may be all it ever takes to keep an unbeliever from coming to Christ.

Next time we will look at the most common solution to the Problem of Evil and see why it fails.

– BK

[1] It is indeed the case that our belief in God is one that is based upon faith – the Bible itself is very clear about this. However, Christians must pay attention to and deal with claims that even a faith-based belief in God is illogical.

[2] I recall a slogan that a local Christian College used to tout. It said “Don’t Think Logically, Think Theologically”. Now although there is benefit in some sense to this catchy phrase, there are too many believers today that take it literally, choosing to ignore reason entirely, and cling to the Bible purely on faith alone (something the Bible doesn’t even tell us to do.)

[3] By way of clarification, I do not mean that the unbeliever is objectively warranted in continuing in his or her disbelief based on this argument. Rather, I am saying that this argument makes sense to the unbeliever, based on their existing assumption that God does not exist. It provides them with enough reason to cease from adopting a belief in God.