[Ted Logan]

I have been asked by Matthew (Dr. Worm) to debate with him concerning the existence of God and the truth of Christianity. I will be defending the Faith, and he will be defending the nonchristian position. It should be noted that Matthew is not an atheist, but has decided that it would help him to understand the methodology of apologetics to see it in action. So, I will defend Christianity, and he will attack it.

It is not my intention to defend Christianity by the Roman Catholic or Evidentialist methods of apologetics. These do not really take seriously man’s condition as fallen, and compromise with the nonchristian positions on a number of metaphysical, ethical, and epistemological issues. Roman Catholic Apologetics, largely based on the great but mistaken works of Thomas Aquinas, really come down to a baptized Aristotelianism. Where the Scriptures teach that the thinking of sinful man is darkened, incapable of coming to anything but knowledge falsely so-called, and that those who reject the foundation of knowledge (that is, God as revelator in the natural order and through the Scriptures) are reduced to foolishness and absurdity, Thomistic Apologetics seeks to find a common ground with the unbeliever in matters of observation and knowledge which the sinner already has. In essence, it says to the accuser, “You do pretty well as far as you go. Now, let me place Christianity on top of what you’ve already discovered.” The Evidentialist does the same thing. Both positions appeal to the unaided reason of the sinner, hoping that he or she will come to a personal evaluation of the evidence submitted and autonomously decide that Christianity is true. The underlying problem in all of this is that it treats the sinner exactly how the sinner sees himself. Instead of attacking his underlying presuppositions about his own authority to evaluate truth claims by his sovereign mind, the Thomist and Evidentialist, in essence, say, “Go ahead and think highly of yourself. You have the ability (and the right) to sift through all this on your own and come up with the right answer.” The sinner puts God on trial and the Evidentialist and Thomist hand the gavel to him.

The sinner’s mind is darkened by sin. God has not left Himself without a witness, and both Scripture and the created order are inescapable testimony to God’s existence and the sinfulness of man. This is why, in Romans 1, we read the words of Paul:

Rom 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
Rom 1:19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.
Rom 1:20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
Rom 1:21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Rom 1:22 Professing to be wise, they became fools,
Rom 1:23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.
Rom 1:24 Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.
Rom 1:25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

You see, the Scriptures tell us that no one has an excuse for rejecting the Truth of Christianity because it is inescapable. He has made it known to them, and the men and women who reject Him do, in fact, know Him. However, they suppress the truth about Him in their unrighteousness, and the result of this is that their thinking is futile. Addressing the sinner as though he could evaluate the Message without a change of heart, that is, without conversion, is to expect the impossible of the sinner. For, the sinner’s thinking is futile; by rejecting God, he rejects the very foundation of all knowledge. This is why the Scriptures say that, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 14:1, Psalm 53:1). The word “fool” in the Bible is used to describe someone who refuses to use his God-given faculties as God has designed them. The sinner is a fool because, although he knows the Truth about God, he suppresses that Truth (Romans 1). Unless the sinner is converted, he is incapable of seeing the Truth because he has blinded himself to it (Proverbs 17:6, John 3:3). Note that Jesus says that a man who is not born again cannot even see the Kingdom of Heaven.

Even if his arguments are shown to be irrational and illogical, the sinner will not relent and come to Christ unless Christ Himself draws him. For, although he knows the truth about God, he will refuse to recognize it. This is because, ultimately, the sinner does not desire the truth; he only wants to flatter himself. He will be shown his error and still espouse it, and preach it, because he hates the Gospel.

Pro 18:2 A fool does not delight in understanding, But only in revealing his own mind.

Pro 24:7 Wisdom is too exalted for a fool, He does not open his mouth in the gate.

Pro 26:11 Like a dog that returns to its vomit Is a fool who repeats his folly.

The fool cannot escape his foolishness, though. It is exposed in his every action. For, who would not consider a man a fool who knows that his very existence is a testimony to God’s existence and yet continues to claim that it is not so, as though his words could be spoken without the provision of the Almighty? It’s like a man who argues that logic does not exist, and then gives a logical proof to prove it! The Bible says that such a fool shows his foolishness in all he does, even simply by walking down the road!

Ecc 10:3 Even when the fool walks along the road, his sense is lacking and he demonstrates to everyone that he is a fool.

The Bible does not leave us in a sad state, then, when we approach the sinner. We have hope that God will deliver those on whom He has mercy. However, the task of Apologetics is twofold: First, to convict the sinner, showing him that he is, ultimately, a fool for rejecting the truth about God, and second, to demonstrate that foolishness that proceeds from worshiping the creature rather than the Creator. The apologist’s job is not to make new Christians, but to defend the faith. Whether or not the defense is accepted by the nonbeliever is irrelevant—in his heart of hearts, he knows his folly already.

We cannot approach the nonbeliever by appealing to his own reason (his reason is darkened by sin, remember). The Thomist and Evidentialist Apologetic methods attempt to do so, and in so doing, they fail to take the Scriptures seriously. They answer a fool according to his folly:

Pro 26:4 Do not answer a fool according to his folly, Or you will also be like him.
Pro 26:5 Answer a fool as his folly deserves, That he not be wise in his own eyes.

By appealing to the sinner's desire to be the measure of all things, by failing to attack the presuppositions which allow the sinner to deny the reality of Christ that he already knows, they become like him in that they implicitly (or in many cases explicitly) agree with him that he is the authority by which these things are judged. If we are to answer as such folly deserves, our point of contact cannot be the appeal to his authority or autonomy. We cannot present miracles, or design, or perfection, et cetera, as proving God's existence. The nonbeliever has come into the fray already rejecting those things. His very worldview disqualifies them. The nonbeliever interprets every event in history and in his own life according to his dominating presuppositions. Supernatural events do not occur because they cannot occur. Thus, the presentation of the miracle of Christ’s resurrection will be dismissed as wishful thinking, and the presentation of design in the universe will be dismissed in a similar way. In other words, answering the fool according to his folly will give the fool the ability to say, "I have weighed your evidences and decided that they are false." However, a Biblical apologetic does not leave this possibility. The fool will still say that he has decided such, but he will not be able to defend it. Evidentialist and Thomist methods make the fool's statement of rejection perfectly legitimate.

Where, then, do we find a point of contact? We find it in the fact that, no matter how hard the sinner suppresses the truth, it is always there. It is, in fact, inescapable. In order to make sense of his experience, he must rely on truths which do not comport with atheism. If he were honest about his presuppositions and consistent in them, he would be unable to make sense of anything, and he would be unable to claim to have any true knowledge at all. Of course, atheists do not generally resort to this sort of skepticism; they believe in the inductive principle (more commonly called “the uniformity of nature”), they believe truth can be ascertained by the use of laws of logic, and they believe that Hitler was evil or wrong in a real sense. That, is atheists use laws of science, morality, and logic, but their worldview cannot account for them. In short, the nonbeliever may say that there is no God, but he cannot live that way. The fool, by walking down the road, proves he is a fool. If he were honest and consistent in his worldview, he would recognize that he has no reason to believe that walking will still accomplish what it accomplished yesterday.

The method for defending the faith according to the Scriptures, the apologetic which takes seriously this predicament, is called Presuppositional Apologetics. It is a distinctly Reformed methodology developed by the Calvinist Cornelius Van Til (in the early 20th century) and made accessible by Greg Bahnsen (who died in 1995). If you are interested in reading more about it, a good first step would be Bahnsen’s Always Ready, available at http://www.cmfnow.com. A second step would be to read Van Til’s considerably more difficult work, The Defense of the Faith, available there as well. Presuppositional Apologetics proceeds on the understanding that nonbelievers cannot simply be shown the truth in order to see it—they know it in their hearts already, and suppress it. Presuppositional Apologetics attacks the underlying assumptions which the nonbeliever makes but which cannot be accounted for in his worldview. He uses the inductive principle, but cannot account for it. In fact, any attempt to justify the inductive principle must assume the inductive principle to begin with! There is no worldview, NONE, which can answer the most fundamental questions about the world, ethics, and how we know what we know, except for Christianity as it is revealed in the Bible. This brings me to a few statements about Christianity.

First of all, it should be noted that both myself and my opponent must make certain assumptions in order to make sense of anything else. We must assume that the laws of logic are universal in order for debate to make sense. If they are conventional, as some people have suggested, then it would be philosophically acceptable to adopt new laws of logic to suit one’s argument. I could say that contradiction is acceptable, and prove that God exists because He does not exist. I could say in one breath that God is proved by design in the universe and in the next say that no design exists, and that this proves that God exists. In order to debate, we must assume that truth claims can be evaluated according to the use of logic. Logic, however, is a universal abstract. It is something which does not exist in space (you can’t buy a law of logic at the store), but which exists in the abstract and which apply universally. That is, the laws of logic are not invented or imposed upon nature. If they were, then we would not need to debate this issue—if they’re invented or imposed, then it would be acceptable to invent or impose a new set of logical laws according to your worldview. In this respect, by agreeing to debate with a Christian, an atheist has shown his folly. His walking proves that he’s a fool. For, in the atheist worldview, universal abstracts are impossible. They are held to be universal (they apply at all points in time and in all places), to apply to unexperienced as well as to experienced portions of the universe, even though the atheist does not have universal knowledge. Assuming them to be universal on the basis of his own experience is a logical fallacy known as “hasty generalization”. He has NO reason, within his own worldview, to expect such laws to hold in the future or in places where he does not presently observe them. And yet, he assumes that the laws of physics do not change over time. His worldview cannot account for logic, but he uses it. The atheist cannot account for their abstract nature (abstract meaning that they don’t extend in space or are not individual in nature) because they are not directly observable phenomena composed of matter or energy.

The Christian, on the other hand, has an answer for abstract universals. The laws of logic reflect the thinking of God. God, self-sufficient and self-referential, has created the universe in accord with His own thinking. He cannot lie or deny Himself (Titus 1:2, 2 Timothy 2:3), and the world has been made in such a way that these and other attributes of God, abstract attributes which Paul calls “invisible”, are known through the world in which we interact. The universe reflects God’s nature, and we, made in His image, do the same. In order to come to true knowledge, we must emulate God in His thinking. We must “think God’s thoughts after him”. The Christian thus has a metaphysic and an epistemology which allows for knowledge and accounts for abstract universals such as laws of science, logic, and morality. The nonbeliever, however, cannot account for any of them, though he continues to use them.

It should be noted that most of my time has been spent under the implicit assumption that all nonchristian worldviews are, essentially, atheistic. The Scriptures do not make distinctions between religions; there are Christians and nonchristians. Anyone who is not a Christian is equally subjected to futility in reasoning and all nonchristian worldviews will be evaluated according to the same standards of rationality. If the question is broached of a particular religion, it will be answered.

We come, then, to the proof of the existence of the triune God of the Bible. The transcendental proof for the Christian God is that, without Him, you cannot prove anything. Denying Him destroys the possibility of knowledge. Once again, the fact that atheists and nonchristians continue to claim knowledge is evidence that, in their heart of hearts, they know the God of the Bible, and try very hard to hide from that knowledge. However, their worldviews do not comport with their actions, and they give testimony to their foolishness even, as it were, by walking.

[Dr. Worm]

As Aaron said, I am not actually an atheist. This is an awkward position to be in, it has made deciding what I am actually arguing for and against difficult. But here goes...

You refuse to use evidentialist methods of apologetics because you claim they "compromise with the nonchristian positions on a number of metaphysical, ethical, and epistemological issues." I don't see how that is the case. By meeting the nonchristian on the common ground of logic and reason, what have you compromised in your apologetic? Yes, scripture calls the nonbeliever a fool, and describes his thinking as futile. Does this mean that he cannot understand the law of non-contradiction, or apply logic to any of his thinking?

If the laws of logic are agreed upon, you have not denied God by showing from logical arguments the truth of His existence, rather you affirm God in that He is the source of the laws, and the laws He has created to govern the universe point to himself. If the laws of logic are not agreed upon (or the nonbeliever's thinking is so darkened that logic does not apply to him), then for one, the debate is utterly futile regardless which method you use to defend your beliefs, and second, your premise that these laws are universal and objective is destroyed anyway, as his concept of logic obviously differs from yours.

Even if his arguments are shown to be irrational and illogical, the sinner will not relent and come to Christ unless Christ Himself draws him. For, although he knows the truth about God, he will refuse to recognize it. This is because, ultimately, the sinner does not desire the truth; he only wants to flatter himself. He will be shown his error and still espouse it, and preach it, because he hates the Gospel.

What have you done here except say that no matter what arguments either side presents, you are right and refuse to consider the alternative? Your argument for God's existence could be that you are wearing shoes right now. Why doesn't the nonbeliever repent and acknowledge God's existence as soon as he hears you are wearing shoes? Well, because he refuses to recognize the truth because of his fallen state. When you deny that the nonbeliever has the ability to discern between what is logical and illogical, you have done several things: 1)You have taken away the need for your own arguments to hold up to logic, as shown in my above example, putting yourself in a position where even if you were wrong, there would be no way for you to be refuted. 2)You have betrayed your premise that logic is universal and objective, and most significantly, 3) You have ceased to debate. Whether you argue evidentially or presuppostionally, you have declared from the beginning that you have won the debate, that what you say is true, and everything else must then be judged in light of that truth.

We cannot approach the nonbeliever by appealing to his own reason (his reason is darkened by sin, remember)

But then you go on to show from the transcendental argument that Christianity is logically necessary. How have you escaped what you accuse the Thomists and evidentialists of doing? All you have done is exchanged their rational arguments for your own. Is the only reason you offer any argument at all because scripture admonishes you to "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have" (1 pet 3:15)? Why then does it matter whether you use the transcendtal argument or some other argument? What I'm getting at is this: either way, you have presented an argument for God's existence as being logical for the sinner to consider based on your common understanding of the laws of logic, then denied him the ability to make that judgment. I odn't understand why you would make any argument in the first place, or why it matters which argument you use.

Regarding the argument you presented itself, there are several issues here I would like to adress.

There is no worldview, NONE, which can answer the most fundamental questions about the world, ethics, and how we know what we know, except for Christianity as it is revealed in the Bible.

You assert, and later explain in greater detail, that no other worldview can account for abstract universals such as science, logic, and morality. Regarding morality, I concede that without a religion defining moral absolutes, morality becomes little more than more a social convention, and I do not intend to argue this point. However, I think that to use this as a proof of God's existence is mistaken because basically, I don't see morality absolutes as being essential to the atheist, the world would go on just as it does now were they to not exist.

Regarding the laws of science and logic, on the other hand, why must one account for them? Why must one be able to justify a belief in them? More to the point, why can't they be justified by transcendental necessity? You say that God must exist because without Him, nothing can be proven. But isn't that an unnecessary step to take? Why not simply say that the laws of logic and science must exist because without them, nothing can be proven? If this is not enough justification for the laws to exist, why can this same justification be used to prove that God exists?

For, in the atheist worldview, universal abstracts are impossible. They are held to be universal (they apply at all points in time and in all places), to apply to unexperienced as well as to experienced portions of the universe, even though the atheist does not have universal knowledge. Assuming them to be universal on the basis of his own experience is a logical fallacy known as “hasty generalization”. He has NO reason, within his own worldview, to expect such laws to hold in the future or in places where he does not presently observe them.

You have no reason either. The atheist has two options regarding the uniformity of nature: Either the laws of science are universal and unchanging, or they are not. Can he prove that they apply universally, or that the future will be like the past? No. Neither option is inherently more reasonable than the other. But all evidence available suggests the universality of these laws. Granted, it could be entirely coincidental that all of human experience points the same way on this. But if an atheist were to choose between living as though nature were regular or irregular, the choice looks pretty simple. If there is no reason to assume its regularity, there is less reason to assume it to be irregular. Evidence points to its regularity. If in the future this changes, the atheist can change his assumptions accordingly.

But how does God change the problem for you? Because He can not lie or deny Himself (which is an assertion I intend to adress as well)? How does that necessitate the existance of these laws? Where in scripture has God promised that the laws of nature are universal or that they will apply in the future? In fact, doesn't your belief in miracles require that you do not know if the laws of nature will always be in effect? It seems that your worldview has the same problem you accuse the atheist's of having.

You say that no other worldview can account for abstract universals other than Christianity. While I do not grant that these must be accounted for apart from transcendental necessity, I do not grant that Christianity is the only rational explanation for them either. While this may seem tedious, I do not see how Islam or Hinduism or Judaism or animism or pantheism Greek mythology or most religions or concepts of God, in fact, fail to do this. To prove that Christianity is the only worldview in which these things can exist, one would have to go through every rival worldview and show where it fails. But even there, what if we simply haven't discovered the truth yet? What if there is a God sustaining the universe, whose thinking is reflected in the laws of logic, but has simply chosen not to reveal himself to us or interact with creation in any significant way? Even if none of the existing religions can be intellectually defended, who's to say that we have exhausted every possibility? Just because the answer is not known by us yet does not mean that it can't exist.

It might be better to save this point for later, but I see it as relatively central. Your entire argument and in fact system of belief seems to rest on your presupposition that the Bible is God's infallible word. If you are attacking the non-Christians underlying presuppositions, I would like to attack yours.

You have quoted scripture saying that God cannot lie or deny Himself. What if God was lying when He said that? Even assuming that the Bible is God's word, on what basis can you trust it? You assume God cannot lie because He has said He cannot? That rationale surely wouldn't hold up if someone else were to say they could not lie. Why do you view God's statement differently than you would mine were I to say the same thing?

Further, I would point to internal inconsistencies within scripture, both in the text itself and in obvious translation and copying errors that have occured throughout history. One need not look hard to find examples of either. Even if you hold that the autographa was completely inerrant and infallible, where is this autographa? We have no way of knowing how far our modern bibles have strayed from the original texts. But we do know that at the very least, they have strayed somewhat. And if this is the case, how can you still hold scripture up as an authority on anything?

But even if the Bible is the word of God, and even if you can believe God when He says that He cannot lie, and even if you can show that the contradictions "aren't really contradictions", and that the translation and copying errors didn't really occur or are inconsequential, there are still problems trusting scripture. What books are truly the word of God, and how do you know? God never gave the church fathers the list of canonical books, this was something that they made up. Their requirements for the canon were not given to them by God, they made them up. Even today there is disagreement on what books are truly scripture (e.g., the apocrypha). Assuming the infallibity of scripture, we still have a fallible list of infallible books. Maybe they are all scripture with no scripture being left out. But maybe not. There is really no way of knowing. We don't know what books are scriptural, we don't know how far they have strayed from the original texts, we don't know if God was being honest when He said He cannot lie. On what basis can we trust the Bible today and hold its truth up as our main presupposition on which we judge all other things?

But how can we say that the Bible is really God's word at all, or that, say, the Koran is not? What we have is a bunch of people running around claiming that God spoke to them, and we must believe them or else we're going to hell. This isn't a matter of trusting God at all, this is a matter of trusting these men that they really did hear from God. When have men ever proved trustworthy? And on what basis do you choose to believe Isaiah when he claimed to hear from God, but not believe Mohammed or Joseph Smith? But some of them don't even claim such authority for themselves. We have simply stuck them in there with the others and given them that authority, whether they meant to have it or not.

If scripture is going to be used in your argument or your beliefs at all, it must be shown why scripture is worthy of such trust.

[Ted Logan]

I apologize for taking so long. I'm in the process of writing my response and will post it as soon as possible

[Dr. Worm]

No worries. Whenever you get to it.

[Dr. Worm]

I know you're busy and I am very busy and never on anymore. So I would still completely understand if you can't reply, but would still be very appreciative if you did.