Challenge to Unbelief (3 of 6) – The Futility of Unbelief, Part 1

Table of Contents

• Introduction: The Futility of Unbelief[00:00]
• Romans 1:20: “Without Excuse”[00:41]
• 1 Corinthians 1:20: God Makes Foolish the Wisdom of the World[03:14]
• Apologetic Method: Proverbs 26:4-5[04:14]
• 2 Timothy 2:23-25: Gentle Correction of the Fool[08:52]
• Problem One: Induction[11:36]
• Problem Two: Universals[21:19]
• Problem Three: Brain (Mind)[28:36]
• Theism as the Presupposition of Anti-Theism[31:38]
• Ethical Absolutes[33:04]
• Laws of Logic[39:30]

Full Transcript

[00:00] We’ll get underway with our third presentation in this series on apologetics. I’d like to speak to you about the futility of unbelief. When the believer and the unbeliever encounter each other, they are implicitly bringing two different worldviews into collision. The certainty of Christianity is seen in the fact that God speaks with a self-attesting authority which provides a foundation for our rationality, science, ethics, human dignity, and freedom. And those who will not bow the knee to the self-authenticating revelation of God will end up being fooled according to the Bible.

[00:41] Turn with me, if you will, to Romans 1, verse 20. Romans 1, and the 20th verse. Paul says, For the invisible things of him, of God, since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity, that they may be without excuse.

[01:06] Paul gives something of a paradoxical statement when he tells us the invisible things of God are clearly seen. They’re invisible, and yet they are seen, clearly seen. They are known and encountered by all men, believers and unbelievers alike. He says these invisible things of God include his everlasting power and divinity, who God truly is. And God is known through the things that have been made. He is known through the created order, whether it be the beauty of the stars or the power of the sea. Indeed, when men look at the created order, they know God, the living and true God, the one and only God, and all of his everlasting power and divinity.

[01:51] But it’s the last expression here that I want to focus on as we get started right now. Paul says, That they may be without excuse. God is so clearly known through the created order that men are without excuse. He does not say there’s some reason for unbelief and some reason for belief, but the reason for belief is stronger, though there’s reason for doubt. There’s some reason to have some nagging doubt about that. He says those who don’t believe in this God have no excuse. And you can’t tone that down. They have no excuse.

[02:30] In fact, the Greek term here for being without an excuse literally means without an apologetic. Ana apologia. They have no defense.

[02:42] You know, that’s strange, isn’t it? Because when you talk to unbelievers, that isn’t the impression they have. That isn’t what they say. They say, well, I’d like to believe in God, but I don’t know. You know, there’s this problem. There’s that problem. I know there’s good reasons to believe, but there’s all these problems not to believe that lead me not to believe. And so I just have to be agnostic. I don’t know what to say about it.

[03:04] What you should say is, well, Paul says you have no excuse. There is no reason whatsoever not to believe. You have no defense. You have no apologetics.

[03:14] In 1 Corinthians 1, verse 20, Paul gives us, I think, the fundamental approach to a biblical apologetic when he challenges the world with these words. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? Paul says in Romans 1, you have no excuse, period. In 1 Corinthians 1, he says, let the debater of this age step forward. God makes foolish the wisdom of this world.

[03:51] And this is what I’ve been leading up to in our lectures this afternoon. I’ve been trying to encourage you to see that in apologetics, we need to show the foolishness of unbelief and the certainty of Christianity as the only alternative in terms of which man’s rationality, man’s ethics, science, the dignity and freedom of man can be maintained.

[04:14] What should our apologetic method be? Well, we have something of a guide to that. If we turn to the book of Proverbs, I believe, Proverbs chapter 26, verses 4 and 5, gives us a summary of apologetical methods, as it turns out.

[04:31] In dealing with the unbeliever, we’re dealing with the fool. That’s biblical language. It’s not name-calling. The Bible means there’s somebody who may have a lot of information, does not know how to use it properly. The person who, in any number of ways, shows his mockery of principles and decency. And is someone who cannot make use of the learning that he has to lead a life that is worthwhile. He’s a fool.

[04:58] Proverbs 26, verse 4 says, answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou be like unto him. Next verse says, answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.

[05:12] This is a contradiction. By the way, there are some people who, when they try to put together contradictions in the Bible, they run into that one right away. The Bible says, don’t answer the fool according to his folly. And then it turns right around and says, answer a fool according to his folly. Well, isn’t it a little strange that whoever the editor of this section of the Bible is didn’t catch that? I mean, he puts the two verses right next to each other. I mean, maybe we ought to do the same sort of thing for the Bible writers that we do for every other writer and say, you know, we ought to, if there’s a legitimate way to interpret them where they aren’t made to be fools or, you know, contradicting themselves blatantly, we ought to follow that interpretation.

[05:50] I think what the author of Proverbs is doing here is telling us two things we’ve got to do with fools. He’s not contradicting himself. He’s saying, there’s two ways to deal with fools. First of all, he says, you don’t answer according to the folly. If you buy into their outlook, their foolish perspective, you’re going to end up just like them.

[06:09] So when you argue with the unbeliever, don’t accept his presuppositions, don’t accept his assumptions, don’t accept his philosophy of life, and then try to prove Christianity within that framework. He says, if you answer the fool using his folly, you’ll be just like him. Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou be like unto him. But on the other hand, having answered the fool by your worldview in terms of the wisdom of God and not according to the foolishness that you’re dealing with, you’ve presented the Christian worldview in its own strength.

[06:44] Then you go secondly, Proverbs says, and you answer the fool according to his folly. Now you say, okay, let me stand on your position for argument’s sake. Let me assume this foolishness that you’re giving us, philosophy, and see where it goes. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit, lest he arrogantly think everything’s all right in his reasoning process, lest he think everything is okay as far as it goes.

[07:14] Show him that he’s a fool by taking his foolishness to a limit, if you will. We would, in logical circles, call this, reduce him to absurdity. Stand on his position and say, okay, let’s assume you’re right. Let’s just say the world is like you say it is. Let’s just say we know things in the way you say we know things. Let’s say we should live our lives according to the principles you say we should live. Now what happens? And you take it down the path of implication, show the consequences and results of his philosophy of life, lest he be wise in his own conceit, lest he think he’s got something here. You reduce him to absurdity.

[07:55] The Bible teaches us that the intellectual outlook of the unbeliever is that of a fool. The unbeliever proclaims a pseudo-wisdom that is in reality a hatred of knowledge and destroys knowledge. The Bible teaches us that as well. The Bible tells us that God makes foolish the wisdom of this world and puts it to shame through the ministry of his people. And as we’ve just seen here in Proverbs, in order to give an answer to the fool, we follow a two-fold or indirect procedure. First of all, refusing to answer in terms of his presuppositions to show that we can make sense out of whatever we’re agreeing on. And then answering in terms of his presuppositions to show that they reduce to absurdity. If we listen to your presentation in terms of our worldview, then we do an internal critique of the unbeliever’s worldview to show that it couldn’t account for anything.

[08:52] Turn in your Bibles to 2 Timothy 2, verses 23 to 25. 2 Timothy 2, at the 23rd verse. How should we deal with unbelievers?

[09:30] In the first place, you don’t answer a fool according to his folly. Foolish questions, you refuse. And yet, Paul here does not say that you’re just to be silent. He says we’re to be gentle, apt to teach, forbearing, correcting. So we’re going to give an answer, but we’re not going to answer in terms of the foolishness of the fool’s question. But notice how he describes the fool.

[09:53] The Lord’s servant must not strive, be gentle towards all, apt to teach, forbearing, in gentleness, correcting them that oppose themselves. That oppose themselves.

[10:05] You have to understand that the unbeliever, in terms of what he tries to do in his worldview, is opposing himself. There are going to be tensions, internal contradictions within his philosophy of life, within his outlook, that you’re going to exploit in trying to gently show him his error. Being gentle towards all, apt to teach, forbearing, in gentleness, correcting them that oppose themselves, if for adventure God may give them repentance unto the knowledge of the truth. So our apologetical procedure will be, first of all, the presentation of the Christian worldview, in terms of which man’s rationality and science and logic and ethics make sense. And then we’re going to do an internal critique of the fool’s perspective, showing the internal contradictions, the tensions, the absurdity that he has, lest he be wise in his own conceit. Showing him that he’s without an apologetic, he has no defense whatsoever of his worldview.

[11:12] And what I’d like to do then in this hour is to demonstrate some of the ways in which this can be done, just about on any level of discussion. You can do it in a more sophisticated way with the university professor, and you can do it in a very conversational, casual way with your next-door neighbor. I’m going to make a list of things we discussed so that you can have this in your notes to go back and refer to.

[11:36] One of the things you can talk about with any man believer is what we call in philosophy the problem of induction. The problem of induction. What’s that? Well, that’s what I referred to earlier as the belief that nature is uniform. The belief that the way things happened today or yesterday is the way things are going to happen tomorrow. There’s going to be common patterns of causation in this world.

[12:04] So, if you see your car, the needle on the fuel gauge of your car is down to E, you’re going to assume you have to put gas in the car if you want it to keep running. So, why do you assume that? You say, well, because in the past I’ve had this experience of running out of gas, and I realize when I run out of gas, the car won’t go anywhere. So, since I want the car to keep going places, I’ve got to keep gas there. So, when it gets down to E, I put gas in there.

[12:30] Now, that doesn’t take a lot of intelligence. I mean, people understand that. That’s real simple. You understand that. You can talk to your neighbors about that. What you want to say is, well, that makes sense within the Christian worldview. You’ve learned from past experience not to let the car run out of gas. What I don’t understand is why in your worldview you believe that?

[12:50] And see, putting it this way just shows how much unbelievers borrow from our world. Because when you ask that question, they’re going to say, everybody knows that. Everybody knows that the future is going to be like the past. That if the car ran out of, couldn’t run without gas in the past, it won’t run without gas in the future. Everybody knows that. To which you’re going to say, I agree everybody knows that. Not everybody can give an account of that. And on your worldview, that doesn’t have any account at all. You can’t make sense of that on your worldview at all.

[13:22] For all you know, because on your worldview, this is a random universe. On your worldview, the car will run better without gas than with gas tomorrow. Yes, it wasn’t that way in the past, and it isn’t that way right now. But who knows what the future may bring. You don’t know that nature is going to work in a uniform fashion. You don’t know that tomorrow, things will be like they were yesterday. That is, you have no basis for believing in the uniformity of nature, that the future will be like the past.

[13:57] And the unbeliever might say, well, you don’t either. And say, oh yes, I do. I believe in a sovereign God who has promised to control this world in such a way that people can take dominion over it and can use it to his glory. He’s promised to keep things running regularly. Oh yeah, well, of course, that takes faith. That takes religious faith. And at that point, you’re going to say, yes, and the alternative is what? You don’t like the idea that I have faith in this God who makes sense out of the uniformity of nature, and you’ve got nothing to put in its place.

[14:29] He’s going to say, oh yes, I do. I know that the future will be like the past from past experience. I see somebody smiling. You immediately see the logical problem the person has. He’s going to try to establish the uniformity of nature in the future, that is being uniform with the way it operated in the past, because he remembers that it was uniform in the past. It’s called begging the question. Yes, nature was uniform in the past, but the question is, will it be uniform in the future? Well, and if it always has in the past, then very probably it will be in the future, he says. And this takes just a little bit of a moment’s reflection to see that it’s just a loop on the same error.

[15:14] Probability? What do we mean by probability? You mean, given the uniformities and the regularities that we’re accustomed to, we can predict very likely what will happen because of the regularity of what we’re testing. And so how do you know that nature will be regular? Because, well, it’s been very regular in the past. Very probably it will be. So you’re assuming the uniformity of nature in order to argue for the uniformity of nature. So he’s just begging the question.

[15:44] In a sense, we can all close our Bibles, have a closing prayer, and go home. We’re done. I mean, we are done. I want you, one problem in putting on a conference like this, when I start going through a whole series of problems, the impression can be given to people, okay, we take a little nick out of the unbeliever here, and a little nick out of the unbeliever there, and we hope we get enough nicks, and we’ve finally done the job. No, I’ve finished off the unbeliever. We are done.

[16:09] Now, if he cannot reason on the basis of past experience, guess what? He can’t reason at all. There’s nothing he can say now. You say, well, he can talk about what’s happening in the present. Yeah, but if you want to get real strict, that means he can only talk about his immediately present experience. I am now seeing the sun out the window. That’s it. Anything he says about the future is going to be justified on the basis of past experience, we’ve just seen that he can’t do that. Well, he can talk anyway.

[16:45] You know, he can’t talk either. You know why? Because the use of words assumes that the meaning of the words that you’re using is the same or is roughly equivalent to how they’ve been used in the past. If you did not assume continuity of meaning in words, there would be no communication. And so now you have the unbeliever who is unable to justify any of his thinking about the future. Here’s how simple it is.

[17:11] He can’t go down and turn on his car and justify doing that because he wants to go to the store. You say, well, now, wait a minute. In the past, turning the key has started the car. You say, yeah, but that’s only in the past. You don’t know the future will do that. In the past, having gas in the gas can or the fuel tank was necessary for running the car, but you don’t know that in the future. In the past, going to the store and buying food was necessary for surviving, but you don’t know that in the future. In the past, eating squash and vegetables was good for you, but you don’t know that’s true in the future. I mean, he can’t do anything without believing in the uniformity of nature, and he can’t even talk about it because talking about it assumes the uniformity of the meaning of his words.

[17:56] So I want to make this real clear, that in undermining the ability of the unbeliever to use scientific methods to project into the future based on past experience, we have cut off from ability to talk or to know anything. The unbeliever doesn’t want to stub his toe, and so he avoids, you know, the chair. He walks around when he’s barefooted. Yeah, but for all you know, stubbing your toe in the future is going to be the most wonderful experience you’ve ever had. If there’s no connection between the past and the future, and on the non-Christian worldview there is no connection, then you can’t draw any inferences from the past into the future. Two seconds into the future, not two weeks into the future, not 200 years into the future.

[18:40] Now, most unbelievers will regale you with the advances and the accomplishments of natural science. Well, I would too. I mean, I think science has done a wondrous job. I mean, advances in medical science and engineering and agriculture and on and on and on. But you know, every bit of scientific work assumes the uniformity of nature. All of this grand advance of Western technology and science has been made possible because people believed in the uniformity of nature. If you didn’t believe that nature is uniform, all of the work in the laboratory you did yesterday would be irrelevant to what’s going to happen tomorrow. And therefore, all of natural science presupposes what Christians can make sense of and non-Christians can make no sense of whatsoever. The problem of induction settles it. The game is over.

[19:40] And every time the unbeliever wants to continue the argument, you just have to draw him right back to this point and say, you know, wait a minute. How do we know that anything we’re talking about has relevance for the future? We don’t know that nature is uniform on your worldview. Now, if you want to talk within my worldview, then we’ve got a basis for argument. But then again, if we’re going to talk within my worldview, we’re not going to be able to criticize my worldview. So you see, the price of arguing with the Christian worldview is first of all granting that it’s true. And once you grant that it’s true, you can argue with it. I’m saying that a little tongue-in-cheek. Do you get my point? There can’t be argument without the uniformity of nature. So if you’re going to argue with Christianity, you have to first grant that Christianity is true in order to generate the argument against the truth of Christianity.

[20:30] This goes back to that quote I gave you in our last lecture. The claim to having an indubitable position is justified when the denial of that claim would undermine the conditions of rationality. Unbelievers destroy the possibility of arguing, reasoning from the past to the future, because on their worldview, they have no basis for the uniformity of nature. You say, well, but what if they said they do believe in God and that God makes nature uniform, but they don’t think it’s the Christian God? Well, we’ll get to that at the end of this lecture. At this point, the choices are to borrow from the Christian worldview or to concede deceit.

[21:14] Problem number one, the problem of induction. Problem number two, I’m going to call the problem of universal. In order to talk about the problem of universals, you need to know what a universal is, obviously. What’s a universal? Well, the universal is sent over against a particular.

[21:34] Let’s say that we’re standing at the edge of the pond and we see three particular ducks out on the pond. We’ll call them Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Okay? They are particulars. But what are they particulars of? They’re particular instances of what? Duckness. To use the philosophical expression. Duckness.

[21:55] We don’t count, you see, the leaf floating on the pond along with the three, what we call ducks. You see, there are four of these things called ducks. Three of these things have something in common. You know, you’ve all watched Sesame Street, right? Three of these things are kind of the same. One of them doesn’t fit, right? The leaf is out and the other three are in the same category. What do we mean by a category? What do we mean by there’s a likeness between these things? Well, we’re saying there’s something known as a universal or a concept of which these ducks are particular instances. And the concept or the universal we’re referring to is that of duckness.

[22:35] Now, would there be a concept of duckness if there were no ducks? What if all the ducks in the world were to die tonight for some reason? Would we still have the idea of ducks? Come on, don’t be scared. Of course. The fact that all the ducks died, the fact that all the unicorns are now dead, doesn’t mean that we don’t have the idea of unicorn, right? Well, now you’re worried. I don’t believe unicorns ever exist. The fact that something doesn’t exist as a particular does not mean that the universal, the idea, the concept, whatever you’re going to designate this, does not exist. So you could have an idea of duckness with no ducks, or you could have the idea of duckness and there are ducks. But we’ll get into that some other time.

[23:23] The problem here is, it is impossible to refer to these three things out on the pond unless we have the concept or the universal duckness. If you don’t have that, if you don’t believe there’s any likenesses, there aren’t any class concepts, any categories, if you don’t have them, then there’s no way to say those are three ducks. All you can say is Huey, Dewey, Louie. You can’t say Huey, Dewey, Louie are ducks because there is no concept of duckness. So it turns out that the use of human language and reasoning presupposes class conceptness, or the concept of a class concept. It presupposes universals. Now, I know this isn’t very nice. It will seem very unkind.

[24:11] Can you kick Huey and Dewey and Louie? Yes, you could. If you were a mean-spirited person, you could kick them. Could you kick the concept of duckness? No, you couldn’t. Now, this would really be mean. Could you cook Huey, Dewey, and Louie and eat them? Yes, some of you would like to do that. Could you cook the concept of duckness and eat it? No. What am I getting at?

[24:38] Duckness is not like ducks. Ducks are physical objects. They’re out there in the world that we can experience, touch, kick, eat, whatever. But we can’t touch duckness. We can’t eat duckness. We don’t have any physical experience of duckness.

[24:56] Now, if you’re talking to an unbeliever who says there’s nothing in this world except matter in motion, then you’re going to want to know from him, well, then where are the universals? Where are the concepts like duck and rabbit and run and honesty and humanity and all these things which we speak of as though they were real, and yet we never encounter in the physical world? If the unbeliever says you can only talk about those things for which you have physical experience, you have observational evidence, then the unbeliever has got to give up universal. But if the unbeliever gives up universal, then he’s got to give up language and reasoning as well. Because now you can’t talk about anything being the same class.

[25:42] If I say the barn is red, I assume there’s a concept known as barnness and redness, and that I’ve brought these two together from a predication. I’ve predicated of the barn, red. But if there is no barnness and there is no redness, I can’t say the barn is red. All I can do is point at something and give it a name. Oobla. But you know what? The next time I come to what you and I would have called, in the Christian worldview, another red barn, now I can’t say oobla of the second thing. You know why? Because that’s not the same barn, not the same red, it’s not the same experience.

[26:27] And someone says, oh, but there’s a likeness between them, and then we’re right back to the problem of universals. There’s a likeness between the experience I had at this point and then five minutes later. And what is that quote-unquote likeness? Well, it’s not something that you can cook, it’s not something you can eat, it’s not something you can kick, it’s not something you can experience in the physical world. But on your worldview, Mr. Unbeliever, that’s all there is. Only physical reality. And so there are no likenesses, there’s just random experience. In which case, I can’t even call two red barns, red barns. I can only give them individual names.

[27:07] Well, if only individual names exist, then there are no verbs and there are no nouns, are there? There’s just names. And if there are no verbs and no nouns, then we can’t talk to each other. Again, that ends it. We’re done. The unbeliever’s finished, kaputs. God, philosophically, he has nothing more to say. And that’s why, in a sense, I’d like us just to say, okay, let’s close in prayer and go home. We’re done with our job. We’ve reduced the fool to absurdity. He can’t even talk without assuming class concepts, without assuming universals. And on his worldview, if he’s a materialist, an atheist, there can’t be universals. So the problem of induction, in and of itself, finishes him off.

[27:53] You say, well, how do believers account for universals? Well, we can understand the notion of an immaterial or abstract category. That’s the way God thinks about things. Redness, barnness, duckness, pondness, runningness, and so forth, are all things which are in the mind of God. And he’s created this world, and he’s created our minds to understand his world in light of his own mind. And so we can speak of things being like one another, because God made them like one another. And he thinks of them as like one another. There is a foundation, then, for universals within the Christian worldview, but there isn’t such a foundation within the non-Christian worldview.

[28:36] Let’s move on to another problem, equally devastating. That is the problem of brain. It’s really the problem of mind, but I like calling it the problem of brain. On the non-Christian’s understanding of the world and human nature, where there is no God and there aren’t any immaterial realities, then human beings only have brains. They don’t have minds. What do I mean by a brain? I mean the gray matter, the oatmeal, up here, in the head.

[29:06] Now, that’s physical. And as something physical, it operates according to the laws of physics, biology, and what have you. You all with me? And if it’s controlled as a physical thing, by the laws of physics and biology, then what the brain does is not subject to man’s free will and control, but rather what man seems to do freely as a result of the biological and physical processes in the brain, electrical, chemical transactions within the brain. So the unbeliever says man is nothing but matter in motion. He’s got this physical body, which is animated, which is in motion. Therefore, he doesn’t have a mind and he doesn’t have a free will. He just has a brain. All right?

[29:56] Let’s answer the fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. Well, on this assumption, Mr. Unbeliever, then what I’m thinking and what you’re thinking, we can’t help but think because the laws of physics and biology, stimulus response mechanisms, control everything that we do and think, right? That’s right. So that when you say that materialism is true, and I say materialism is false, for both of us, that’s just the result of the electrical, chemical responses in our brain, right? And now he’s a little more hesitant. Right. And therefore, you’re not asserting that materialism is true because you have good evidence that it’s true. You couldn’t help but say that because that’s just the way your brain’s programmed, right? And now he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore.

[30:45] Because you see, what happens is that if naturalism is true, then the implications of naturalism lead to the conclusion that there’s no reasoning involved in being a naturalist. You can’t help but say and do what you say and do. So if you’re a naturalist, there’s no reason to be a naturalist. If you’re a naturalist, that just happens to be naturally what happens with your brain. Here’s the unbeliever opposing himself, undermining his whole position. He thinks he’s being so self-sufficient. He’s so proud of himself for fighting against the Christian worldview and philosophy, but all along what he’s done is pulled the rug out from under himself. You see, you have to first affirm the Christian view of man and rationality and freedom so that there can be an argument going on in terms of which you can argue against the Christian worldview.

[31:38] Theism is the unavoidable presupposition of anti-theism. Let me say that again. I know it’s warm and it’s late in the afternoon, but that’s the heart of what I’m trying to get across, so I don’t want you to miss it. Theism is the unavoidable presupposition of anti-theism. When people want to argue anti-theistically, when they want to argue against God, argue against the… The only way they can make sense out of their argument, using induction, using universal, using their minds or, in some sense, the freedom to evaluate evidence, the only way they can do that is to assume the Christian worldview in which those things make sense so that they can turn around and argue against the Christian worldview.

[32:24] Dr. Van Til used to put it this way, that it was like a child who sits on his father’s lap and slaps his father’s face. Yes, the child is insulting his father. He slaps his face. But he could only do that if the father was first supporting him. And so, unbelievers can slap the face of their heavenly father. They can argue against Christianity, but all along they’re doing it by resting on God’s lap. Anti-theism presupposes theism. All arguments against Christianity, in order to make sense of them as arguments, must presuppose the Christian worldview. Otherwise, the preconditions of rationality have been undermined.

[33:04] Let’s talk about ethical absolutes. Is it really necessary to have ethical absolutes in order to argue? Well, those of you who have heard my debate with Gordon Stein know what I did with him with respect to ethical absolutes. I said, in essence, the very idea of arguing with each other in order to convince one another presupposes an ethical absolute. There’s an alternative to arguing, you know, in order to convince your opponent. I said, well, all I can do is I can take out a gun, and I can say, I want you to agree with me, or I’ll shoot you dead.

[33:39] Most people are going to say, wait a minute, that’s not right. You can’t do that. That’s not fair. And say, okay. In other words, engaging in debate presupposes that we’re supposed to be rational and not just appeal to force. Is that what you’re telling me? Yeah, that’s right. Okay.

[33:57] Now, in your world view, can you tell me why I’m under any obligation to appeal to reason and evidence rather than to force to get you to change your mind? On your world, on my world view, I can tell you why that is. God tells us we’re not supposed to use weapons to try to change people’s minds, but rather the preaching of the gospel and so forth and so on. But in your world, you don’t understand why you say that. So what I did is I suggested to Dr. Stein, I said, now, if I had brought a gun with me tonight, and I pulled it out, and I aimed it at you, I could say, I want you to convince me that it’s wrong to use this gun to win the argument.

[34:35] And you see, he’s either going to have to say, everything’s relative, in which case, I have the right to shoot him, and I win the argument. Or he’s going to have to argue that there are moral absolutes, which is going to force him into the Christian worldview, in which case, I win the argument. So either way, I win the argument. The unbeliever must have ethical absolutes to argue at all.

[34:57] But let’s forget argument just for a minute. As you know, when you talk to your neighbors and your colleagues at work, your relatives and so forth, everybody believes in some kind of right and wrong. It may not be the same as you. It may be a rather bizarre, you know, version of right and wrong, but everybody has some view of right and wrong. I told you in a previous lecture today of people who would say it’s okay to live with another person out of wedlock because ethics is relative, and they turn right around and they argue against violence and against looting and so forth, because now ethics is not relative. Well, which is it?

[35:35] Now, let’s just follow this for a minute. An unbeliever does not see the conflict in his or her worldview when they do that. I mean, if they did, they wouldn’t be so blatant in putting it out there for you. So when you point that out, what do you think they’re thinking? Why are they thinking, well, that’s not all that devastating? It’s because they think, they think that no one has the right to do what hurts another person. And so two people living together out of wedlock in a voluntary way is, as we say, a victimless crime. Everyone is willing to do it. Everyone’s getting something out of the arrangement because they’re probably getting more than they think out of the arrangement. But everyone’s happy because it’s a free exchange. But when it comes to looting, inflicting violence on people, then that’s not free, and that’s not nice, and it’s not fair. That’s what unbelievers think.

[36:27] They tell us that we’re supposed to do what is nice to other people. We’re not supposed to hurt other people. Now, what are you going to say when the unbeliever tells you that? Well, one, you’re going to say, I agree. We’re not supposed to hurt other people. And I’d like to tell you why I believe that. I believe that because God in his word teaches you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you must love your neighbor as yourself, et cetera, et cetera. I can’t for the life of you figure out why you believe that. Why do you believe that we shouldn’t be looting or killing or going to war in Vietnam or whatever it may be? On what basis do you assert that?

[37:04] Well, it’s just not right to hurt people. You say, well, what do you mean it’s not right to hurt people? Well, it’s just nature made us that way. Nature made us so that we wouldn’t hurt people. Of course, then you’re going to ask the question, well, if nature made us that way, how does it happen that any of us do it? How does it happen that anybody murders anybody except by actions? You run over somebody and you see them back there. Why is it that there’s the intentional infliction of pain? And in fact, how do you account for the fact that some people inflict pain and they don’t intend to get anything more out of it except the pleasure of inflicting pain on other people? How do you account for that? Your Pollyanna view of human nature. How everyone is just naturally good and nice and doesn’t want to hurt people. That’s ridiculous.

[37:50] Besides, if you want to talk about nature, if you go out and study, you know, like National Geographic does, what animals do and so forth, you’ll find that they not only inflict pain on each other, they eat each other. So if you’re going to do what’s natural, why shouldn’t we do what the animals do, which is natural? Animals kill each other. Animals go to the bathroom without having places to do it in private. Animals copulate openly. Animals do a lot of things that we all would be horrified by if they were done by human beings. And so if you’re going to appeal to nature, then let’s be consistent. If what is natural goes, then let’s be natural.

[38:30] By the way, it isn’t natural to fly, is it? It isn’t natural to cure polio or to pull teeth. And yet, we all go in airplanes, we go to the dentist, and if at all possible, we would cure polio. So when the unbeliever appeals to nature, you’ve got to push that to show that the unbeliever is being arbitrary and inconsistent on that matter, too.

[38:52] Let’s get back to, well, then why should we not hurt people? The unbeliever expects you to simply grant that there are certain moral absolutes that everyone can take for granted and doesn’t have to be defended. But in even expecting all people to grant that, the unbeliever is assuming we’re all made in the image of God, a God who thinks it’s wrong to hurt people. So the unbeliever just can’t escape this. In order to argue, in order to make sense of what they do in their lives, they need to have ethical absolutes. But on their view of the world, there can be no ethical absolutes.

[39:30] Let me give you one more illustration about the laws of logic. I can’t teach you, of course, in logic in the short time that’s left me, obviously. Let me tell you what a law of logic is. There are certain patterns of reasoning that we consider reliable, reliable patterns of reasoning whereby premises lead to conclusions, and the conclusion that is drawn from the premise is true, provided that the premises are true and the pattern of reasoning is reliable.

[40:05] All right. So here’s the pattern of reasoning. If P, then Q. If there’s water in the ice cube tray, then we’ll have ice cubes for the party tonight. The next premise. There is water in the ice cube tray. Therefore, we’ll have ice cubes for the party tonight. If P, then Q. P, therefore Q. Now, if the premises are true, and that’s a reliable pattern of reasoning, then we know the conclusion is true as well. The law of logic is what is known as the law of logic. It’s modus ponens. Okay. If P, then Q. If P, therefore Q. Laws of logic are necessary for any reasoning whatsoever.

[40:46] By the way, the argument that I gave you is deductively valid, but it’s not inductively strong. The reason for that is when I said if there’s water in the ice cube tray, then we’ll have ice cubes for the party tonight. And that depends upon a lot of other things that are not mentioned in the argument.

[41:04] Do not believe what they have spout. On one hand, they do. They profess it. They try to defend it. But on the other hand, the Bible tells us that they, in their heart of hearts, God has not been totally wiped out. And that in terms of what they know about God and themselves internally, then they are able to know things. They are able to balance things. So the fact that there’s water in the ice cube tray does not necessarily imply that there’s going to be ice cubes for the party tonight.

[41:33] However, that pattern of reasoning, if P, then Q, P, therefore Q, that is a reliable inference pattern called the law of logic. And there are a lot of other ones that I can’t teach you this afternoon. But whenever people engage in debate and reasoning, whether they know it or not, they’re relying upon patterns of inference that have been used in the past. The one that I just gave you is perhaps the most common, the if-then, if-this-then-that, I am asserting the antecedent, therefore I have the right to assert the consequence.

[42:08] What are laws of logic? I mean, what are they? I don’t mean which ones are laws of logic. I mean, what is it that you call a law of logic? Is it something you can have for dinner? Can you stub your toe on a law of logic? No, but you see, if you’re dealing with a materialist, an unbeliever, he’s got to or she’s got to use patterns of inference in his or her reasoning.

[42:34] But on their worldview, there can be no laws of logic. And consequently, there can’t be any debate. If any of you pick up my debate with Gordon Stein, you’ll understand this is the key line that I was using with him. Because what I wanted to be able to do, and I hope successfully did at the end of the debate, is say that since debate depends upon laws of logic, and laws of logic can only be accounted for on the Christian worldview, as a materialist, you can have no laws, much less laws of logic.

[43:03] So, let’s go.

0:00 THE FUTILITY OF UNBELIEF…Opening Remarks…Review (THE CERTAINTY OF CHRISTIANITY) GOD Is The Self-Attesting Authority That Provides The Foundation For Our Rationality Of Science, Ethics, Human Dignity & Freedom
0:30 Those Who Will Not Bow The Knee To GOD Will End Up Being Fools According To The Bible—Rom1:20…MEN ARE WITHOUT EXCUSE
3:15 1Cor1:20 Paul Gives The Fundamental Approach To A Biblical Apologetic: A CHALLENGE TO THE WORLD…GOD HAS MADE FOOLISH THE WISDOM OF THIS WORLD
3:51 Christian Apologist Need To Show The Foolishness Of Unbelief & THE CERTAINTY OF CHRISTIANITY As The ONLY Alternative In Terms Of Which Man’s Rationality, Ethics, Science, Dignity & Freedom Can Be Maintained
4:14 THE CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC METHOD—Prov26:4&5 (Answering The Fool) – REDUCING AN ARGUMENT TO ABSURDITY
8:20 ANSWERING THE FOOL – A Two Fold Or Indirect Procedure: Refuse To Answer In Terms Of The Unbeliever’s Presuppositions Showing The Christian Worldview Can Make Sense Of The PRECONDITIONS OF INTELLIGIBILITY & Then Answer In Terms Of The Unbeliever’s Presuppositions To Show The CONSEQUENCES Reduce Their Arguments To Absurdity (Note Checklist Bottom Of Page)…GLB Expands
8:51 What The Christian’s Disposition Should Be Toward The Fool—2Tim2:23-25…Gently Show How The Unbeliever Is Opposing His/Her Self
10:39 RECAP
11:11 GLB Begins To Demonstrate How The Aforementioned Apologetic Methods Can Be Done, Whether You’re Dealing With A University Professor Or Your Next Door Neighbor
11:36 #1) THE PROBLEM OF INDUCTION – The Belief That Nature Is Uniformed (The Way Things Happened Yesterday Will Be The Same Tomorrow – The Future Will Be Like The Past)…Common Patterns Of Causation In The World
12:04 eg, Gas Gauge Needle On Empty & The Unbeliever
15:43 GLB EMPHASIZES THE POTENCY OF THE PROBLEM OF INDUCTION…The Unbeliever Cannot Justify Any Of His Thinking About The Future!…The Unbeliever Cannot Even Talk About It!
18:12 eg, Stubbing The Toe & The Unbeliever
18:41 eg, Scientific Endeavors & The Unbeliever
19:51 AT THIS POINT THE UNBELIEVER MUST BORROW FROM THE CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW OR CONCEDE DEFEAT
20:57 GLB Foreshadows How To Deal With A General Theist
21:18 #2) THE PROBLEM OF UNIVERSALS (Universals, Class Concepts, Likenesses, Abstract Categories & Particulars)
21:33 eg, Duckness & Huey, Dewey, & Louie
24:56 An Unbeliever Who’s A Materialist Cannot Make Sense Of Universals & Thus Cannot Make Sense Of Language & Reasoning…GLB EXPANDS ON THE POTENCY OF THE PROBLEM
27:53 How Do Believers Account For Universals? THE MIND OF GOD…HOW GOD THINKS…GOD IS THE FOUNDATION FOR UNIVERSALS
28:36 #3) THE PROBLEM OF BRAIN/MIND (The Assumption That There’s Only Physical Properties To Man’s Thinking)
29:55 GLB Enacts How To Talk To An Unbeliever With Regard To THE PROBLEM OF BRAIN/MIND…The Unbeliever Ends Up Opposing His/Her Self
31:26 IMPORTANT POINT: THEISM IS THE UNAVOIDABLE PRESUPPOSITION OF ANTITHEISM!…All Arguments Against Christianity, In Order To Make Sense Of Them As Arguments, Must Presuppose The Christian Wv, Otherwise, The Preconditions Of Rationality Are Undermined
33:05 #4) ETHICAL ABSOLUTES (The Very Idea Of Arguing With Someone In Order To Convince The Other Presupposes An ETHICAL ABSOLUTE)
33:28 eg, Shooting Someone With A Gun As An Alternative To Arguing (GLB vs. Gordon Stein)
35:18 GLB Debunks “Ethics Is Relative” Hypocrisy
36:25 GLB Enacts What The Believer Should Say When The Unbeliever Is Indignant About Some Ethical Issue (People Inflicting Pain On Each Other Defies How Nature Made Us)
37:51 GLB Reduces Unbeliever’s Argument To Absurdity By Showing The Consequences Of Comparing Men To Animals
38:57 THE UNBELIEVER’S FUTILITY
39:31 #5) THE LAWS OF LOGIC (Reliable Patterns Of Reasoning Leading To True Conclusions)
40:05 eg, IF Water Is In The Ice Cube Tray, THEN…
42:07 What Are Laws Of Logic For The Unbeliever Materialist?

In apologetics Christians are too often “on the defensive.” Dr. Bahnsen shows that believers need to take the offensive (without being offensive) against those who object to the truth of Christianity. He explains that this involves understanding their underlying worldviews and showing their intellectual futility while realizing that all unbelievers are secret believers who deceive themselves about their knowledge of God.

• Challenge to Unbelief (1 of 6) – Worldviews in Collision
• Challenge to Unbelief (2 of 6) – The Certainty of Christianity
• Challenge to Unbelief (3 of 6) – The Futility of Unbelief, Part 1
• Challenge to Unbelief (4 of 6) – The Futility of Unbelief, Part 2
• Challenge to Unbelief (5 of 6) – Self Deception (Romans 1)
• Challenge to Unbelief (6 of 6) – Apologetics Conference Q & A