Dr Greg Bahnsen - Introduction to Apologetics: Methods VII (Part 17)

Education, our course in apologetics. And I'd like to begin with a word of prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we again thank you that you love us, that you care for us and make provision for all of our needs. We thank you that you've made provision for our intellectual needs as well. That in coming into this world and making yourself known, you have not left us in the dark. You have not left us in confusion or left us under the destructiveness of error. We thank you that by your grace you have enlightened our eyes, that you've opened our eyes to your word, and that you have put faith in our hearts that we might read and believe. And we pray that you would give us courage now to speak with our mouths the truths of your word, that your son Jesus Christ would be glorified, and that by the power of your spirit we would see others come to know him, even as we do as Savior and Lord. Please bless our time of study this short time this morning that we might learn more and be able to be effective in witnessing for you. In Jesus name, Amen. As I was thinking about what assignment I should be giving you for next week, it dawned on me that I have run out of time. I was thinking that I would give a couple more lessons on how to answer the unbeliever and so forth, and then we could get through the end of the syllabus by the end of that time that I am speaking in Sunday school. But that's the end of March and there's no way we're going to do that. Especially if I'm going to take up the non Christian religions and deal with some of the common objections to Christianity. And so it does look like in the providence of God, I'm going to extend this class back into our Thursday night session for at least a portion, if not all, of the three months following March. In which case I've got plenty of time now to do some of the things I wanted to do with you. Now, I want to begin this morning by reading again that passage which has been kind of the jumping off spot for our last few lessons and illustrations. It's found in 2 Timothy chapter 2, beginning at verse 23, Paul says, but foolish and ignorant questions refuse, knowing that they engender strife. And the Lord's servant must not strive, but be gentle towards all apt to teach, forbearing in meekness, correcting them that oppose themselves, if peradventure God may give them repentance unto the knowledge of the truth, and they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil having been taken captive by him unto his will. We have learned from this passage, we have learned from this passage that unbelievers oppose themselves, that they are caught up in ignorance and an outlook on life which is really self destructive. And with that jumping off point, I've been trying to illustrate that with some common basic philosophical problems. I've tried to put some feet on them so they wouldn't seem abstract and so forth. The first one that we studied was will the future be like the past? And I pointed out it's impossible for us to know anything, to plan our lives, to make any decisions. It's impossible for us to have any scientific knowledge whatsoever if we cannot be sure that there's regularity in this world. However, the unbeliever has no basis for regularity in this world. Especially those unbelievers that teach a form of unbelief that is naturalistic, materialistic, atheistic. They have nothing at all to assure them that the way things have happened today in terms of how our cars run or how scientific experiments can be expected to come out, will be the way they happen tomorrow. The second issue we studied is whether there are likenesses in this world. Are there classes of things or categories of things, and if so, well, not. And if so, how can there be such things in a universe where everything's material? The likenesses of things, the class categories, are not themselves material. And so therefore we shouldn't be speaking of them, which means we shouldn't be speaking at all. Then last week we talked about whether there's more to us than brains. And I pointed out that in a materialistic universe, the thinking aspect of man has got to be reduced to something that is controlled by biological and physical forces, which is to say, is something that is not free. It just does what it does. And the events that take place in the brain are no different than the event of a weed growing according to certain natural laws and so forth, in which case we have no reason to trust anything that we think or say, and there's no reason to debate with one another because we don't have the freedom to compare options and make decisions. Now, today I promised we'd talk about ethics. Since I have more time, I really wish I could stay on a couple of other epistemological and metaphysical themes, but I'll do that next week. Today I promised we'd talk about the question of ethical absolutes. Why is it important for an unbeliever to have ethical absolutes? The interesting thing is that many unbelievers who are self conscious about their worldview will say they don't believe in ethical absolutes and they don't want ethical absolutes. Let me give you what I consider an interesting illustration from the good old days of the 60s. When I was in college, I knew a number of people who, because of the sexual revolution, did not want to hear the Christian message that it was wrong to engage in sexual relations before marriage, did not want to hear that it was wrong to be living with your boyfriend or your girlfriend out of wedlock. They believed that we were free to do whatever we wanted to do. There are no absolutes. And when you would talk about these things, they'd say, well, that's old fashioned, that's culturally relative. In our day and age of the sexual revolution, everyone can engage in free love. Okay, if that's your worldview, then stick to it. If that's your worldview, there are no ethical absolutes. Then don't go back and try to dip into another worldview like the Christian worldview and pull a few ethical absolutes out. If you're going to give up ethical absolutes, you're going to have to do it in a fair and consistent way. Don't be a hypocrite about, it's always fun to accuse these people of being hypocritical. I'd say, oh, you hypocrites, you don't believe in ethical absolutes. Sure you do. We do not. Because you see, these same people would be the people who would be marching and burning banks about the war in Vietnam. I'd say, now how can you condemn the war in Vietnam? Because killing is wrong. And say, well, in some cultures maybe it is, but in the late 20th century America, it's certainly not wrong to kill people. We do it all the time. We believe that it's acceptable. After all, it advances our purposes in the world. It is wrong for Americans to take advantage of other people. No, it's not. Because if it were wrong, it would have to be something that's absolute. And the only thing that counts in this world is getting ahead. Now you've really got these people skewered, don't you? They want to say there are no ethical absolutes, but on the other hand, they want to enforce their own ethical absolutes. Political liberals are classic illustration. This sort of thing have a selective approach to what they think is. And then they usually apply the wrong ethical absolutes to politics on top of it. But the point is they'll tell you that some ethical absolutes are relative. I mean should no longer be seen as absolute. And then some things that they believe are ethical have to be abided by, by everybody. And they're going to enforce it with the power of the state if they have their way as well. And so each and every one of you, I think, will be able to use this form of argumentation, even if you feel a little bit short, shaky about the other three, because you've probably thought about this more than the others yourselves already. If there is no God, and particularly if there is, if the Christian God of Jehovah, the Triune God is not, that's not true. If he doesn't exist, then why should we be good little boys and girls? Why should we feel that it's right or wrong to do anything? You are aware that the unbeliever is not going to just say, oh, okay, well I guess I just have to give up at that point. Unbelievers are going to come up with what the Bible calls false gods, false authorities. They're going to come up with some way of trying to justify the limited ethical universe that they believe in. And so what ways might people try to justify ethical principles if they are not able to resort to God's revelation? A lot of it is, well, if it doesn't hurt anyone else. Okay, let's try that one. Our ethical principles should be weighed against the standard that says it is wrong to hurt other people. But if it doesn't hurt other people, then it's all right. Now I want someone in the class to do this. I mean I'm, I do this so much that I'm ready to jump right in and pull the linchpin on that. But can you see what's wrong with that, Kent? Actually, I think you can put your criticism even stronger than that, Dwight. Willie, just about anything you do will have some negative effect on somebody in some way from. Okay, well that may be true, but again, I think you haven't got to the strongest thing. When an unbeliever says it's wrong to hurt other people, Martha, what are you going to say? Yeah, why is it wrong to hurt other people? I mean, even if everything I do has some negative effect, and even if in all pain is not detrimental, the question is why should it be? I mean, if someone said that you're hurting somebody so you should stop that, how could the unbeliever give a justification for the exhortation to stop it? Martha's put her finger on it. I mean, why is it wrong to hurt people? Now let's see if we can kind of turn the screws a bit on this. And you, as a matter of fact, Mr. Unbeliever, have explained to me in great detail how this world is, came about through the chance forces of evolution. And you know very well that according to your view of history and the development of the human race that a good portion of the evolutionary process is a matter of dog eat dog. Nature is red and tooth and claw, isn't it? And that the surviving races and species and so forth are usually so because they've been willing to hurt others to take advantage. I mean, you know, out in the realm of nature that there wouldn't be any species of animals that were not willing to feed on other animals or other living forms. And that's true of us too. So nature would seem to suggest to us that hurting is part of the evolutionary process. It's just part of the natural world. I hope you see where this is going. The person who tells me that sexual immorality is acceptable because that's just the way nature has made us has no defense when I say, well, nature's made us violent too. And so there's no reason why we shouldn't hurt people. In fact, there's really no reason why we shouldn't hurt people at will. See, I'm not even talking. I mean, I'm going to push this real hard. I'm going to say it's not only acceptable to hurt somebody when there's a good reason for it. You know, I need to eat or I need to, you know, to get some, or this person has insulted me or something like that. But I could actually, in terms of an evolutionary view of the world, become someone who hurts people for entertainment. There are people like that in this world. And though from a Christian standpoint, they're horrible people and we would condemn them severely, they are great in terms of, for principles of reducing to absurdity the unbeliever's worldview because the unbeliever wants to join us in condemning such a person. But the unbeliever cannot offer a reason why it's wrong to hurt people. But I can think of a few comebacks. Can you? What would an unbeliever say at this point? Why is it wrong to hurt somebody apart from appealing to God has revealed that it's wrong.

Yes, they would say this survival mechanism that perpetuates the species.

Well, that's why we hurt people, right? To survive.

Man in his evolution has figured out these certain principles as he goes along that to say, logically figures out okay, if everybody doesn't do this particular action, then the whole society will survive better. And so they teach that to their children.

Their children.

Their children evolves into ethical evolution.

Yeah, well, actually this is a form of the argument that says there has got. You will see in just a minute why this is in fact an appeal to fair play. What is being said here is if everybody did this, then of course we would not survive. Well, as a species, I mean, if everyone lived that way that you could hurt people for entertainment, then the whole race may die out. Now, by the way, you could at that point attack that very reasoning. How do you know that? I mean, that's a prediction about the future. I mean, how do you know that if everyone felt free to hurt people that we would not only hurt people, we would actually kill each other and the species would die? I mean, that's a mammoth prophecy about the future that I don't think you have enough evidence for. But if I buy it, so what. I mean I'm going to push real hard. Why shouldn't the species die out? I'm going to be a good evolutionist. If I'm a good evolutionist, I know that there have been thousands of species that have died out in the course the history of evolution, isn't that right? And so since that's part of the course of nature, why shouldn't the human species die out? So I'm right back to saying, hey, let's hurt them. Your argument doesn't touch me. But even I see notice I've damned up this argument twice. I'm going to take another step back and say, but forget that for a minute. Let's grant that the human race would die out and for some reason that's a bad thing. We wouldn't want the human race to die out. Fact of the matter is not everyone's going to do that because that's a fact of nature too. Not everyone gets pleasure out of hurting people. And not everyone hurts people to the point of death. So it's unlikely the human race is really going to die out. The comeback is going to be. But if everybody did it, we'd have that consequence. So since not everyone is allowed to do it, no one is allowed to do it. Which is the principle of fairness, what we would call the golden rule, in a sense, you know, if it's wrong for someone else, then it's, I mean, if it's wrong for everybody, then it needs to be wrong for you too. But now what am I going to attack if I'm a Good apologist. I'm going to say, well, now there's a. You're trying to justify the moral principle. We shouldn't hurt people. But now you've got another moral principle. That is to say that we've got to distribute moral rights evenly. Where did you get that information? That we're supposed to distribute moral rights evenly, that if it's wrong, because if everyone did it, we'd die out, but therefore it's wrong for individuals. Why can't I be the exception to the rule? Here's the sign that says, don't walk on the grass. And being the belligerent sort of person I am, I say, I want to walk on the grass. I'm going to show them they can't tell me I can't walk on the grass. And someone tries to plead with me and reason with me and say, no, wait a minute, there's a good reason for that. If everyone were to walk on the grass, then the grass would die out and it would just be muddy and no one would like it. So if you enjoy having the grass there, then you shouldn't walk on it. My comeback is, you're right. If everyone walks on the grass, it's going to ruin it, but not everyone will. So I'll go ahead and walk on it. You say, that's not fair. If you don't think others should walk on it, you shouldn't either. I said, where did you get the idea that moral rights should be evenly distributed? I'm claiming some special exception since I know not everyone is going to walk on the grass with that sign there, I'll be the exception. Because a few exceptions can be tolerated. Boy. And if you think it's hard for the unbeliever to justify that it's wrong to kill people or hurt people, that's a real complicated one. How you can justify the view that moral prerogatives have to be evenly distributed. So we're back to square one with the person. Anybody else have any better ideas on how we can justify moral absolutes? Even the most simple moral absolute, we shouldn't hurt other people. Why shouldn't we hurt other people? Well, how about this? Well, if you hurt other people, they might hurt you. You better know. And believers are going to say that kind of thing. Wouldn't you think of that? You say, now wait a minute, you don't want to be treated that way, not in the sense of moral rights being distributed. You don't want to be treated that way because, look, you're looking out for your own best interest by not hurting other people. The thing is, you don't go out there and provoke people or set an example to people because it might come back to you and you don't want to be hurt. And so it's a form of self preservation. What if I'm a masochist and I really wish people would hurt me because I like pain? You think I'm being facetious. See, you say that to an unbeliever, they're going to think, oh, you're being facetious. Now, let's go on. But you see, then you have them. That's where you're going to really rope them in. You're going to say, now, wait a minute. You want us to move on from this illustration? Because you know that I don't really believe this, and I know that you don't really believe it. But my point is I've got a reason not to believe it and you don't. And so I'm going to let you just suffer right here. Why shouldn't we all be masochists and say, I'm not? Or how about this? What if I'm not a masochist? What if I'm just arrogant? What if I just say, hey, I know karate. I. I'm not worried. Let them come after me. I've got big guns at home, you know? I'm not scared of anybody. You probably don't know somebody who pushes that all the way to the hill, but I've known some people that are pretty bad that way. They say, I'm not scared of anybody. Go ahead, bring them on. So if I'm not scared of people, I guess I can hurt people. What else do we have left? What can the unbeliever throw up here as a justification for his moral principle that we shouldn't hurt someone? Okay, what's that? Natural law. Oh, David, David, David, David, David. Natural. What do you mean? Natural law in the sense that we see that this is the way nature works. It's a law of nature that you don't hurt people. We're going to really chuckle at that, aren't we? What kind of natural you're talking about? We learned from nature that it's best not to hurt people. How about that? How about we just learn that more people are happy if we have laws that say you can't hurt people? It's in the prudential interest of the greatest number of people to have such laws, Willie. Oh, that's right. You see, you just got to keep pushing. Why should I care if people are happy, I'm only concerned if I'm happy. I'm real happy when I get to beat people up. So give me something better. Okay, you know, time will run out. I hope you get the point. The unbeliever cannot get off. Moral absolutes cannot be justified. There are only so many ways, usually consequentialist ways, that is, by looking at the consequences. We don't want to hurt people, or we don't want to do this, we don't want to do that. And then there are very easy ways in which you can start attacking one. The reasoning of the consequentialist. Do you know those consequences will come about? But more importantly, why shouldn't those consequences come about? And so if you just keep remembering that you can't predict the consequences given your view of the universe. And, and even if you could, you can't tell me why we don't want those consequences. Because every consequentialist ethic presupposes there is a norm that says we want these consequences, not those. And that norm is what you're going to be pushing for a justification for. But now there's more to it than that. It's not just that you can use this to show that unbelievers oppose themselves in terms of their own lifestyle. They can't justify any ethic at all. It's. And yet they want to live by some ethic, and everyone does. It's just if you know the person well enough. If you know the person well enough, you're going to go for their vulnerable points. You know, there are some things they just don't believe in. Most people do not believe in child molestation. If you need an easy illustration. I'm sorry, it's an ugly one. Try that. Just ask me, is it alright to molest children? Why not in your view of the universe? Why not my view of the universe? I think child molesters ought to be executed. So don't think that I'm pushing for it. But in your view of the universe, you have no reason to say that at all. The problem is bigger though than the inconsistency that they believe in moral absolutes, but even they tell you that they don't believe in moral absolutes. What about the whole debate that we're engaged in? Is not the argument with the unbeliever governed by moral principles as well? When unbelievers argue with you, do they not assume that the debate will be, and I don't mean necessarily a formal debate, although it applies to that Too. When you're having coffee next door with your neighbor and you're debating arguing over the truth or error of Christianity, doesn't the unbeliever expect that certain moral principles are going to be observed in the debate? Is it all right for me to lie to the unbeliever, try to trick them into being a Christian? How about this? How about if I'm talking to my neighbor, and I know my neighbor only went to a couple years of college and so forth, so knows just enough, you know, to recognize some names and some principles, but isn't real, you know, advanced in their education? And I say, oh, you read in the latest journals, every one of the atomic physicists in this country became a Christian last week because they're convinced that the miracles of the Bible had to take place. They did. Yeah, they did. And so, you know, it's only ignorant people that won't be Christians. I mean, if you're as smart as an atomic physicist, you ought to be a Christian, too. Now, I mean, you laugh at that because it's so stupid. Stupid. But what if your neighbor said, oh, is that right? I guess I better become a Christian. And then a few days later, they find out that I'd just been lying. They come running back, and they'd say, you lied to me, you misled me, you tricked me. To which I can say, well, in terms of your universe, so what? The only thing that counts is consequences. And yet for me, consequences means getting people to go to heaven, although you all know your person's not going to go to heaven that way. But the argument with the unbeliever is, why should I tell you the truth when I'm debating why shouldn't I use every sophistic trick in the book? Why shouldn't I manufacture research results? I mean, some scientists do that to get themselves ahead in this world. Why shouldn't I do that to put ahead my religious worldview? I could even have a pious motivation for doing that. If you have a hard time following that one, try the one that I used with Dr. Stein. Why don't we just pull out a gun and tell the person, you'd better believe or I'll kill you. And they say, no, wait a minute, you can't do that. Of course you want to correct the grammar. You mean you may not do that. Well, but on your view of the universe, I may do that. I may compel you to say that you're a Christian and compel you to live like a Christian. And if you won't, I'll shoot you now. If it weren't for the fact that I'm a Christian and I know better, that might just very well take place in the unbeliever's universe. So you want to push the unbeliever to say, now what reason can you give me to not win the argument like this? Why should we be going to the laws of logic rather than to the laws of violence? Most people would probably believe that violence gets you ahead in life more than being logical anyway. So why shouldn't I just resort to violence to win this argument? You see how foolish unbelievers are? Their very debating with the Christian is a sign that they've already bought into the Christian's worldview. But they're trying to use the tools of our trade to undo the trade itself. They're trying to use the tools of a Christian worldview to say the Christian worldview is false. And you do not need a PhD in philosophy to do this. I've been keeping my illustrations. Very pedestrian, very garden variety. These are the sorts of things just ask people. How do you know there are classes of things? How do you know the future will be like the past? How do you know we're more than our brains? How do you know there are moral absolutes? All right, I said we would stop at 12 today. I'm a man of my word. Any questions about the sermon, first of all. No, no, no, no. Okay. Questions about the Sunday school lesson, first of all. Did I get that right? Okay, Pat, thanks for. Julius was giving the assignment to write a paper proving that premier was sex was wrong. Well, I don't know if she should have in terms of her educational situation. Oh, she could have. I mean, I think she could have. I don't know whether the course. The course may have been a course in normative ethics rather than what's called meta ethics, the philosophy of ethics. Yeah. No, what I'm thinking is the professor may have been wanting her to push for evidence that what is found in the Bible, even people that don't believe the Bible would see some elementary reason for. I think we all know that's true. We talk about homosexuality being wrong and people who will not listen to the Bible will listen to the statistics about aids, that sort of thing. That may be the beginning of opening a person's mind to not be so stubborn to listen. Now, I'm trying to defend the professor by saying that I went to Julie's college and my guess is that's not what was happening. And so if she had turned in a Blank page. He might have said, you get a zero on normative ethics, but you get an A on metaethics. If I were asking you to show that only Christianity has a viable ethic, this is a very interesting way of doing it. But my assignment was something else. However, when all is said and done, you cannot show that premarital sex is wrong apart from the Bible. You cannot show it apart from the character of God, which is revealed to us and it so happens revealed in the Bible. I agree with you, Ken. Would you prefer to go down the road and all the other illustrations, or.

Do you think it's better to stick with the contradiction within the statement itself that there are glam slews?

That's the. Oh, I think every case has to be weighed on the merits of what's happening right then and there. With some people, I think you can get them to dangle on down about the using of the gun or another thing. You should say, well, why is it right or wrong to use the laws of logic? I mean, even if I grant that there are laws of logic, why is it wrong to violate the laws of logic with some people? I would expect that that would work better than just trying to stay within the contradiction of their having absolutes, even though they claim there are no absolutes. You just have to know your audience. You have to know the individual. Okay, real quickly, are there any questions on today's sermon?