Dr Greg Bahnsen - Introduction to Apologetics: Methods IX (Part 19)

And I'd begin again this morning with reading the theme passage that we've been using over the last few weeks. Second Timothy, chapter two, beginning at the 23rd verse. But foolish and ignorant questions refuse, knowing that they gender strifes and the Lord's servant must not strive, but be gentle towards all apt to teach forbearing in gentleness, 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, and thus far God's word. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you for the love you have shown us. And we thank you that you have come into this world not only as the embodiment of love and peace, but also of truth. We thank you that our religion is not one founded upon wishful thinking or just the subjective desires of our heart, but is founded objectively in the truth that you provide. We do pray that you would help us to demonstrate a gentle and peaceful spirit as we defend the truth of your word, but that you would also give us enlightenment and skill in doing so, that we might glorify you properly, that a genuine defense might be offered, that those who oppose themselves would be recovered from the snare of the devil and might come to a true knowledge that is possible through you. We pray these things in your precious name. Amen. Let's do a little review here real quickly this morning. Over the last few weeks, I have suggested that the unbeliever has a worldview that ends up causing problems for himself, that the unbeliever can't really live with his own worldview, that what he says about the nature of reality, or what he says about the nature of how we know things, or what he says about how we should live our lives does not comport with the way he actually conducts his affairs, doesn't comport with what he says in other areas of his life, that he is at odds with himself, his worldview, and as a matter of fact ends up living in terms of the Christian worldview, though with his mouth denying it. And it's for that that God will hold him guilty, that he should be ashamed of that, that he knows the truth but suppresses it in unrighteousness. And we've seen illustrations of that when we looked at a few basic philosophical problems like Is nature uniform? Will the future be like the past? Is there any kind of expectation or regularity that gives predictability to this world? We've seen that in terms of whether there are classes of things or categories of things, likenesses as I called them, if the unbeliever holds that there's nothing but material things, then he can't ever put anything in a class, because a class or a likeness between things is not material. We've talked about the question of ethical absolutes. Whether there can be ethical absolutes in the unbelievers approach to life, or whether there can be logical absolutes or laws of logic in the unbelievers approach to life. We've also talked about whether there's more to us than just brain tissue, whether there's something that expresses freedom and intelligence and creativity in human nature that has to be accounted for. And I realize that could go on and on. The problems of philosophy, to me anyway, very interesting and a good handle for dealing with people that don't believe the Christian worldview. But I'm just going to keep things pretty much those five issues. And today I'd like to turn away from the crass unbeliever who says there's nothing in this world but matter, matter in motion. You're materialistic, atheistic, naturalistic, unbeliever. Because throughout the weeks that I've been talking about these problems and using this kind of fool for my foil, many of you brought up but what about this or what about that? A different religion or somebody who has a different philosophy that isn't materialistic or isn't naturalistic and so forth. And I've been promising you that I'm going to get to those. And that's what we're going to turn to today. Perhaps the most common counterexample that has been offered to us in our class by you has been that of Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher. And so though when I was in seminary I never would have imagined I would do a Sunday school lesson on Plato, I think it would be very appropriate today for me to do that. This is going to call for me to take a few minutes to introduce the thought of Plato to those of you who don't know what we're talking about. But then I would like to take the lion's share of the Sunday school lesson to show why Plato can't escape the problems that I've been dealing with either. Perhaps it's good that we deal with Plato because he is the embodiment of the very opposite of a philosophy of materialism. Plato believed that reality is not first and foremost or even most importantly found in the material realm. Plato said that reality is of an ideal sort or of idea in nature. It's immaterial intellectual, that there's more reality to idea than there is to this podium that I'm now hitting with my hand. Now you begin to see a problem with Plato as a modern spokesman. Already most of the late 20th century Christian neighbors, friends, relatives that you're going to be evangelizing are not going to be willing to say that, are they? They aren't going to be willing to say, well, the most real thing is the intellectual idea realm. And this is really subordinate or perhaps only quasi real. Now that was Plato's approach to things. And so those of you who've been asking about Plato, I want you. I just want to point out by this, we're going to a real extreme now we're going to go to the opposite end of things. I've been dealing with materialist. Now I'm going to deal with an idealist, a non materialist, someone who's not into what we might call the scientific, naturalistic approach to things. And hopefully if I can show that his philosophy runs into itself and doesn't solve the problems that we've raised, that you'll see that from both ends of the spectrum, then the unbelieving world is at a real loss. And then what I will do is, Lord willing, I will next week start taking up some false religions to show you that those who want to appeal to a religious revelation or to another kind of God are not able to put together a worldview that deals with the issues either. So today we'll deal with Plato. The problem that probably provoked many of you to think that Plato has an answer for is the problem of classes, the problem of likenesses. Why do we say that such and such a thing on my hand is a wart? Why do we give it a general term, wart? And I said, if you're an unbeliever that holds to a materialistic approach to life, you can't say there's such a thing as a concept or class of things called warts. And this fits into the class of things, because classes are not material. Concepts are not material. Likenesses are not material things that you can throw on the floor and step on or kick around or taste or smell or hear. They aren't material things at all. And so a materialist doesn't have any basis to speak of horses or cats or warts or anything, but Plato did. In fact, Plato said the concept, the idea of a wartime is the most real thing, the wart in this world that you encounter on your hand or Someone else's hand or body is less real than the idea of wartness. In fact, there are classes for everything that we encounter in life, and nothing would be intelligible if we didn't know the class of which it were a member. And so when I see something walking down the street that's furry and growls and barks and has four feet and likes Alpo and so forth, I say that that falls within the class of dogness. And to understand the thing that I've encountered in my experience is to know its form or its idea. That is, to know that of which it is an instance, to know its general class. Now, you will hear me use the word form off and on in today's lesson, because Plato used that as a technical term for the general idea of something, the form of dogness or the form of catness. You shouldn't confuse that, however, with visual form, though I'm sure Plato was led into using that kind of language first by, well, here this is in the form of a dog, in the form of a cat, and so forth. Plato did not really mean that in a visual sense. And a modern way of putting it that sounds a little more scientific and might be truer to Plato's intention is to say that there's a formula for everything. Now, that sounds good, right? There is a certain formula that makes something a dog, or a certain formula that makes something iced tea. And in the case of iced tea, if you know the ingredients or what we might call the recipe, if things fit that formula or recipe, then it's iced tea. Or if things fit the formula for what we call a dog, then it's a dog. Isn't the course of science the attempt to take individual experiences that we have in life and reduce them to formulas? Science tries to find law, like generalizations for what things are and how they behave or react in this world. Okay, so we're being a little more precise and pumping Plato up a bit, but that's okay. You know, you want to do the best by your opponent before you knock him down. Plato thought that the most real thing in reality was the idea or formula for something. Huey, Dewey and Louie may be out on the pond, but they are less real than duckness, of which they are instances. They are particulars, particular instances of the general idea or the general formula for a duck. Okay, now I'm saying that Plato may be the philosopher. That seems to those of you who have a history of the knowledge of Western thought, who can best answer us, who can say, oh, no, I've Got an answer for you. There can't be any classes. Plato says, I believe there are classes. In fact, these classes exist in another realm. They are not material, and they are not physical. And they cannot be, because, according to Plato's view of the physical world, the physical world is chaotic. The physical world is imperfect. The physical world is in constant motion and change. But the object of knowledge, that which I know, cannot be changing. Plato said, and so what I know is not the thing in this world that's always changing. The ducks on the pond are always moving. There's what we would say. There's molecules, and they're little duck bodies that are changing all the time. Plato would say, I can't know the ducks because in this world everything's changing and it's chaotic. I must know an unchanging object. That must be an idea of duckness of which they are part. So Plato's notion is that classes or likenesses or what we might call universals exist outside of this world altogether. They are not physical, they are not temporal. We do not encounter them with our senses at all. You cannot see them, you cannot taste them, you cannot kick them. They are not part of this world. Now, that secures a great advantage for Plato because that means one, they are abstract and universal. It means they are unchanging because they're not part of time or the material world. And if you say that ethical premises or ethical principles are like them, they are absolute. So now we have someone who has a view of reality that says part of reality is immaterial and ideal. It has ideas, forms, or formulas of things, and they are absolute and universal. And then there's a part of reality that is material, that is chaotic and always changing and particular. And the things in this world of particulars of my physical experience are only correctly understood by my reason when I identify them with a form in the other world, when I see the feathery things out on the pond as ducks, they are part of the formula of duckness. Plato's view of reality provides for him abstract concepts, ethical absolutes, which are unchanging or absolute laws of logic, could be accounted for in that way. It seems like we have somebody who's a real contender with us. Then in terms of a worldview that can provide science and ethics and logic and man's reason and so forth, until you look a second time. And now I'd like to change my tune for a minute and ask Plato a few questions. Maybe you'd like to ask him a few of these questions too. Plato had the Enduring embarrassment of having his most brilliant student turn against him. In fact, Plato's most brilliant student started another line, another systematic school of philosophy, which became the second best known school of philosophy throughout the history of western thought. That was a classy time in Athens when Plato and this guy got together. Who would that other philosopher be? Aristotle. Aristotle was Plato's best student. And Aristotle got to the place where he said, Plato, what good is it to have these transcendent, abstract, unchanging forms out there in a world that we never encounter? They can't account for anything that happens in this world. And most importantly, they cannot account for change. They cannot account for how things develop, grow, change, mutate in this world. They can't account for motion, they can't account for anything. In my experience and throughout the history of philosophy, you're going to find this kind of tension develop. When a philosopher is able to deal with the abstract, unchanging aspects of reality and knowledge, he always gives up his ability to deal with the day to day changes in the particular experiences that we have. He goes for abstraction and loses concrete relevance. And this is what Aristotle was saying to Plato. Aristotle says, Plato, these forms in this other realm do us no good whatsoever. Now I'm going to come back and do better than Aristotle, I hope, in explaining what is wrong here. But Aristotle was right. Plato had finally won for himself a right to say there are unchanging absolutes. And then Aristotle said, yeah, and what are they? Plato said, no one can know. They're abstract, they're not part of our own experience, they're not something we can encounter. And so at best we have intuitions, we have faint recollections, like seeing shadows on a wall, of what reality really is like. And so he saves the concept of knowledge and he saves the concept of science, and, and he saves the concept of ethics, but he has no content for knowledge, science and ethics. Now I'm trying to keep this at a pedestrian level for you without getting too technical. What I'm getting at is Plato was so abstract that he was of no earthly good. Nothing in my particular experience could be filled into what I know or what science deals with or how to live my life. Because Plato had made everything so abstract, so otherworldly that he was of no worldly good here. And Aristotle was onto that. But instead of following Aristotle's lead, because Aristotle has his own problems and they are great as well, let's just go back ourselves and pretend we have Plato here to talk to and see what kind of problems develop with this I told you that according to him, a class of something like duckness exists, or the concept or formula of duckness exists in another realm. I also told you that Plato said there are three ducks on the pond. Huey, Dewey and Louis. Now you're going to want to know what's the relationship between the ducks on the pond and this other realm where duckness exists? You did think to ask that question, right? I am trying to teach you to be good philosophers here. I mean, you can't let someone come along and just arbitrarily say, well, here's how reality is. Boom, boom, boom, boom. You say, oh, wait, wait, wait. Now why did you say it's like this? And what kind of relationship is that? And why do you have three things rather than two and so forth and so on? You have to ask some of these questions. You know, don't be naive. Don't let him just impose it. Plato, what's the relationship between Huey, Dewey and Louisiana and duckness in this rather mysterious realm where things are not physical and temporal? And Plato would tell you if he were here today, I'm not putting these words in his mouth. He would say, that's a very difficult question. I think it's a relationship of participation. The three ducks on the pond participate in the idea of duckness. Yeah, well, I mean, how do you get the physical and the non physical together? I mean, how does the non physical or how does the physical participate in the non physical? I mean, what does this mean, participate? And Plato said, well, about the best I can do is give you figures of speech. And the best that I think Plato came up with, not the only, but we have a short time today, is that Plato said in the same way that an actor or a singer participates in a part, so the duck participates in duckness. Okay, There have been a lot of hamlets, isn't that right? Shakespeare wrote this story about Hamlet and has this character, Hamlet. But there have been a lot of people who come and they flesh out the Hamlet, don't they? They play the part of Hamlet, they participate in the role of Hamlet, or a singer does the same thing. There may be a score of music with words and so forth, but every singer brings his participation to that piece of music. And so again, that's an analogy. It's a figure of speech. And if you want to, you could nail him on that. But we're going to be easy on Plato today before. Before we knock him dead and we say, okay, participation, whatever that amounts to. Plato, can you tell me if participation is a relation, is Participation a thing, or is it a relationship? And he would say, it's a relationship. It's a relationship between duckness in the heavens, as it were, although the heavens can't be spoken of that way. Duckness outside of this world and the three ducks in this world. There's a relationship of participation. And Here comes the $64,000 question. Are all participation relationships the same, or are they a class of things? And how many classes of participation are there? Now I'm going slow because this is the kicker for Plato. And he would say the participation of a duck in duckness is different than the participation of a dog in dogness. Because things are defined by their relationship to the form. And so there are as many relationships as there are things in this world, each one having its own particular kind of relationship to the form. Gail, sitting down here in the front row, has a nose and two eyes and a chin. I have a nose, two eyes and a chin. We both participate in the form of humanity, or maleness, or whatever you want to call the category, but we're not the same. Why aren't we? Because he has a different participation in humanity than I do. Go slow here. Now. Let me get to the place where he finally hangs himself and say, okay, I follow you so far, Mr. Plato. What I want to know now is how do I know this relationship of participation that Gail has in humanity and that I have in humanity, that Huey, Dewey and Louie each separately have inducted us? How do I know that? And Plato said, knowledge is always of a form or idea. Knowledge is always of a form or idea. And as long as we're talking about ducks and human beings, that begins, you know, you can make some rough and ready sense out of it. But now I want to know how I know that relationship. And he's going to have to say, the relationship is an idea. That is to say, the way in which Gail participates in humanity. That relationship can only be understood as itself participating in an idea. The idea of Gail participating in humanity. And to know me as a human being is to know me as having. Having a peculiar relationship to the concept of humanity. But to know me as such is not to know just the relationship. It is to know the idea of the relationship. I wonder if I have any budding Aristotle's in the room who can tell me what the problem is going to be then to know anything, you are going to have to know not only the duck on the pond and the concept of duckness, but you're going to have to know its particular relationship and the form of it. But to know that form, you're going to have to have another form in which those forms participate. That's right. And so here is our budding Aristotle. As Karina indicated, without using the words, he's just created an infinite regress of forms and ideas. To know anything, I'd have to know an infinite number of things, which is to say, to know anything, I'd have to know everything. Everything. Until I see how everything relates and I know every form and I know every participation relationship, I couldn't know any one particular thing. And this is always in the history of philosophy. The problem with idealism. Idealism creates an abstract concept of knowledge which looks good in itself, but. But can never be utilized in this world because you'd have to know everything. In Plato's case, you'd have to know all the relationships to know anything at all. And this is why his favorite student Aristotle, said, plato, forget it. And this is not going to help us to push the problems of philosophy to another world and say, oh, well, it's out there beyond time and space. There's an answer to all these things. He said, I need to know how that out there relates to the here and now. Okay, let me take a few of these questions, but then I have to hurry on because I have more important things to say. When you write down the bottom line, that's the same problem. Yep. It's going to be turning inside out the kinds of problems. There's going to be a formal relationship. All apostate systems of thought. Now, I'm dealing at a very high level abstraction. If you don't understand this, I don't want you to worry about it. But to answer your question, all systems of apostate thought are nothing more. They differ from each other only as family members differ from each other, and their differences are nothing but a family squabble. They all have the same problems. It's just the way in which they express that problem. Okay, Bob, I would want to ask you where is Absolutely. Yes. The absolutes are the ideas that exist in this other realm, and they are unchanging and cannot be challenged. They're always what they are. Well, they are generalizations. And the problem is, as generalizations, they give us no concrete content. See, Plato would say the form of the good. Let me move on to another criticism. The form of the good is unchanging. It's absolute. In fact, in some interpretations of Plato, everything participates in the form of the good if it has reality. But the form of the good is the most general ethical Principle that exists out there. And now what I want to say is, okay, we have to do what is good. Thanks, Plato. What's that? Does that mean that I help the old lady across the street or I run her down with my car? In this world, what does good mean? And if Plato says, well, it's. I'll tell you what kind of thing it is. It's absolute and abstract and unchanging. Okay, fine. Now what does it mean? In my day to day experience, Plato's. Plato did not have answers for that. He had general intuitions about the nature of goodness. He did not know what goodness was. And so it's another example that he knew that knowledge had to have such and such a form. Pardon the pun, but he could never explain the relationship of those forms to the world in which we live. Let's talk about the soul real quickly, because this really becomes a killer for Plato. Plato says that the way in which I know something. Today I'm looking at a chair, and I know that chair. It's because my soul, prior to my life, existed in the realm of the forms. And there it learned all the ideas. It learned the idea of chairness and duckness and humanity and so forth. And now what's happening is I am having a recollection experience in a previous life. I knew that. That's a chair. Okay, so we come into this world with kind of a foggy knowledge of the ideas. But why is my knowledge fallible, imperfect and changing? Because I'm knowing the material world and I'm only recollecting the life, my previous life. So this assumes that we all existed before we lived in the present body. In fact, Plato taught what's called, the slogan was soma sema, the body is the tomb. Plato taught that the soul that existed in another realm was imprisoned in a body. That's where we are right now. And that our souls will one day, when we die, go back to the realm of the forms. What we might say, go back to heaven. Okay, so the soul leaves the realm of the forms, knowing all these ideas, comes into my body. And now I'm just like shadows on a wall. I'm recognizing, oh, that's a chair. Yeah, I'm intuiting these forms. Right. Let's just take the story that he's told. How did the soul get into the body? Plato said, I don't know. By the way, how did the things in this world get formed into ducts and chairs and warts and all those sorts of things? Plato said, I don't know. But let me tell you a story about it. And Plato said, the only thing I can do is resort to mythology. He admitted it. He said, I'm going to tell you a myth. And he told what is called now the myth of the demiurge. Plato said, the ideas exist for all eternity. And matter, this chaotic realm of change, has always been there. And so the demiurge came along and took the forms and imposed them on matter. And that's where we got ducks and geese and dogs and cats and horses and giraffes and warts. The demiurge brought these two together. You say, plato, how do you know about this demiurge? Remember the arbitrariness? I told you, you're going to go after the arbitrariness of these guys. Plato, how do you know about this demiurge? He goes, well, I don't. It's a myth. Now, those of you who thought Plato was going to save the day, what I'm saying is, stop and think about it. Here's a man who, when the chips are down, is going to appeal to what? To myth. To myth. I gotta tell a story. Plato says, I don't know how the forms in this world could get together. So I'll tell you a story about it. If you can do philosophy by storytelling, you don't need to be a philosopher. Just go write your story. You know, be entertaining. And I think this is kind of a rather dumb and dull story at that. Appeal to myth. That's not doing philosophy, Plato. But there's more problems, because not only does he have to have the demiurge arbitrarily. Who knows who the demiurge. Did the demiurge reveal himself? Is the demiurge a person? Does the demiurge participate in the form of demiurgeness? Is there a form for. For the architect of the world? If there's not a form for the architect of the world, then the architect of the world is unknowable on your system of philosophy, Plato. I mean, I know the ball's rolling real fast now. He's having a real hard time. Shots are coming at him from all angles. But I got to give it one more shot. The soul that exists in the other realm. In the other realm, there are not three forms of pigness. There's just pigness. And in this realm, pigs differ because they have different matter in them, and they have a different relationship to the form of pigness. We've already talked about that. But Plato made a real mistake. In every case of an idea, he said they are singular. There's pigness, there's dogness, there's giraffeness, wartness, whatever. There is all those. By the way, Plato did not think that evil things like warts or dung or hair or mud had forms in the other realm. That's a problem in itself. How can they not have forms? Don't we know about dung and mud and hair and filth in this world? But forget all that. I mean, I'm getting excited now. The only thing in the other realm that is not singular is the soul. There are many souls out there which have now been embodied in many bodies here now. So there's pigness, there's chairness, there's wartness, maybe there's ethical absolutes, laws of logic. They're all up there. And the soul knew all of those things. And so did your soul, so did Gail's and so did everyone else's. All these plural souls. Now, what am I going to have to ask Plato and say, does the soul have a form? And if the soul has a form, how do you account for the multiplicity of souls? Which is to say, how do you account for the multiplicity of persons in this world? Now, you haven't told me how the soul gets into the body except to point a appeal to myth. You haven't told me how dogness gets onto the dogs that we see here, except to appeal to myth. But even if I let you go with that, Plato, what I want to know is how do I have a soul separate from anybody else? What individuates our souls in the other realm and then coming into our bodies? Now, the only thing Plato could have said if he were true to his philosophy is there's only one soul. Soul. And we all share it, isn't that right? Just like there's only one pigness and all the pigs share it. Well, this looked like a good idea, didn't it? It's just totally devoid of any value. It does not account for motion or change or individuality in this world whatsoever. When all is said and done, it's not even consistent with itself. Because Plato has no way to account for the soul which knows the ideas, because he thinks there are all these souls running around. By the way, medieval Arab thought tried to correct this. They had the doctrine of the over soul. They believed that there was such a thing as one general soul for all humanity. And all of us are just like splices off of that block of soulless. But then, of course, when you try dividing up souls into splices like that, you create Other sorts of problems that I suppose you could flesh out on your own. Ken, did Plato think that you could absolutes to be additive? No, they're eternal. Then how many deals were. You got dinosaurs, you've got dinosaurness, and then you've got extinctness of the idea of dinosaurs. And dinosaurs, well, you actually. It's over time and I just gave up dealing with the problem of motion and change. Plato has no account for change. He would have to say, the material world is always changing, and so the material that goes into dinosaurs was such that there were no more dinosaurs. But the idea of dinosaurness continues. That's okay, right? But it doesn't really account for. Here's another question. Is running a form? Okay, let's say we're watching. I'll be brief. We're watching a rabbit run. Is there a form for running rabbit or is there a form for rabbit and a form for running? Now, Plato's on the horns of a dilemma. I hope you can feel this, because whichever he answers, I'm going to crucify him if he says no. There's a form for running rabbit and. And a form for sitting rabbit. What happens when the runner name is sitting? Okay, well, then I'm going to. In other words, there's a form for everything that happens in this world, isn't there? Which is to say, every question we have in this world, you're just going to bump to another world of forms, in which case you haven't answered any problems at all. Plus, I'm going to want to know what's the relationship between all those forms in this other world? Running rabbit, sitting rabbit. Actually, running rabbit on Tuesday, sitting rabbit on Wednesday, eating the rabbit on Thursday. How do these forms relate to each other? Well, if he goes the other way, he says, no, no, there's rabbits and there's running. And I want to know how do rabbits and running participate in each other then? And you go, oh, no, it's the old problem of participation. If the rabbit has to participate in running and the running has to participate in the form of running and the rabbit in the form of rabbitness, we're just going to create an infinite regress of force and we're not going to answer any problems. And you'd have to know everything to know anything anyway. Okay, Kent, does he have an answer to how to resolve. Let's say two men are arguing. They see a furry animal out in the field. One of them says, that's a coyote. The other one says, that's a dog. And they're Sitting there arguing over what form participates in. How would Plato go about resolving that? Well, Plato would probably resort to some common sense notion that one of them is not seeing it correctly. And in this world, our senses are imperfect. But once you say that, you have to say, well, how do you ever decide whose sense is the standard for anybody else's? That's another problem. Okay, we're really, really short of time. I'm going to. If you promise to be brief, I'll. Okay, Jolie. And then, Bob, I just want to know if you had an answer for how duckness. And not in the answer. Well, he would say that the identity of the thing you are looking at is constituted by its participating in duckness. If it participated in dogness, it would look like a dog. Bob, that's back to my absolute problem. He talks about general ideas, The general idea of humanity. No, no, you've never run into the idea of humanity, have you? You've talked to particular humans, but you've never talk to humanity. But how does he see that as general? Well, it's general because it's not particular, it's something. Something is general. If many things form a class denoted by it, a particular is an instance of a universal. It seems to me he keeps coming back with how he can create. Well, that's another problem in Platonic interpretation. Whether there's a hierarchy of forms where you have broader and broader participation. And on one view, the good encompasses everything that's real. That's the biggest form of the forms. So you go to different levels of abstraction and generality. Okay, I know you're getting hungry. I've got a roast in the oven at home I've got to run to as well. Any questions on today's message that you want to ask or comments you wish to make before we pray?