Dr Greg Bahnsen - Introduction to Apologetics: Methods XVI (Part 26)

Begin tonight's lesson with a word of prayer. Thank you, Lord, for giving us this time that we can pull aside and study your word, draw closer to you to know you as the God of truth. We thank you that you have given us a faith that is worthy of defense, and we pray that you would help us to be better prepared to defend it when anyone asks us a reason for the hope that is in us. We do thank you for that hope that you give us that is not simply a vague longing for things, but is an assured confidence that you do exist, that you do own all things and control all things, that you have bought us with a precious price, that of the blood of Jesus our Savior, and that we belong to you for all eternity. We thank you that you have given us your spirit, that we might not only know you better, but understand your Word and to walk in the paths of righteousness before you. We do pray for greater enlightenment from the Spirit, that we would again better defend the truth of the Gospel, that we'd be better ambassadors of Jesus Christ, that people might see not only in our words, in our arguments and defense, but also see in our lives that holiness and transformed character which is evidence that Jesus truly came from the Father. We do thank you for the love with which you take care of us and protect us every day, and we come to you in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

This evening's lesson is going to have to do with two particular responses that.

Are not strictly apologetical in nature.

But because we're in the process of.

Defending the faith and are going to.

Hear these things, it's probably good that we have worked out in our own minds how to respond to them. In the past, we have been examining worldviews, and I've been trying to show you how to do an internal critique of worldviews. And what are the two cardinal sins of philosophers as they try to formulate a view of reality or of knowledge or of how we should live our lives? What are the two major errors every worldview faces?

Arbitrariness.

Yes.

Arbitrariness on the one hand. And inconsistency on the other. And if you keep working on that and working on that, especially practicing on your neighbors and friends, whenever they bring up a different philosophical point of view, look for the internal contradictions. Look for their arbitrariness, how they're depositing something without good reason, you'll become very effective at showing the fool the foolishness of his folly. As the proverb tells us, we're to answer the fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own.

Conceits, lest he think, boy, I've worked something out here. This is pretty good. You have to be able to show he doesn't have anything to stand on.

And we did this internal critique of secular worldviews that are materialistic. It's the main kind of unbelief that.

We run into today.

But we also criticize secular worldviews that are philosophical and hold to some kind of spiritual or mental or non material reality.

So how to say non materialistic?

We've looked at religious worldviews and the three categories, remember, were those of transcendent mysticism, worldviews that are like Hinduism. We've looked at worldviews that emphasize eminent moralism, those which are like Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and we've looked at those which imitate Christianity in one way or another. Those that imitate Christianity can be polytheistic, like the Mormons, or Unitarian like the Muslims, or pseudo messianic like the Munis. And then last week, finally, we looked at kind of a smorgasbord approach to religious worldview. The attitude that says, well, I'll just take Christ, Christianity, but those portions that are necessary for a worldview and I'll trim off the things that I don't want.

And we looked at the inconsistency and.

The arbitrariness in that approach to developing a worldview. So what we are left with before we continue in our apologetic syllabus next week is one last ditch effort to hold on to not having to become a Christian. What if someone says, I simply, they're talking about their worldview, maybe one of these religious ones. I simply have faith.

I simply, I distrust it. I simply have faith in it.

Oh, but I've shown you there are academic and intellectual and philosophical problems with it. Yes, but I still have faith. I'm just a real simple believer.

I trust I believe these things.

And then the second thing we want to look at tonight is the person who says, well, that's true for you.

But not for me.

Here are two ways in which people might try to escape the grip of the apologist here. You know, we've done a really good job internally critiquing their worldview and setting forth the positive virtues of Christianity and so forth. But we get one of these two responses.

Let me deal with the first one.

Person who says, well, I surrender. Intellectually, you got me beat, but I.

Still, I just have faith in whatever it is they have faith in.

And so I can hold on to.

My worldview is you can't touch me.

In that inner subjective, protected circle of faith. Now, one of the things that makes.

It awkward and hard in answering this is that so many Christians do this. Okay, so I'm going to start out.

Tonight by telling you in one sense.

Sense, I'm not defending Christianity tonight because I'm also going to be, if I'm successful at all, blowing out of the water Christians who act this way.

And there are plenty of them, plenty of Christians who say we don't need.

An intellectual defense of the faith, but faith does just fine without our defending it. I simply have faith.

And that's the virtue of being a Christian, is that I hold on against.

All reason, against all intellectual odds. I'm the person who really has trust in the Lord. Contrary to you people who are always trying to work out your salvation with your intellectual gifts. Really kind of a works righteousness of the intellect. I've had people say that to me, you know, that you're really a Judaizer at heart because you really push the idea of having reasons for being a Christian.

So across the board, essentially what I'm going to be doing tonight is attacking irrationality. And this means it's been assumed all the way along in our class. But I guess it comes out real clearly tonight. What I'm telling you is that it's.

Unchristian to act in an irrational fashion, that it does not glorify the Savior. When you tell people no more than well, I simply have faith, I think that's a deplorable way to behave.

When you have the Lord of Glory who created the heavens and the earth and controls all things by his power and upholds the entire universe, when you have the one who said I am the way, the truth and the life, when you have someone who could challenge his opponents and not one could find fault with him, when you have someone who has revealed himself by his spirit in such a way that there is not one mistake to be found in the Bible. When you have all that going for you and then you just kind of wimp out with I just have faith, you are not being true to the Savior, not being true to the worldview, to the faith that you're defending. So that having been said that Christian Christians professing Christians who act this way are going to be tarred with the same brush. Let's see what that tar is. I'm going to begin by trying to explain some philosophical terms to you because what lets people get by with this is I think a Common resorting to an ambiguity on the term faith. So I'm going to begin, however, with the word belief. The noun belief in the verb believes. When we say that someone believes something or has a belief, what we're telling you is that that person has a positive propositional attitude that leads him to behave in a certain way. If I tell you that I believe that it's Thursday, and I believe that it's my quarter for teaching Thursday night Bible study, and I believe that it hasn't been canceled and all those sorts of things. And then at 7:25, I'm lounging around at home, you know, in my shorts and T shirt and watching a basketball game, and the kids say, dad, did you know it's Thursday night? Yeah, I believe that. Well, did you know that you're teaching Bible study? Yeah, I believe that. Are you quitting your job? No, I don't believe that. You say, now wait a minute. One of these premises. He doesn't really believe. Or in many cases, there's another premise in addition to those that kind of.

Accounts for the strange behavior.

If I tell you that I believe in racial equality, I tell you I don't believe that members of any particular race are superior or.

Or inferior to any other.

However, I'll never go out and have.

A beer with a black man.

Every time you ask me this, turns out if there's going to be a black in the group, I said, no, no, don't want to do that. And I won't work on the same.

Team with a black man.

And I won't let my children talk.

On the telephone to friends who are black. And okay, you can go on with the illustration.

I mean, at some point you'd say, well, you may say you believe in racial equality, but your behavior betrays that. So when we say someone believes something, we're telling we're saying two things about that person. One, that they do have an attitude, an intellectual attitude that I'm just going to simply call a positive propositional attitude, that they're affirmative toward a certain proposition.

All races are equal. It is Thursday night. Whatever.

However, there is also a disposition to behave in a certain way that is.

Appropriate to that affirmative attitude toward the proposition.

So here we have belief. Now, are all beliefs true? Another epistemological concept that we have to.

Get down is that of truth.

And the first thing you need to see is that belief and truth are not coterminous, as we say. They don't completely overlap each other. Not all truths are believed and not all beliefs are true ever Think about that. There are some truths that no one believes.

Now you're thinking, wait a minute, is.

This the old if a tree falls in the forest and no one's there? No, because if nothing else, there are many things that God knows that no human being knows, and what he knows is true. And if no one that's a human knows it, then no one that's a human believes it either.

But I think there are probably some mundane truths. For instance, what causes aids? Or what is the biological chemical, whatever, a way to cure it.

If it is curable, then there is.

A truth about aids.

But at this point, no one believes or knows it. So truth and belief are not the same thing. To have a belief is not to.

Have a truth, necessarily. Some beliefs are true, though, and some aren't.

Now, I'm going to give you a third concept, that of knowledge. Are all truths known?

Now, we've already talked about that. If not all truths are believed, then.

Not all truths are known either. But can we know something that's not true? Is it possible to have knowledge of something that's false?

No.

Well, it's possible to have false knowledge. It's possible to make a claim to know something and the claim is not a true one. Like if I were to tell you I know how many angels there are in Ethiopia and The answer is 4 million, 962, I would make a false claim to knowledge. But I'm not talking about a false claim to knowledge. I'm saying when we know something, is that which we know, can it be false? When we're deceived, we believe something is not true. See, and Paula has, in a sense, jumped ahead. The next step is we can't know things unless they are true, but we can believe things when they are not true. That happens all the time to you, right?

Embarrassingly so.

We can have beliefs that are not true, but we can't have any knowledges.

We can't know anything that is not true.

Can it be said that I know something if I don't believe it? Now, I'm not saying can I know something that I don't profess to believe. As the Bible tells us, the unbeliever knows God, but he will not profess.

To believe in God.

But when we know something, do we also believe it?

Yes.

We want our heads to be nodding.

Yes on this one. It should be obvious to you.

If you don't believe it, you can't know it either. Okay, so what is knowledge? Very simply put, knowledge. Well, I'm not going to give you the whole thing, there's a missing word here we'll come to is true believing. For something to be known, it must be believed and it must be true. If I don't believe it, then of course I don't know it. And if it's not true, whether I believe it or not, it's still not knowledge. However, and here's kind of the punchline of tonight's lesson. I'm going to be ringing the changes on this next point, so make sure you get it down. A true belief doesn't amount to knowledge either, because I can believe something and it can be true, and it is not appropriate to say that I know it.

That's because there are such things as lucky guesses. My illustration is bogus, I believe, but I'm just going to pretend. Now, there's a clock on the back wall there.

Assume that the clock is broken for the time being and that it's not.

The hands aren't moving at all.

But also assume that at the time that I look at the clock, it just so happens that the hands are on the right time for just that moment that I happen to be looking, although the clock is not working. Okay, now if someone says, what time is it? And I look at the clock and I say, oh, it's 10 of 8, do I believe it? There's no insincerity there. I believe it. Is what I believe true? Do I know that it's 10 of 8?

No, because I'm looking at a broken.

Clock and relying upon a broken clock.

To tell me at the time that.

Just so happens to be in the.

Right position at this moment.

And so for something to be known, it must be not only true and believed, but it must be justified. A justified true belief is what we call knowledge. When I believe something, when I have good reason to believe it, and when it's true. Now, for those of you who are budding philosophers, you'll be fascinated by this. Justification and truth don't overlap either. I mean, well, they overlap, but they aren't coterminous. It took me a long time to.

Kind of get that one down because.

We tend to say something is not justified unless it actually is true, in which case we're really collapsing the two concepts. It can sometimes be the case that we have justification for believing something, but.

It doesn't turn out to be true.

One of the examples that I found helpful is imagine a doctor, say, in the 1930s, 1940s, treating some ailment in a particular way based on all the.

Scientific Evidence available to them at the time.

But now in the 1990s, 50, 60 years later, we. We find out that that treatment is really counterproductive, not helpful, either totally ineffective, or maybe will worsen the patient's condition.

That happens sometimes.

Medical field reverses itself. Now, would we go back and say the doctors who were treating a certain thing at a certain time in what we now believe to be an erroneous way, were they not justified in what they were doing? No, you'd say, given the available information.

It was justified to believe what they believed and to practice what they practiced.

But it wasn't true. So sometimes you can have a justified belief that's not true.

Willie, frequently when discussing philosophy with.

General people, you get ipso facto typoise. This kind of blows that right out.

Of the water, doesn't it? Nothing by its very nature is a fact.

Oh yeah, that's not possible.

If you understand this. Correct.

Basically when people say that what they're.

Saying is the evidence for this proposition is inherent in itself. There are self evident truths.

I think there are some truths that are self evident, but they aren't many.

And most of them are not very interesting. A is A, A is not non A. Those were self evident.

Kind of boring though. Yeah.

Having grown up in math and not philosophy, it bothers me, I guess, that you say that something has to be true for you to have knowledge of it. If I know something, it's false. I know.

No, you don't have any knowledge of what's false. You have a belief about something, but you don't. You can't know if it's not true. It's false.

If you know that it's false. If you know that something is false, then you have a true belief.

I also know this true. The opposite of it is simply false.

You're losing me. What?

You're losing me.

No, no, you. You lost me before I lost you, Bob.

I'm not sure about that. I don't believe that.

Let P stand for any proposition. Care any value in math or any formula in math. Okay. Is it a wide enough variable? Anything you want.

Okay.

Is P true?

Well, for the scenario you got to decide is it going to be true or false.

Stipulate that it's true. Would you?

Okay, it's true. Okay.

If you have good reason for believing P and P is true, we would say you know, P. Now stipulate that it's false. Explain to me how it could be properly said. You could know a proposition that is false. Now you might have justification for It.

I think I just work from the other end. If I stipulate that it's true and I, and I find a counterexample and it is false. I know the proposition.

No, no, if you stipulate that it's.

True, you can't find that it's false.

No, no, no, no, no, no. We're setting up an illustration here. In your illustration, is this a true or a false proposition? You see, if you tell me it's true, then you can't change your mind later because you're setting up the illustration. It's only an illustration.

Yeah, but, but to determine, If I determine that it's false, then my prophecy.

Okay, you determined that.

Well, no, now I have knowledge that it's false.

No, you could, you could have, you could have justification that the, that the proposition is false even though it proves to be true. It is in some bizarre cases possible to have a good argument for a false proposition.

Well, if I can find anything false about this false prophet.

Well, find anything false about it misleads me.

Well, actually I know something about the foundations of math and I don't think I'm saying anything different.

In fact, it's even easier to demonstrate in logic. But go ahead.

I guess what he's trying to, I think where the you're missing each other is he's this number knowledge of P versus knowledge about some aspect of P. If P is. If P is true, you can know P, but if P is false, you can't know P itself. You can know that it is false, that it doesn't exist, but you can't know something that isn't.

You can know it. You can know a proposition that states the falsity of P. But you remember right now in our illustration, P is a proposal proposition. And so we're not iterating anything about.

P. Like P is false and I know that P is false. Okay?

So when we have those two levels, P itself and then what I know about P, or believe about P and so forth, then you can have the.

Kind of situation you're talking about. In fact, my doctoral dissertation, there's a long discussion of iterated beliefs and maybe that's what you're getting at.

But now we have to add another.

Word to our list here, and that's faith.

And someone says, I have faith that P. What are they saying? Yeah, they're especially emphasizing the trust aspect, that behavioral disposition that's part of, of belief. Remember that whenever someone says or whenever.

You say I have faith that you can always translate that I Believe that.

When I have faith that today is Thursday. That's the same as saying, I believe.

That today is Thursday.

Now you say, well, then why are.

There two English words?

Well, the word faith often connotes the.

Trusting aspect of belief.

Puts it into the perspective of, I.

Really rest in this, that today is Thursday. Okay, of course, that's a terrible illustration. It seems so awkward.

But what if I were talking about.

The innocence of my son? I say, I have faith in my son's innocence.

I could also say, I believe that.

My son is innocent.

But you would understand what I'd be.

Getting at, what I'd be adding to that. If I said, I have faith in my son's innocence, I mean, I'm really.

Resting that I'm gonna gamble on that.

I mean, I'll stake my life on that, sort of.

It may not be that strong of.

Faith, but I'm getting at the trusting aspect of it.

Now, when you say you have faith that he, that's the same as saying.

I believe that he.

But often what we say is, I have faith in him. I have faith in it.

Okay.

So if I'm a Mormon and I am presented with evidence that seems.

To show that Joseph Smith was mistaken.

Or a bad man or something negative like that, I might say, not, I have faith that the Book of Mormon is inspired.

I have faith that Joseph Smith is innocent of glass looking.

You might hear someone say, I have.

Faith in Joseph Smith. I trust this man. Okay? Do you understand the difference between faith that and faith in?

That is a legitimate distinction. When I say, I have faith in David means I can count on him. Now, the discourse, the realm of discourse.

May define what kind of trust that is. I have faith that David will never hit a sour note when he plays the piano. I have faith in David.

Or I might have faith in his intellectual ability when he says he's researched.

Something and this is a conclusion, I have faith in him.

Or if I had some kind of bizarre, idolatrous following of David, I might say, I have faith in him.

Whatever he says has to be true because I think he's God.

But in all those cases, what I'm expressing is trust. Now, what I want to ask you is. Yeah, yeah. Not.

Not to pop your bubble, David, but there are false faiths, obviously.

Can I have faith that something and not have faith in something?

It appears to be yes, but in.

A funny way, it's no. Anytime that I have faith that that is, whenever I believe something, the reason why I believe it expresses in one.

Way or another something I'm trusting.

I'm trusting my senses, okay? If I go outside and there are drops of water coming out of the.

Sky and pelting me and so forth, and.

And I say I believe that it's raining in a sense. What? I'm. I'm also implying that I have trust.

In my senses, that my sensations are reliable.

However, I could say I believe that what David told me is true, but not have faith in David.

I mean, it could be that he's.

A notorious liar, but on this particular.

Case, I think he's telling the truth. So in that sense, faith in trusting and faith that are not the same.

But now here's the tough one. Can you have faith in something and not have any beliefs about it? Try this one on.

Sorry, David. It's interesting. In the front row you get picked on. I have total faith in David.

David would never utter anything false. I don't know who David is. I don't know what he does. I don't know anything about him. I don't even know what he looks like. I couldn't tell you anything about David. I don't have any beliefs about David, but I trust him no matter what. Does that make any sense? That doesn't make any sense at all, does it? Whenever I say I. I have faith in someone, I'm also saying there are certain propositions about that person that lead me to have that kind of confidence or trust. If nothing else, if I have faith in David, I have faith that what he says is reliable.

Okay?

Or he knows what he's talking about.

Whatever it may be. Okay, yes.

What about? Let's say that in the word of God something is mentioned that I don't know anything about, but because God said it, I'm going to totally believe it.

Sure. But that's not a question about the proposition you know nothing about. Because when you say, I believe whatever God says, you could also say, and I believe the following about God. He created the world. He controls all things.

He knows all things. He never makes mistakes. He's never let me down.

I know that this is proven to be true. That's proven to be true. Da da da da da. And I also believe that everything he says is true. Now here's something he says, and I don't have any idea what it means.

Yet, but I'll tell you this. Whatever it means, it's true.

See, that's not a statement about the proposition per se, based on your understanding. It's a statement about someone has verified that proposition. Someone's authority stands behind that proposition and it's that person that I trust regardless.

Of what the proposition means.

So you know, it's legitimate to say I don't understand, you know, how a virgin has a baby. But I believe God and I have reason to believe God.

So if he says it, it's true.

Okay, let's go back to I simply have faith. I presented reasons against being a Muslim.

I presented reasons against being a Mooney, I presented reasons against being a Platonist.

And then I have someone say.

Does.

It make any difference? I simply have faith.

Now what are you going to ask.

The person you say faith in what?

Do you simply have faith that Platonism is true? Do you simply have faith that Joseph Smith was telling the truth? Is that what you're telling me? That you believe he was telling the truth? Lets just take Joseph Smith one way or another. When someone says I just have faith in Joseph Smith, they're either saying I believe that Joseph Smith was telling the.

Truth or I believe that Joseph Smith is reliable.

I have faith. Okay, so you have a belief. Once you've done this analysis, what you can say to the person is big deal, so you have a belief. We didn't enter into this conversation to find out whether you had a belief. I knew you had a belief. I wouldn't have wasted the last 12 hours and 60 cups of coffee on you if I didn't think you believed this. I know you believe this and you know I believe contrary to it. Why have we been talking? We have not been talking to establish whether we believe something. We've been talking to find out if it is true, whether it can be known to be true. Are there justifications for our belief? So when someone says well I simply believe.

You say well that's obvious.

But if you just simply believe without reasons and if you simply believe contrary to good reason, then I feel sorry for you. You because you're of all people most.

Pitiable that you believe things which I guess in a sense.

You'Ve been given.

Good reason to think are not true. And it's sad, isn't it, to hold on to false beliefs.

And someone says I still believe well.

And I still feel sorry for you because you're believing something which is not true.

Now it ought to be your concern.

To believe the truth. Someone says it's a cruel thing to take away a person's trust. They say, well when they're trusting in something that is detrimental to their well being, it's a kind thing to take away their trust. What if you had a 17 year old son who still believed in Santa.

Claus against all the evidence you'd given. I mean, children figure this out, right? Santa cannot get down all those chimneys in one night. It's a physical impossibility. The reindeer cannot land and take off that many times in one night. Now you have a 17 year old who's gone through high school, has had math and physics and all the stuff has all the adults around him saying that there is no Santa Claus, which is a great story to make people feel good for a while.

He says, I still have faith in Santa Claus.

Use that illustration. When someone says, I just have faith, say, well, but wouldn't you pity somebody who still had faith in Santa Claus? It's not true, but as long as I can really wump up some kind of trust in this, I feel better.

Well, that is pitiable to have faith just for the sake of feeling good, okay?

When someone says, I simply have faith and I don't need reasons, then they've taken another step. Now, it's not just the pitiable condition that they have belief and they don't care whether it's true. But now what they're saying is, I have a belief, I think it's true and I don't know reasons. And at that point you want to.

Say, this is not pitiable. This is arrogant. This is arrogant. What human being has the right to assert something to be true without reasons? On what basis would you assert it to be true? Now, I assert some things to be true. Jonah was in the belly of a great fish for three days. Someone says, you don't have any reason for that.

I say, yes, I do.

God told me that's a real good reason to believe it. Now you may not believe God wrote that, but if I'm right that God's.

The author of those words, then I got a great reason to believe that Jonah was in the belly of the.

Well for three days. Okay?

Now when someone says, why believe in.

Such and such Hinduism or Mooneyism or.

Whatever, and I don't need reasons, they're not saying what I just said. They're not saying, I believe it because God said so. Because if that's what they want to claim, then we're going to go back to this and say, okay, we're going.

To argue about the truth of that.

Did God say that we're going to get into these worldview considerations and reasons again? No, I'm talking about somebody who says, not just that my reason is God, God said it, but I don't need a reason to believe this, and what I'm telling you is that that's arrogance of the worst sort to say I can just believe anything I want. It's kind of willy nilly.

No human being has the right just to believe anything they want. Now they have the political right to believe it. I mean, you can believe in Santa.

Claus to your dying days.

I mean, the government shouldn't afflict you for that. But you do not have the intellectual right. Someone says, okay, well, it's true for me, but it's not true for you.

Let's go back to our little anatomy of epistemic terms. True for me. True for me is a bogus English expression. It is. It's not as bogus as Love me tonight, but that's a bogus expression too. Remember Tom Jones used to sing that. Love me tonight. I used to tell my youth groups.

And they'd hear that back in the bad old days of the 60s, I.

Used to tell people, he doesn't understand what the word love means. Means if he puts it in that kind of syntax. Love me tonight is a contradiction in terms given the Christian view of love. Right? What's that? Well, that's what it is. There are certain words. I mean, it's kind of like saying green sleeps backwards. That's the wrong syntax. That's not an English sentence. Green can't sleep backwards. Sleep is not a backwards form, forwards kind of thing. And colors are not the sorts of things that sleep. So you can't put those words together that way, okay? Unless you're a poet, then you can get away with anything. Then you have to kind of sit around and let the master explain to.

You what these things mean metaphorically.

But in terms of literal expression, green sleeps backwards and love me tonight and true for you are all bogus. They all are words that we know individually, but put together like that don't make any sense. There's no such thing as true for you. Truth is a public concept, or it's a concept that entails something having a public nature, or what we might call more technically objective. Truth is an objective state of affairs. The truth is not affected by my beliefs. Unless we have a sentence that talks about what I believe, then the truth.

Of that sentence is affected by my beliefs.

But that's because I'm talking about my beliefs.

Okay?

What if I have tuberculosis and then.

I say to the doctor, I don't believe it? Doctor says, that's great, because I guess.

You don't have it. Then I don't have tuberculosis. I believe I don't have the tuberculosis and it goes away. You know that isn't the case. Truth is not affected by whether you believe it or not. Truth is a real stubborn kind of thing. It's a. I don't care if you believe it. It's going to stay this way or not this way. Truth has nothing to do with whether you believe it or not. And so what you want to point out is when someone says, this is true for you, but not for me, or this is true for me, not for you, you want to say, no, wait a minute. You don't mean true for you. You mean you believe. You believe it. I don't believe it. Now we're back to that place where we almost want to chuckle, right? But I mean, we knew that when we started. That's why we've had these 60 hours of the discussions, right? Because you believe it and I don't, or I believe it and you don't. So when you end the conversation, say, oh, okay, we'll have a peaceful ending to this. It's true for you, not for me. That is to say, we're going to end right where we started. You believe it, I don't. That's just completely arbitrary. It's not telling us anything whatsoever. But now, again, I'm going to go one step further. What if someone. This is parallel to the person who says, I'm not talking about having faith and not caring about the truth. I'm talking about having faith and not needing reasons. What about someone who says, no, when I say true for you, I mean truth is relative. So you wouldn't allow me to have that. You said I had to be saying, you believe it, I don't believe it. That sort of. No, no. I mean that truth varies from culture to culture, from person to person. I think the truth is not objective and universal. A public matter usually.

Now I'm just talking strategy here. It's good to ask a person if they would like to take a break, get a drink of water, think about.

That, come back and start again. Do you really want to say that? You really want to say truth is relative? Anyone want to bite?

Truth is relative. Let's put that on the board. How about this? No, truth is absolutely. We have some people cheating.

No, truth is absolute. That's what the person is saying. All truth is relative. But if no truth is absolute, then we're going to take this as our specimen sentence. We'll call that P. And what I want to know is, is P true or not? What are the options? Yes and no. If P is not true, say, fine, then I win the debate. Because you see what you just affirmed, you denied. No truth is absolute. I want to know, is that truth absolute? You say, no, it's not.

I say, oh, well, then if it's.

Not, I don't have to worry about that. So let's go on with the debate. So they're going to have to say, this truth is absolute. I say, but what you're saying is that no truth is absolute. So if there is a truth that.

Is absolute, you've contradicted yourself.

What have they done?

Oops, not on the board. Need a bigger board.

Arbitrary on the one hand, inconsistent on the other. You've got to learn to run people. Yeah, in some cases, both. You need to learn to run people from pillar to post when you're dealing with them, force them to be arbitrary and then to defend themselves. They're going to be inconsistent. When you push their inconsistency, the only way they can slip out of that is becoming arbitrary. And you just run them back and.

Forth, back and forth, back and forth.

It's always good to know where you are in the conversation, to know where you're going, okay, have a strategy for.

Dealing with things like this.

But the relativist loses right away. Now, I've taken too much time. But I'm going to say one more thing about both of these. In both of these cases, you have someone who refuses to let reason, to let reasons govern their thinking. Apologetics is a task wherein we say the reasons support Christianity and they are.

Against anything that is not Christian reason, that is to say, man's intellect, what we know favors Christianity, disfavors its opponents.

When someone tells you, I don't want.

To deal with reason anymore, you say, well, fine.

I mean, essentially you have conceded the victory to me. What you're saying is, well, if you want to get into all that reason stuff, you know, you want to get into intellectual things, then yeah, you got.

To be a Christian.

But of course, I don't want to be intellectual and I don't want to.

Be reasonable so I don't have to be a Christian.

And again, that's where you want to.

Hold out the microphone and say, just speak up real loud now and let everybody know what you're saying.

Because when you say that, what you're.

Saying is you've lost.

The only hope for someone who doesn't.

Want to become a Christian is to abandon reason.

And when you get someone to admit.

That they may not like just exactly that sentence, but that's what it amounts to.

When you reduce someone to that. You reduce them to the lowest point.

Possible because you have them saying the.

Only option is to give up intellect.

Altogether, to give up reasoning. That's the only escape from God, is.

To try to turn my mind off. And then you say, okay, well, I've won the debate then, because what we've.

Been debating is what reason or, you.

Know, supports or what is true. But P.S.

As you're out, way out the door, you can't escape God even that way, because even in the insane asylum, God can reach you and the testimony will be in your heart and your conscience will convict you. But the point is, from the, from.

An apologetical standpoint, I cannot change a person's heart.

I can close a person's mouth. Now, I mean that metaphorically.

But you see what I'm getting at. When I've closed their mouth, when there's.

No more reasoning and they concede the.

Point by saying, I don't need reasons or there's no reason about it, it's all relative, then you've won the debate.

Elring, what's the fallacy of the proposition? Some truths are relative, some truths are absolute, including this one.

It's arbitrary. If someone hands that to me, you see, he's just giving me everything I want. I don't believe that's the way to approach it. But if he wants to do that, I say, fine. The ones which are absolute are those that express Christianity, and the ones which aren't are those that are contrary to it. Okay, next opponent. You see, if arbitrariness is allowed, then I can win the debate by being arbitrary. How would he know? How would he know that no truth is absolute? How would he know which truths are and which truths aren't? And once we have to face that question, we're right back to the old standard stuff.

Belief, truth, justification, confidence, trust, whatever, go ahead.

I don't blame you for struggling with that. It takes a while for people to get. But you need to just cut through the fog and just tell people you're not saying anything. And if you do say something to defend yourself here you become arbitrary.

Theoretically, then can you refute Hinduism by. Well, based on the proposition it is morally wrong to eat. And you say, since we know that.

For.

Those who are not Hindus, especially for those who are Christians, it is not morally wrong to eat, it's not.

Morally wrong for a Hindu to eat beef either.

Well, if you're a Hindu, you might have trouble dealing with this.

Yeah, they believe it's morally wrong, but.

It'S not morally wrong.

See, that's what we want to get at. And if you're asking, can I persuade a Hindu by showing his logical inconsistencies, the answer is probably not. If he's a good Hindu, he's going to renounce logic.

Because logic assumes distinction and distinction is evil. All is one according to Hinduism.

So when you ask, can you defeat a Hindu? If you mean can you defeat them in the I don't mean to be frivolous game or in the procedure of reasoning and debate, yes, you can easily.

Refute Hinduism when it comes to reasoning and debate.

Can you persuade a Hindu that way? Not necessarily. But what you can do is close.

His mouth when it comes to reasoning.

What you can say is you don't have a platform to stand on in.

Denying my Christianity and I have plenty.

Of platform to deny your Hinduism.

Somebody says, well, I still believe it.

I say, well, okay, you may still believe it, but when it comes to reasoning, you don't have anything to say.

You can't change an unbeliever's heart.

No, only the Holy Spirit can do that.

However, God can use you as maybe just about the sole instrument.

Okay, that's true.

But the class that we're in right now is not on methods of persuasion.

Like, you know, you don't offer to buy a hamburger for a Hindu. That's not going to.

Same way you don't take your Orthodox.

Jew friend out for, you know, bacon and eggs for breakfast.

That's true. We could talk about what is suave.

And what is persuasive and what will show that we really have care for them and so forth.

And there's a great place for that.

It's just that that's not what this class has been on. This class has been on the reasonings side of defending the Christian faith or presenting Christ to the world.

And from the standpoint of giving a.

Reason for the hope that is in us, we can tell the Hindu you don't have any reason to believe what you do. Other questions about tonight's lesson. If anyone says, well, that was pretty good, Dr. Vasa, it's true for you.

Then we're going to go outside and.

Have a talk.

Actually, that points out that there is a sample you can.

Use that There's a what?

There's a sample you can use that statement. If somebody has the ability to do something and somebody else doesn't have to, then it could be true for you.

Explain that to me, Glenn.

Well, say that I, I could, you know you went through all this stuff, and I remember it.

Okay.

No, I wouldn't say it was true.

For me, not for you.

I'd say it's true for you. Even though you can't remember how to.

Argue it, it's true for you.

Let me liken it. Let me liken it to two surgeons. One surgeon remembers how to do open heart surgery. The other guy says, hey, it's been a few years. I kind of forget about these things. I think the heart survives about in the middle here, isn't it? But you see, the truth as to where the heart is and how to.

Do that heart surgery is true for.

The guy who doesn't remember how to do it too.

I'm saying it's true that one guy can do it, but not true that the other guy can do the surgery.

Gland, gland, gland.

Yes, there are truths which are person relative. Not everyone. Not everyone has blonde hair. Okay, so we can say Carol has blonde hair, Willie doesn't. So it's true that Carol does.

It's not true that Willie does.

But that's what we're getting at.

We're talking about the same proposition being.

True for one person, not for another.

Want people to walk away and go, wait a minute.

That's good.

I'm glad you raised that question. True what? There are truths that are not believed yet.

Yeah, we've already talked about that.

There's a semantic problem about belief.

Lots of them.

You've been presenting it as something that's unique, that you truly are persuaded of. Now, if somebody asks me, what's the temperature in here? And I say 76, I'm likely to be pretty sure what I'm saying. If you say, what is it? And I say, I believe it's 76, that indicates that. That I'm quite mushy about this.

It is the case.

See, what you're talking about now, however.

Is the use of the English language not about epistemic concepts.

We have different ways of expressing our.

Affirmative propositional attitude about things. I can say I think that it's 76 degrees. Say I believe that it's 76 degrees, and say I am sure that it's 76 degrees.

Now, all of those have the same from the standpoint of belief, epistemic content. I'm affirming that I have this positive.

Attitude toward the truth of this proposition.

What is different is the adverb that.

Goes along with it.

How sure am I?

And you can kind of, you know, translate this into betting terms. The guy who says, I think it's 76 degrees. Might bet a quarter. The guy says, I believe that a 76 degrees. Might bet 10 bucks. The person says, I'm absolutely sure.

Might bet $1,000. And so there's a sense in which adverbial qualifiers come in there on the.

Confidence that attends the belief. But the belief portion of that is belief, one way or another.

And in the English language, it is true that we use the word belief sometimes to soften the expression of confidence. However, you know, you can think of lines in dramatic productions and also ways in which we use the word belief not to soften our confidence, but to actually express it. I firmly believe with all my heart. Now, the word belief is used there. Or you could even do it just with tone of voice and body language. I believe that this is the case. On the other hand, when someone says, well, I believe. So then in that kind of literary context, the word belief is expressing an affirmative attitude, but one with low confidence. So you're right. There are a lot of ambiguities because.

Of the English language.

But in philosophy, you've got to learn.

To distinguish between a conceptual confusion and a confusion that arises from the use.

Of our words, the way we use our words.

Okay, I've taken way longer than I'm supposed to.

This is the last night in which you don't have homework. Reading. Now we're going to get back on track. Section three of the apologetic syllabus.

The first two chapters of section three are your reading assignment for next Thursday evening. And it is my firm belief that.

We are going to finish by the end of June.

Okay, let's take a break.