A Reason for Views

Often it will be of help to us in life if we have a reason for views. I believe that often the greatest mistake parents have in relation to their children is expressing judgments on activities which have no thought out rational.

You may see for example a condemnation of video games with the rational of "you wasted all weekend playing those games." Of course the parent may "waste all weekend watching TV." It is often in the church you find many people expressing preferences for things as moral absolutes.

If they like golf than it is fine way to spend a weekend, but it is wasteful to spend the weekend surfing. It is often that there are constant streams of viewpoints which contradict each other on principle because they are preferences and not the absolutes they are claimed to be.

Of course it makes sense how many viewpoints there are floating around which have no clear rational base. We tend not to like to think. And to the degree we do not thing the more the rationality of our judgments comes into question.

It is difficult to understand how the person who spends the weekend surfing is in question and the golfer above reproach for his use of time. Maybe it is that the surfer is assumed to have questionable friends while the golfer's friends must be above reproach? Maybe an answer can be found but often many judgments simply lack any rational basis.

And that is often the issue in parents and people in the church expressing claims about reality. If the claims have no rational base thought out they are likely to be off. The reality is often there is far too many viewpoints. We would be better off with far fewer viewpoints expressed after more thought.

Theses on Apologetics

1. Aim of apologetics is often too large. Apologetics has not enough power to accomplish large scale goals. Aiming for smaller target goals is better.

2. Apologetics should not necessitate bad theology. Some movements of argumentation create necessary errors which are anti-biblical. An example is Alvin Plantinga's free will defense which is incompatible with mankind being perfected and being sinless in heaven as scripture teaches.

3. Usually winning an argument only gets you labeled as a "good arguer" and you probably won't get assent on your point.

4. Most objections are moral and not rational. Clearing a rational objection does not change belief.

5. Ideas must be appealing. People usually believe what they want. This is the great issue with apologetics. We need to persuade people they should desire a relationship with God which is hard to do via argumentation.

6. Everyone has presuppositions. If you do not think you have presuppositions you are wrong. All belief systems need a starting point. Descartes' baseless belief system is a failure. Without presuppositions rational thought is impossible although many people are unaware of the assumptions.

7. Look for the presuppositions in a position. Any argument can be rejected if you deny the presuppositions. Often good arguments have the issue of bad presuppositions.

Because God

I recently was flipping through a fairly interesting book on human psychology in a book store which made many interesting points. Of course one section was interesting and I thought I'd object to the book without naming it.

It basically contained a few sample dialogues of hypothetical situations in which people were asked to give their opinion on a topic and then explain why their rational.

A few of the people said "because it is wrong" as an answer and they were pressed for a rational. The specific issues are irrelevant to my point. Often Christians today are being pressed by non believers to give reasons why things are wrong past "God says it is."

It is certainly good if the Christian can give an apologetic for his beliefs, but ultimately we see many Christians discouraged because they don't have an answer past "God said." Ultimately if God says it is then we can feel confident in our position.

You see if it is God who said it the argument is over if we truly understand the situation. An apologetic is useful to have of course, but the apologetic or the rational is far less important than the point that it is God's will not ours that matters.

Often as Christians we get pressed for reasons we don't have at the moment. It is often very unfair the way debates go. You might press an atheist for a reason for something and they simply say you should go read such and such a scientist and that scientist has the answer.

Of course if I tell them you should go read this or that theologian and I know they can answer your question, then the atheist will become quite upset. You see we are often unfairly held to the standard of master theologian/apologist in debate by the atheist who refuses to be held to the level of professional physicist/astronomer.

Needless to say the point is often in debate or discussion we can feel discouraged. And we need not feel so. The world often holds the church to standards of evidence it does not hold itself to.

Seeing oneself as semi-irrational

There is a great importance of seeing oneself as one is. One of the key features of man is his rationality. It is one of the distinctive trademarks of man compared to the rest of creation.

It is important for man to realize that he is not fully rational however. If man understands his origin he will understand that he has fallen and his nature has been damaged by the fall - in particular his alienation from God.

If we understand that we often do irrational things it is helpful. A wise saying from a non Christian figure is that insanity is repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting different results.

Wisdom is not knowing all the answers. Actually wisdom often is knowing that we do not know the answers.

What people do not know is often not very dangerous to them if they know they do not know. What is dangerous is what people think they know but they are in fact wrong about.

One great think about understanding oneself as semi-irrational is that we can open ourselves to learn. Mostly from God, but also from others.