Finding Truth: 5 Principles for Unmasking Atheism, Secularism, and Other God Substitutes (37 page)

PRINCIPLE #4

•  •  •  •  •

1. Explain reverse engineering. How do biologists use it? How does it provide evidence of design?

2. How is Michael Ruse’s thinking an example of cognitive dissonance?

It’s Not Brain Surgery … Oh Wait, Yes It Is

3. Explain how Freud’s notion that religion is wish fulfillment can be turned against his own theory.

Tests for Truth

4. Explain self-referential absurdity. Explain
why
idol-based worldviews commit suicide.

Principle #4:
Test the Idol: Does It Contradict Itself?

5. Define logical positivism. How was it discredited? Do you still hear emotivist views expressed today? Give an example.

6. As you read through this chapter, make a diagram like the one presented here. For each school of thought that commits suicide: List the ism. Describe its form of reductionism. Explain why it refutes itself. Start with logical positivism.

Hitting the Marx

7. Dialogue: Choose one of the theories discussed in this section. Create a realistic dialogue with someone who holds that theory. Help the person to see how the theory undercuts itself.

Debunking the Debunkers

8. How do reductionist worldviews try to avoid committing suicide? How does that “solution” create yet another problem?

9. The text says “all worldviews have to borrow a Christian epistemology.… They have to function
as if
Christianity is true, even as they reject it.” Summarize the biblical basis for epistemology, and then explain why other worldviews have to borrow it.

C. S. Lewis Unmasks Materialism

10. Dialogue: Imagine a conversation with a materialist. Help him or her see that the position commits suicide and is therefore untenable.

Evolution Cannot Survive Itself

11. Dialogue: Imagine a conversation with an avid supporter of evolutionary epistemology. Craft a realistic dialogue in which you explain how it undercuts the very basis for rationality—and therefore undercuts itself.

Darwin’s Selective Skepticism

12. The passage by Darwin about his “horrid doubt” is typically misinterpreted to mean he himself realized that his theory committed suicide. Explain how Darwin applied his doubt selectively. Then explain why Darwinism undercuts not only itself but also the entire scientific enterprise.

Why Science Is a “Miracle”

13. Dialogue: You are talking to a secular person who insists that Christianity has always stood in the way of science and progress. Explain how Christianity provided the philosophical underpinnings for the rise of modern science. Then explain why even today, anyone who wants to pursue science has to adopt an epistemology derived from a Christian worldview—at least in practice.

Postmodern Prison

14. Dialogue: Argue in a polite and respectful manner with your university literature professor who is a postmodernist, showing that the theory commits suicide. In your explanation, include the concept of “performative contradiction.”

Barthes Busted

15. Explain what “deconstructionism” means, the logic behind it, and how it contains a fatal internal contradiction. How do deconstructionists try to avoid that contradiction? Does it work?

Postmodernism and Terror

16. Where did many postmodernists get their opposition to metanarratives? What did they propose as a solution? What is the problem with that solution? Why does postmodernism lead to complicity with evil and injustice?

The Tyranny of Diversity

17. Explain how postmodernism became imperialistic and coercive. Describe any examples that you have encountered.

Losing Your Self

18. Explain the difference between a modernist and a postmodernist view of the self. How does a postmodern view refute itself?

The Trinity for Postmoderns

19. Practice explaining how the Christian concept of the Trinity offers a better answer than either modernism or postmodernism to the balance of individual and community.

Escape from Reductionism

20. Dialogue: Choose one example from this section and imagine a conversation in which you make the positive case that Christianity offers better answers than any competing worldview.

PRINCIPLE #5

•  •  •  •  •

Principle #5:
Replace the Idol: Make the Case for Christianity

1. Dialogue: Imagine a conversation with someone who holds moral relativism or skepticism or some other position that you think of yourself. Create a realistic dialogue in which you show such persons that their behavior contradicts their own worldview, and that in practice they “borrow” from a biblical worldview.

The Confession of Richard Rorty

2. Why does Richard Rorty call himself a “free-loading atheist”? Do you agree that Christianity is the only source of universal rights? Why or why not? (Read
endnote 8
for more background.)

3. As you read through the chapter, make a list of the truths that free-loading atheists borrow from Christianity. (Go back to the beginning of the chapter and include any examples you find up to this point.) When you are finished, take one of those truths as an example and make a persuasive case that Christianity provides its only adequate philosophical basis.

4. Dialogue: The text says, “Atheists often denounce Christianity as harsh and negative. But in reality it offers a much more positive view of the human person than any competing religion or worldview. It is so appealing that adherents of other worldviews keep free-loading the parts they like best.” Drawing on the text, how could you make a positive case for Christianity?

What Makes Science Possible?

5. Dialogue: Write a dialogue making the case that (in the words of Paul Davies) “science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological world view.”

An Atheist Decries Humanism

6. Dialogue: Imagine having a conversation with someone who is a “humanist” in John Gray’s definition of the term. Make a persuasive case that his or her high view of human dignity derives from Christianity and is a case of free-loading. (Read
endnote 13
for more detail from Gray.)

Nagel: Darwin “Almost Certainly False”

7. Explain the reasons Thomas Nagel gives for “why the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false.”

8. What reasons does Nagel give for rejecting theism? Explain how he is free-loading.

Problems of a “Proud Atheist”

9. Raymond Tallis says that “something rather important about us is left unexplained by evolutionary theory”—or rather, several things. Choose two things and in your own words tell why they are “left unexplained by evolutionary theory.”

10. Choose an example of “neuro-evolutionary reductionism” (in art, literature, legal theory, philosophy, economics, politics, theology, or any other field), research it, and write a description of its claims. How would you critique those claims?

11. Why does Tallis reject neurotheology as applied to Christianity? Do you think his objection is a good one?

Gimme That Old-Time Philosophy

12. The text describes several examples of atheists who seek to hijack the spiritual and emotional benefits of religion. Choose one, research it in greater depth, and describe how it seeks to make secular ideas fulfill spiritual aspirations.

A Mass for Charles Darwin

13. Define scientism. Explain how it goes beyond anything that science could possibly establish.

14. How does evolution itself sometimes function as a religion? Listen to a segment from “Missa Charles Darwin.” This is the Kyrie eleison (“Lord have mercy”) with words from Darwin substituted:
www.gregorywbrown.com/missa-charles-darwin/
.

Evolutionary Religion

15. What is Stuart Kauffman’s definition of “God,” and why does he retain the word at all?

16. Summarize Jeremy Rifkin’s spiritualist view of evolution. In what way do religious views of evolution give a clue to general revelation?

Losing Faith, Finding God / Bertrand Russell

17. Make two lists, side by side. Based on my personal story, list the consequences of giving up Christianity. On the left, summarize Christian teaching. On the right, summarize the secular view that results when Christianity is given up.

Think of additional consequences of giving up Christianity beyond those mentioned in the text, and add them to your list.

18. Dialogue: Imagine a conversation with someone like I was as a teenager, ready to give up Christianity. Choose some of the consequences described in the text and paraphrase them in your own words. Gently help this person recognize that the consequences of abandoning Christianity are far-reaching, and encourage him or her to think twice about it—as no one did for me!

What Is
Your
Answer?

19. The text says, “When people raise questions about Christianity, often the best response is not to shut them down, but precisely the opposite.” Explain why, then choose an example and illustrate what that approach might look like.

Lesson from
To Kill a Mockingbird

20. The text says that learning other people’s worldviews should be motivated by love for them. Readers of
Finding Truth
have told me they had not connected apologetics with love before. Practice explaining to another person why the two are connected.

•  •  •  •  •

1. Chesterton wrote that ideas are actually
more
dangerous to the person who has never studied them—that a new idea will “fly to his head like wine to the head of a teetotaler.” Do you agree? Why or why not?

Churched but Not Prepared

2. Summarize in your own words the five strategic principles described in
Finding Truth
.

Principle #1

Principle #2

Principle #3

Principle #4

Principle #5

Stealth Secularism

3. Choose one movement in art or literature, research it, and describe in greater detail the worldview that motivates it. (You can use
Saving Leonardo
for your research.)

What Wags Your Theology?

4. Make a diagram like the one presented here. On the left side, list the names of the theological schools discussed in the text and summarize each one’s basic tenets. On the right side, write the philosophy each one was influenced by. Do you know any additional examples of theologies that were influenced by some school of philosophy? If so, explain.

5. Choose one form of liberal theology, research it, and describe in greater detail the philosophy that motivates it.

Critique and Create

6. The text says, “Christians often have a habit of defining themselves by what they are against. Yet to oppose what is wrong, it is most effective to offer something better.” Choose an example from the text, or one that you think of yourself, and suggest principles for being a redemptive force in that area of life.

A Total Book for Total Truth

7. All systems of thought are structurally the same: they start with certain foundational assumptions that color everything else. How does that common structure help make sense of Scripture’s claim that
all
truth—not just spiritual truth—begins with God?

Crazy Crae: How Do We Break Free?

8. Do you recognize a sacred/secular split in your own thinking?

9. Where did the sacred/secular split come from?

10. What did you appreciate most in the section about Lecrae?

Total Possible Points: 100

Name: _____________________________________________

Write short paragraph answers to the following questions.

1. What is Principle #1? (Points: 15)

First state what the principle is. Then explicate it in greater detail. In your answer, be sure to cover these questions:

• What is an idol, according to Romans 1?

• Give at least one verse from Romans 1 supporting your definition of an idol.

• Give at least 3 examples of worldviews and their idols.

• Use the poem of the blind men and the elephant to illustrate what an idol is.

• Write anything else you think is important for applying Principle #1. (This is where you have a chance to show everything you know beyond what was covered in the questions.)

2. What is Principle #2?(Points: 20)

First state what the principle is. Then explicate it in greater detail. In your answer, be sure to cover these questions:

• What does the term
reductionism
mean?

• Why do idol-based worldviews lead to reductionism?

• Give a passage from Romans 1 that explains why idols lead to a lower, less humane view of humanity.

• How does the process of reductionism explain why idols lead to treating people badly (the long list of destructive behaviors at the end of Romans 1)?

• Give at least 3 examples of reductionism. In each case, explain what the idol is, and how it leads to reductionism.

• Write anything else you think is important for applying Principle #2.

3. What is Principle #3?(Points: 35)

First state what the principle is. Then explicate it in greater detail. In your answer, be sure to cover these questions:

• What is general revelation?

• How can we use general revelation to test worldviews?

• Why do idol-based worldviews typically get some things right?

• Why do they always get some things wrong? (Use the concept of reductionism in your answer.)

• What do they do with the things they cannot explain?

• How do they lead to dualism—holding two inconsistent and contradictory views?

• Which concept from Romans 1 explains the motivation for creating a dualism?

• Give at least 3 examples of thinkers whose philosophy leads to dualism.

• Write anything else you think is important for applying Principle #3.

4. What is Principle #4?(Points: 20)

First state what the principle is. Then explicate it in greater detail. In your answer, be sure to cover these questions:

• What does it mean for a worldview to be self-refuting (it is self-referentially absurd, it commits suicide)?

• Why are idol-based worldviews self-refuting?

• Give at least 3 examples of worldviews that are self-refuting. In each case, explain why.

• How do people try to avoid the problem of self-refuting worldviews? Why doesn’t that strategy work?

• Write anything else you think is important for applying Principle #4.

5. What is Principle #5?(Points: 10)

First state what the principle is. Then explicate it in greater detail. In your answer, be sure to cover these questions:

• Why do so many non-Christians reach over and borrow from Christianity?

• Give at least 3 examples of free-loading.

• How does free-loading suggest a strategic starting point in making a case for Christianity?

• One way to highlight the attractive features of Christianity is to show where secularists borrow from it. Another way is to ask what you lose when you give it up. Choose at least 2 elements of a Christian worldview and explain the consequences of giving them up.

• Write anything else you think is important for applying Principle #5.