Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions (15 page)

PART TWO

FINDING THE FLAWS

IT IS AXIOMATIC THAT THE MOST INTELLIGENT PEOPLE - COLLEGE PROFESSORS, DOCTORS, LAWYERS, PH.D.S,
BRIGHT
FOLKS OF ALL STRIPES - MAKE FOOLISH AND ELEMENTARY MISTAKES IN THINKING WHEN IT COMES TO SPIRITUAL THINGS.

— Gregory
Koukl

SOMEONE once said that if you give a man enough rope, he'll hang himself. Our next tactic is based on the tendency of many erroneous views to self-destruct. Such ideas get caught in their own noose and quickly expire.

Commonly known as self-refuting views, these ideas defeat themselves. Like the sign in the restaurant saying, "Authentic Italian food served the traditional Chinese way," or the tabloid headline that reads, "Woman gives birth to her own father," views that commit suicide are often obvious.

Here is another example from a philosophy student's T-shirt. The front sported the caption, "The statement on the back of this shirt is false." The back of the shirt read, "The statement on the front of this shirt is true."

There is no need to expend energy addressing views that are bent on destroying themselves. They die by their own hand, saving you the trouble. If an atheist tells you he knows God doesn't exist because God told him so in a vision, your work is already done.
¹
All you need to do is point out the problem and quietly watch the view commit hari-kari.

IF IT’S TRUE, IT’S FALSE

Every statement is about something. For example, the sentence "Cats chase rats" is about cats. Sometimes statements include

themselves
in what they refer to. The statement "All English sentences are false" is about all English sentences, including
itself
.

In this last case, you can immediately see a problem. The statement has within it the seeds of its own destruction. If all English sentences are false, then the English sentence declaring it so must also be false, and if false, then it is easily—and appropriately — dismissed. Because it cannot satisfy its own standard, it falls on its own sword.

When statements fail to meet their own criteria of validity, they are self-refuting. Even when they seem true at first glance (and many do), they still prove themselves false. The minute the words are uttered, they fail. Here are some conspicuous examples I have encountered over the years:

•    "There is no truth." (Is this statement true?)

•    "There are no absolutes." (Is this an absolute?)

•    "No one can know any truth about religion." (And how, precisely, did you come to know that truth about religion?)

•    "You can't know anything for sure." (Are you sure about that?)

•    "Talking about God is meaningless." (What does this statement about God mean?)

•    "You can only know truth through experience." (What experience taught you that truth?)

•    "Never take anyone's advice on that issue." (Should I take your advice on that?)

The Suicide tactic works because of a rule of logic you are already familiar with, even if you don't know its name. It's called the law of
noncontradiction
. This law reflects the commonsense notion that contradictory statements cannot
both
be true at the same time.
²

All suicidal views either express or entail contradictions. They make two different claims that are at odds with each other: "A" is the case and "A" is not the case. Obvious contradictions are often funny because we see the absurdity built into them:

•    "I used to believe in reincarnation. But that was in a former life."
³
(I don't believe in reincarnation. I do believe in reincarnation.)

•    "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." (It's not crowded. It is crowded.)

•    "I wish I had an answer to that, because I'm tired of answering that question." (I don't know the answer to that question. I know the answer to that question.)

•    "I really didn't say everything I said."
⁴
(I did not say it. I did say it.)

•    
"I never, never, repeat a word.
Never."
(I don't repeat a word. But I just did repeat a word.)

•    "This page intentionally left blank." (This page is blank. This page is not blank.)

•    "You're in rare form, as usual." (Your performance is rare. Your performance is not rare.)

•    "These terrorists have technology we don't even know about." (We know about things we don't know about.)

When an idea or objection violates the law of
noncontradiction
in a straightforward fashion, I call it "Formal Suicide."

To recognize if a view has suicidal tendencies, first, pay attention to the basic idea, premise, conviction, or claim. Try to identify it. Next, ask if the claim applies to itself. If so, is there a conflict? Does the statement itself fail to live up to its own standards? Can it be stated in the form "A" is the case and "A" is not the case? If so, it commits suicide.

Here's another way of looking at it:
If exactly the same reasons in favor of another's view (or against your own) defeat the reasons themselves, then the view is self-defeating.

The final step is easy. Simply point out the contradiction. For example, when someone says, "People should never impose their values on others," ask if those are
his
values (they are). Next ask why he's seeking to impose them on others. I have included more examples below so you can see precisely how this works.

It might have occurred to you that
Columbo
and Suicide work well together. If you notice that a person’s viewpoint self-destructs, point it out with a question rather than a statement.

Arguments designed to show that a view is contradictory are always lethal if they can be sustained. The argument against God based on the existence of evil is popular precisely because it trades on a presumed contradiction. This gives it unstoppable force if it succeeds.
⁵
When a view commits suicide, it cannot be revived, because there is no way to repair it. Even God cannot give life to a contradictory notion.
⁶
Philosophers say such views are "necessarily false." They cannot be true in any possible way. Because they are dead on arrival, defending them is a lost cause.

You might wonder why anyone would believe self-refuting ideas. Very few people knowingly affirm contradictions (though some are so evident you wonder how they could be missed), but when contradictions are
implicit,
embedded in the larger idea, they are harder to see. This is why people are taken in by them.

For example, we know that the claim "My brother is an only child" is false because the concept of "brother" entails having a sibling. When Yogi Berra counsels, "Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't go to yours," we chuckle. A person cannot pay his last respects at your funeral if he's dead.

Though these two contradictions are easy to spot, they are different from the explicit examples above. Here the contradictions are under the surface. Implicit contradictions are sometimes difficult to identify because they are hidden.

For the remainder of the chapter, I want to walk you through popular notions that are implicitly self-refuting. In each case, the problem is not immediately obvious. Each one fails, however, through contradiction. They are sunk before they ever set sail.

IS TRUTH TRUE?

I have already pointed out that the postmodern claim "There is no truth"
⁷
invites an obvious question: Is the claim that there is no truth
itself
a true statement, or is it false?
If false, then false.
If alleged true, then false again.

This fact became painfully obvious in my debate with philosopher Marv Meyer. I defended the resolve "Objective truth exists and can be known," while Dr. Meyer took the opposing side.

I want you to notice something about formal disputes like these. To debate, Dr. Meyer must argue against one view and in favor of another. This argument takes a very particular form: The view he opposes (mine) is false; the view he promotes (his) is true.

This is precisely what happened. With grace and considerable skill, the professor pointed out the failings of my perspective. Aristotle, it turns out, was wrong; Derrida was right. Mr.
Koukl
is mistaken; Marv Meyer is correct.

Do you see the problem here? Dr. Meyer marshaled an array of facts, truth, and knowledge for the purpose of persuading his audience that facts, truth, and knowledge are all sophisticated fictions.

In the course of the debate, I pointed this out to the audience. I mentioned that Dr. Meyer was forced by the nature of debate itself to make use of the very thing he was denying in the debate, dooming his effort to failure. Indeed,
merely by showing up,
Dr. Meyer had implicitly affirmed the resolve I was defending, effectively conceding the debate to me before it even began.

I further pointed out to the audience that every vote cast for Dr. Meyer as the winner of the debate meant the voter had been persuaded that Dr. Meyer's view was (objectively) true and mine was (objectively) false. Therefore, every vote for my opponent was really a vote for me.

The audience laughed, but the point wasn't lost on them. When the final tally came in, the good professor got only one vote (apparently someone wasn't listening). This wasn't because I was clever. It was because the view he was defending was obviously false, a fact that couldn't be missed once the problem was carefully pointed out.

The "Christian" version of postmodernism fares no better, even though baptized with religious language. This example from a Christian college was relayed to me by a student in the class.

"Are any of you in this room God?" The professor scanned the audience slowly, looking for takers. No hands went up.

"God knows 'TRUTH,' " she continued, writing the word in all capital letters on the board
. "
All truth is God's truth. God
is
truth. But you are not God. Therefore, you only know 'truth.'
" She
then scrawled in lower case this secondary and substandard take on reality next to the superior version that is forever out of reach for mere humans.

She paused for a moment, letting her point sink in,
then
closed. "Have a nice day," she said, and dismissed the class.

It was a brilliant piece of rhetorical wizardry. Students were too busy taking notes and worrying whether or not this would be on the test to think carefully about what had been stolen from them or the ruin this foreshadowed for their faith.

The professor's assertions teemed with confusion. What does "TRUTH" mean?
Omniscience?
That couldn't be her meaning. That God knows everything and we do not is a trivial observation, hardly a revelation even for college freshman.

Does she mean we can't know things
in the way
God knows
them, that
we don't see the world the way he does?
Again, not particularly profound.