An Unbeliever Presents The Fallacy Of Possibility

Posted on 29. Oct, 2010 by K. Tanner Barfield in Apologetics

As I do more and more apologetics and enter into more and more debates with unbelievers, I’m seeing a very common argument that is being presented to TAG. That argument is that, in order for TAG to be a sufficient argument for Christianity, the apologist must prove each and every single worldview antithetical to Christianity as false. The most recent form of this type of argumentation came to me in the form of this quote:

Moving on… another challenge was by Choi. He argued that the TAG defender needs to demonstrate that *all possible* a priori, a posteriori or conventionalist ways of justifying the laws of logic fail. Of course, maybe you can show all of these methods depend on a false claim. Bahnsen states that non-christian justifications depend on the presupposition that ‘christianity is false’. However, Bahnsen (and you..) need to demonstrate that ‘christianity is false’ is what makes all non-christian worldviews false. This is only possible if you i) show that all the possible non-christian worldviews have ‘christianity is false’ as the only possible proposition in common (if there are other propositions that are shared, how can you state this one as the one that creates the ‘false-ness’?) and ii) showing that christianity is not false. Obviously, if you succeed with ii) the TAG argument now becomes useless. And for i) you need an understanding of every single non-christian worldview.

First of all, it is true that in the CT(Christian) worldview, all ~CT’s(non-Christians) share the proposition of “Christianity is false”. But, this is not unique to the CT worldview. This holds true for all worldviews. Let’s say I am an unbeliever who adopts worldview “A”. This would make any worldview, including Christianity, that differs from my worldview “A”, or is “~A” to be seen as false. This is because it is irrational to say that “A” is true and “~A” is true at the same time. Now I’m not saying that people don’t think this way, I’m just showing that it is irrational to do so. Just remember though, that since the CT worldview differs from “A” it is therefore included in ~”A”. Just like “A” differs from CT and is therefore included in ~CT.

Secondly, this unbeliever says that I “need to demonstrate that ‘christianity is false’ is what makes all non-christian worldviews false’. I completely agree with this, and this is what TAG does. As Christian’s we believe that in Christ, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden. (Col. 2:3). So, the ~CT worldview does not find all treasures of wisdom and knowledge in Christ and therefore is false. The Christian says that only the CT worldview can provide the preconditions of intelligibility because only the Triune God of the Bible can provide the preconditions of intelligibility. This is to say that any worldview that is contrary to this belief which we say is ~CT or  a worldview where the Triune God of the Bible not transcending all things, is impossible.

The unbeliever than says, “this is only possible if you show that all the possible non-christian worldviews have ‘christianity is false’ as the only possible proposition in common.” I strongly disagree with this. Based on his worldview, yes, this is the only way to show a worldview sufficient, but this is to assume that the presuppositions that cause him to make such an objection are ultimately true. We must ask ourselves, on what basis is the unbeliever making such a demand. What is he assuming when he makes such an objection. In what worldview is he standing?

The unbeliever here is assuming that there are a multitude of possible worldviews. But this is based on his presuppositions and ultimate authority (~CT) and not mine (CT). First we will look at what determines possibility for the unbeliever and then what determines possibility for the Christian.

I) Possibility for the unbeliever is determined by chance and autonomy. See, to the unbeliever, there is always a chance that their worldview “A” could be wrong and that a worldview ~”A” could be right. This is because the unbeliever has come to the conclusion and conviction of their worldview autonomously. So, if autonomously they ever find a worldview ~”A” that is more convincing, than that will be there new worldview. When you are your own ultimate authority, you determine what is truth and what is error. But, this line of thinking leads to subjectivism and ultimately to irrationality. If truth and error is determined by each 6.8 billion persons individually, than no one person has the authority to say their worldview is any more right than anothers. Therefore, this specific unbeliever could not demand such explanations from me in defending the truth of my worldview over his. But, he does demand this, in which he is assuming that his worldview and ultimate authority (himself) is the right and true one which all worldviews must be measured against.

II) To the Christian, possibility is determined by the Triune God. God is sovereign, eternal, immutable, transcendent, perfect, sufficient, just, holy, good, merciful, gracious, powerful, infinite, and true. God transcends all things and “is not a man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (Num. 23:19). So possibility is what God says is possible making what is possible eternal and unchanging.

Based on this distinction it would be a foolish mistake for the Christian to answer this question without addressing this vast difference in presuppositions. If one were not to show this distinction, they would be forced to abandon the authority of God, who says there is only one possibility and therefore answer the question based on the authority of the unbeliever which is autonomy.

As Christians remember that we “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.” (Prov. 26:4). To the unbeliever, it is necessary to use deduction to falsify all other possible worldviews because all other worldviews are possible when autonomy is your ultimate authority. To the CT though, there are only two worldviews and two possibilities, CT (what God, the creator, says is possible) and ~CT (what man, the creation, says is possible). No matter what name you give ~CT, ie. Muslim, Hindu, Atheism, Agnosticism, Buddhism, Mormonism, etc. they all have a commonality that is antithetical to CT which is, they do not depend on the Triune God for the preconditions of intelligibility. If the Christian answers such a question without acknowledging this, then they abandon the former (what God says is possible), and is forced to answer only based on the latter (what man says is possible) and therefore is being just as foolish as the unbeliever. Indeed, the Christian cannot answer the question appropriately without the authority of the Triune God.

Therefore, if we “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes” (Prov. 26:5), all the Christian must do, is show that when an individual abandons the authority of God, all his/her thoughts are reduced to absurdity. This eliminates the idea that the Christian must go around and prove each and every worldview false individually. If each and every worldview has the abandonment of authority from the Triune God in common, than all the Christian needs to show is that this abandonment reduces human experience to absurdity. By doing this, the CT has shown all ~CT worldviews as false since they all have this commonality.

As far as his last demand, “and ii) showing that christianity is not false. Obviously, if you succeed with ii) the TAG argument now becomes useless”, shows his lack of an understanding of TAG. The point of TAG is to show that it is impossible for CT to be false. TAG states simply that if CT is false that we could not know anything and that all human experience would be reduced to absurdity. But, we do know things, and all human experience is not absurd so ~CT is impossible, therefore CT. Our experience as humans is a testament to the truth of Christianity. This is the essence of TAG so by showing this we are doing exactly what TAG was manifested to do and it does not make it useless.

Tags: Apologetics, debating with unbelievers, featured, knowing God rightly, presuppositions, TAG