Introduction
I am about to read Peter Boghossian’s new book A Manuel for Creating Atheists which is just one more attempt to turn atheists into an army of evangelists. I recently went to the facebook page called “street epistemology” which happens to be an open group. By the way, my friend Tom Gilson has recently written a response to the book which is available on his website. On the facebook page, you will see atheists doing what they call “interventions.” They attempt to find Christians or religious people and cause them to think about their position. The ultimate goal is to plant seeds of doubt and unravel their belief system. The key here is the issue of knowledge. Questions and comments are some of the following:
“How can you say you KNOW that God exists?”
“Stop acting like you KNOW a, b, or c, which can translate to “stop acting like you KNOW the New Testament is reliable or that KNOW we can trust memory and things like eyewitness testimony.”
I could go on and on. But for me, I took epistemology in seminary and have dabbled into it a bit ever since. I also don’t claim to be a full blown epistemologist like Tim McGrew, Alvin Plantinga, or Paul Moser. But from what I see in these discussions, many of these atheists don’t even have a basic understanding of epistemology nor have they ever read the philosophical work done on religious epistemology. And for the record, it wouldn’t hurt to read some Stanford articles such as this one called “epistemology.” And for anyone that’s interested, see John M. Frame’s “Unregenerate Knowledge of God,” for IVP Dictionary of Apologetics.
J.P. Moreland’s Kingdom Triangle
Regarding the issue of knowledge, J.P. Moreland brought this to the forefront his book Kingdom Triangle. In this book (which I read many years ago),and elsewhere Moreland said that Christians needed to start doing the following.
1. Christians need to start using cognitive language and not just faith language. Christians need to use terms relating to knowledge, evidence, reason, learning and thought, in addition to language about a tender heart and about faith. The Bible uses the word “knowledge” more than it does the word “faith.” Christians must become comfortable with the idea of ourselves as a community of thoughtful and learned people. A Christian can be learned without being snooty or arrogant. If knowledge “puffs up,” the solution is not IGNORANCE. The solution is HUMILITY.
2. Christians must be taught how to argue for their faith and defend their faith. Christians need to be taught why they believe what they believe.
3. Christians need to restore a view of Jesus Christ as an intellectual – as an intelligent and thoughtful person with a knowledge of reality – in addition to being holy. Christians must restore the value of the life of the mind in the Christian community. The division within contemporary society is fundamentally a clash of worldviews – between those who believe in a transcendent God and those who believe science is the only clue to reality and the physical world is all there is. In that context, Christians cannot afford to propagate our religion on the basis of the claim that it works, that it will address your heart, and that you’ve got to believe it with an act of blind faith. Christians must restore our message as one that is based on knowledge of reality. People can know that God exists – they don’t just have to believe that He exists.
Well keep in mind that Kingdom Triangle came out in 2007. Did many in the Church read Kingdom Triangle and take it seriously? I know many of us as apologists did. But that still leaves out thousands of laymen that could care less. So here we are in 2014 and we now have an atheist evangelistic movement that attempts to show Christians they can’t make any knowledge claims. Granted, this also stems from Boghossian’s attempt to show a “faith-based epistemology” can’t hold up under critical thinking. In other words, faith is a virus and can’t give us any knowledge.
Now I know from my other discussions with some atheists that they attempt to use dictionary definitions of the word “faith” which is not even close to what the Bible says about the word itself. Forget about actually utilizing etymology or studying the social world of the New Testament and seeing how the word “faith” is exegeted in the Bible. I guess it is just easier to just mock the word “faith” itself and make straw man arguments. After all, when you already had people like Dawkins and other pop atheists selling the “faith virus” rhetoric, this is just one more way to keep the ball rolling. One feeble attempt is seen when they quote Hebrews 11:1 passage out of context and then conclude:
1. If we can’t empirically verify God’s existence, faith is blind, irrational, and silly.
2. We can’t empirically verify God’s existence.
3. Therefore, faith is blind, silly, and unsupported.
Certitude and Doubt
In Mortimer J. Adler’s Six Great Ideas there is a chapter called The Realm of Doubt. Let’s expand on what Adler discusses in this wonderful book:
The problem we encounter is when we attempt to decide which of our judgments belong in the realm of certitude and which in the realm of doubt. In order for a judgment to belong in the realm of certitude, it must meet the following criteria: (1) it cannot be challenged by the consideration of new evidence that results from improved observation, nor can it be criticized by improved reasoning or the detection of inadequacies or errors in the reasoning we have done. Beyond such challenge or criticism, such judgments are indubitable, or beyond doubt.
A judgment is subject to doubt if there is any possibility at all (1) of its being challenged in the light of additional or more acute observations or (2) of its being criticized on the basis of more cogent or more comprehensive reasoning.
So why does this matter?
This fellow is essentially expanding on what Richard Dawkins has said about atheism:
In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, or any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference… DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music. (Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (1995))
And Cornell University atheist William Provine agrees (this is taken from his debate with Phillip E. Johnson):
Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear — and these are basically Darwin’s views. There are no gods, no purposes, and no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end of me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans, either.
Back to Certitude and Doubt
So here we see some comments by atheists about their views of purpose, morality, values, origins, etc. Now go back to the certitude issue above. Are you actually going to tell me that these people have certitude about these things? Are the claims here being made by atheists not able to be challenged in the light of additional or more acute observations or criticized on the basis of more cogent or more comprehensive reasoning? Are they beyond doubt? So can they say they “KNOW” there are no gods, no purposes, and no goal-directed forces of any kind and no life after death? Never mind the fact that they have to create their own teleology and assume they have a moral obligation to “deconvert” religious people.
On a Positive Note
It is my hope that something like the street epistemology movement will finally wake up ministry leaders from their slumber and actually want to train people in apologetics. I recently posted this article called The Tragedy of the Dumb Church. Remember, there is more than enough resources out there and capable people to teach apologetics. We have been ready and willing to help you in your churches and campuses for years. You can see here how to start an apologetics ministry in your church or start a Ratio Christi chapter on a campus. Times a wastin!
“Christians must be taught how to argue for their faith and defend their faith. Christians need to be taught why they believe what they believe.”
I think this gets right at the heart of what makes Street Epistemology so effective. Apologetics is about teaching people what to say when they are asked why they believe something. That’s why the first time you ask a believer “Why do you believe that?” they will almost always give an apologetic. SE helps the believer explore whether that is the real reason they believe. If the person already believed before they learned apologetics, then apologetics cannot be the reason they believe.
If apologetics is not the reason a person holds a belief, what is? Almost always faith. Why does faith need to be defended? Because it cannot defend itself. Why? Because it is an invalid reason for knowing something.
A person realising this can experience a dramatic drop in perceived certainty in a belief.
To answer the question, “How do you know that?” requires justification. Justification can be produced in many ways but in this case we really are focusing on only two: arbitration by either reality or reasoned belief.
When we allow reality to arbitrate claims made about it, we can produce applications, therapies, and technologies that seem to work for everyone everywhere all the time. We call this method ‘science’ and its explanations ‘knowledge’, meaning justified true beliefs. The justification is verified by reality, in that the explanations work independently of any beliefs about them. The examples are endless.
If a religious person had compelling evidence similarly adduced from reality’s arbitration for claims made about it, they’d also be doing science and have similar explanations that produce similar applications, similar therapies, and similar technologies that seem to work for everyone everywhere all the time. These examples that can be shown to work are absent. From faith healing to efficacy of prayer, we have a string of claims about reality that don’t work. They don’t produce explanations that work. They don’t produce knowledge. They produce unjustified beliefs that are shown to be unjustified time and again. This is why any knowledge conversation or dialogue between claims about reality from science and religion are unidirectional… with religious claims always in retreat.
This is a clue about the value of knowledge claims about reality produced by religious belief… what in the vernacular we call ‘faith’. From a knowledge standpoint, faith-based claims produce none. They produce assertions, assumptions, wishful thinking, explanations of supernatural causal agencies intervening in the world, claims immune from reality’s arbitration of them, all of which produce zero applications that seem to work for everyone everywhere all the time, zero therapies that seem to work for everyone everywhere all the time, and zero technologies that seem to work for everyone everywhere all the time. This is an honest evaluation of the knowledge produced by faith. Zero.
The faith-based method of imposing a particular unjustified belief on reality – and then disallowing reality to arbitrate it – is held by the religious to be a virtue sanctioned by the divine. How do you know that?
By religious authority and not by the reality these claims describe.
This is what fuels faith-based belief: justification by sectarian authority. And we this authority not only doesn’t produce knowledge but does produce claims contrary to and in conflict with explanations that do work for everyone everywhere all the time.
No amount of apologetics can overcome this failed methodology required for maintaining confidence in any justification for faith-based beliefs about the reality we share. In addition, there is no middle ground to be found between faith as a virtue and faith as a vice. In all other areas of human inquiry, inserting and imposing faith on reality is a vice. It is clear indication of a broken epistemology, applying confidence where it doesn’t belong and refusing to allow reality to arbitrate. In medical terminology, we call such thinking ‘delusional’ because reality is not allowed to interfere with the faith-based claims… always to the detriment of the person suffering from it. Religious belief is no exception, although the victim rarely if ever appreciates the harm such thinking causes to others. Hence the need for street epistemologists…
Well, thanks for your comments. However, many mistakes here. Just trace the history of philosophy. So what is the most reliable form of knowledge? Science? Boring!!!!!!!!!! Not to mention science is inductive and would never be able to show or ‘prove’ (showing what I call certitude above) God doesn’t exist. As far as explanations, there are really two general kinds of explanations for events: intentional accounts (which demonstrate signs of value, design, and purpose) and non-intentional accounts (which lack values, design, and purpose). To see more about the nature of explanations, see Richard Swinburne’s work.
Strong scientism ends up committing the reductive fallacy by taking one area of study and reduces all reality to this one area alone. Furthermore, for those that assert that all truth claims must be scientifically verifiable end up making a philosophical assumption rather than a scientific statement. Or you can punt to rationalism, or empiricism. These schools of thought have been debated for decades.
We know Christianity has always and is always harmful! Have you ever read a book like How Christianity Changed the World by by Alvin J. Schmidt, Starks, The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success, by Stark, OR The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution by James Hannan? Christianity has ‘worked’ and the world would be a much different place without it. Has it been prefect? Of course not. But please know the history.
Let me go ahead and repeat what is said here:
“By religious authority and not by the reality these claims describe.
This is what fuels faith-based belief: justification by sectarian authority. And we this authority not only doesn’t produce knowledge but does produce claims contrary to and in conflict with explanations that do work for everyone everywhere all the time.
No amount of apologetics can overcome this failed methodology required for maintaining confidence in any justification for faith-based beliefs about the reality we share. In addition, there is no middle ground to be found between faith as a virtue and faith as a vice. In all other areas of human inquiry, inserting and imposing faith on reality is a vice. It is clear indication of a broken epistemology, applying confidence where it doesn’t belong and refusing to allow reality to arbitrate. In medical terminology, we call such thinking ‘delusional’ because reality is not allowed to interfere with the faith-based claims… always to the detriment of the person suffering from it. Religious belief is no exception, although the victim rarely if ever appreciates the harm such thinking causes to others. Hence the need for street epistemologists…”
Response:
So basically, we need to switch authorities- we need to now switch to a different philosophy that says:
Nature is all there is- a metaphysical claim
Science is the only reliable form of knowledge?- epistemology
Ethics: We have an ethicial or moral imperative: “You ought” to do atheist apologetics because we have a moral duty to do so. A moral duty encompasses both a proposition and a command; both are features of minds. But based on a naturalistic worldview, whatever is there IS right. In other words, the descriptive element is there. But there is prescriptive aspect here which is missing. It is a challenge to make the leap from an ‘is’ to an ‘ought.’ But now we are back to ethics which punts us back to philosophy.
What Provine says (There are no gods, no purposes, and no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end of me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans, either.
I wish you luck in trying to show this view of the world is more rational and we have KNOWLEDGE about this. Rationality is tied in with background beliefs which can be debated and are always being debated. There are two kinds of defeaters: rationality defeaters (that provide grounds that undermine the rationality of a basing a belief on certain grounds) and knowledge defeaters (that provide grounds that undermine the legitimacy of a claim to knowledge on behalf of a belief based on certain grounds).
The two kinds are not mutually exclusive: some defeaters function at both levels, including those that challenge the objective alethic reliability of one’s actual grounds (see Robert C. Koons and George Bealer, Epistemological Objections to Materialism in The Waning of Materialism).
It should be evident that many theists and non theists can go back and forth to try to find defeaters to each other’s claims. In the end, neither side will probably ever reach certitude.
For atheists to spend so much time trying to denconvert the religious shows me that:
They don’t have a a basic level understanding of Christian history. I mean it always been bad and harmful for everyone! Right?
They end up borrowing from theism to do atheist apologetics (they have no teleology, no moral obligations)
They assume cause of their experience with Christian apologetics and the dealing of doubt has to be the same for everyone else. I mean come on, I read the apologetics stuff and it didn’t work for me, so how can you (Christian) possibly believe this stuff!
Good luck!
Training Christians in apologetics might be effective, IF the arguments were sound. Since they are thus far easily defeatable, you might be better off listening to the street epistemologist.