“Nothing happens that is not possible.”–Ellis Potter
Thinking
Archived Posts from this Category
September 2, 2010
Deep Thought of the Day
Posted by Jason Dulle under Philosophy, Quote of the Day, ThinkingLeave a Comment
August 13, 2010
Certainty and Deductive Arguments
Posted by Jason Dulle under Logic, Philosophy, ThinkingLeave a Comment
It is often believed that valid/sound deductive arguments can provide certainty. This is not quite true. The conclusion of a valid/sound deductive argument is certain in the sense that it follows necessarily from the premises. It does not mean, however, that the conclusion is certainly true. Why? The premises are usually contingent truths discovered inductively, and thus the veracity of the logically certain conclusion depends on the veracity of the probabilistic premises. The more confidence we have in the truth of the premises, however, the more confidence we can have in the veracity of the conclusion.
July 14, 2010
Ignorance and Confidence
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Epistemology, Thinking[4] Comments
Charles Darwin wrote, “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much who positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.”
While Chuck and I don’t see eye-to-eye on much, this quote resonated with me. I have experienced the truth of what he said both in my own life, and observed it in others’. Indeed, the truth Darwin captured here reaches farther than the sciences; it extends to virtually all areas of knowledge.
While not original to me, I have often said that the more I learn the more I realize I don’t know. Sometimes this means the solving of one problem leads to other problems I was previously unaware of—winning one battle only to start five more. Other times this means that in my attempt to solve a problem, the problem is exacerbated, because I come to realize that the question is much more difficult and the answer much less apparent than I had originally thought.
March 20, 2010
“A man who has an argument is always at the mercy of a man who has an experience”
Posted by Jason Dulle under Logic, Thinking[12] Comments
I recently heard a preacher repeat the oft-cited aphorism, “A man who has an argument is always at the mercy of a man who has an experience.” This is quite true as an anthropological observation, but I don’t think this is necessarily a good thing.
The aphorism was quoted by the preacher in the context of those who doubt the reality of Spirit baptism and glossalalia. I am inclined to agree with him in one very real and practical sense. No matter what argument someone might present to me against glossalalia, the fact of the matter is that I have experienced it for myself and, thus, I know it is real. But the blade can cut both ways. What about the Mormon who claims to have received a “burning in his bosom” confirming the truth of the Book of Mormon? Should the Mormon trust his experience over sound reason to the contrary? I imagine the preacher would say that in this case, reason should trump experience. But why should the aphorism apply to us, and not to the Mormon? To the Mormon, his experience was equally as real as our own. If we can reject arguments that contradict our experience, why can’t the Mormon?
February 3, 2010
Something I was thinking about today. While we think with language, thought is not dependent on language. Thought precedes the development of language. If that were not so, language would never develop. Learning a language is the process of learning established signs and symbols that correspond to, and help us express our pre-existing thoughts. If we had no thoughts, there could be no correspondence, and we would be incapable of using the signs and symbols of language to convey meaning.
So what would it be like to think without the use of language? I don’t know. Infants must do it, but none of us remember what it was like to be an infant, so I imagine this is an unanswerable question. It’s interesting nonetheless.
November 4, 2009
Christians are not Objective?: Two Kinds of Objectivity
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Epistemology, Thinking1 Comment
It’s common to hear people say Christians are biased, not objective. How can we respond to this charge? J.P. Moreland makes a distinction that I find helpful. He notes that there are two ways to be objective: (1) psychological objectivity: the absence of bias (2) rational objectivity: the ability to tell the difference between good and bad reasons for a belief, whether or not you accept that belief.[1]
Humans are psychologically objective (50/50) only in areas we know nothing, or care nothing about. Once we come to know something about a topic we typically go from being psychologically objective to psychologically biased, even if the degree of our bias is minimal. Such bias is to be expected, and is good. After all, what would be the use of studying out an issue/topic if after having studied it you could not draw a conclusion? We should expect informed people to be psychologically biased.
But does the presence of psychological bias eliminate the possibility of being rationally objective? Are we locked into our own culturally relevant way of viewing the world? Is reason and argumentation useless for the person who is no longer psychologically objective? No. We all know this to be true because we have all had experiences in which we changed our beliefs on an issue because they were challenged by good arguments. It should be clear, then, that our psychological bias (lack of psychological objectivity) does not eliminate our ability to be rationally objective. Postmodernists understand this. That’s why they try to reason with the modernists to change their worldview, while at the same time denying the validity of reason and argumentation!
[1]J.P. Moreland, “Truth, Contemporary Philosophy, and the Postmodern Turn,” a paper presented at the November 2004 Evangelical Theological Society meeting in San Antonio, TX.
November 2, 2009
If I were a bumper-sticker manufacturer “fear error, not terror” would be my next product.
I was thinking this morning about all the things people tend to fear in this world. People fear local thieves and robbers, rapists and murderers. We fear for our financial future (or present in many cases). We worry about our relationships with other people, and the well-being of our loved ones. We fear terrorist attacks on this nation. But how often is it that we fear error?
I am bothered by the moral evil that runs rampant in our day. I am concerned for personal, relational, and national safety. But there is nothing I fear more than error. I’m not referring to some sort of emotional fear that grips my heart, but an intellectual fear that grips my mind. I am always cognizant of the existence of truth and error, and do my best to maximize true beliefs and minimize false beliefs. Why? Because nothing matters more in this world than the truth. Nothing has greater power than truth, but likewise nothing can be more damaging than belief in that which is false. You may live your whole life untouched by the egregious evils that occur in society, but if you embrace false ideas the consequences will be far worse than any terrorist attack.
October 8, 2009
You’re only a Christian because you were born in America
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Epistemology, Logic, Pluralism, Relativism, Thinking[2] Comments
Religious pluralists often claim that religious beliefs are culturally relative: the religion you adopt is determined by where you live, not the rationality/truth of the religion itself. If you live in India you will probably be a Hindu; if you live in the U.S. you will probably be a Christian. One’s personal religious beliefs are nothing more than a geographic accident, so we should not believe that our religion is true while others are not.
This argument is a double-edged sword. If the religious pluralist had been born in Saudi Arabia he would have been a Muslim, and Muslims are religious particularists! His pluralistic view of religion is dependent on his being born in 20th century Western society!
A more pointed critique of this argument, however, comes from the realm of logic. The line of reasoning employed by the pluralist commits the genetic fallacy (invalidating a view based on how a person came to hold that view). The fact of the matter is that the truth of a belief is independent of the influences that brought you to believe in it. While the observation that one’s religious beliefs are often determined by where they live is valid from an empirical standpoint, what follows from that observation? Nothing. While I may be a Christian because I live in a society in which most people are Christians, it does not mean that my Christian beliefs are not true. The truth of Christianity depends on the veracity of the claims themselves, nothing more and nothing less.
October 7, 2009
Sometimes in an informal debate you will encounter people who dismiss your argument by saying, “Well that’s just your opinion.” This is nothing more than an attempt to relativize your conclusion without rebutting your arguments. There are a few ways you can respond to this.
The first is to ask, “Isn’t it just your opinion that my view is just my opinion? If we ought to dismiss opinions because they are opinions, then your opinion should be dismissed as well.”
The second is to say, “No, this is not just my opinion. I have provided reasons for thinking my opinion is actually true. If you would like to try to rebut my reasons you are more than welcome to do so, but do not dismiss my view with a mere hand-waving as if I have merely provided you with an assertion, rather than an argument.”
The third is to say, “Yes, I have an opinion, but so do you. This much is obvious. But what follows from that observation? The question is not whether we have opinions—we all do—but whether we have an informed opinion. If we both have informed opinions, then the question becomes Whose opinion is better informed? We determine the answer to that question by evaluating the strength of our respective arguments. I have presented you with my argument, and now I am interested to hear your response to that argument.”
October 2, 2009
Christians, Philosophy, and the University
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Philosophy, Thinking[6] Comments
J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig wrote:
[T]he single most important institution shaping Western culture is the university. It is at the university that our future political leaders, our journalists, our teachers, our business executives, our lawyers, our artists, will be trained. It as at the university that they will formulate or, more likely, simply absorb the worldview that will shape their lives. And since these are the opinion-makers and leaders who shape our culture, the worldview that they imbibe at the university will be the one that shapes our culture. If the Christian worldview can be restored to a place of prominence and respect at the university, it will have a leavening effect throughout society. If we change the university, we can change our culture through those who shape culture.
September 30, 2009
I just know that I know that I know…
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Epistemology, Tactics, Thinking[5] Comments
If you are like me, you have encountered countless individuals who “argue” for their point-of-view based on some experience, rather than providing good reasons. These people just know that they know that they know what they believe is right because of some experience that brought them psychological confidence that they are right. While this approach to the issue of truth is endemic in Pentecostal circles, it is not limited to us by any means. Mormons, Baptists, Hindus, Muslims, and just about every other religion today claims to have had an experience, and argue that their experience justifies the validity of their truth-claims. When two people claim to have had an experience, and both use that experience to give validity to their opposing truth-claims, either one or the other is right, or both are wrong.
September 30, 2009
I have noticed over the years that the only Christians who tend to oppose theological training, the importance of learning Greek/Hebrew, or studying philosophy/apologetics are those who have not had formal theological training, have not studied Greek/Hebrew, and have not studied philosophy/apologetics. I have never met someone who has theological training, learned Greek/Hebrew, or studied philosophy/apologetics who will tell you that such training is not helpful and important for the advancement of Christianity. I find this quite interesting. How can one evaluate the worth of endeavors for which they have not participated in? Could the devaluing of these fields be little more than justification for one’s own ignorance? Hmm.
September 29, 2009
“Never argue against a viewpoint until you understand it well enough to argue for it.”—Anonymous
I think we could all learn from this one!
September 17, 2009
Every denomination or religious tradition has its doctrinal peculiarities. Not only may these be unique to the religious tradition in question, but they are often thought of as strange to outsiders. Usually these doctrinal peculiarities are based on some Biblical text, but they either distort that text, fail to read it in light of other texts, or overemphasize it to the point that it becomes a distortion. And yet, people who were raised in that tradition not only accept it as true, but will work up all the intellectual muster they can in defense of it. While they manage to convince themselves with their reasons, they often fail to convince most others.
We need to be on guard that we do not become so intent on protecting all the teachings/traditions of our own particular religious tradition, that we will come up with, and actually settle for subpar arguments in their favor. Are there things we believe and argue for simply because they are part of our religious tradition – things we would not believe if we were raised in a different tradition, and would not be persuaded of if presented with the same evidence that we use to justify the teaching/tradition?
September 1, 2009
Quote of the Day: I’m not a modernist because I believe in reason
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Epistemology, Logic, Quote of the Day, ThinkingLeave a Comment
Sorry for not posting much as of late. I’ve been involved with so many projects, I have had computer issues, and I took an excursion to Lake Tahoe. As I get caught up over the next few days, I’ll begin posting again. Here’s a short post in the interim:
Back in May of this year, Greg Koukl had some insightful comments about being labeled a “modernist” for believing in truth and logic that I’d like to share with you. Greg wrote,
Yes, I believe in the legitimacy of reason, but this doesn’t make me a modern simply because the Enlightenment period exalted reason to idol statues. Pre-moderns of all stripes…trusted reason not because it was a pop idol, but because it as an undeniable feature of reality.
Exactly.
August 12, 2009
Greg Ten Elshof just released an interesting book titled I Told Me So: Self-Deception and the Christian Life. Greg is a professor of philosophy at Biola University, and did his doctoral research in the area of self-knowledge and self-deception. During an interview with the Evangelical Philosophical Society, Greg offered a great definition and explanation of self-deception:
To be self-deceived is to intentionally manage one’s own beliefs for some purpose other than the pursuit of truth. It’s worth noting that, given this characterization, one can be self-deceived in believing what is true. One can even be self-deceived in believing something that is true and for which one has evidence. Self-deception occurs most often when there is an emotional attachment to believing in a particular direction. It often involves the management of attention away from evidence that would disrupt the desired belief. And it seems to be capable of achieving greater distances from truth and rationality in groups than in the individual. It was Nietzsche, I believe, who said that insanity is rare in the individual but the rule in groups.
How true this is! That is why I am a strong proponent of the virtues of intellectual honesty, openness, and integrity. We cannot get so emotionally attached to any doctrine that we are unwilling to consider the possibility that it may be mistaken, and unwilling to examine evidence against it.
July 24, 2009
Why is it that when someone challenges a traditional teaching/practice, he is often labeled as “divisive” or a “troublemaker,” and is summarily dismissed? It may be true that the individual has a divisive attitude or is acting in a troublesome manner, but the attitude in which he dissents or questions a particular doctrine/practice is separate from the arguments he presents against it. Someone may be the biggest jerk on the planet, but their attitude has nothing to do with whether their arguments are valid, and their beliefs correct. Simply pointing out their bad attitude does not answer the question of what is true, nor does it excuse us from interacting with their arguments. Labeling and dismissing those who question the mainstream view is often just a power play, usually employed by those without a rebutting argument. It’s a way of avoiding discussion, and having to defend their own point of view.
July 16, 2009
Could we be wrong about Christianity?
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Thinking[10] Comments
Greg Koukl was taken to task by a caller on his Christian apologetics radio broadcast (Stand to Reason—str.org) for a statement he often used at the end of his discussions on spiritual and moral things: “At least that’s the way I see it.” Greg was asked if he truly believed that he could be wrong in his views, and about Christianity in general. His answer was “yes,” and his reasoning was as follows:
There are two categories of truth: necessary truths, contingent truths. Necessary truths are truths that cannot be otherwise. For example I cannot be mistaken about my own existence. Renee Descartes made this clear when he pointed out that we cannot doubt our own existence. It requires the existence of a mind to doubt, so the presence of doubt proves that there is a personal mind doubting, and thus we must exist. This led to his famous dictum: Cogito Ergo Sum (I think, therefore I am). Neither can we be mistaken that about the fact that there are no square circles because this is an inherently contradictory concept. We know these things necessarily.
June 9, 2009
Generally speaking, lying is when we present something as being true that is not actually true. And generally speaking, lying is a sin. But not every lie is a sin. Sometimes lying can be our moral obligation. Consider the scenario in which your moral obligation to protect life is pitted against your moral obligation to tell the truth. Protecting life is the weightier moral imperative of the two, and thus lying to protect that life would be the right thing to do. This happened frequently in Nazi Germany when those who harbored Jews lied to Nazi officers to protect the Jews’ lives.
While most people recognize the above as a morally acceptable lie (if not morally obligatory), are there other instances in which lying is morally acceptable, particularly when telling the truth is not superseded by a higher moral law?
May 21, 2009
Is Faith Private?
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Relativism, Tactics, Thinking[4] Comments
It is becoming more and more common to hear people say “faith is a private matter, and should be kept to oneself.” This sort of statement usually comes from those who are opposed to religion in general, but as the roots of pluralism grow deeper in our society, we are finding more and more religious individuals touting similar sentiments. This got me thinking, is faith a private matter? Is it even possible to keep it to oneself without destroying the religion itself?
If faith was private, and we kept it to ourselves, how would one know if there were any others out there who shared their same beliefs if they dare not speak of those beliefs to others? How would a religion and/or a religious movement ever come into being, and how would it grow? Furthermore, how could faith be transmitted from one generation to another?
It seems that if we kept our faith to ourselves it would be impossible to know if any others shared those same beliefs, and thus religious organizations would never form. If faith were kept private, that faith would die with the individual who holds it. It could never be transmitted from one generation to the next. We would expect, then, for religious faith and religious movements to only last for one generation. In fact, if religion worked the way these pluralists indicate it should work, we would never know if anyone else besides ourselves had any religious views at all, there would be no religious organizations, and we would not be able to share our faith with even our own children. After all, faith is a private matter and should be kept private.
Thinking to Believe 