And One More Thing About Worldviews

Traditionally, Christian apologetes (you don't have to like the word to use it) look for dialectical tensions in other worldviews to isolate the more basic contradictions with such a schema in order to undo the allegiance of such ideas in some particular audience. There is a much better way to systematize just how to handle a would-be challenger to the Christian outlook, though this procedure surely forms a part of what we wish to accomplish.

Three practices should form the focus of any serious assault on bad ideas presented in the name of this or that bogus religion. These can be stated thus, though each of these in turn has component parts too, so you could break it down quite a bit further. But, to keep today's post on this topic short and sweet, I will simply outlined the major procedures.

First, isolate what we might call the "transcendental failures" (TF, hereafter) of the view in question. By a TF, I mean a place at which it cannot make sense out of those logically necessary propositions we talked about at length earlier -- transcendentals -- like "human language is objectively meaningful," "laws of logic are real entities," "There are moral absolutes," and the like.

The denials of any such propositions end up being their OWN refutation. This always happens when one butts heads with a necessarily true claim. Consider the challenge, "The ultimate truth is knowable." To deny this claim, the hard agnostic would have to affirm that he KNOWS that ultimate truth CANNOT BE KNOWN. Less-than-promising for a line of reasoning, is it not?

How does one know what cannot be known? One does not (by definition, and on his own terms). Therefore, we know that the Agnostic is lying when he says this. Other ways to spout the same nonsense include, "There are no answers to ultimate questions" (which attempts to answer the ultimate question, "is ultimate truth knowable?").

So when Christians affirm that logically necessary claims are true, they do so because they know that the contrary claims are logically impossible -- a catch-phrase from epistemology which is more polite than saying, "Boy is that stupid." Ultimate truth cannot be known? Oh yes, yes. And down with protesting; never trust writers; all language is gobbledly-gook; 98.9% of all statistics are made up on the spot; and bloggers are unreliable.

Do you see a pattern here? It is called the pattern of self-refutation. Philosophers call these "self-referentially absurd" claims, and the pop "anti-Christian" culture specializes in this. anytime a person claims what implies the denial of a transcendental, they encounter the TF problem, which shows up as self-refutation (incoherence).

This can occur with single statements, or by the tangled mutually-refuting character of many statements which -- taken together -- accomplish what these single statements above do. Unbiblical worldviews have the mutual dissent of all the parts. As an intellectual kingdom divided against itself, it cannot withstand a few well-placed questions, which draw out their implicates -- and which implicates then begin refuting each other as ubiquitously as butter on popcorn.

So first, when we look at networks of ideas (non-Christian worldviews), we wish to look for transcendental failures of a particular kind: their inabilities to resolve the classic problems of the philosophical traditions of the West. This requires homeschoolers to know the history of western philosophy. But the tapes from a reformed group are already available for this (Covenant Media Foundation sells them as cheaply as one might hope).

Techincally, this is more like a meta-transcendental failure, but why quibble. This is stage one, for analyzing pretentious worldviews. Be ready to explain which such problems they cannot resolve and just WHY they cannot resolve them.

Part two simply isolates some of the claims contained in the worldview for comparison with other stated AND IMPLIED teachings found in that same worldview, which are basic and essential (not peripheral or collateral) to that worldview, and which are not compatible one with another. The transcendental failure of such worldviews guarantee these do exist and only await your careful inspection to be discovered for glorious display in public, in front of as many people as possible.

This is the dialectical tension exposition. Most go right to this part without sufficiently exploring exploring the TF of the worldview in question to understand WHERE these dialectical tensions come from. They are the effect of failing to account for the larger more ultimate questions in life, common to different cultures, which shows these a function of the light of nature, not merely of curious people asking this or that. The "problem of evil" shows up in every culture in some form or other, such that the book of Job finds a ready audience in every human heart.

Dialectical tensions can be hunted in a systematic fashion by comparing various parts of the worldview in question, one with another, in an orderly way. Every worldview has at least 3 major sections -- a metaphysic (view of what the "cosmic furniture" in this world really is), an epistemology (explanation for how we know what we know), and en ethical standard -- way of sorting good apples from bad.

Ask what each of this assumes, what each of these implies, and then cross-reference them, and you are well on your way to a powered-up critique of each worldview.

The historical errors and contradictions involving incidental bits of information (not at the heart of the worldview you wish to assess) form a third -- more superficial -- critique. These are probably either best left out of any formal debate altogether, or you can use them to show your Christian friends (who already know that the worldview you assess is bogus), who will probably get a good laugh of it all.

Facts do not come with little signs explaining them. They must be explained. There are no brute facts on this planet since each occurs in the larger framework of the light of nature, and since each has to be interpreted from what is already known about other facts. People think in webs of beliefs, or as they say in historiography texts, in terms of "intellectual matrices." There are many fancy ways to say this, but it comes down to worldviews in collision (ultimately) when two people disagree about values, important facts, religious ideas, philosophical definitions, legal concepts, and the like.

The approach recommended here should help. Snoop around on the inside of other worldviews, a and then ask many questions. This is as good a place to start as any. And it's fun. If you want, you can read already packaged critiques of many worldviews on the internet. But that is a bit like just getting the right answer (sometimes, not all critiques are equally good, and some are simply short-sighted), rather than learning how to do the math.

Do the math.