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Book: I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Norman L. Geisler, Frank Turek
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Authors: Norman L. Geisler, Frank Turek
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that alone is a good enough reason to believe something?
Students: No, parents can sometimes be wrong!
Sire: Okay, what about cultural influences? Do you think people ought to believe something just because it’s accepted culturally?
Students: No, not necessarily. The Nazis had a culture that accepted the murder of all Jews. That sure didn’t make it right!
Sire: Good. Now, some of you mentioned psychological factors such as comfort. Is that a good enough reason to believe something?
Students: No, we’re not ‘comfortable’ with that! Seriously, comfort is not a test for truth. We might be comforted by the belief that there’s a God out there who cares for us, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he really exists. Likewise, a junkie might be temporarily comforted by a certain type of drug, but that drug might actually kill him.
Sire: So you’re saying that truth is important because there can be consequences when you’re wrong?
Students: Yes, if someone is wrong about a drug, they might take too much and die. Likewise, if someone is wrong about the thickness of the ice, they might fall in and freeze to death.
Sire: So for pragmatic reasons it makes sense that we should only believe things that are true.
Students: Of course. Over the long run, truth protects and error harms.
Sire: Okay, so sociological and psychological reasons alone are not adequate grounds to believe something. What about religious reasons? Some mentioned the Bible; others mentioned the Qur’an; still others got their beliefs from priests or gurus. Should you believe something just because some religious source or holy book says so?
Students: No, because the question arises, “Whose scripture or whose source should we believe?” After all, they teach contradictory things.
Sire: Can you give me an example?
Students: Well, the Bible and the Qur’an, for example, can’t both be true because they contradict one another. The Bible says that Jesus died on the cross and rose three days later (1 Cor. 15:1-8), while the Qur’an says he existed but didn’t die on the cross (Sura 4:157). If one’s right, the other one is wrong. Then again, if Jesus never existed, both of them are wrong.
Sire: So how could we adjudicate between, say, the Bible and the Qur’an?
Students: We need some proofs outside those so-called scriptures to help us discover which, if either, is true.
Sire: From which category could we derive such proofs?
Students: All we have left is the philosophical category.
Sire: But how can someone’s philosophy be a proof? Isn’t that just someone’s opinion?
Students: No, we don’t mean philosophy in that sense of the word, but in the classic sense of the word where philosophy means finding truth through logic, evidence, and science.
Sire: Excellent! So with that definition in mind, let’s ask the same question of the philosophical category. Is something worth believing if it’s rational, if it’s supported by evidence, and if it best explains all the data?
Students: That certainly seems right to us!
By exposing inadequate justifications for beliefs, the way is cleared for the seeker of truth to find adequate justifications. This is what an apologist does. An apologist is someone who shows how good reason and evidence support or contradict a particular belief. That’s what we’re attempting to do in this book, and it’s what Sire sets up in his seminar.
Sire’s Socratic approach helps students realize at least three things. First, any teaching—religious or otherwise—is worth trusting only if it points to the truth. Apathy about truth can be dangerous. In fact, believing error can have deadly consequences, both temporally and—if any one of a number of religious teachings are true—eternally as well.
Second, many beliefs that people hold today are not supported by evidence, but only by the subjective preferences of those holding them. As Pascal said, people almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on
Students: No, parents can sometimes be wrong!
Sire: Okay, what about cultural influences? Do you think people ought to believe something just because it’s accepted culturally?
Students: No, not necessarily. The Nazis had a culture that accepted the murder of all Jews. That sure didn’t make it right!
Sire: Good. Now, some of you mentioned psychological factors such as comfort. Is that a good enough reason to believe something?
Students: No, we’re not ‘comfortable’ with that! Seriously, comfort is not a test for truth. We might be comforted by the belief that there’s a God out there who cares for us, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he really exists. Likewise, a junkie might be temporarily comforted by a certain type of drug, but that drug might actually kill him.
Sire: So you’re saying that truth is important because there can be consequences when you’re wrong?
Students: Yes, if someone is wrong about a drug, they might take too much and die. Likewise, if someone is wrong about the thickness of the ice, they might fall in and freeze to death.
Sire: So for pragmatic reasons it makes sense that we should only believe things that are true.
Students: Of course. Over the long run, truth protects and error harms.
Sire: Okay, so sociological and psychological reasons alone are not adequate grounds to believe something. What about religious reasons? Some mentioned the Bible; others mentioned the Qur’an; still others got their beliefs from priests or gurus. Should you believe something just because some religious source or holy book says so?
Students: No, because the question arises, “Whose scripture or whose source should we believe?” After all, they teach contradictory things.
Sire: Can you give me an example?
Students: Well, the Bible and the Qur’an, for example, can’t both be true because they contradict one another. The Bible says that Jesus died on the cross and rose three days later (1 Cor. 15:1-8), while the Qur’an says he existed but didn’t die on the cross (Sura 4:157). If one’s right, the other one is wrong. Then again, if Jesus never existed, both of them are wrong.
Sire: So how could we adjudicate between, say, the Bible and the Qur’an?
Students: We need some proofs outside those so-called scriptures to help us discover which, if either, is true.
Sire: From which category could we derive such proofs?
Students: All we have left is the philosophical category.
Sire: But how can someone’s philosophy be a proof? Isn’t that just someone’s opinion?
Students: No, we don’t mean philosophy in that sense of the word, but in the classic sense of the word where philosophy means finding truth through logic, evidence, and science.
Sire: Excellent! So with that definition in mind, let’s ask the same question of the philosophical category. Is something worth believing if it’s rational, if it’s supported by evidence, and if it best explains all the data?
Students: That certainly seems right to us!
By exposing inadequate justifications for beliefs, the way is cleared for the seeker of truth to find adequate justifications. This is what an apologist does. An apologist is someone who shows how good reason and evidence support or contradict a particular belief. That’s what we’re attempting to do in this book, and it’s what Sire sets up in his seminar.
Sire’s Socratic approach helps students realize at least three things. First, any teaching—religious or otherwise—is worth trusting only if it points to the truth. Apathy about truth can be dangerous. In fact, believing error can have deadly consequences, both temporally and—if any one of a number of religious teachings are true—eternally as well.
Second, many beliefs that people hold today are not supported by evidence, but only by the subjective preferences of those holding them. As Pascal said, people almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on
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