Russell's Teapot and the Atheist's Burden of Proof

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Over the last couple of weeks, I decided to carve out some time and talk about the burden of proof. What is it?

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And more importantly, in debates and regular conversations, do non -Christians or Christians shoulder the burden of proof?

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The first video caused some consternation amongst some in the atheist community, and so I answered some of their comments in last week's video.

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But walking down this path, so to speak, and seeing some of the responses, particularly by those who disagree with me, it just brought back this distant memory of something that I was wrestling with maybe 10 years ago now, maybe more than that.

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It was called Russell's Teapot. Russell's Teapot is named after the famous atheist Bertrand Russell, who by the way,

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Bertrand Russell was a massive intellectual for his time. I strongly admire Russell's contributions, his writings in particular.

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He was a very smart man. But he came up with this challenge to Christianity that centered on a thought experiment.

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Imagine a teapot floating in outer space. What does this have to do with the burden of proof or Christianity at all?

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I'm going to talk about it in this video. Now stay tuned to the end of the video for an important announcement related to the future of Wise Disciple.

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But right now, let's jump in. As I've mentioned very often when discussing the existence of God with atheists, agnostics, skeptics, even some

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Christians, the notions of the burden of proof and supporting evidence are raised. Sometimes atheists and skeptics will say that they don't shoulder the burden of proof because they're not the ones making claims.

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Now this is important to talk about as good evidence provides a foundation for a reasonable inference on this issue, as well as just talking about this idea that those who make claims must support them with some kind of evidence.

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So for example, if God exists, then there should be some evidence to support claims of his existence. And as Christian casemakers continue to show, there are a number of evidences that support the existence of God.

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Unfortunately, some atheists believe that there can be no evidence for God whatsoever. And it is from this mistaken presupposition that a particular strategy involving a teapot floating in outer space has emerged.

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So the argument goes, we cannot conclusively prove that there is not a teapot orbiting the sun somewhere in outer space.

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But given the lack of evidence for such a teapot, its likelihood is so low that the reasonable conclusion should be that it does not exist.

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Likewise, we cannot conclusively prove that God does not exist, but given the lack of evidence for God, the reasonable conclusion should be that he does not exist.

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This particular argument originated with philosopher Bertrand Russell in a letter that he wrote in 1958. And here's part of that letter.

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To take another illustration, nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a China teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit.

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But nobody thinks this is sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. I think the

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Christian God just as unlikely. Now, this wasn't just Bertrand Russell that said this. A number of decades later,

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Richard Dawkins commented on Russell's idea in The God Delusion. This is what he said. Russell's point is that the burden of proof rests with the believers, not the non -believers.

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Mine is the related point that the odds in favor of the teapot, or spaghetti monster, or Esmeralda and Keith, unicorn, whatever, are not equal to the odds against.

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So there are a couple of problems that I just want to talk about in the rest of this video with elements in Russell's and Dawkins' comments, all right?

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First, they both assume that there is no evidence for God. At least it seems that Russell's presupposition is that there is no evidence.

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Thus allowing for his analogy. And Dawkins appears to accept Russell's analogy wholesale.

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Second, Dawkins claims through Russell that since there is no evidence for God, theists are the only ones that bear the burden of proof.

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Now, like I said, I've talked about the burden of proof and shouldering the burden of proof in a couple of previous videos that I highly encourage you go check out if you have not already watched those videos.

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But here's my problem with Russell's presupposition. When an atheist states that there is no evidence for a teapot floating in outer space, he likely means that there is no empirical evidence for it.

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In other words, to say that there is no evidence is to say that, as far as we know, no one has seen or touched a teapot floating in outer space.

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But to suggest that evidence for God is the same thing as empirical evidence for a teapot is to misunderstand the evidence for God typically appealed to by theists.

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Related to this issue, Dr. Brian Garvey writes this, God is invoked as an explanation for why the universe exists at all, why it is intelligible, why it is governed by laws, why it is governed by the laws it is rather than some other laws, and doubtless many other things.

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So therefore, the evidences for God are the universe. It is the intelligibility of the universe, its physical laws, etc.

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So Russell's analogy fails in large part because it likens two different sets of evidences. Evidences for some kind of floating object out in space, and evidences that are effects of an explanation.

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Russell's teapot is not an explanation for anything. It simply exists as a rhetorical device.

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God, on the other hand, is an explanation for a number of things. Now, I'll get to why this matters with the burden of proof, so stick with me on this.

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But with regard to the universe itself, consider the Kalam cosmological argument. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

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The universe began to exist, therefore the universe had a cause. Or even, check this out, this is a form of the teleological argument appealing to the fine -tuning of the universe.

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The fine -tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.

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It is not due to physical necessity or chance, therefore it is due to design.

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In both arguments, here's what I want you to see. In both arguments, a causal agent, namely

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God, is inferred as being the explanation for the universe, as well as its features. This does not mean that God is like a physical object floating in space like a teacup.

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It just means that God is an inference to the best explanation. Considering God as an explanation for the universe, as well as considering the universe as evidence for God, Dawkins' comment on the burden of proof needs to be re -evaluated, in my opinion.

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Whether or not Russell's floating teacup actually exists is irrelevant to the universe. Like I said, his teacup is not an explanation for anything.

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So, one's worldview of the universe is not devoid of explanation if Russell's teacup does not exist.

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However, if God does not exist, there must be another explanation for the universe and its particular features.

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And see, now I'm getting to the heart of the issue, it's right here. In contrast to the

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Christian who proposes the Christian God as the explanation for the universe and its properties, atheists and skeptics who challenge

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Christians are doing so from the position that something other than the Christian God is the explanation.

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And they do that because they attempt to disprove Christian arguments and conversations and debates, and because they conduct their lives in a manner as if the

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Christian God does not exist. That's their position on this issue. So, the idea that atheism is a passive enterprise, you know, there is no claim, we're not making any positive claims here, that's misleading.

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This is a position that trades on the proposition that reality is explained by other than, okay, something other than the

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Christian God. So, really at base, both theists and atheists are looking at the same evidence, right, the universe and its features, and drawing two different conclusions.

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This is why I've said before, both theists and atheists should take turns shouldering their own burden of proof.

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And see, that's not the only problem with this kind of issue. There's another problem. And this other problem is the way that some folks view science.

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And now I want to zoom in on something called methodological naturalism. Methodological naturalism is a term that refers to the method of scientific study that only seeks to answer questions from within the physical universe.

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And when it comes to everyday scientific study, methodological naturalism is a great tool. It gives us lots of insights, okay.

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The problem, though, with this method is that it's insufficient to study all of science, because science proper is bigger than what

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I think a lot of people realize it is. Forensics is a science. Archaeology is a science.

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Psychology is a science. So far, I haven't said anything controversial yet. But what makes these fields of science different from other fields, like biology or chemistry or whatever, it really centers on agent causation and event causation.

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Agent causation typically refers to events that take place that are caused by human beings or agents.

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Event causation refers to events that take place that are caused by another event, and that event is caused by a prior event, and so on and so on.

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So think of it like this. In forensic science, when a homicide detective walks into a crime scene and must determine what happened, you know, like how the victim died, who killed the victim, all that stuff, they're going to use science, but they're going to do so in a way that incorporates agent causation into their determinations and solve the crime.

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Gunpowder residue on the victim's own hand doesn't just magically appear out of nowhere. It wasn't due to a prior event, and then a prior event, and then another prior event that had nothing to do with agent causation.

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It got there because the human agent, in this case the victim, used his own agency to cause the gunpowder to attach to his hand.

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That's why a lot of folks say guns don't kill people, people kill people, right? And now half the audience just got triggered.

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Here's what I'm saying. The gunpowder got there because the victim actually pulled the trigger on himself, and when the gun fired, the gunpowder residue went all over his hand.

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And congratulations, we solved the crime. It's not a homicide, it's a suicide. That was depressing. The point is, forensics, archaeology, psychology, these are all sciences that incorporate agent causation.

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Now, check this out, okay? Because this is very important to understand. When you do not incorporate agent causation into your investigations, and you happen to be investigating something that entailed an agent's actions, right?

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Like shooting a gun. What's going to happen is, you're going to have a gap. And now other people in the audience just got triggered.

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Again, going back to the gunpowder example, if you notice, as a scientist, that there are two consecutive states of affairs, one where the gun has not been fired, and the other state of affairs where the gun is fired, and gunpowder is now all over the victim's hand, and you have committed yourself to the idea that agent causation cannot be included in your investigation, you now have a gap between those two states of affairs.

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And maybe as a methodological naturalist, you tell yourself, well, you know, one day science will explain what really happened.

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I mean, so science has been doing such a great job in the past. I mean, look at it, right? So we'll have that answer soon.

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Yeah, the problem is not science. The problem is methodological naturalism can't tell you what happened.

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It will never tell you what really happened because it does not take agent causation into account. Now, here's the reality.

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In the history of science, it was common for scientists doing excellent scientific research to believe in God.

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They believed that the universe was structured with a certain order because there is a God who structured it and gave us the kinds of minds to understand, to some degree, the structure and the order to the universe.

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Even today, there are scientists that believe in God. Are these folks doing actual science? Yes, they are doing actual science.

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So because of that, and because scientific fields of study do not rely on methodological naturalism only, then methodological naturalists shoulder a burden to support their claim that this is the way to study the origin of the universe and to debate the existence of God, that what everyone should be doing when we evaluate metaphysical issues is to only utilize naturalistic methods.

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And so now we're back to the conversation about shouldering burdens. Are we really interested in having difficult and thoughtful discussions about the existence of God, or does one side just want to make the other side do a bunch of work?

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If we want to say one side should do all the work and that side should be the Christian theist, then that in itself should be its own debate.

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Here's a resolution for that. Methodological naturalism is the only legitimate method to evaluate the existence of God.

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A lot of people are going to immediately recognize a category error in the mix, but whatever. I mean, go after it and make it your own, right?

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Make your case. But guess what? That debate is not taking place, as far as I can tell. No, instead, the claim is just thrown around there by some folks.

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They just go, well, this is the way it should be done. You know, some folks try to say it like this, because this is the way we investigate other things.

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This is the way it should be done. When we talk about God, we need to do it this way. Except, I just pointed out, that's not the way all of science is done.

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The bottom line is, I think all kinds of debates should take place, and I think sometimes Christians should shoulder the burden of proof.

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They should make their case in support of the resolution, and the negative team should go after them hard. But for all the reasons

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I just offered, laying out the definitions in the previous videos about presumption and the various burdens in debate, now you know a little bit more about why

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I said it's absolutely appropriate for non -theists to also shoulder the burden of proof.

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Now you know why I've also said in the past, like with regard to the God of the Gaps controversy,

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Christians are not the ones who created those gaps. In order to challenge the Christian worldview, you have to adopt presuppositions that themselves need to be discussed and debated before they are adopted.

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And before we can actually get into a meaningful debate about God's existence, you need to talk about that first.

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All right, you stuck around to the end. Now I have an announcement for everyone, and it's really more of a pitch, but here it is, okay?

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At some point very soon, I'm going to turn on the membership feature to YouTube, and I'm going to start making exclusive videos for members only.

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Why are you doing that, Nate? Good question. Couple of things here. First, when I make videos, I want to be very clear about this,

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I'm speaking to a specific type of person as my primary audience. In other words, I'm making videos for other

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Christians who are seeking to navigate their faith effectively in today's kind of culture. So if you're a

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Christian like this, these videos are for you. This is why I'm sitting down and spending time with you.

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Secondarily, I'm making videos to maybe open -minded non -believers who are willing to be kind of a fly on the wall for Christians talking to other

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Christians about things that oppose their beliefs. But that's it. I'm not making videos for every atheist and every single skeptic.

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There are plenty of other channels and ministries out there to appeal directly to these kinds of folks. My primary role in ministry and why

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I'm on YouTube is to equip other Christians. In other words, the truths of God and his word and of Christianity, they're not for every single person.

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They are for those sheep specifically who hear their master's voice. And so with that goal in mind, we have a lot of work to do if we're going to be what

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Jesus calls us to be, which are his wise disciples. Amen? So here's what I'm going to do, and I'm going to promise you this,

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I'm going to make videos exclusive to you. And if you are this kind of person, I want you to jump over to the membership side of YouTube when

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I open it up. I'm not trying to make money. I'm trying to ensure that I'm talking to my primary audience.

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And so membership, in my mind, is the easiest way for me to do that. As a member, you're going to get access to lots more videos where I'll talk about debate.

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I'll do a deep dive. We'll talk about debate best practices. We'll talk about debate theory. We'll talk about the best methods to talking about your faith with others.

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I'll include exclusive interviews like the ones I've done in the past with William Lane Craig, Trent Horn, Greg Koukl and more.

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These interviews won't be available to everyone, just members. And we'll spend some time doing live

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Q &As where I'll directly answer your questions and we'll chat about what you want me to chat about.

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I'll also make videos based on your specific suggestions as members. Now, here's a question.

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Will the Debate Teacher Reacts videos go to the member side only? No, those are going to stay public, all right?

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But as a member, you'll see my Debate Teacher Reacts videos before everyone else does.

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Along with other videos, you will get exclusive first looks before everyone else.

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So there's the announcement. Membership is coming. And I trust that should you sign up, you will be blessed.

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Just as I've blessed many other people in person here locally in Las Vegas, I'm going to try to channel that now through YouTube to you and equip you as a

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Christian to live more effectively in today's culture. So I'm excited to start the membership process. I'm excited to make those videos exclusive for members.

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I'm also excited to continue doing Debate Teacher Reacts. A Debate Teacher Reacts video is coming next Friday. I want to thank you for watching this video.