Responding to Atheist Argument

All right, welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala and today

I'm going to be addressing an argument that an atheist presented in response to a claim that I made that we tend to make especially from biblical perspective a

Presuppositional perspective that all men have a knowledge of God now I'm not going to get into the details of what

I've said in the past those who are familiar With that idea in my past videos on this topic.

It should be self -explanatory given the nature of the Christian worldview and the teaching of Scripture the

Bible says that everyone has a knowledge of God such that they are unapologetic literally without an excuse and so in response to that idea that is taught in Scripture An atheist put forth an argument that I want to take a few moments to address and I appreciate

I won't mention the person's name quite frankly I just kind of cut and paste the argument so that I have in front of me

I don't remember who the person was but I appreciate them offering the argument and by the way

What I appreciate about this is that it does better than kind of the drive -by

Comments on some of the videos where someone would be like, you know, you're stupid I don't know that your God exists or you know

You know stop lying Something along those lines, you know, I'll be accused of something or whatever

What I appreciate is is the person actually gives a specific line of reasoning that I could actually interact with So, you know someone says hey

Eli, you know, you're stupid. Well, okay, like I can't really respond to that So but if someone lays out an argument that that's actually much more helpful.

So whoever this is I do appreciate it Okay, and so allows me to kind of expand on some on some ideas.

Okay. So now let's take a look at the argument It's a very simple. It's got the the two premises with the conclusion

So premise one is the following if God exists, then

I know he exists Okay premise two. I don't know he exists

Conclusion therefore God does not exist. Okay. Now a couple of things about the structure

So when you're dealing with an argument, we can we need to deal with really two things a good argument

Especially one that's set in a deductive form needs to be both valid and sound. Okay, so for those who are unfamiliar with logic

Validity of an argument deals with its structure so for example if an argument like this has a step one step two or premise one premise two and a

Conclusion if the conclusion does in fact follow from the previous premises we can say that the argument is valid Okay, so validity is is relates to the structure of the argument

Okay, so every good argument is going to be every good deductive argument right is going to be valid.

Okay? Also validity is not enough. You also need to have soundness

Okay, so the the soundness of an argument pertains to whether the premises are true

Okay, so with respect to this argument if God exists, then I know he exists. I don't know he exists

Therefore God exists that seems to me to be a pretty valid argument However, I would challenge one of the premises as to its soundness and offer counterpoints that you know

If I were debating this this individual we'd have to go back and forth as he would defend his premises And likewise if I were to offer a deductive argument,

I'd have to kind of engage with what people Have to say with respect to one of my premises.

Okay So, all right, so on the surface here I think this argument looks pretty solid right and in a surface level.

Yeah, clearly Well, I don't know if God exists. You're telling me that if God exists, I would know him. I don't know him

So he doesn't exist. Okay, so let's take a look here Okay, so the first premise says if God exists, then

I know he exists Okay. Now I would agree with this statement with this premise, but I would

I would want to be a little bit more precise Okay, I would say that the argument makes more sense if we say If if the

Christian God exists, then all men know that he exists Okay, that's more specific because I'm not just arguing for generic theism

I'm arguing for the God who's revealed himself both in nature and in Scripture. Okay through general and special revelation

So I would say if the Christian God exists, then all men know that he exists Okay Now according to the

Christian worldview God has clearly revealed himself to everyone right through nature Through the moral law written in their hearts and so forth and through Scripture Okay, that is the teaching of Scripture even if you reject the teaching of Scripture That is what the

Bible teaches You can go to Romans chapter 1 verses 18 through 20 Romans 2 14 through 15 speaks of the law written in the heart of man

So from my perspective at a fundamental level everyone has a knowledge of God such that they are without excuse

Okay. Now if we move on to his second premise, he says I don't know that he exists

Okay, and so here's where things get here Here's what I where I would take a disagreement with and we'd have to interact a little bit

So so the second premise says I don't know that he exists. Okay now Scripture tells us that the unbelievers suppress the truth and unrighteousness

Okay, so they claim not to know God, but this claim is a form of self -deception Okay. Now the superficial response to that is oh, well, of course, you know, you would think

I'm self -deceived But you know, that's an example of the pot calling the kettle black right or did

I say that right? You get the point, you know what I'm saying when I say that the unbeliever is self -deceived that's not just a in a bare

Assertion, right? That's a point that we need to tease out Okay, I'm not just saying well, they're just self -deceived and then the the person turns around say well, well you're self -deceived.

Uh -huh Let's think a little bit more maturely and I'm not saying that this person is being immature I'm saying people who typically hear these interactions are not hearing what we're saying

From within my worldview you are suffering from self -deception and you are suppressing a knowledge of God in unrighteousness

Okay, but it goes beyond that. Okay. It's not just your self -deceived and we're kind of name -calling here

Okay Now I'm just completely independent of what I'm talking about here self -deception is a very well -documented psychological and philosophical phenomenon where individuals hold

Contrary beliefs at different levels of awareness. Okay, this isn't just a you know, a theological idea

It's something that's supported in the scholarly literature. For example, someone like philosopher Herbert Fingarette He explores this idea in depth in his book self -deception and he was published in the 60s

Okay And Fingarette discusses how people can deceive themselves by holding beliefs that conflict with what they know to be true at a deeper level

So this isn't something like unique to like the weird presupposition list Okay, as a matter of fact, dr

Greg Bonson wrote his doctoral dissertation specifically on the nature of self -deception and its apologetic implications and he quotes extensively

Other literature the philosophical literature that touches on these issues. And again, that's not to say that I'm right or I'm wrong

It's just to point out that the claim that we're making that the unbeliever is to self -deceived is not some blanket

Statement that is weird and like it's easily responded Well, no if you were truly self -deceived then you wouldn't think yourself that you're self -deceived now

You can say the Christian is self -deceived. Okay, and then we're gonna have to act we're gonna have to interact with that It's not simply name -calling right?

Okay, so we have to go at a deeper level Okay, I'm not simply saying that you're self -deceived and we stop there

I actually think that there is evidence of the self -deception and that evidence is drawn out throughout the apologetic interaction

Okay. All right. So in terms of self -deception I have an entire video on this channel where I talk only about this issue in more depth

But real quick when we talk about self -deception we can talk about it in terms of what we call first -order and second -order beliefs

Okay. Now I want to walk through this slowly so people don't get confused So so a first -order belief is a direct belief about the world like, you know, let's use the example

There is no God. Okay, that would be a first -order belief now a second -order belief is a belief about one's own beliefs like I Believe there is no

God Okay. Now, here's the thing at a deeper level First order level of at the first order level the unbeliever where we're claiming actually knows that God exists

But at a second order level they might claim to believe that he doesn't exist Okay. Now this is where I think the conflict comes in and I think we can show this or at least provide evidence for that claim their deeper knowledge of God is

At odds with their surface level claims. Okay, and of course that would be true if they're suppressing the truth

They know deep down as we often say, you know in their heart of hearts. They know God Okay.

Now, let's use some practical examples Now these are general examples because you know when you talk to an atheist, you know

People have different atheists have different perspectives on issues of morality and logic and things like that But just as an example, let's take morality for an example, you know an atheist might say depending on who you're talking to right

Morality is subjective either people who just bite the bullet It's subjective and that pretty much they would argue aligns with their belief.

There is no God There's no objective moral law that we should be following so on and so forth now I point that out as Something that an atheist might say because you do have atheists that affirm objective moral values and duties in which case if you're talking to That person we need to challenge that as well because I think that has problems well, but nevertheless, okay an atheist might say that morality is subjective

Okay, but then they'll turn around oftentimes and they'll make strong moral judgments like, you know, racism is wrong or Murder is evil.

Okay Notice that they're acting in that case. They're acting as if there's an objective moral standard that everyone should follow

But on their view, where does that moral standard come from? If there's no God, there's no ultimate source of morality

Okay, and this inconsistency I think shows that deep down they recognize an objective moral law

Which of course we would argue points back to the God who's written that law in their heart

Okay, and that's why you have kind of these inconsistencies with what someone says with their mouth

But how they actually live their lives that is the evidence that they actually know in their heart of hearts

The God that we're talking about. Okay, so that the claim of self -deception is not a claim without evidence

The evidence is in the demonstration of that Inconsistency, okay.

And so when someone says well, you know, I don't believe in God But I believe that morality is objective, okay, so I don't have to borrow from the

Christian worldview okay, there's the claim they think that they can make sense out of this and you have different theories of Morality and so forth and then we have to interact with that Okay and that's pretty much what we're asking the unbeliever to do in the first place if you think you can provide the necessary preconditions for things like morality

Knowledge science The way you combat our claim and our explanation as to how

Christianity grounds those things the way to combat our claim that only the Christian worldview accounts for those things is to provide an example in which a non -christian perspective

Grounds them. Okay, and of course when you provide that then we're gonna have some interaction because obviously the

Christians gonna disagree in the Atheist or whoever gonna disagree and that's where kind of a fruitful discussion is going to have.

Okay, so with morality That's kind of one example. We can point out, you know, you talk about talk about logic

We talked about logic in this in this channel a lot Pardon an atheist might say that logic is just a human construct.

Okay Now again, if you're an atheist and you think well, I don't think logic is a human construct like cool

I don't think it's a human construct too, but that is a position but many atheists I'm using this as a hypothetical In his debate with Gordon Stein Greg Bonson versus Gordon Stein Gordon Stein actually

You know spoke of the laws of logic as mere conventions There were conventions of men, but then of course he kind of tiptoed between convention and then universally binding

There was it was an interesting inconsistency there But you know suppose you're speaking with an atheist that says logic is just a human construct.

Okay But then they use logic right as if it's universally binding and immaterial by pointing out

Contradictions and you know the apparent contradictions in the Christian view or whatever the case may be, right? So the laws of logic like the non law of non -contradiction law of identity excluded middle

We would argue these are abstract. Okay, they're not they're not material. They're abstract. They're universal.

They're invariant. Okay, they're not made of matter They don't change they apply everywhere But these laws we would argue only make sense if there is a rational creator who upholds the order of the universe and so when the atheist relies on Logic the when you're talking about especially the materialist relies on logic.

They're actually borrowing from a worldview That is not their own for on a materialistic atheistic perspective

You can't make sense out of something like abstract universal immaterial conceptual laws of thought

Okay. Now they might have a theory as to what logic is. I've heard a bunch of different things logic is a convention

Logic is the language we've made up to describe reality and so forth But these are very

I think very weak and don't get to the bottom of the issue as I've just expressed in various videos in The past okay, but but again when the atheist puts forth their worldview and says well, here's my worldview

Here's how I make perfect sense of these things. That's what we want to happen That's where the discussion goes, right?

And of course the atheist has every right to say How does the Christian make sense out of these things and of course the

Christians should be willing to show that given the Metaphysical picture of the Christian worldview in terms of what there is an an absolute universal all -encompassing sovereign

God It makes sense to say that there are universal unchanging Conceptual laws that reflect his thinking that's not a problem within the

Christian worldview But we should be willing to kind of expand and explain upon that as well as the atheist offering their counterpoint okay, and and again the counterpoint must be made because of the nature of our argument if I'm arguing that the

Christian worldview is the only worldview that can ground these things I as a Christian need to do two things. I need to a show that the

Christian worldview provides though those necessary preconditions and B I need to defend the accusation that the

Christian worldview doesn't account for those things But in doing that the atheist has to provide counter examples as to how the

Christian worldview Either does not provide those preconditions or there's this other worldview that can do it which counters my claim

Okay, the atheist doesn't simply get to disagree with the claim. Okay You the way you respond to the claim is showing a counter a counter example

Okay, and when they offer their counter example, you have to be willing to interact with it Okay, and that's where the fruitful discussion and debate is going to happen

Now, let's consider issues of science. We've talked about this in the past few videos You know We know that all of us trust in the uniformity of nature right atheist trust that nature is uniform That the future will be like the past that the laws of physics won't change tomorrow, right?

But again for the atheists within their perspective of the world Why should why should they right if the universe is just a product of random chance?

There's no reason to expect it to behave consistently, right the Christian worldview can make sense out of this But how does the unbelieving worldview make sense out of this?

How does a worldview which posits, you know, there's no rhyme or reason to anything. Okay Why should we expect the future to be like the past?

Okay, and what do we get historically throughout the you know The history history of philosophy. What do we get? well we get that the that the future will be like the past because it's always been that way in the past and of course

Philosophers like Bertrand Russell and David Hume have pointed out that that's actually begging the question. It doesn't answer the question

Okay, and of course that accusation is not coming from a Christian It's coming from Secular philosophers, right?

So this isn't something that like weird that I'm pointing out as I've mentioned in some past videos Okay Now the

Christian worldview teaches that God is faithful and he upholds the universe in an orderly way And so when atheists do science and they assume all those things we point out look there is another data point and another evidence

That you are actually inconsistent With what you say about the nature of reality if there is no

God or you don't believe that there is a God or there's No need for a God yet You assume principles that you can't make sense out of without God if you think you can make sense out of them

Then that's right We need to hear the counterpoint and then we need to engage right and that's where the critical analysis is going to happen

Okay, and Christians when arguing these points you need to provide to be fair in discourse

Provide the atheist or whoever you're talking to the opportunity to lay out their case Okay, and so we want to interact with what they're saying

Now, of course the atheist the atheist I mean there there atheists hold all sorts of different views and so we want to hear what they have to say first But I would argue any form of atheism any form that posits either that God does not exist or that he may exist

But he's not necessary to understand these things I would argue is going to run into some problems when we get at some of those deeper levels

But just to address this point, I think when those inconsistencies are shown that's a data point that we need to consider and discuss

Okay, now I'm not just saying we consider everything I'm saying here. I'm not just saying to the unbeliever

You're self -deceived, you know as some kind of insult now. I know for a fact. I mean, I'm gonna predict right now I'm gonna use my prophetic abilities

I'm gonna say all this and what I'm gonna get in the comments. Someone's gonna be like well, well, well, you know

Such a hypocrite right? You're so dishonest, right? You're saying that we're self -deceived, you know, how convenient you're the

Christians are clearly something as Though all I'm saying is you're a self -deceived end of discussion, right?

And of course people who have ears even if you disagree with me You could at least respect this that I'm not saying something as so simplistic as that Okay So keep your eyes on the comments if you're a

Christian watching my content and you know You're listening read some of the comments to this video when I guarantee something like that is going to happen

Okay, and then I'll cut and paste it and post it on the screen my next video to show

That it happened. Hopefully I'm wrong. I mean, I hope I'm wrong, right? But but this isn't I'm not engaging in playground name -calling kind of games, right?

I'm not saying all yourself all know yourself to see I think it's an important point and I think it can be Demonstrated by the fact that the unbeliever relies on Christian principles to even make their case.

No, we don't mr. Christian We don't rely on Christian principles good So you think that you can explain the necessary preconditions of intelligibility and uniformity and logic and knowledge and so forth without recourse to God?

Let's talk about it. Okay. Let's see what what options they have. Okay What ground are they standing on and we need to take them as they present their position and interact with them in the meaningful way?

Okay Interact with them in the meaningful. I'm sure someone will be like well you Eli don't interact with people in a meaningful way

You are dishonest right doesn't it doesn't matter what I say, right? There's always gonna be someone who thinks

I'm trying to trick because you guys know why I do this, right? You guys know why

I'm doing this right I do it For that bling for that money, right? That's that's that's why

I'm here, right? Apparently that's that's why I do this Okay, so now the unbeliever could try and flip this and say well, isn't the

Christian self -deceived? Okay, they might argue that Christians are borrowing from the atheistic worldview

You see now when an atheist thinks that the transcendental argument can simply it what we're arguing is simply a

Reversible claim they've misunderstood the nature of the argument

Okay, the the the nature of the argument is not a bare

Authority claim. Okay. We are not simply Asserting that the

Christian worldview can provide the necessary Preconditions for knowledge and logic and uniformity and so forth.

We actually Try to show Given the Christian worldview those necessary preconditions are met

Okay, and that when you deny the Christian conception you lose those necessary Foundations, okay, so we're not me and even if we fail to do that, maybe you say well, well, that's your claim

Well, I don't think you do it. That's fine But understand the claim it's not a mere Authority claim if you think it is you just don't understand what we're saying, okay

Now if you think that we are borrowing from an atheistic world, I saw someone in other comments

They tried to flip the script right, you know, well, you're assuming, you know, but atheism, right? Okay You're gonna need to show that the

Christian worldview is in fact borrowing from yours Okay, and of course, you know

You can't do it, okay, I challenge anyone you're not going to be able to do it So for when I appeal to immaterial abstract invariant immutable laws of thought that doesn't fit in atheism

I trust me if I'm borrowing from another worldview. It ain't atheism. I'll tell you that much. Okay.

All right So let's go into this claim that you know, this is all reversible. Okay, you know, let's take a look at the nature of logic

Okay, so we're talking about principles that are universal abstract and invariant. Okay, these things aren't

Things that you can touch or you could measure in any way, right? They're not physical for the Christian world.

He says that these laws of logic reflect God's nature, right? He's unchanging. He is rational He is sovereign. These laws aren't invented by humans.

They're discovered. They're part of the order that God has established Okay. Now if you take something like a materialistic atheistic perspective, right?

Which says that everything is when you boil down to it reduced to matter in motion, right? Things are physical things are contingent.

If our thoughts are just the results of chemical reactions in our brains, you know shaped by I don't know an evolutionary process and so forth

Then the laws of logic should be subjective on that point and variable right but the atheists don't argue that way, right?

They assume logic is binding and universal and that's because deep down They're relying on a

Christian understanding of a rational orderly universe. That's the argument Okay, if you think we're borrowing from your worldview then give an account of the immaterial abstract universal immutable conceptual laws of logic

Well, Eli, I don't agree that logic is how you describe. Okay. All right.

Well, how do you describe logic? Let's let's let's take it from the perspective that the particular atheist is

Offering okay, because again, it's gonna depend who you're talking to. All right, there are many atheists who would affirm

Yeah, the laws of logic Are Universal they're binding we should hold to it

Do you also have atheists who say that logic is conventional and doesn't always apply you do have even people who reject?

the universal application of the Law of non -contradiction. I'm aware of that.

You even have people who challenge the law of identity Okay, so it's gonna depend who you're speaking with. Okay? now

You know When you take something like the uniformity of nature Okay, the uniformity of nature is something that the entire enterprise of science relies on Okay and this idea that the laws of nature are consistent and reliable is

Based on for us is on the Christian belief that God is faithful and he upholds the universe in an orderly manner

Okay, if the universe were just a product of random processes, right? There'd be no reason to expect this uniformity

Okay and appealing to past experiences tells us nothing about future experiences unless you sneak in an assumption

Which is not drawn from your past experience. Namely that nature is

Uniform. Okay, and so the atheist Simply takes that for granted showing again that they're relying on principles that don't make sense within their worldview

Okay all right, so a Couple of things to keep in mind. So the claim of self -deception isn't reversible

Okay, you could you can say it's reversible and then the Christian will be happy to answer it from our perspective Right the Christian worldview as we've argued provide

Provides a coherent foundation for logic morality the uniformity of nature and these just aren't assertions, right?

Given the truth of the Christian worldview those things are in fact accounted for Given the hypothetical truth of the atheistic worldview

I fail to see how they are accounted for given the assumptions of Whatever variety of atheism you want to assert?

Okay, I would say all of them fail But again, this is why we have discussion and discourse and so forth

Okay, so now if an atheist were to claim that Christians are borrowing from a non -christian worldview Okay, if you're a materialistic atheist and so forth

You're gonna have to show how their materialistic framework accounts for these immaterial objective principles

Now you can't say that all is material and then talk about you know Logic and things like that as immaterial you're gonna have to somehow reduce

Logical principles to materiality in some way shape or form if you're a materialist if you're not a materialist, that's fine

I know that there are I atheistic idealist and things like that and we've covered that in this channel here So again, it's all dependent who you're talking to right but I'm going to argue and I have argued that their worldview

Regardless of what flavor of atheism you take lacks the necessary preconditions for those concepts And so the Christian worldview can provide those conditions.

We argue that the non -christian worldview cannot okay And so the argument the atheist presents I think doesn't work just getting back to the original argument

We started with the second premise is flawed. I think because it misunderstands their own self -deception

I argue that deep down the unbeliever knows that God exists in a very profound way, but that they suppress the truth

This is the teaching of Scripture when we expose that suppression and the inconsistency in their position

I think it's clear that the conclusion then doesn't follow right they rely on concepts that presuppose

God's existence Which shows that they do in fact know that he exists whether They admit it or not

So again, if God exists then I know he exists I don't know he exists

Therefore God does not exist. Okay, I Challenge the second premise that you don't know

God exists I would assert that you do know that God exists and that you suppress the truth and unrighteousness and that the evidence for that is the

Conflict that is seen between your first order beliefs and your second order beliefs

If someone disagrees that there is in fact a conflict then that's where the discussion needs to be had

But I'm not simply making the assertion deep down. You know that God exists and that's it

Okay No There is there is a reason and evidence that we would appeal to that Of course, the atheist has a right to challenge but again fruitful discussion can be had there when you have

Both the Christian and the non -christian interact in good faith. Okay So again that that's another area that needs to be explored as well, right if you're talking to someone that's not a good faith

And they they you you know, you say what you're saying You lay out what you're trying to say and you're still you know, like oh no, this is what you're really saying

You're just saying something dumb as that. I'm just self -deceiver. You think I'm outwardly lying.

No, I don't think you're explain You say I don't know that God exists. I don't necessarily say that you're explicitly lying

Even I'm just saying that there is an element a real element of self -deception Okay So there you go.

All right So that is my brief response about a half hour response to this argument whoever put it out there

I do appreciate it for folks who are interested. This is how I would begin to engage obviously, there'd be more discussion conversation and dispute and debate but Hopefully this is helpful for if you're an unbeliever understanding.

Well, what does he mean by I know that God exists? I don't think I know God exists This is where I'm coming from theologically and how

I would argue the point and from the Christian perspective wondering Well, what if someone says well, I don't know if God exists, you know

You know for the Christian and I specifically talking Christians here That when someone affirms that I don't know that God exists you're you're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place

Do I believe what God has said as a Christian now, right? Okay, assuming the authority of the

Bible, right? Do I believe what the unbeliever says about himself or do I believe what God has said about the unbeliever now

God being God Knowing the heart of man knowing the reality that men suppress the truth and unrighteousness, right as Christians I would argue that we need to believe what

God says Okay And when we lovingly and respectfully interact with the unbeliever we try to point out why we think this is the case a

God says But be here are some evidence and data points that we can point to that there is an interesting contradiction okay between what you say with your mouth and what you believe in your heart or if you use the language of the

Psychological literature either as a conflict between your first and second order beliefs. All right.

All right Well, that is it for this specific video. This of course was pre -recorded.

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