Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions (17 page)

WHAT WE LEARNED IN THIS CHAPTER

First, we learned that we do not have to do all the work dealing with an argument or a challenge. Sometimes a view defeats itself. The tactic we use to expose this tendency is called Suicide.

Suicidal views have within them the seeds of their own destruction because they express contradictory concepts. They refute themselves.
That's why they are called self-refuting.

Views that violate the law of
noncontradiction
are necessarily false. This means that nothing can be done to fix them. They are beyond repair in this world or
any
possible world. If a view entails contradiction — for example, "All English sentences are false"—there is no hope of reviving it. For this reason, the presence of contradiction is a decisive defeater of any argument or point of view.

We also learned how to recognize and respond to
selfdestructive
statements. First, pay attention to the basic premise, conviction, or claim. Next, ask if the claim applies to itself. If so, does it satisfy its own criteria, or is there an internal contradiction? If the exact same reasons in favor of another's view (or against your own) defeat the reasons themselves, then the view is self-refuting. If you discover a problem, use a question (
Columbo
) rather than a statement to point it out.

Finally, we learned how to respond to popular examples of ideas or objections that violate the law of
noncontradiction
in a straightforward fashion (Formal Suicide). Remember, many formal contradictions are not immediately obvious. Instead, they are implicit, embedded in the larger idea. This makes them easy to miss. Even intelligent and educated people sometimes hold contradictory views without realizing it.

In the last chapter, we learned that once in a while defending against an opposing view takes almost no work at all. Sometimes the easiest way to deal with another's objection is not to feed him more information, but rather to show him that his point commits suicide.

We have already explored the concept I called Formal Suicide, when an idea or objection violates the law of
noncontradiction
in a straightforward fashion. However, some views that are not internally contradictory can be self-defeating in other ways. "Practical Suicide," "Infanticide," and "Sibling Rivalry" are terms I use to describe three other ways statements or arguments self-destruct. I will take up Practical Suicide in this chapter, and discuss the other two in
chapter 9.

PRACTICAL SUICIDE

Some points of view fail the pragmatic test. They simply cannot work in real-life application. There is no logical contradiction, strictly speaking, just a practical one. In this type of suicide, you can hold the view, but you can't promote it.

You see the conflict immediately in the claim, "It's wrong to say people are wrong." Holding that it is wrong to find fault with others is not itself incoherent. I know that sounds odd, considering the wording. But when you think about it, the problem occurs only when you
say
the statement. You would be doing the very thing you say should not be done. This kind of inconsistency is self-defeating because the person who voices this view contradicts his own convictions.

For example, like most two-year-olds, my little girl adopted a philosophy of "no" for a season. It was her answer to everything. I'd sometimes hear her alone playing in her room,
absentmind-edly
stringing denials together with varying force and inflection, perfecting her technique like a piano virtuoso prepping for her next performance.

She was easy to trap, though. After a series of negatives I'd simply ask, "Are you going to answer 'no' again?" No matter what she answered, she'd be sunk. The philosophical subtlety was lost on her, but it should not escape you. There is no internal contradiction in a philosophy of "No." Once my daughter tried to practice her conviction consistently, though, she ran into trouble. This happens all the time, even with those old enough to know better.

During a radio broadcast, I took exception to the theology of some televangelists. I was immediately challenged by a caller who said, “You shouldn’t be correcting Christian teachers publicly on the radio.”

“Then why are you calling to correct me publicly on my radio show?” I asked.

Some people, convinced that arguing is prohibited by Scripture, argue tenaciously that I am being disobedient to biblical commands by taking contrary positions on the radio with my callers. Some reject the whole task of apologetics because they think reason is never adequate to discover truth. Then they painstakingly list the reasons they think their opinion is true (e.g., "I'll give you three good reasons why you can't use logic to find truth").

This is precisely the problem when people make the blanket statement that it is wrong to judge. Maybe it
is
wrong to make moral judgments, but using this rule to condemn a judgmental person is itself a breach of the principle.

When a caller to my radio show took me to task for condemning homosexuality, he soon found himself caught in his own net. The following conversation could be titled "Condemning Condemnation."

Lee:
I'm not a homosexual, but I think it's wrong to condemn anybody for anything.

Greg:
Why are you condemning me, then?

Lee:
What?

Greg:
I said
,
why are you condemning me if you think it's wrong to condemn people?

Lee:
I'm responding to the fact that a lot of Christians condemn people.

Greg:
I understand. And it sounds like you're condemning me because I just condemned homosexuality as wrong.

Lee:
Yes, I am. You are supposed to love everybody.

Greg:
Wait a minute. You're not listening to yourself. You just said it's wrong to condemn people. And now you admit you're condemning me. So I'm asking
,
why are you doing the very same thing that you say is wrong when I do it?
[Notice how I am narrating the argument here.]

Lee:
No, I'm not. [Lee pauses as the light slowly begins to dawn.] Okay, let's put it this way. I'm not condemning you,

I'm reprimanding you. Is that better?

Greg:
Then my comments about homosexuals are simple reprimands as well.
¹

I want you to notice two things about this exchange. First, it took Lee a few moments before he realized his error. This is not uncommon. Amazingly, some people never see it. When Lee finally came to his senses, his attempts at correcting his blunder were not helpful.

Second, since
I
saw the problem immediately, it wasn't difficult to come up with questions to press the issue from a number of different angles until Lee caught on.

Philosopher Alvin
Plantinga
calls this suicidal tendency the “philosophical tar baby.” If you get close enough to use the idea on someone else, he says, you’re likely to get stuck fast to it yourself.
²

MORAL RELATIVISM SELF-DESTRUCTS

Moral relativists — those who deny objective morality — are especially vulnerable to Practical Suicide. For example, whenever a relativist says, "You shouldn't force your morality on other people," I always ask, "Why not?"

What will he be able to say? He certainly can't respond by saying, "It's wrong." That option is no longer open to him. It is a contradiction, like saying, "There are no moral rules; here's one." This response commits suicide.

If a relativist does say it's wrong, I ask, "If you think it's wrong, then why are you doing it yourself? Why are you pushing your morality on me right now?"

The only consistent response for a relativist is, "Pushing morality is wrong
for me,
but that's just my personal opinion and has nothing to do with you. Please ignore me."

C. S. Lewis observes:

Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining "It's not fair". . . . A nation may say treaties do not matter; but then, next minute, they spoil their case by saying that the particular treaty they want to break was an unfair one. But if . . . there is no such thing as Right and
Wrong
. . . what is the difference between a fair treaty and an unfair one?
³

As I have written elsewhere, "A person can wax eloquent with you in a discussion on moral relativism, but he will complain when somebody cuts in front of him in line. He'll object to the unfair treatment he gets at work and denounce injustice in the legal system. He'll criticize crooked politicians who betray the public trust and condemn intolerant fundamentalists who force their moral views on others.
"
⁴

I think this was Paul's point in Romans 2:1 when he wrote, "Therefore you are without excuse, every [one] of you who passes judgment, for in that you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things." Paul argued that those who set up their own morality are still faulted by their own code. Their "excuse" commits suicide.

Usually a person cannot deny moral truth without immediately affirming it. The minute they say, “
and
it’s wrong to push your morality on me,” they have sunk their own ship.

TO RUSSIA, WITH LOVE

In 1976, a decade before the Iron Curtain came
down,
I spent five weeks with three others in a clandestine mission operation in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. There I encountered a memorable example of Practical Suicide.

When we crossed the border from Romania into Moldavia, we were stopped on the Soviet side and searched. Once the border guards found Bibles, they took our car apart, checking everywhere for contraband. Then the questioning began. Where did we get the Bibles? Why were we bringing them across the border? Who were they for? Didn't we know such activity was illegal? It went on for hours.

We knew that the Soviets
claimed
they had religious freedom. They also
claimed
to print Bibles for their own people. We also knew that both claims were false, which gave us an advantage in the conversation.

"Don't you have freedom of religion in the Soviet Union?" we asked, parroting the propaganda.

"Yes, of course we have religious freedom," the interpreter shot back with some indignation, "but we have separation of church and state."

Now, it wasn't clear to us how bringing Bibles across the border actually interfered with that principle. Yet it was the interpreter's stock reply to just about every objection we raised.

"It is forbidden to bring Bibles and other religious material into the Soviet Union," she continued. "In schools we teach the children that there is no God. Only old people believe that. Our people are taught Marxist-Leninism. We don't allow any other propaganda. We have separation of church and state."

"But you print Bibles in the Soviet Union, right?" I asked.

"Yes, we do," she answered. "Our believers get all the Bibles they need."

"And you have religious freedom?"

"Yes, we have religious freedom, but we have separation of church and state."

"But we can't bring Bibles across the border?"

"No, we don't allow that propaganda in our country."

"The Bible is propaganda?"

"Yes."

"But you print Bibles in your own country."

"Yes."

"Now I'm confused," I remarked. "You say you have religious freedom, but we are not allowed to bring Bibles into your country because they are propaganda. Then you tell me you print Bibles in the Soviet Union."

She nodded in agreement to each point. I was surprised she couldn't see what was coming. "Then apparently your government is printing anti-communist propaganda right in your own country."