STR Ambassador
March 14th 2005, 01:29 PM
How to Assess the Truth
by Greg Koukl
Two nights ago I was in Las Vegas, doing what has been almost a yearly event there with the Central Christian Church, a huge church out there, right on the border with Henderson and the city of Las Vegas itself. I have a great time when I go out there.
One issue came up in the Q&A when I was talking about moral relativism. I thought about it today because I made the comment about listening to this show, and learning to be a better thinker as a result. That is one of my goals here at Stand to Reason, and we consistently get feedback that, by using our resources, people develop the ability to think carefully.
The question that was asked by someone in the audience in Las Vegas that pertained to the inability of Americans, and even American Christians, to think carefully because thinking just takes effort. If you’re not used to it, thinking carefully and hard can be tiresome, difficult, and wearying. That’s why sometimes an hour and a half or two hours with a Stand to Reason speaker leaves your head swimming just a bit because you are not expected to be a mere spectator who is entertained. Instead, you’re expected to be a student who is educated, an Ambassador for Christ who is trained. We want you to become at least mentally involved in the process. One of the reasons that we are unable to think carefully or clearly in our culture is that we’re not taught how. We were taught more of that 40 and more years ago. But this kind of education has been left behind for the most part. The skill of reasoning from a set of premises or a body of facts and knowledge validly to a conclusion that follows from those facts or precepts or concepts, just isn’t done. Instead, what students get is the distraction from the process. And that includes all of the informal fallacies that go along with bad thinking: red herrings, circular reasoning, ad hominems. When faced with all that, careful thinkers have got to remove it all from the mix to try to assess a statement, a claim, or an idea.
This is a frustrating thing if you know a little bit about how to do that because especially during an election season, many goofy things are said that once you begin to take the time to remove the silliness, there is often no point left. There’s nothing there but fallacies. The common thing in our election cycle is to try to disqualify a point being made, by one side or the other, by looking at the motives, allegedly ignominious motives, that someone might have in making the point.
C.S. Lewis made a very valuable contribution here. In his book God in the Dock, he wrote an essay called “Bulverism.” It’s not a sickness. It’s a habit named after someone named Bulver. I don’t know who he was, but Lewis describes this intellectual vice. It’s the same vice that many have nowadays in trying to deal with an issue. This falls under the category of red herrings that are not substantive, that keep us from assessing claims to figure out what the truth of the matter is. This common tactic now is just to fault a view because of its source. “Oh, he says that because….” and then appeal to what the people faulting the view think are the nefarious motives involved.
Ladies and gentlemen, the truth of a statement is unaffected by one’s motives. In fact, it’s not relevant to talk about motives or intentions until you’ve looked at the statement itself and found it to be false. Here’s the specific contribution C.S. Lewis makes in his short piece, “First you must determine that a person is mistaken before it’s reasonable to ask why he is mistaken.“ If you have not have established that the person has, in fact, blundered, that their point of view is false, it does no good at all to talk about their motives unless you want to distract from their claim itself.
This is done all the time, especially during the “silly season.” “Oh, these are Bush supporters that have done this.” “Oh, these are Kerry people that said this.” “Obviously, they want to win the campaign.” “Obviously, they want to smear.” And so the ideas are dismissed. But this isn’t good thinking. One has to evaluate the claims themselves. If you want to get rid of a claim properly, you don’t simply try to smear the other person. I’m talking about a mere ad hominem, calling names. If the facts in question relate to the person’s character, that’s something different. But to only dismiss, smear, or distract from the issue doesn’t do the job.
Good thinking requires clearing the deck, figuring out the silliness that’s getting in the way that is just distracting. You have to learn how to see those things that can be removed from the discussion. The irony is that the minute you start to discard these red herrings, there’s nothing left to the claim. There is no substance.
In the religious realm, someone might say, “Oh, you’re a Christian because you were born that way. You were raised in a Christian culture. You’re a Christian because you need a crutch. You like feeling that there’s a God in heaven that takes care of you. You like the idea that you are not alone.” Well, these are all possibly interesting observations about the mental profile of people of faith, but you see, I hope, that these tell you nothing at all about whether or not the person’s belief is true. It doesn’t offer any argument about the truthfulness of Christianity.
It might be the case that Greg Koukl is a Christian because he was born in America, and Americans are Christians. That’s certainly not universally the case. A lot of people born in America are not Christians or many born in Christian homes leave their faith. But even if I were to accept that assertion, what does it tell me about the substance or legitimacy of the claims of Christianity? It doesn’t tell me anything. It just tells me about my sociology.
You could say, “Koukl has got a virus and he’s taking antibiotics. He wouldn’t be doing that if he were born in the jungles of the Amazon. Then he would get a witch doctor because it is the culture that determines how people respond in those circumstances.” And that observation may be entirely true, but it tells you nothing about the effectiveness of antibiotics or witch doctors. Those methods have to be assessed on different grounds. If antibiotics heal, they heal irrespective of the culture - even if it was administered in the Amazon.
By the same token, it may be that my culture has influenced me to believe in Jesus but that doesn’t make Jesus false, or true for that matter. The truth or falsity of any claim is determined by the facts pertinent to the claim itself.
Do you know what careful thinking amounts to, ladies and gentlemen? It’s really quite simple. It’s trying to find the truth by looking at the reasons that someone gives for what they claim is true. There are a couple of things to evaluate. What’s the big idea? That is, what’s the claim? The next step is why should you believe what they claim? What are the reasons? What’s the grounding? What’s the evidence?
A good argument is like a house. You’ve got a roof and you’ve got walls. The walls support the roof. In the argument, the roof is the big idea, and the walls are the reasons that support it. If you don’t have good support, the roof sits on the ground and nobody can live in that. The argument falters.
Back to Lewis. First, you must show that a person is mistaken before it’s relevant to ask why he’s mistaken.
In order to find truth, we need to be able to think carefully about issues. If we do the job poorly, we should not be surprised if we come to wrong conclusions that ultimately hurt us in the end. If we allow others to twist and distort the truth, and we buy the false thinking and follow rabbit trails, then we’ll never get to the truth. There are consequences to these things. Ideas have consequences.
My appeal is that you are careful in thinking about the critical issues of life. There are right answers and wrong answers. Careful thinking and some basic rules of reasoning will serve you well in assessing the truth.
Stand to Reason - Training Christian Ambassadors in the areas of knowledge, wisdom, and character - www.str.org
by Greg Koukl
Two nights ago I was in Las Vegas, doing what has been almost a yearly event there with the Central Christian Church, a huge church out there, right on the border with Henderson and the city of Las Vegas itself. I have a great time when I go out there.
One issue came up in the Q&A when I was talking about moral relativism. I thought about it today because I made the comment about listening to this show, and learning to be a better thinker as a result. That is one of my goals here at Stand to Reason, and we consistently get feedback that, by using our resources, people develop the ability to think carefully.
The question that was asked by someone in the audience in Las Vegas that pertained to the inability of Americans, and even American Christians, to think carefully because thinking just takes effort. If you’re not used to it, thinking carefully and hard can be tiresome, difficult, and wearying. That’s why sometimes an hour and a half or two hours with a Stand to Reason speaker leaves your head swimming just a bit because you are not expected to be a mere spectator who is entertained. Instead, you’re expected to be a student who is educated, an Ambassador for Christ who is trained. We want you to become at least mentally involved in the process. One of the reasons that we are unable to think carefully or clearly in our culture is that we’re not taught how. We were taught more of that 40 and more years ago. But this kind of education has been left behind for the most part. The skill of reasoning from a set of premises or a body of facts and knowledge validly to a conclusion that follows from those facts or precepts or concepts, just isn’t done. Instead, what students get is the distraction from the process. And that includes all of the informal fallacies that go along with bad thinking: red herrings, circular reasoning, ad hominems. When faced with all that, careful thinkers have got to remove it all from the mix to try to assess a statement, a claim, or an idea.
This is a frustrating thing if you know a little bit about how to do that because especially during an election season, many goofy things are said that once you begin to take the time to remove the silliness, there is often no point left. There’s nothing there but fallacies. The common thing in our election cycle is to try to disqualify a point being made, by one side or the other, by looking at the motives, allegedly ignominious motives, that someone might have in making the point.
C.S. Lewis made a very valuable contribution here. In his book God in the Dock, he wrote an essay called “Bulverism.” It’s not a sickness. It’s a habit named after someone named Bulver. I don’t know who he was, but Lewis describes this intellectual vice. It’s the same vice that many have nowadays in trying to deal with an issue. This falls under the category of red herrings that are not substantive, that keep us from assessing claims to figure out what the truth of the matter is. This common tactic now is just to fault a view because of its source. “Oh, he says that because….” and then appeal to what the people faulting the view think are the nefarious motives involved.
Ladies and gentlemen, the truth of a statement is unaffected by one’s motives. In fact, it’s not relevant to talk about motives or intentions until you’ve looked at the statement itself and found it to be false. Here’s the specific contribution C.S. Lewis makes in his short piece, “First you must determine that a person is mistaken before it’s reasonable to ask why he is mistaken.“ If you have not have established that the person has, in fact, blundered, that their point of view is false, it does no good at all to talk about their motives unless you want to distract from their claim itself.
This is done all the time, especially during the “silly season.” “Oh, these are Bush supporters that have done this.” “Oh, these are Kerry people that said this.” “Obviously, they want to win the campaign.” “Obviously, they want to smear.” And so the ideas are dismissed. But this isn’t good thinking. One has to evaluate the claims themselves. If you want to get rid of a claim properly, you don’t simply try to smear the other person. I’m talking about a mere ad hominem, calling names. If the facts in question relate to the person’s character, that’s something different. But to only dismiss, smear, or distract from the issue doesn’t do the job.
Good thinking requires clearing the deck, figuring out the silliness that’s getting in the way that is just distracting. You have to learn how to see those things that can be removed from the discussion. The irony is that the minute you start to discard these red herrings, there’s nothing left to the claim. There is no substance.
In the religious realm, someone might say, “Oh, you’re a Christian because you were born that way. You were raised in a Christian culture. You’re a Christian because you need a crutch. You like feeling that there’s a God in heaven that takes care of you. You like the idea that you are not alone.” Well, these are all possibly interesting observations about the mental profile of people of faith, but you see, I hope, that these tell you nothing at all about whether or not the person’s belief is true. It doesn’t offer any argument about the truthfulness of Christianity.
It might be the case that Greg Koukl is a Christian because he was born in America, and Americans are Christians. That’s certainly not universally the case. A lot of people born in America are not Christians or many born in Christian homes leave their faith. But even if I were to accept that assertion, what does it tell me about the substance or legitimacy of the claims of Christianity? It doesn’t tell me anything. It just tells me about my sociology.
You could say, “Koukl has got a virus and he’s taking antibiotics. He wouldn’t be doing that if he were born in the jungles of the Amazon. Then he would get a witch doctor because it is the culture that determines how people respond in those circumstances.” And that observation may be entirely true, but it tells you nothing about the effectiveness of antibiotics or witch doctors. Those methods have to be assessed on different grounds. If antibiotics heal, they heal irrespective of the culture - even if it was administered in the Amazon.
By the same token, it may be that my culture has influenced me to believe in Jesus but that doesn’t make Jesus false, or true for that matter. The truth or falsity of any claim is determined by the facts pertinent to the claim itself.
Do you know what careful thinking amounts to, ladies and gentlemen? It’s really quite simple. It’s trying to find the truth by looking at the reasons that someone gives for what they claim is true. There are a couple of things to evaluate. What’s the big idea? That is, what’s the claim? The next step is why should you believe what they claim? What are the reasons? What’s the grounding? What’s the evidence?
A good argument is like a house. You’ve got a roof and you’ve got walls. The walls support the roof. In the argument, the roof is the big idea, and the walls are the reasons that support it. If you don’t have good support, the roof sits on the ground and nobody can live in that. The argument falters.
Back to Lewis. First, you must show that a person is mistaken before it’s relevant to ask why he’s mistaken.
In order to find truth, we need to be able to think carefully about issues. If we do the job poorly, we should not be surprised if we come to wrong conclusions that ultimately hurt us in the end. If we allow others to twist and distort the truth, and we buy the false thinking and follow rabbit trails, then we’ll never get to the truth. There are consequences to these things. Ideas have consequences.
My appeal is that you are careful in thinking about the critical issues of life. There are right answers and wrong answers. Careful thinking and some basic rules of reasoning will serve you well in assessing the truth.
Stand to Reason - Training Christian Ambassadors in the areas of knowledge, wisdom, and character - www.str.org