Read the rest of this helpful article.I often play this game with my kids that drives them crazy. Sitting in the room, with no one but us, while they are not looking I will slap them on the rear and act like I did not do it. They turn and say, “Daddy! I know you did that.” I say, “I did not.” ”Then who did it?” they respond (thinking they have settled the issue with this one question). I say, “A guy ran into the front door and slapped them and then ran out.” They look at me like I am crazy. “Look!” I respond to their skepticism, “The door is not locked. It is obvious that someone could have come in since the door is not locked.” Upon further looks of skepticism, I have them go check the door to see if it is locked or not. Once they check and see it is unlocked, I have won the day. I have poked a hole and their certainty and even caused them to confirm it. No longer possessing the indubitability that I have required for their epistemic verification, they now have lost poise in their former confidence. In other words, I tricked them into thinking that one has to be absolutely certain about something before it can be believed.
Ideas about the value of certainty is currently on the theological stage of debate. With the postmodern push toward perpetual skepticism that gives way to necessary compromise and a redefining of tolerance, along with many in the emerging church responding to the postmodern world by appealing to a fidist approach to the faith (ignore the evidence, just believe), Evangelicals are found scratching their heads, wondering why we are checking the door to see if it is locked.
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Look! The Door Is UnLocked!
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2 comments:
Man, I wish Cornelius Van Til were around now to give his take on this article! From what I have read of him (and also Greg Bahnsen), I don't think he would have ever said that "all we (Christians) have is probability." More importantly though, the Bible states unreservedly, and matter-of-factly, that there *is* one true God. For the most part, the Bible doesn't argue for the existence of this God. It simply states that He exists. Probability isn't even brought into the equation. Then again, Christians are to have faith in God-- but does Christian faith mean faith in a *probable* God?
Now, having said all of the above, I'm not saying that I entirely disagree with Michael. There *is* uncertainty in the Christian life. I wonder, though, if that uncertainty isn't due more to our sinful tendency to doubt God (and suppress the evidence for His existence, before , more than to true epistemological problems about the existence of God?
Sorry, in the last sentence, I meant that we have a tendency to suppress the evidence for God's existence *before we are saved.* However, I think that even we, as Christians, can sometimes suppress that evidence in order to rationalize our sin.
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