In my former life, I wanted to be a Christian apologist. Seriously and don’t laugh. Christian apologetics is the attempt to offer a rational explanation for the faith. Apologists seek to defend the faith against objections through public lectures, debates, books, and websites. The idea is to argue that Christianity is reasonable and evidence-based, but requires metaphysical considerations. That caveat is where my contention lies. A common argument is God exists, and man can know that God exists, by means of revelation, both in nature and through the Bible. This field has sprouted many famous apologetes, including St. Thomas Aquinas, C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, Ravi Zacharius, Josh McDowell, Hank Hanegraaff, and Lee Strobel.
I’ve argued with plenty of Christians—laypersons and pastors alike—but I have never had an opportunity to debate a full-fledged apologist. Recently, I was meeting with my State House Representative, Sheila Butt, and she told me her son, Kyle, is an apologist who has written numerous books. He currently works at Apologetics Press, a publishing house established in the 70s and based in Montgomery, AL. He publicly debated Dan Barker, president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation in 2008.
I asked for his email address and wrote him that afternoon, introducing myself, and giving him some background information about my upbringing in the church. Kyle posited the first question, “What militates against belief in God?” Perfect starting point, I thought. I responded immediately explaining that all we have is the material world and we need clear, testable, measurable evidence within this realm to demonstrate a god’s existence. We don’t have that, therefore I reserve judgment on whether there is or isn’t a god. I followed up with a question as to how he personally determines whether a statement or proposition is true or false. No answer.
Next, he introduced the concept of indirect observation asking,
I asked for his email address and wrote him that afternoon, introducing myself, and giving him some background information about my upbringing in the church. Kyle posited the first question, “What militates against belief in God?” Perfect starting point, I thought. I responded immediately explaining that all we have is the material world and we need clear, testable, measurable evidence within this realm to demonstrate a god’s existence. We don’t have that, therefore I reserve judgment on whether there is or isn’t a god. I followed up with a question as to how he personally determines whether a statement or proposition is true or false. No answer.
Next, he introduced the concept of indirect observation asking,
“So, using the concept of indirect observation, we could agree that we could know some things about an item or entity without ever having direct contact with that entity. For instance, we could know how big a planet is that circles a distant star by measuring the wobble of the star and using our knowledge of gravity to infer the planet’s mass, etc. Are we on the same page here?”
I explained that indirect observation is but one component of science. Scientists don’t build entire theories and laws on inference alone while religion does. In science, indirect observation can be used at various stages, but ultimately we must have testable, measurable evidence if we are to send a spacecraft to the hypothetical planet. We wouldn’t dare send the craft without having exact measurements of distance, gravitational pull, mass, surface temperature, etc. The beauty of science is that it’s predictable. Sure, it’s fun to speculate or infer an intelligent agent as a source of creation, but ultimately you have to define this entity and it has to be testable and measureable if it interacts within the material world.
He pounced on my statement that scientists don’t build entire theories and laws on indirect observation. Like any good Christian, he brought up evolution commenting that the theory is built on indirect observation, which is entirely untrue. He cited Eugenie Scott’s quote from Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction, “Indeed, no paleontologist has ever observed one species evolving into another, but as we have seen, a theory can be scientific even if its phenomena are not directly observable.” Classic quote-mining. It’s almost as if he reached into a grab bag of evolution quotes and hurled what he thought was the best one. Fortunately, I anticipated this sort of standard response and explained that she’s entirely correct. Paleontologists CAN’T observe evolution, because they deal with fossils. However, biologists HAVE observed speciation many times. It’s well-documented and I offered to provide documentation. My subsequent email took him to task on evolution, where I explained that DNA specifically shows relatedness and common ancestry of all life. The fossil argument is irrelevant to me and has no bearing on whether I accept evolution as fact or not. Because of DNA, to deny we are related to apes is to deny we are related to our fathers. Fossils are merely icing on the cake these days, because it further validates the magnificent scientific truth.
He pounced on my statement that scientists don’t build entire theories and laws on indirect observation. Like any good Christian, he brought up evolution commenting that the theory is built on indirect observation, which is entirely untrue. He cited Eugenie Scott’s quote from Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction, “Indeed, no paleontologist has ever observed one species evolving into another, but as we have seen, a theory can be scientific even if its phenomena are not directly observable.” Classic quote-mining. It’s almost as if he reached into a grab bag of evolution quotes and hurled what he thought was the best one. Fortunately, I anticipated this sort of standard response and explained that she’s entirely correct. Paleontologists CAN’T observe evolution, because they deal with fossils. However, biologists HAVE observed speciation many times. It’s well-documented and I offered to provide documentation. My subsequent email took him to task on evolution, where I explained that DNA specifically shows relatedness and common ancestry of all life. The fossil argument is irrelevant to me and has no bearing on whether I accept evolution as fact or not. Because of DNA, to deny we are related to apes is to deny we are related to our fathers. Fossils are merely icing on the cake these days, because it further validates the magnificent scientific truth.
After my last email educating him on evolution by natural selection, abiogenesis, DNA, and paleontology, I haven’t heard back. It’s been eight days and I suspect I won’t hear anything else. My repeated question as to how he personally determines the truth of a statement/proposition was left unanswered. So much for “rationally defending the faith”. I appreciate him being a good sport, but I expected so much more. Oh well, on to the next one.
words just cannot explain how much i love your blog as a new non-christian. i wish your blog got more hits. i wish there was some way i could help promote it.
ReplyDeleteThanks, man. I REALLY appreciate the kind words. If you're on Twitter, follow me @defdee. That way you can retweet and help me promote it.
ReplyDeleteCreationism tends to break down under the harsh glare of genetics. When you have the mechanism of change in your hands, the formation of species becomes rather more easily defined.
ReplyDeleteAlso special thanks to Der Hammerman for becoming the 3rd person to follow my blog! (He wins cookies! Hammer Cookies!)
The more I think about this whole experience, the more it pisses me off. Here's an apologist, a person who is supposed to defend the faith AND be able to convince someone else that his position is correct. When a moderately well-versed person comes along, he can't hang. I think the true target audience for apologists is congregations. It's a way to "answer" THEIR objections, not people like me.
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