Questions on Intrinsic Defeaters, Necessary Beings, and Inspiration
December 21, 2014 Time: 23:19
Summary
What is meant by 'intrinsic defeaters"? Do they stop all conversations? What about Necessary Beings? And, what is a Molinist perspective on Inspiration of Scripture?
Transcript Questions on Intrinsic Defeaters, Necessary Beings, and Inspiration
Kevin Harris: Questions from ReasonableFaith.org. Dr. Craig, these are from all over the world. This question:
Dr. Craig, a question about intrinsic defeater-defeaters. I am wondering how we can accept such a thing without stopping conversations.
Dr. Craig: I think we better explain what we mean here. The idea of a defeater would be something that would invalidate your argument. It would show either that the conclusion is false – in which case you’ve rebutted the argument – or you would show that the conclusion hasn’t been proven to be true – in which you’ve undercut the argument. So defeaters could be either undercutting defeaters or rebutting or refuting-type defeaters.
If you are to be rational in maintaining your position, the person who offered the argument when confronted with these defeaters needs to offer a defeater of the defeater. You need to give an answer to the defeater. What Alvin Plantinga points out is that there could be such a thing as an intrinsic defeater-defeater. That is to say, it could be a belief that is so powerfully warranted for us that it just intrinsically defeats the alleged defeaters that are brought against us. He gives the example of someone who has been accused of a crime that he knows that he did not commit but against whom all the evidence stands. So that if a jury were to weigh the evidence they would convict him as being guilty even though he is not guilty. Plantinga says in a case like this, am I obliged to follow the evidence where it leads and conclude with my peers that I am guilty? That I really committed the crime? He says no! Even though all the evidence is against me, I know I didn’t commit the crime. So my belief in my own innocence is an intrinsic defeater of these defeaters brought against it. That is the idea of an intrinsic defeater-defeater.
The claim is: couldn’t the witness of the Holy Spirit – who warrants to us certain Christian beliefs – couldn’t that warrant be so powerful that it intrinsically defeats the objections brought against it? For example, imagine a young person being raised in the old Soviet Union who is in a class being indoctrinated by a Marxist professor. This is a young Christian. He doesn’t know how to rebut the arguments for atheism that the professor is bringing, but nevertheless the warrant that the Holy Spirit gives to him of the truth of his Christian faith is so powerful that it simply overcomes those defeaters. Therefore, he is rational to continue to hold his Christian belief even in the absence of a defeater of those alleged defeaters. I do think, in fact, that the witness of the Holy Spirit can, in various circumstances, be so powerful as to be such an intrinsic defeater of defeaters.
Kevin Harris: Following this, this question continues:
I am wondering how we can accept such a thing without stopping conversations. For example, if I were in a conversation with a Muslim and I tried to present a defeater to Islam by attacking the reliability of the Qur’an concerning Jesus’ death by crucifixion or Christian doctrine, why would they be unable to appeal to their experience of Allah as a defeater to any objections I might have against Islam? It seems to me the idea of an intrinsic defeater-defeater might be so liberal in its application that just about any theist – monotheist, polytheist, pantheist – can justify their belief through this reasoning. I’m sure there is an answer to this question as it seems that such a seemingly major problem cannot simply have been unconsidered or ignored.
Dr. Craig: Well, he is exactly right! It is not unconsidered or ignored. Plantinga refers to this first as The Great Pumpkin Objection, and then in his more recent work Warranted Christian Belief he calls it the Son of the Great Pumpkin Objection. What Plantinga points out is that Muslims can also make such a claim to have a personal experience of God that defeats the defeaters brought against them. Of course they can. No one would deny that they could make such a claim.[1] But that isn’t to say that they actually do have such an intrinsic defeater-defeater. If Christianity is true then what they have is either a delusory, emotional experience that is purely psychological or else they have some general experience of God that would warrant, say, belief in God’s existence but not specific Islamic doctrines. So if that is the case what we need to do is to present to them arguments and evidence that would show that Islam is not true and hope that, as we do this prayerfully, that the Holy Spirit of God will use that to crack their false confidence in Islam and the truth will break through. The mere fact that somebody falsely claims to have an intrinsic defeater-defeater for their beliefs does nothing to stop conversations. You go right ahead, present your arguments, pray for that person, and hope and trust that the Lord will break through that counterfeit experience to defeat their belief in falsehood and bring them to the truth.
Kevin Harris: Another question:
Dear Dr. Craig, I am a high school senior student. My history teacher in my World History class on the subject of religion taught the class and blatantly stated that Christian and Muslims worship the same God. I, myself, am a Christian and I very well know that we don’t worship the same God. How would you approach him and correct him on his misunderstanding? I don’t feel equipped to tell him with the knowledge that I have. I would greatly appreciate your approach and way of doing so. Thanks in advance, in Christ.
Dr. Craig: I am old school on this in that I think that in a classroom situation the professor is there to teach the students and the students are there to learn from their professor, not to challenge him or correct him. So I would encourage this student not to think it is his responsibility to correct his professor. But what he could do is simply raise questions. For example, a good question to raise in this context would be to say, “But, Teacher, what about the Christian concept of the Trinity? Don’t Christians believe that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and don’t Muslims condemn this doctrine? Don’t they say that anyone who believes that is going to hell? So don’t Muslims themselves show that they are not worshiping the same God that Christians are worshiping?” That would be the way I would approach it is by probing with these kinds of questions.
Kevin Harris: Asking questions. That is appropriate and civil . . . Students can really make fools of themselves and really be belligerent in class. It is just not appropriate. Christians can put their foot in their mouth, too, on things like this. So asking it in a form of a question is something that the professor would appreciate more?
Dr. Craig: I am sure he would. I think a question like this can get to the truth of the situation. You can see that the Christian concept of God is very different than the Muslim concept of God and that Muslims themselves will tell you this.
Kevin Harris: Another thing is that not only there is the way he would do this but he would also maybe want to give some reasons for why this is the case. That is one that you mentioned there. They’re unitarian monotheists; we are trinitarian monotheists. What about maybe studying up on this a little bit and then get with the teacher one-on-one? Would that be appropriate?
Dr. Craig: I think that would be fine, particularly if it is a university teacher. They typically keep office hours, and you can go in and talk to them. This fellow says he is a high school student, so at best maybe he can linger after class or come in after school when the teacher is maybe still sitting at his desk working and raise these issues with him.
Kevin Harris: Another question:
Hello, Dr. Craig. Thank you for all the work you’ve done in the field of theology and apologetics. I have found both your Defenders and Reasonable Faith podcasts helpful in my studies as I am working towards becoming a theology teacher. I am currently enrolled at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary working towards my M.A. My question is this: while reading A. C. Grayling’s book The God Argument: The Case Against Religion and For Humanism, he gives a critique of the ontological argument in this way:
That is, on what grounds is it claimed that it is possible that anything is necessary?[2] In fact, the argument is question-begging, for by saying that there is a world in which something is necessary, by the definition of ‘necessary’ what is thereby being asserted is that it has to exist in every possible world. Yet with equal plausibility it can be claimed that ‘there is a possible world in which nothing exists necessarily’ – which means ‘there is a possible world in which everything is contingent’ – and if this is possible (as it surely is: our own world is such a world!) then it follows that nothing is necessary, because only if it is not possible for there to be a world in which nothing is necessary can there be any necessarily existing thing – for remember: such a thing would have to exist in every possible world.
Would you offer some insights into this critique? Once again, thank you for all you do.
Dr. Craig: Sure. That may have been rather difficult for listeners to digest with all of the terminology being thrown around, but it seems to me that Grayling here offers a couple of objections that he tends to run together.
The first one is: on what grounds is it claimed that it is possible that something is necessary? That is the first premise of the ontological argument – that it is possible that a maximally great being exists. What grounds are there for that? Well, one would be simply our modal intuitions. We think about the concept of a maximally great being – a being who is omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect, and exists in every possible world – and that seems to be a perfectly coherent concept, and therefore something that is possibly instantiated. So the first ground would be that sort of modal insight into the concept of a maximally great being.
The second would be, I think, that there can be support for the possibility of this concept from the other theistic arguments. For example, Leibniz’s argument leads to the existence of a metaphysically necessary being which is the explanation for why anything at all exists. The moral argument leads to the existence of a metaphysically necessary being which is the ground of objective moral value and duty. So the other theistic arguments can help to support the credibility of that first premise that it is indeed possible that such a being exists.
What about Grayling’s claim, secondly, that there is a possible world in which nothing exists necessarily? I would say to him, what grounds do you have for believing that? You cannot know that that is true unless you know that the concept of a maximally great being is incoherent, and that does beg the question. As long as that is a coherent concept then it isn’t possible that there is a world in which nothing exists necessarily. Certainly not our world, as I said in my enthusiasm. That is really question-begging – to assume that God doesn’t exist! That assumption that he would counter-poise to the first premise is one that I think you can’t know to be true unless you know that maximal greatness is incoherent, which we don’t know.
Finally, he says: is the argument question-begging? I think it is very clear that it is not question-begging. You are not assuming that God’s existence is possible because you assume that God exists. Rather, you are saying that we have good reasons, both a priori (prior to experience) and a posteriori (from experience) to think that that first premise is true.
The ontological argument isn’t a knockdown argument but I think it is one that is plausible and credible. I typically just leave it with my audiences as to whether they think the first premise is true or not. Rather than argue with them about it I’ll just say, “I’ll leave it to you. Do you think that it is possible, as I do, that God exists? Then it follows that he does exist.” I think even that conditional claim is radical enough to really make people think.
Kevin Harris: In the history of the ontological argument – I was going to ask you about it – Anselm, when this came upon him, he was stunned by it, it seems. He almost thinks it was inspired. I don’t think he goes that far. I wish God would do that to me! Hey, God, give me a knockdown argument or give me this great insight. If you do that, I’ll go publish it. But it stunned him. It still stuns us today.[3]
Dr. Craig: He came upon this argument only after a futile attempt to find some argument for God’s existence that would conclude to God with all of his superlative attributes and powers, and the other arguments such as the cosmological argument or arguments for design don’t get you to that elevated a concept of God as does the ontological argument. So when this occurred to Anselm, you are right, it was almost like a revelation.
Kevin Harris: One more question today, Dr. Craig.
Dear Dr. Craig, I recently read your Q&A response #212, “A Molinist Perspective on Biblical Inspiration.”[4] In it you state that inspiration is a property of the written text and the essential difference between the Bible and other writings lies in God’s attitude toward what is written. Can you provide some clarification on the property of inspiration? What does it mean to say a written text is inspired? How do we recognize when something is inspired? Is inspiration limited to the canonized biblical text or are there other works that also hold this property? Thank you for all the insight you provide through your debates, writings, resources at ReasonableFaith.org. Your work has helped me in ways I cannot fully express. I will wait for your response before calling them an inspiration. My best to you and your staff.
Dr. Craig: Certainly my response is not an inspiration in the same sense we are talking about the biblical text being inspired. He is quite right to point out that inspiration is not so much a property of the authors as when we say, “The author was inspired to write this.” Rather, it is the text that is inspired. The word “inspired” means “God-breathed.” This text is from God. When he says the essential difference between the Bible and other writings lies in God’s attitude toward what is written, what I mean by that is that given God’s providence over everything, everything that you do and you write, is ultimately under God’s superintendence and control. So what makes what the biblical authors wrote essentially different such that it is inspired? I think it is in God’s attitude toward it, namely, that he intends this writing to be his revealed Word to us. He has so superintended the writing of these documents that they are God’s Word to us. That is where I would see the difference.
Kevin Harris: Why is this a Molinist perspective?
Dr. Craig: Because I am trying to give a theory of biblical inspiration that will enable us to say that the Bible is fully inspired throughout down to the very words that the authors use and yet without dictation. In that it contrasts with a Muslim theory of the inspiration of the Qur’an. For a Muslim, the Qur’an is literally God’s dictation. God dictated it and Muhammad merely wrote it down. We have a very different attitude toward the writings of the Bible. We believe that these are the products of human authors and that they reflect the personalities and the vocabularies and the experiences of their human authors. These are not just mechanical dictations. These writers were not merely secretaries who took dictation. They were creative authors. These are their letters and prophecies and Gospels and so forth.
Kevin Harris: God didn’t bypass their humanity in the inspiration process. Is that what you are saying?
Dr. Craig: That’s right. He used their humanity to produce the products that he wanted produced. He intends what they wrote to be his Word to us. So that is wherein I see the essential difference between what they wrote and what I write, for example.
How do we recognize when something is inspired? I am not sure how to answer that question. I take it that the biblical text is inspired and that nothing else is inspired. I would say, yes, inspiration is limited to the canonized biblical text and there are no other works that have the property of being God’s Word. There is nothing else that has been written that God intends to be his Word to us. I suppose I would say that not on the basis of some quality of the text that you can tell by reading it it is inspired.[5] But it would be more on the testimony of Jesus to the writings of the Old Testament where he treated them as God’s Word and very often the New Testament authors will say “the Holy Spirit said” and then they quote something David wrote in the Psalms. They regarded these as God’s Word. Jesus said and promised that he would bring to the disciples remembrance everything that he taught them. So I think we would hold to the inspiration of the canonical text – that is, the biblical texts – on the basis of the way it was regarded by Jesus and the church itself.
Kevin Harris: I like the way you put that, and that is the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament have this divine stamp of approval from Jesus himself. Then you could argue for Jesus’ authority for that divine stamp of approval based on his resurrection.
Dr. Craig: Yes. Right, and his status.
Kevin Harris: That is not circular because that is using the New Testament as historical documents and what we have there and what historians could say.
Dr. Craig: Even in the New Testament letters themselves, they were thinking of these as inspired by God. In 2 Peter the author says of the apostle Paul’s letters, he says, “In them there are many things that are difficult to understand which the unlearned twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.”[6] Here in this very early letter the letters of Paul are already being equated with Scripture which is really quite extraordinary, I think.[7]