Incoherent questions, circular reasoning, confused complaints—this tweet has them all.
I'm Tim Barnett, and today we're applying
some Red Pen Logic to a tweet from Atheist Forum. Class is in session.
This is Red Pen Logic with Mr. B, where we try to assess bad thinking by using good
thinking. Plus, we try to have some fun in the process. In today's example, Atheist
Forum offers a series of questions to get you to doubt the existence of God.
Questions are a legitimate way to get people to think, but if questions subtly
create confusion, fallacy, and error, they only serve to conceal truth rather than
reveal truth. Atheist Forum provides three questions to challenge the
existence of God. First, "If God is immaterial, what is he made of?" Second, "If
he isn't material, then does he exist?" Third, "How do so many people believe he
exists but can't describe what he's made of?" Atheist Forum closes with a classy
"Lmao," laughing my—well, you get the idea. Presumably, belief in God is laughable
because any thoughtful person following this atheist line of reasoning should
see how foolishly funny it is to believe in an immaterial God. All right, it's time
to pull out the red pen and take this from the top. Atheist Forum's first
question sounds strange because it contains a fundamental flaw. It's an
incoherent question. That means it doesn't make any sense. An immaterial
being, by definition, is not made of material. I'm not going too quickly here,
am I? God is not made of anything. God is spirit. He has no mass, no form, no pieces
that need to be put together. He's not extended in space. He's not made of God
particles or spaghetti. Yeah, I'm talking to you, Pastafarians. The question,
"If God is immaterial, what is He made of?" is like asking, "If a bachelor is unmarried,
who is he married to?" A bachelor, by definition, is not married to anyone. So
the first question seems to be based on a confusion about God, who is, by
definition, immaterial and not assembled out of anything. Next,
Atheist Forum asks, "If God isn't made of material, then does he exist?" Here, we go
from confused reasoning to circular reasoning. Out of the frying pan and into
the fire. Stay with me on this. Imagine I said to you, "Ryan always tells the truth,"
and you ask, "How do you know Ryan always tells the truth?" And I reply, "Because he
said so, and if he always tells the truth, then he wouldn't be lying." See the
problem here? The answer to your question presumes what needs to be proved. The
only way Atheist Forum gets the answer it wants is if it subtly starts with the
answer it wants. Only material things exist. Of course they're gonna say that
God doesn't exist because their materialism already dictates that He
can't exist. But that's presuming what needs to be proved.
That's called circular reasoning. Incidentally, philosophers (and atheists,
by the way) routinely speak of real things that are not made of material
like reasoning, and arguments, and logical fallacies. Finally, Atheist Forum asks, "How
do so many people believe that he exists but can't describe what he's made
of? "This is a confused complaint. Here's why: You don't need to know what
something is made of to know that it exists. We know that gravity exists even
if we don't know what it is. So what have we learned?
First, Christianity holds that God is not made of anything. Instead, He is an
immaterial spirit. Therefore, asking, "What is God made of?" is an incoherent question.
It's kind of like saying the number four is immaterial and then asking, "What's it
made of?" Second, if God is, by definition, immaterial,
and you start by assuming that only material things exist, of course
you're gonna conclude that there is no God. But that's because you're starting
place disqualifies God from the beginning. This is circular reasoning, not
careful thinking. This mistake is not surprising. Christian philosopher, William
Lane Craig, says, "We are so schooled in materialism, that we find it difficult to
free ourselves from its assumption." He's right, and that's what's going on here.
Third, we don't need to know what something is made of to know that it is
real. Ironically, science works in the opposite direction.
First it discovers that something is real, like gravity, and then it
tries to describe what that thing is like. So Atheist Forum provides three
questions designed to raise doubts about the existence of God. But to get the
answers they want, they rely on incoherent question (strike one), circular
reasoning (strike two), and a confused complaint (strike three). But the game's
not over. Ditch materialism. Madonna was wrong.
We aren't just living in a material world.
We're living in the material and immaterial world. And those
immaterial things, like God, are no less real.
Class dismissed.