”Make Your Own Dirt”
”Make Your Own Dirt”
By Jack Kinsella
Skeptics love to use logic to argue against the truth of God’s Word. Indeed, skeptics like to call themselves purveyors of ‘reason’ against which they believe that faith cannot stand.
Bible skeptics wrongly assume that logic is the bane of faith. In truth, I find logic confirms my faith that God exists and that He remains intimately involved in the affairs of men.
If logic demands that the physical universe exists without a Creator, and logic exists throughout the universe, then who (or what) created logic?
It certainly wasn’t man. Logic exists independent of man. If it did not, then one could not predict the weather. Why must man use logic? Man uses logic to predict weather based on his observations — but the logic exists whether man uses it or not.
The problem in arguing the logic of God with a skeptic is that God IS logic. The skeptic’s argument emerges from logic without God, which is illogical on its face.
A flawed premise produces a flawed argument. The next thing you know, you are running down ‘rabbit trails’ trying to answer circular logic questions like “Can God make a rock so big He can’t lift it?” or “Who did Cain marry?”
It isn’t a question of using logic to prove or disprove the existence of God. That’s getting the cart before the horse. What is logic and how did it come to exist in the first place?
There is an old joke about the atheist scientist who challenges God, saying that, thanks to the latest scientific advancements, he too can create a man out of dirt. God accepts the challenge and offers to let the scientist go first.
The scientist goes out into the yard and scoops up a shovelful of dirt to begin his experiment…
“Not so fast,” God says. “First, make your own dirt.”
Assessment
Who made logic? What are the attributes of logic? Although logic exists in the physical world, like God, logic is immaterial.
There is nowhere in the physical universe where logic does not apply, or there could be no such thing as physics. So logic, like God, is universal.
And for logic to be logical, like God, logic must be unchanging, or it could never be applicable.
Logic is, therefore, a universal law binding on all that exists. Logic has no law enforcement apparatus, yet, to be logic, it must be unbreakable.
There is a logical statement about logic that one learns in logic 101. It goes like this:
“If any part of this statement is not true, then this statement cannot be true.”
Therefore, for logic to be logical, it must also be pure. Polluted logic produces polluted results.
Reason is not possible without the application of logic. Logic is not possible in a purely physical universe. There are other laws of the universe that can be explained in purely physical terms; gravity, or the speed of light.
But gravity is logical, given the physical forces that cause it. And the speed of light is logical, given the application of the laws of physics.
But logic itself? Before one can apply it to the argument against the existence of God, one must first examine logic itself, on its own merits.
Over the years, I’ve been challenged by atheists seeking to feather their own caps by debating the existence of God and the truth of the Bible. I’ve since learned the foolishness of accepting such debates.
My friend Grant Jeffrey once told me, (and I’ve shamelessly plagiarized him ever since) that, “debating an skeptic about the Bible is like debating the circumference of the earth with a member of the Flat Earth Society.”
Before one can apply logic and reason to any argument against the existence of God, one must first establish the origin of the immaterial, universal, pure and unchanging laws of logic being used.
If the unbeliever demands evidence, the fact is, whatever evidence you offer cannot be examined without the application of the immaterial, unchanging, pure and universal laws of logic.
The demand for ‘evidence’ is a rabbit trail. Before one can apply logic and reason to the evidence, one must apply logic and reason to the question of the origin of logic and reason.
On what basis can the skeptic judge the evidence apart from logic? So why debate ‘evidence’ — while leaving logic and reason at the starting gate?
Another favorite skeptic’s trick is to find apparent ‘contradictions’ in the Bible and demanding an explanation from YOU. That is another rabbit trail.
It rests on an unaddressed supposition: On what basis did the skeptic conclude there were‘contradictions’?
The skeptic cannot explain the existence of an immaterial, unchanging universal law while remaining within the confines of his worldview; ie; this is a purely physical universe whose existence — and all that is contained therein — was the product of chance.
He can explain the application of logic but that is another rabbit trail. The skeptic’s application of logic is using rules he cannot explain to deny that which CAN be explained.
Can YOU explain, logically, the existence of logic? Can you explain logically how theapplication of reason and logic are not the same thing as explaining the existence of reason and logic?
Can YOU explain how logic and reason came to be? Of course, you can.
Then why are you wasting your time chasing your tail and trying to support your position with arguments you CAN’T explain?
Atheists and skeptics aren’t looking for the truth. They are looking for a debate. The purpose is primarily to reassure themselves, so that they can continue to be comfortable in their unbelief.
The idea isn’t to learn from you, but to ridicule you. If you allow yourself to be led down one of these rabbit trails about the unknowable or the inexplicable, they will inevitably succeed.
The trick they have to accomplish is to get you to not notice they are using the very evidence they are demanding FROM you AGAINST you.
The ultimate evidence is this. Logic cannot exist apart from God. So the application of logic demands the existence of God, since the Biblical God is the only logical explanation for the existence of logic.
Therefore, if the laws of logic did not exist, we could not know anything. There would be no basis for knowledge.
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” (Proverbs 1:7)
The 17th century atheist philosopher Rene Descartes is credited with the ultimate expression of the APPLICATION of logic; “Cogito ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am.”)
All that established was what everybody else already knew. Atheists, logicians, philosophers, and even evolutionary scientists will be pleased to tell you what they think. But that doesn’t prove anything.
Get them to tell you how. That’s the punch line.
“Make your own dirt.”
This Letter was written by Jack Kinsella on March 4, 2010.