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.
