Answering Objections to my ‘Horse’s Mouth’ Collection

A commenter posting under the name “Jim” recently left reaction to my 2005 entry From the Horse's Mouth: Apologists Shooting Themselves in the Foot, asserting that I’m “being intellectually dishonest” in the “list of quotes” that I present in that entry. Jim called out three quotes and chastised me for my own comments on those quotes.

Given that Jim’s blogger profile indicates that he’s been on Blogger since 2024 and his comment was posted on the morning January 1, 2024, one might surmise that he created his account expressly to post his comment on my blog. I just found that curious.

Below I will consider Jim’s objections in order so that we can see how well they hold up.

Example 1

The first quote that Jim cites comes from John Frame, namely the statement “We know without knowing how we know.”

Jim asked: “What is the context?”

While it’s good that Jim is inquisitive, I did supply a link to the source, and surprisingly the link still works. Judging by his question, though, it appears he didn’t check the original source out for himself. Let’s take a closer look.

The quote in question is found in John Frame’s paper titled PRESUPPOSITIONAL APOLOGETICS: AN INTRODUCTION Part 1 of 2: Introduction and Creation, particularly in a section of that paper labeled “The Psychology of Presupposing.” Here I quote Frame at length so that I don’t get accused of mischaracterizing what Frame states in that section:

I admit that it is difficult to construe the psychology of such faith. How is it that people come to believe a Word from God which contradicts all their other normal means of knowledge? How did Abraham come to know that the voice calling him to sacrifice his son (Gen. 22:1-18; cf. Heb. 11:17-19; James 2:21-24) was the voice of God? What the voice told him to do was contrary to fatherly instincts, normal ethical considerations, and even, apparently, contrary to other Words of God (Gen. 9:6). But he obeyed the voice and was blessed. Closer to our own experience: how is it that people come to believe in Jesus even though they have not, like Thomas, seen Jesus’ signs and wonders (John 20:29)? 

I cannot explain the psychology here to the satisfaction of very many. In this case as in others (for we walk by faith, not by sight!) we may have to accept the fact even without an explanation of the fact. Somehow, God manages to get his Word across to us, despite the logical and psychological barriers. Without explaining how it works, Scripture describes in various ways a “supernatural factor” in divine-human communication. (a) It speaks of the power of the Word. The Word created all things (Gen. 1:3, etc.; Ps. 33:3-6; John 1:3) and directs the course of nature and history (Pss. 46:6; 148:5-8). What God says will surely come to pass (Isa. 55:11; Gen. 18:14; Deut. 18:21ff.). The gospel is “the power of God unto salvation” (Rom. 1:16; cf. Isa. 6:9-10; Luke 7:7ff.; Heb. 4:12). (b) Scripture also speaks of the personal power of the Holy Spirit operating with the Word (John 3:5; 1 Cor. 2:4,12ff.; 2 Cor. 3:15-18; 1 Thess. 1:5). Mysterious though the process may be, somehow God illumines the human mind to discern the divine source of the Word. We know without knowing how we know.

In the first paragraph, Frame poses an important rhetorical question: “How is it that people come to believe a Word from God which contradicts all their other normal means of knowledge?” A natural response to this might be: What do you take to be a person’s “normal means of knowledge”? Such questions are germane to any pursuit of understanding presuppositional apologetics since its proponents make so much hay on questions of the “How do you know?” sort. But curiously Frame himself does not elaborate on this. And yet presuppositionalists continually fall back on the strategy of interrogating non-believers on how they might know whatever they affirm. Even such observations such as “it’s raining outside right now” are liable to prompt the nearest apologist of this persuasion to snicker back, “How do you know?” Thus, one might think that presuppositional apologists would themselves have the basics of their epistemological house in order. Consequently, Frame’s statement “We know without knowing how we know” comes as quite a surprise: presuppositionalists insist that non-believers – who do not seat their claims on appeals to an omniscient and infallible source – account for every aspect of their own knowing process, while the presuppositionalists themselves – who do seat their claims on appeals to an omniscient and infallible source – reserve for themselves the privilege of seeking refuge ignorance when it suits them.

Frame then cites the example of Abraham hearing a voice instructing him to prepare his own son as a sacrifice – yes, to kill his own son. Assuming Abraham heard a voice and that voice instructed in a language he understood that he prepare his own son as a burnt offering, how would Abraham know that this was the voice of the creator of the universe and not, say, something of his own imagining or perhaps an hallucination? Frame has no explanation for this. But Frame cannot allow for any alternative other than what his religion insists on being the case – namely that the voice truly was that of the divine creator. Instead, he’s content to rest the matter on “we know without knowing how we know.”

How well would Frame’s own admission go over if a non-believer used it in response to a Syeclone? Consider for example the following hypothetical exchange:

Non-believer: I love apple pie. 

Syeclone: How do you know? 

Non-believer: We know without knowing how we know.

Naturally, we’d expect the Syeclone to react to this by saying the non-believer’s worldview cannot “account for” basic epistemological operations. And yet, this is what Frame admits when confronted with questions on how believers can know that a command “which contradicts their other normal means of knowledge” come from the creator of the universe. You suspect that the Christian god may have commanded you to kill your loved ones? Well, says Frame, “we may have to accept the fact even without an explanation of the fact.” Such cognitive resignation in fact falls right in line with the lesson of the Abraham and Isaac tale. Its value is not in its purported historicity, but in illustrating in stark form the model mindset which religion requires of the faithful. The story does not depict Abraham questioning the command to prepare his son as a burnt offering; at no point in the story do we find Abraham asking: “Gee, O Lord, did I get that right? Isaac? You want me to kill Isaac, the son whom I love so dearly? I must have misunderstood something. Can you clarify?” No, Abraham does not wince at the instruction. On the contrary, the story depicts him proceeding with the task as indifferently as he would take out the trash.

So now that we have shed light on the context of Frame’s admission, let’s consider Jim’s question:

Is he speaking of Christians alone or all humanity?

Great question! The critical clue here would be Frame’s use of the pronoun ‘we’, the first person plural. By choosing this pronoun, Frame necessarily includes himself. And it’s quite fitting, since here Frame has put himself in the position of addressing epistemological questions germane to his faith, and he himself throws his hands up with the statement “we may have to accept the fact even without an explanation of the fact.” Moreover, the questions Frame raises have specifically to do with religious edicts, not mundane matters like “how do trees grow?” or “what is the average distance between the earth and the moon?” The context, then, indicates definitively that Frame is at the very least speaking on behalf of his own worldview. If he presumes to be speaking on behalf of “all humanity,” what warrant would he have for this? None that I see. It may be John Frame’s opinion that “all humanity” lacks better answers than his confessional non-answer, but that would merely be his opinion. Frame is happy to rest on “somehow” and “mysterious though the process may be.” These are open admissions of ignorance, and at the very least he is speaking for himself here.

Indeed, if Frame is speaking on behalf of “all humanity,” we might ask him: How do you know this about people you’ve never met? I guess then he could paraphrase himself and say “I know without knowing how I know.” Which would only tell me: he really doesn’t know.

Jim added:

Knowledge and belief are still openly debated even among unbelievers the world over.

It’s unclear what relevance Jim thinks this may have on the matter. Frame is addressing questions stemming from a worldview which ultimately appeals to an omniscient and infallible source. Non-believers don’t have this imaginary advantage. Thus, disputes and disagreements are to be expected among non-believes on epistemological matters given that they’re left to their own devices to discover and validate their understanding. Unlike Christians, non-believers do not reserve for themselves the privilege of appealing to magic knowledge to affirm what they believe and then hiding behind vacuous statements like “We know without knowing how we know.”


Example 2

The second quote that Jim had issues with comes from Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, who write in their Handbook of Christian Apologetics

“Religious faith is something to die for.”

My quip to this was:

(So say Muslim suicide bombers. In fact, they even put this belief into practice!)

Jim snorted:

This is horrendously ridiculous of you to say such a thing.

Jim seems more concerned with the sting of mere words rather than with the grave consequences of destructive acts. That there are people who are so devoted to an ideology that they diminish the value of human life does not faze him, but pointing this out does. Why exactly is it ridiculous to point out that Muslim suicide bombers also consider their faith to be something to die for? People who put a low value on human life can be very dangerous to those of us who do value our lives. And if someone doesn’t value his own life, how much less will he value the lives of others?

Jim continued:

Muslim suicide bombers would actually say "Religious faith is something to kill for."

That reminds me of Abraham and his willingness to kill his own son when commanded to do so.

Jim says I’m getting this all wrong and provided his own understanding of the Kreeft and Tacelli quote:

You're using the quote as implying murder whereas that is not what Kreeft is saying. He is instead saying that if someone wants to kill you because you believe in Christianity, then it is worth it to die for your beliefs.

For one, there’s no discussion of “murder” per se in either the Kreeft and Tacelli quote or in my little quip in response to it. Muslims who kill infidels do not consider their act to be an act of murder, but rather a fulfillment the “will of Allah.” Many seem to think it’s a duty of some kind. Carrying out the will of an invisible magic being is important to believers of many religions, not just Islam. It is common to both Islam and Christianity that obeying what the adherent takes to be their god’s will is a fundamental duty.

Now I would certainly call it murder, but then again, I’m an infidel according to these butchering savages. So far as they’re concerned, my views do not matter. Similarly, was it murder when the Israelites carried out their god’s command to slay the Canaanites? When a person believes in the supernatural, everything is permitted, and rationalizing what on a “naturalistic” set of presuppositions would constitute murder is easy for the committed believer. Just dial up “God” and voilá – the believer has all the justification he could ever hope for. Consider the following pronouncements from Christian apologist William Lane Craig (for source details, see here):

Our moral duties are constituted by God’s commands, so that when he issues commands to us, they become our moral duties. So Israel and the armies of Israel became in effect the instrument by which God judged these Canaanite peoples. The adults deserved the judgment that they received… Now the more difficult problem is the children. How could God command that children be killed, because these are innocent. And I think what I would want to say there is, that God has the right to give and take life as he sees fit. Children die all the time, every day, people’s lives are cut short. God is under no obligation whatsoever to prolong anybody’s life another second. So he has the right to give and take life as he chooses. Moreover, if you believe as I do in the salvation of infants or children who die, what that meant was that these… the death of these children meant their salvation. They were the recipients of an infinite good as a result of their earthly phase of life being terminated. The problem is that people look at this from a naturalistic perspective and think life ends at the grave. But in fact this was the salvation of these children, and it would be far better for them than continuing to be raised in this reprobate Canaanite culture. So I don’t think God wronged anybody in commanding this to be done. He didn’t wrong the adults because they were deserving of capital punishment. He didn’t wrong the children – if there were any that were killed, which we don’t know – because God has the right to take their lives, and in effect they were recipients of a great good. So I don’t think anybody that was morally wronged in this affair.

Here Craig shows how believers can just dismiss destructive actions that result in people’s death. “Children die all the time,” he says, as though this had the relevance he needs it to have for his point. A murderer is “in effect the instrument by which” the believer’s god judges its victims. And in the case of children, it’s even less of a worry because, on Craig’s belief system, they’re saved any way. So their death means their salvation and they receive “an infinite good as a result of their earthly phase of life being terminated.” Victims of murder go on living in an afterlife anyway, so what’s the problem? The problem is only when we “look at this from a naturalistic perspective.” But on Craig’s view, of course he’s not going to say that “God wronged anybody in commanding” humans to kill other humans. The god which Craig worships in his imagination “has the right to give and take life” as it decides.

As for Jim’s claim that Kreeft and Tacelli were really saying “if someone wants to kill you because you believe in Christianity, then it is worth it to die for your beliefs,” let’s examine the context in which they made the original quote:

The act of faith is more than merely an act of belief. We believe many things-for example, that the Bulls will beat the Celtics, that the President is not a crook, that Norway is beautiful-but we are not willing to die for these beliefs, nor can we live them every moment. But religious faith is something to die for and something to live every moment. It is much more than belief, and much stronger, though belief is one of its parts or aspects. (Handbook of Christian Apologetics, p. 14, italics added.)

There’s no mention in the immediate context of the prospect of someone wanting to kill the believer because of his beliefs – and reviewing again the preceding and proceeding paragraphs, I’m not seeing this concern at all being raised as part of the broader context surrounding Kreeft and Tacelli’s words. Rather, their concern is to distinguish faith from other beliefs given the strength of the commitment that the former commands of the believer which run-of-the-mill beliefs do not. It seems, then, that Jim is inserting his own context into the quote in question in order to chastise me simply for pointing out its implications for the devaluation of human life, beginning with the believer himself.

It is important to keep in mind that the words “Religious faith is something to die for” are not mine. I do not endorse such a view, and my worldview does not teach such a view. A religion, however, requires devotion and obedience, and it is religion which makes allegiance to its pronouncements a life and death issue. Here Kreeft and Tacelli are explicit in stating that “religious faith is something to die for,” which in fact means that to be worthy of their religion’s aegis, believers need to be willing to die for their faith. When an individual places value on something to the point that he apparently thinks it can be served by dying for it, he places a relatively lower value on his own life. And generally speaking, people who think that a belief system as such is of greater value than their own lives, are likely to suppose that the belief system in question is of greater value than other people’s lives. It just follows naturally.

My better judgment is to be very careful around people who think their own lives are expendable for the sake of advancing an ideology. Or for any reason for that matter.

A suicide bomber motivated by an ideology is willing to die in the service of advancing that ideology. There’s no question that a Muslim suicide bomber, bent on advancing Islam in the world, believes that his “faith is something to die for.” Supposing that taking out the lives of others in his vicinity is perfectly justifiable, is simply the next logical step in that twisted calculus. The key here is that faith demands self-sacrifice. This is the lesson put on display in the Abraham and Isaac story. When a rational individual is instructed to harm those whom he loves, he will defy this instruction. But when a devoted religious believer is so instructed, if he believes the instruction is coming from the right source, he very well may act on it.

The ultimate point of my own quip (namely: So say Muslim suicide bombers. In fact, they even put this belief into practice!) is that, unlike many Christians I’ve known, Muslim suicide bombers actually put their beliefs into practice. I don’t see a lot of Christians dying to serve Christianity. It is not my position that believers dying for their beliefs would serve Christianity, so I think it’s a good thing that I don’t see them doing this. I’m simply observing that there is a fundamental discrepancy between the views Christians express and the actions they actually take. Believers should not be sore at me for making this observation.


Example 3

The third quote that Jim took issue with comes from Christian apologist Phil Fernandes in his debate with JJ Lowder. The statement goes as follows:

"I just believe that we are very good about lying to ourselves, and only accepting, uh, or interpreting the evidence the way we would like to."

For reference, Fernandes made this unscripted statement in the cross-examination period (in this video, you’ll find Fernandes’ remark beginning around the 4:25 mark). Fernandes was saying that the Christian god “has given us clear evidence,” but then says “we are very good about lying to ourselves” when it comes to “interpreting the evidence” he believes we have at our disposal.

My reaction to this was, and still is, that Fernandes was speaking autobiographically here – i.e., that he’s essentially confessing that he himself is “good about lying” to himself on these and probably other matters. Indeed, I think Christians are in the habit of construing things as evidence for their beliefs when in fact they are not. I have exposed many examples of this right here on my blog. So there’s definitely a Freudian quality to Fernandes’ remark. Hence I would say he’s speaking for himself first and foremost.

Jim, however, objects to my reaction here. He writes:

I heard that debate and know that Fernandes is not speaking for himself but for humanity in general. How could you not see that? Perhaps you are very good at lying to yourself.

Sure, it is certainly possible to interpret Fernandes’ statement here as a statement applying generally to all human thinkers. But that would be one’s interpretation – and in that act one may be importing one’s own assumptions into the mix. But note that Fernandes himself does not explicitly state that his assessment applies to “humanity in general.” He doesn’t even say “everybody” or “everyone.” Rather, just as when John Frame writes “We know without knowing how we know,” Phil Fernandes uses the first person plural pronoun “we,” which is self-inclusive. By using the pronoun “we,” Fernandes necessarily includes himself. He automatically puts himself at the center of his own blast zone. If I make the statement “we’re going to eat out tonight,” there’s no question that I’m including myself in that reference. It really is obvious to anyone familiar with English pronouns. That was the point of my statement that Fernandes was obviously speaking for himself here.

When individuals disguise their generalizations by using ‘we’ statements – such as “we are very good about lying to ourselves” or “we sometimes don’t know what we’re talking about,” I take it that they are speaking first and foremost for themselves. It may be that they're including others around them as unwitting accomplices in the act.

But notice that Jim’s objection is all the more moot given his own expressed interpretation of Fernandes’ remark: If Fernandes intended the statement to apply to “humanity in general,” it would still include Fernandes in the scope of its generality! If we interpret Fernandes’ remark to be saying that that human beings generally are skilled at lying to themselves, we’d naturally assume that Fernandes is just as afflicted with this predisposition as anyone else given the fact that he himself is a human being. It may be that Fernandes was hoping that the audience would assume his pronouncement was self-exclusionary – i.e., that everyone else is skilled at lying to themselves, but not him – but that would be too obviously self-serving, and nothing in his statement would justify such self-exclusion. One does not even have to watch the whole debate to grasp my points here: if we accept the view that “humanity in general” is “very skilled about lying to ourselves and only accepting, uh, or interpreting the evidence the way we would like to,” why suppose this applies only to the skeptic, and not to those apologists who endorse such a view in the first place? After all, it’s the apologists who insist on the existence of a being which we cannot distinguish from something they themselves are merely imagining.

I’m reminded here of Romans 3:4, where the author wrote: “let God be true, but every man a liar.” If it’s the case that “every man [is] a liar,” this accusation would logically apply to the person who penned those words in the first place. This is the same circumstance Fernandes finds himself in. I have heard many Christians tell me that all human beings are morally depraved. If true, this could only mean that the human being telling me this is himself morally depraved. They paint with such wide brushes that they themselves cannot escape the colors they want to splash on everyone else.

Jim ended his comment with the following parting shot:

I suspect that the rest of your articles are as bad as this. Why, then, should any self-respecting atheist bother with your website? I guess, if he likes lying to himself and is careless with the use of his mind. But perhaps it is the heart, and its biases, prejudices, and desires, which drives you.

Each individual must make his own decisions, and in doing so hopefully run the best cost-benefit analysis possible given the circumstances and the amount of time one deems worthy to give to a matter. We all must do this. If Jim reads one or two posts on my blog and has determined that spending any further time reading more would be a waste, that is certainly his prerogative. I do not expect my writings to appeal to many. I’m sure there are people out there who would prefer to spend their time watching some 80’s TV re-run instead of reading one paragraph of my blog. This does not bother me one bit. I am grateful to those who do read and even more to those who take the time to post their thoughts in reaction to what I have written. So for this, Jim does have my gratitude.

by Dawson Bethrick