141 - Argument from Reason with Travis Dickinson

Summary
In this episode, Brian and Chad interview Travis Dickinson about the argument from reason. They discuss the different options for explaining the existence of logical principles, focusing on naturalism and Platonism. Travis argues that if God does not exist, logical principles either do not exist or exist as brute abstract objects. He explains that naturalism, which denies the existence of anything outside the natural world, cannot account for the existence of logical principles. Platonism, on the other hand, posits the existence of abstract objects in a separate realm, but this explanation is ad hoc and lacks independent reasons. Travis concludes that the most plausible explanation for logical principles is the existence of God. In this part of the conversation, Brian and Travis discuss the argument from reason and its connection to the existence of God. They explore the idea that our ability to reason and use logic points to the existence of a higher mind, which they identify as God. They also discuss how the argument from reason can be used in practical apologetics to engage with skeptics and point them towards Christ.

Takeaways

• The argument from reason posits that if God does not exist, logical principles either do not exist or exist as brute abstract objects.
• Naturalism, which denies the existence of anything outside the natural world, cannot account for the existence of logical principles.
• Platonism, which posits the existence of abstract objects in a separate realm, is an ad hoc explanation without independent reasons.
• The most plausible explanation for logical principles is the existence of God. Our ability to reason and use logic suggests the existence of a higher mind, which can be identified as God.
• The argument from reason can be used in practical apologetics to engage with skeptics and challenge their worldview.
• The moral argument may be more effective in hitting people in the gut, but the argument from reason provides a strong intellectual foundation for belief in God.
• Studying logic and critical thinking can be seen as a way of studying God and living in a way that reflects the mind of Christ.
• The argument from reason points to the idea that God is the greatest conceivable being, worthy of worship and the normative standard for reasoning.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:17 Guest Introduction
03:33 The Incompatibility of Naturalism and Logical Principles
05:01 Reason as the Observable Phenomenon
06:29 The Plausibility of God as the Ground of Logical Principles
16:21 The Ad Hoc Nature of Platonism
24:23 The Limitations of Platonism
26:14 The Need for a Ground of Logical Principles
27:13 The Argument from Reason and the Existence of God
30:07 The Platonic View vs. the Theistic View
35:17 Jesus as the Originating Logical Principle
39:38 Jesus as the Ground of Being and Logic
51:03 The End of Every Philosophical Question is God

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Hello, and welcome to the Apologeticsthree fifteen podcast with your hosts Brian Auten
and Chad Gross. Join us forconversations and interviews on the topics of apologetics,
evangelism, and the Christian worldview.He thanks going boys, you're playing
yesterday's Tay. Hello and welcome tothe podcast. This is Brian Auten and

(00:25):
I'm Chad Gross. Okay, Chad, We've got a returning guest today,
Travis Dickinson. We did interview himon Logic in the Way of Jesus and
we'll link to that in the shownotes. But what are we talking about
today, Chad? Today we're goingto be talking about the argument from reason.
In Travis's book, Logic in theWay of Jesus, he has a
chapter on this argument. I've alwaysfound it to be a very interesting argument

(00:48):
and it's often unutilized, and Ireally like the formation that he makes of
the argument in his book, andso we asked him to come back and
unpack it for us, and sowe're actually going to take it step by
step and work through the argument.And we're also going to talk about what
does the argument from reasons say aboutGod? And what does the argument from
Reason tell us about Jesus. Yeah, it's going to be good. Let's

(01:10):
go to this interview with Travis Dickinson. Let's get ready, switch me on.
Well, Travis Dickinson, thanks forcoming back on the podcast. It's
my pleasure, guys, good tosee you. Well, it's been a
little while. What's new in yourarea of the woods. Well, not
a whole lot in terms professionally,just continuing to promote recent work and that

(01:33):
kind of thing. But at home, it's our daughter's about to graduate from
high school. So oh that's exciting. We're on all systems go of getting
it ready to ship out. SoI mean she's just going to my school,
so it's just down the street,but right still, congrats to her.
Yes, yes, yes, great. We wanted to have you on

(01:55):
today because we did a great interviewwith you on your book, Logic in
the Way of Jesus, and inthere you have a chapter on the argument
from Reason and we were hoping totake a closer look at that argument,
and so before we start doing that, can you give us an overview of
the argument? Absolutely? Yeah,So it's one of my favorites and really

(02:15):
in working on the book, it'sbecome even more so because it you know,
clear to me how powerful it reallyis. Stated formally, I've got
it as if God does not exist, then neither logical principles do not exist,
or they exist as brute abstract objects. It's not the case that logical

(02:36):
principles do not exist, because thiswould be self defeating. Promise three,
it's not the case that they existas brute abstract objects, since that would
be ad hoc. Therefore, Godexists. So let me sort of give
the gist of that now. Sowhat I'm trying to do is say,
there are logical principles. There arethese real things in you know, reality.

(02:59):
Call those the logical principles that governthought, govern our reasoning. And
then we have to think world viewishly, so we have to understand we sort
of have to locate them on ourworld views. If one were to deny
the existence of God, by farthe most common option is to be a
naturalist and just deny anything outside thenatural physical world. And so that seems

(03:24):
to be a view that would denylogic logical principles themselves, And I'm saying
that that's self defeating, and hopewe unpack all these things. But or
you can say that they do exist, but they just exist separate from the
existence of God. There is noGod on this sort of more Platonist view,
but I think that that's odd hoc. So either way, we kind
of are led back to the existenceof God. So now let's hope hopefully

(03:47):
break that down right. I wasgoing to say for listeners who are already
thinking, whoa, yeah, weare going to take that premise by premise,
and and Travis is going to packthat for us. Yeah. So,
I mean the gist of it isthat I think if you deny God's
existence, it's very difficult, notimpossible, but it's very difficult to locate

(04:11):
logical principles themselves. And then ofcourse that has huge implications for the use
of logic as we think about ourworldviews and evaluate our world views. Could
I see if I could try tobreak it down for the laymans slightly so
coming at it, because we camein it right with the premises, and
sometimes if you're hearing it, i'dbe reading it's great. If you're hearing

(04:34):
it can be challenging depending on typeof learner or a listener you are,
absolutely so I kind of see itlike this correct me or guide me if
I'm getting it wrong. But welook at the world and we see things
like design, and we say,well, what accounts for that? And
we have a few options on thetable, and we eliminate ones that don't

(04:55):
seem to account for it well enough, and we're left with what seems to
be the best explanation. Yeah,And in this case, we're looking at
reason as the thing that we observein the world in our own lives.
We use it, we can't getaway from it, undergirds even are thinking
about it, and so we haveto say, what explains that? Could
it be naturalism? Does that giveus the resources to explain it? Or

(05:19):
is it platonism? You know thesethings that just it's a brute fact.
Well, these things both fail.Therefore it must be God because that's the
other option. So is that sortof the way to put it for the
layman? I think that's right.Like when we try to explain what a
logical principle is, the most Yeah, in a way that the argument is

(05:41):
saying, the most plausible explanation isthe mind of God. You know,
in some way that logical principles aregrounded in the mind of God. I
mean, after all, we're talkingabout reason, we're talking about things that
seem to be some somehow related tominds. Right, hard to see what
reason means if a mind isn't involved. And so if there are genuine logical

(06:06):
principles that genuinely, you know,are the standards that we appeal to as
we evaluate our reasons, then wehave to explain them somehow. And the
divine mind I'm suggesting is I mean, not even just a suggestion, but
it's I think is just the verymost plausible way. I struggle to take

(06:27):
the other options all that seriously,even though you know, I think there's
some appeal, but it's it's hardto see how you explain logic at all.
And that's a really powerful argument forGod's existence. Then if there's literally
no good way, no plausible wayto explain this fact of reality, and
good luck denying that fact right doingit reasonably at least, and that leads

(06:49):
us straight to the mind of God, like man, what a powerful argument.
So we won't go down any ofthese other rabbit trails that I'm going
to ask you about here, butanyway, Yeah, to me, I
would just want maybe the listeners toget a context of you know what we're

(07:10):
talking about today, and unpacking isone argument from reason. Yeah, but
there are it's a family of argumentsabsolutely about that. And so who would
be some of the other proponents havemade their own versions or own ways of
arguing from reason? Who would bethe proponents and what directions maybe they've taken?
Yeah, so too far down thosepaths, you know? Sure?

(07:33):
Sure so. C. S.Lewis is probably the most famous. You
know, do we call him ahistorical figure? I mean, I think
at this point he's a historical figure, right, And it's not to say
that there aren't people talking about it. You know. Lewis definitely has some
of his unique contributions, But there'sa lot of Lewis that's really just being

(07:57):
talked about. He just put itin such a powerful way oftentimes and with
sort of a creative twist even attimes, So he gets sort of given
credit for that for that reason,which I think is well deserved. So
Lewis is definitely one who is bringingit up. He doesn't characteristic of Lewis,
which is this is true of themoral argument and some other arguments,

(08:18):
the argument from desire and some ofthe other ones that he's sort of famous
for popularizing. Lewis almost never givesa robust, sort of rigorous expression of
these arguments. He kind of justputs it out there in a real kind
of easy way to hear it,in powerful way, you know, sort
of drops that bomb and walks away. And so when you try to work

(08:39):
it out, there's a number ofdifferent directions you can go. And you
know, I don't know if Lewis, you know, had in mind a
particular particular direction, but somebody likeAlvin Planego would be somebody who has definitely
explored this argument in his evolutionary argumentagainst naturalism, definitely has parts to that

(09:00):
that would be very reminiscent, reminiscentof an argument from reason. Here,
my emphasis is on the existence ofthe logical principles themselves, which is a
little different than some others because I'min a way doing metaphysics or world you
know, kind of coming at itfrom a metaphysical look at it to say

(09:22):
what is the like, what isthe logical principle? And again, like
you're faced with the terrible option.I think if you eschew the existence of
God, you either have to say, well, they just exist in Plato's
heaven or they don't exist at all, and that's no good choice. Those
are not not good options, itseems to me. So before we start

(09:43):
unpacking the premises, what actually kindof got you interested in this argument?
What attracts you to it? Yeah, So I was doing work on the
book. Where the book is,you know, more broadly, the project
is to kind of I mean,it's a logic text and it's but it's
trying to be more than that,of course, is sort of trying to
frame logic for Christian in a wayand talking about the ways in which logic

(10:09):
is relevant to us, which shouldbe obvious enough. It shouldn't be that
we need a book for it,but we do. And so in just
trying to you know, map outideas of like, yeah, what,
you know, how does logic relateto the Christian logic? Reason, critical
thinking? How does it relate tothe Christian It was just clear to me
that, like, man, whata cool part to it that not only

(10:33):
should we embrace as Christians principles ofcritical thinking and careful reflection on these things
and using them to bring you know, sort of evaluate our worldviews and our
Christian faith and you know, allthese things that again like are part of
the book and trying to argue forall these things, but not only should

(10:54):
we do all those things, wecan actually give a kind of metaphysics of
law, a ground of logic thatif you don't have that, I mean,
that does sound a little funny.That's why you know, it's worth
kind of sitting with these ideas havinga ground of logic. Some people would
say, isn't logic the ground,but there's reasons to think that No,

(11:16):
actually, that God ultimately is thatsort of ultimate metaphysic, that ultimate ground.
And so it was just kind oflike this really neat thing that,
Okay, that's got to be partof this picture, part of this project,
because right it gives this full view, this full sort of exploration of

(11:37):
how to think of logic and howto relate it to the life of the
Christians. So ultimately it comes fromthat idea for me and writing the book
was to say, what does itmean to love God with all of our
minds? Well, here we go, let's let's explore the nuts and bolts
of that. And this is definitelypart of that picture. Yeah, I
definitely see how that's foundational to accountfor reason self if you're talking about loving

(12:01):
God with all our mind, rightright, yeah, yeah, So let's
take a look at the argument,and just for the sake of the listener,
I'll go through premise by premise.Okay, So premise on premise one
says if God does not exist,then either logical principles do not exist,
which would be naturalism, or theyexist as brute abstract objects. So let's

(12:26):
talk about those options. So canyou unpack what you mean by naturalism and
platonism for for our listeners? Yes, So naturalism it's a it's of course
a view that gets worked out ina number of different ways. But and
always, you know, want tobe careful with that because, of course

(12:48):
not every naturalist is the same asevery other naturalist. But and you get
the old not mynd naturalism, yeahright right, which sometimes fair enough,
right yeah. Yeah. And sohere I'm understanding naturalism as you know,
kind of just at face value,saying all that exists is the natural world

(13:09):
and objects of the natural world.Right. So close cousins of naturalism would
be views like materialism and physicalism,where the materialist says that only the material
world exists, or physicalism says onlyphysical things exist and so on, So
like these are they don't. They'renot necessarily identical views, but they tend

(13:31):
to go in groups, and ofcourse atheism sort of can be tacked onto
all this. So usually it meansthat ultimately all that exists or that is
the natural world, the natural worldof physical material objects, and that's it.
On that view, it seems tome one has to deny the real

(13:54):
existence of logical principles because logical principles, whatever they are, they're not natural
physical material it seems to me,right, And sometimes people will say,
well, why couldn't it just bethe property of a say, human brain,
when we process or reason in someway or other. The problem is

(14:16):
because that's what it's assessing. It'sassessing the human brain, it's assessing our
processing and so on. Right,it's those standards. So think of it
this way. It's sort of like, if our brain is not functioning,
well, if we're not reasoning,well, if that's all we are brains,
right on this view, then whatlogic does is evaluates that to say

(14:41):
there's a problem and something has tobe reassessed. It can't it seems like
it have to be outside of forit to be this objective. Again,
I'm really emphasizing the word real here, real and genuine. You don't have
a real and genuine sort of logicalprinciple or logical standard if it's the property
of the very thing that you're aimingto evaluate. And so if we can

(15:05):
evaluate rational thought, then it seemslike these have to exist outside of the
human brain or mind. And again, you know, if you think of
a logical principle, whatever it is, you're not going to stumble on it
in the woods or something. Right, You're not going to find it in
the laboratory. It's not a natural, physical thing. And in the book,

(15:26):
I think as I describe it intrying to give the properties of a
logical principle, right to describe itin some way, it's the kind of
thing that doesn't seem to come intoexistence at any time. Right, A
contradiction is a contradiction, is acontradiction and has been eternally. So it's
this eternal truth. It is anormative fact, meaning that it tells us

(15:50):
how one ought to reason. Rightis non physical, non natural. It's
really just in the category of thethings that the naturalist didn't eyes. It
seems to me, And so we'rekind of left with for the naturalists,
faced with having to say bite thebullet, as naturalists has to with anything

(16:11):
non natural. I mean, that'sjust what it is to be a naturalist
in a way and say that logicdoesn't exist. Now, they can do
that, and do, in factdo that many many naturalists, somebody like
Michael Ruse, for example, isvery vocal about denying the existence of something
like moral facts. Why does thenaturalists deny moral facts, like genuine moral

(16:34):
facts, because they just don't fitin the natural category there, they are
non natural things if they exist atall. And so as a naturalist he's
forced to say there's just no suchthing as a moral fact. Now,
I think that's scary. I thinkthat's a little that's worrisome. I'm not
gonna, you know, I'm gonnahold my wallet a little close when i'm

(16:57):
with, you know, not lettingthem babysit my kids and so on.
Like if you're if you really honestlydon't think moral facts exist, I'm definitely
worried about that. But there isn'tI think there's a worse problem, right,
I think you can deny moral facts, and that's that's it's scary,
it's it's not it's super implausible andworrisome for you know, kind of society.

(17:18):
But that is a philosophically consistent view. But notice, if you deny
logical principles, you have cut thelegs out of your own view, yes,
because you cannot. While you candeny moral facts and logically argue for
your view, you cannot deny logicalfacts and logically argue for that view.

(17:41):
And if you do, you're justbeing inconsistent. At least, it's not
a consistent view. And that's whyI say it's self defeating if one denies
the real existence of logical facts.Now, so what about platonism. Okay,
so platonism, right, so platonismPlatonism is now in this context,

(18:03):
you know, Platonism of course meansa lot of different things too, through
through the through history. We don'tso much mean literally Plato's view here,
at least not the full package ofPlato's view. But what we're talking about
is this idea that there is thenatural sort of material, physical world,
and then there is what sometimes referredto as Plato's heaven or the world of

(18:26):
the forms or whatever, where thereare these world of abstract so called abstract
objects that exist, So that wouldbe like the world of the forms again,
so things like, right in thematerial world you have beautiful things,
beautiful objects. In the world ofthe forms, you have beauty itself.

(18:49):
The way here, again, theway it would work is to say,
you might want to say that thereare these other non natural things like moral
vacs or like something like even mathematicalfacts would exit on for the Platonists,
would exist outside space and time,outside the material, physical, natural world.
And so the Platonists could say that'sthis is what the world is like.

(19:12):
We have the world as experienced,and then we have the world of
forms. And in the world offorms, we've got mathematical facts, moral
facts, and say logical facts.And there you go. You've got you're
not denying logical facts. So yourview isn't straightforwardly self defeating. That's you
know, nice, that's yeah.You don't want your b to be cultivaty.

(19:37):
You don't want to cut the legsout of your own view if at
all possible. The problem here though, is that and let me just say
this too, that if I werean atheist, i'd be a platonist.
I don't think I could come tothe place of accepting and embracing naturalism in
that strict sense that I described it, because you're just denying too much,

(19:59):
and it's seems obvious to me thatlogical facts exist. Right the world is
that way. I think we aredirectly acquainted with the existence of logical facts.
I can say more about that ifyou want. I think that we
have an intuitive grasp of these thingswhere I really don't take seriously the view
that there are no such things asmoral facts, as logical facts, mathematical

(20:23):
facts, and the rest. Sowere I to be an atheist, I
would be a platonist. No,I'm in agreement there with you. And
I also would say that I knowin the book you even allude to that,
and you say something along I don'tremember exactly how you word it,
but you say something along the linesthat some atheists adopt or non believers,
whatever you want to call them.Non theists will adopt platonism because naturalism gives

(20:48):
away too much. Yeah, thoughit's the far minority view. I mean
by far. Eric Weileinberg is agreat example of somebody who has defended I
think, really you know, it'sone of the I always direct my students
to read him if they want tolook at this view of platonism, atheistic
platonism. And he's a great source. That's thoughtful guy, you know,

(21:14):
really brilliant guy working on this issue, trying to make that view work.
But like I say, like I'mnot, I think the view that God
exists or I think by far thebest explanation for something like a logical principle
to be the existence of God.Again, I think it leads there quite
strongly. And so the problem withgoing platonism is that it it will strike

(21:38):
as quite ad hoc. Now,I don't know if that's a term that's
familiar to your listener, So letme sort of lay that out a little
bit. An explanation is ad hocwhen it only explains the phenomenon that you're
looking to explain. Now, thatmight seem like, well it doesn't sound
so bad, but it's pret prettyeasy to explain phenomena. It really is.

(22:02):
So let's say, right, you'recome home from work, you're tired,
You come into your apartment and yousee that the TV's missing, and
you have a you know, brokenwindow or something. Now think about the
probably infinite number of ways, atleast indefinite number of ways that you could
explain that data. It could bethat aliens, right, I'm not going

(22:29):
to say aliens, but it wasalien. Alien beamed up right there after
TV. I don't know why anyway, they beamed up your TV. And
maybe it's like the frequency of thebeam like shattered the window. I don't
know, right, but we've noticed, like we fully explained, like nothing's
left unexplained. But that would bean example of an ad hoc explanation because

(22:52):
that's all it does. It justexplains the data. But that's pretty super
easy to just come up. Allyou got to do is get a little
creative, and you can come upwith, you know, a whole raft
of different explanations. What we wantis one for which we have independent reason
to think that it's true. Soobviously, when we walk in see the
missing TV and the broken window,we're going to immediately think, oh,

(23:14):
no, somebody broken and you know, grab the TV. Why do we
Why is that a better explanation becausewe have independent reasons to know that that
kind of thing happens. You mightbe in a you know a little bit
of a rough neighborhood. Let's sayyou and your neighbor got broken into similar
sort of thing. You're going tohave independent reasons favoring that explanation, and

(23:37):
so the task for the alien proponentis to give independent reason for that.
But when we evaluate these things alongwith the other sort of theoretical virtues,
we're going to see that the bestexplanation is somebody grabbed your TV. Now,
when it comes to explaining logical principles, the platonist does explain the data,

(23:59):
right, if there is a youknow, principle of non contradiction that
just hangs out there outside space andtime and exists as a brute fact,
that would explain the data. Butwhat other reason, What independent reason do
we have to think that principle ofnon contradictions exists as a brute fact?

(24:21):
And I think we just come upshort, like we don't have any other
reasons. Now, Notice, whenit comes to the explanation that God exists,
we do. This is just oneargument in a whole family, actually,
a rather large family of arguments forthe existence of God, from the
cosmological, teleological, ontological, moralargument and so on. All. What's

(24:45):
beautiful about is that it all sortof you know, triangulates or I don't
know if that's the right word,but it all sort of comes together and
is unified by this single theory explainsall this whole range of data and the
existence of the principle non contradiction justdoesn't, of course do that. I
think one other reason too is thatthat and I think I have to think

(25:06):
some more about this. I thinkthis is a fruitful, uh sort of
line of evaluation here as well.Is how so let's say that the principle
of non contradiction just exists out therein Plato seven, how do we how
are we hooked up to it?Like? How do we use it to
evaluate an argument? When we finda contradiction and an argument and we say,

(25:30):
ah, this is no good.How do we sort of appeal to
it? How do we make useof it? It's it's kind of an
elaborate view in a way to saythat we just somehow have a knowledge or
an awareness of these logical principles andcan can bring to such an extent that
we can bring those things to bearin our reasoning processes. What's especially problematic

(25:56):
about that is that we do itall the time, Like we've we've we've
been evaluating arguments since we were smallkids. Right where your parents are telling
you to eat your veggies or togo to bed or something, and you're
trying to find some way to sayI shouldn't have to do that or whatever.
Like, you don't know the namesof these things. You don't even

(26:17):
you couldn't formulate them, you couldn'teven talk about what you're appealing to.
But some way in which we dohave a grasp of these things, and
I find that quite incredible in away. But there's no real that I'm
aware of, at least theory ofhow it is we are hooked up to
these brute fact principles such that wecan use them in just our day to

(26:41):
day life. Now again, howabout the theistic view, Well, right,
I think we do have an awarenessof God. I do think that,
right, it's sort of a romansone, sort of an idea that
God can be clearly seen. AndI don't think that gets us all the
way there, But I do thinkthat there's this kind of awareness, this

(27:03):
direct awareness of God that we allhave. Again, we don't necessarily know
it. We sometimes have to cometo the realization of it. We could
even deny it as atheist too.But I'm really tempted to think that we
all in some ways have a kindof non cognitive, non propositional, but

(27:25):
direct awareness of God, and it'swhy we have it intuit a sense of
what's right and wrong. It's whywe can sort of grasp the a priori
truths of mathematics. It's why wecan grasp the logical principles and bring those
to bear in our arguments. Sojust to clarify, because that is fascinating
to think about your saying that evenif we grant and I might completely watch

(27:49):
this, Travis, so please feelfree to correct me. Even if we
grant that there's these platonic logical principlesout there, it seems surprising that we're
able to ascertain them, that ourminds seem designed to use them right to
evaluate things. And a more eloquentexplanation would be that we're actually created in

(28:12):
the image of the ultimate Mind,which is why we're able to ascertain them
and use them to evaluate You're right. But not just as a part of
the divine image, though I thinkthat's definitely part of the picture, but
that God makes himself known to usand I want to suggest that God makes

(28:36):
himself known to us in a directway, such that we all do have
an awareness of God. Again,that's not exactly what Romans Want is talking
about when it talks about the youknow, we can clearly see him and
what has been made. And I'msort of butchering that, but you know,
Romans eighteen, nineteen twenty right aroundthere. But I think that fits

(28:56):
into maybe a broader picture of howwe I mean, for example, like
we do seem to have an intuitivegrasp on moral facts right from a young
age. We all seem to Okay, So if on the on my view,
I would locate again these moral factsin the character of God. That

(29:19):
God is the moral exemplar, andit is because of who God is by
his nature that grounds morality. Buthow do how do we know it's wrong
intuitively to lie or to torture childrenfor fun or harm someone, you know,

(29:40):
these moral facts. It seems thatwe just know it intuitively, like
we seem to have an awareness.But if what we're aware of is the
character of God, then sort ofin a sense we have this direct awareness
of God. We're sort of connectedto him that way. He's made himself
known to us that way. Butit's direct, so it's not and it's
non cognitive, non propositional, soit's not like we automatically have these beliefs

(30:06):
about God. You can be awareof something and deny its existence, and
I think that's the state of youknow, an atheist and an unbeliever.
They're denying the existence of something thatthey are directly aware of. So it
seems like the naturalist pointing down,you know, he doesn't have anything to

(30:26):
support the logical principles, right,but the platonic view sort of points in
the right direction. It's it's pointingup, but to an empty heaven.
But what we're saying is no,there's no reason for there just to be
this empty heaven that exists on itsown. We need God in that heaven
in order to ground the logical principles. That is not adcock, because this

(30:47):
is already something that is on thetable. That is a fully orbed view.
Yeah, with other reasons to believethat it's it's the case. Now
you mentioned some thoughtful thinkers such asEric Wielenberg and how he's an atheist platonist.
I wonder from your interaction with hismaterial and things like that. What
he might say to this, howwould he how might he, as an

(31:11):
atheist platonist, want to ground logicalprinciples. He might have ways of grounding
his moral ideas, But when itcomes to logical principles, is that different?
Is you take a different approach orhas he not interacted with that?
So what he says in the book, as I recall, is that he
says that it's a tie, it'san explanatory tie. And I think if

(31:34):
I understand his view, he goeson to talk about something like the problem
of evil, you know, beingwhat breaks the tie for him. So
it's you know, you might thinkof it as like he thinks that the
platonist's view sort of explains it justas well as the theistic view. But
when we look at the world andwe see pain, suffering, and evil,

(31:59):
that count against the theistic view becausethat's not the world that an all
good God or the existence of anall good and all powerful God would predict.
And that's not again I'm a littlebit putting that on Weilemberg. I
think that's right that he holds thatthat certainly wouldn't be an uncommon way to
go. I've heard other atheist figurestalk about science this way. They'll say,

(32:23):
you know, the atheistic and Christianview are essentially tied scientifically as it
explains the world. But we lookaround and we see evil, pain and
suffering, and that sort of thetie breaker when it comes to logic.
Though, what I now again,you know, that's probably outside of what

(32:43):
we want to talk get talked intohere again. But the problem of evil,
that is. But I think again, I don't. I just don't
think it is a tie. Ithink that the platonist view is at hoc
in a way that the theistic viewisn't. So if we can explain the

(33:04):
problem of evil and so on,then you know, for Wileenberg, it
just remains a tie. Explanatorily,but when I look at it and when
I lay it out, there areand again this is just the way in
which explanatory reasoning works, a socalled inference to the best explanation. What
we're doing is we're looking at ahypothesis and we're asking how well does this

(33:27):
hypothesis do you know? One wayto ask it is how many theoretical virtues
does this hypothesis have? Theoretical virtueswould be things like simplicity, right,
a kind of Okham's Raiser form ofreasoning that says, all things being equal,
the simpler thesis is the right one. Things like explanatory power, which

(33:50):
would be how much data does itexplain? Is it called conservatism or something
theoretical conservativism, which as how welldoes it accord with what we already know?
Things like that, And we usethese virtues to evaluate the views.
Like I said, you know,just kind of come back to the it's
being at hoc in a way thatthe theistic view isn't. I think we

(34:15):
have all kinds of reasons to thinkthat God exists. I really do.
I'm very you know, I talkabout this all the time in my classes
and so on, that when weconsider just the sheer number, not that
we're just counting noses here for arguments, but it is something. And then
the diversity of arguments that we havefor the existence of God going everywhere from

(34:38):
you know, the cosmos itself ina kind of cosmological argument or the finitude
of the cosmos, or the contingencyof the cosmos, right, all forms
of the cosmological argument to the teleologicalargument, the fine tuning argument, the
argument from beauty, the argument fromconsciousness, the on to logical argument.

(35:00):
I mean, these are like reallydifferent arguments, all unified, you know,
to this sort of singular thesis thatGod exists. And so it's sort
of just saying, look, wecan also explain logic. And when you
have I mean, in any kindof inference to that best explanation, if

(35:21):
it's a scientific theory or it's likea criminal investigation thesis, right, these
are definitely the arenas that ib reallyfigures in. I mean, if you
have all kinds of reasons for thinkingsomebody is guilty, and you see,
oh, and it would also explainthis other fact of this other thing.
You know, that's just becomes partof the picture, part of the case.

(35:44):
Whereas, again when it comes tothe Platonist, the only reason why
I see that they could pause itthe existence of a logical principle would just
be because that explains it and theyneed it for their view. But that's
in a way the very definition ofbeing at hoc. So if the premises
are more plausible than not, thenthe conclusion follows, and your conclusion is

(36:07):
therefore God exists. Yeah, sowhat does the argument from reason if successful?
What does it tell us about God? Well, I think that's an
interesting question, and I think that'sthat's one of the things I do with
my students is we talk through likewhen you have it, when you've gone
through all these arguments, you cankind of look through to see what all

(36:29):
of all that they sort of describe, because you know, some of the
arguments for God's existence in a waybarely mention God. You know, very
true the way Bill Craig talks aboutthe column cosmological argument, you just get
the word cause there's a cause forthe universe. And so but again,
like that's what we're doing. Itake it when we do the sort of

(36:51):
cumulative case for God's existence, weare ultimately coming down on this this wide
range of arguments. And so thenwhat picture does it paint? And I
think clearly, again you have withthe argument from reason, as I've put
it, you have a of courselogical God. You have a and it's

(37:14):
not even just logical, it's ideallylogical. Right, we have the sort
of paradigm of a paradigmatic mind orparadigmatically ideal mind. You might say that
is the standard, like God's mindinstantiates the standard and is thereby normative for

(37:37):
us as we reason, you know, about the world as we find it.
And that's a pretty significant fact.Again, the way I do it
when I'm doing say, philosophy ofreligion, we start oftentimes with the ontological
argument and go from a perfect beingto the existence of God, the greatest

(37:58):
conceivable being. And I really dothink in all that we are describing at
the end of the day is sortof captured by talking about God as the
greatest conceivable being, the one whois truly worthy of worship, you know
something, some conception of God likeZeus, right, I mean, we

(38:20):
can ask whether or not there's reasonto believe that Zeus exists. But even
if he does exist, he's notworthy of worship. He's maybe he probably
is worthy of you know, placationor something. You know, it makes
sacrifice, so he leaves you alone, but he's not truly worthy of worship
because he falls short of the ideal. And I think, and I'm just
honestly convinced as I look through scriptureand as I you know, do the

(38:45):
natural theology stuff, and do thephilosophy of religion and so on, I
think it all comes together and God'sbeing the greatest conceivable being, so that
he has all perfections. And thenwhat's interesting is then we can look at
these other arguments beyond the ontological argument, and it all cooberates in a way,

(39:05):
It all kind of comes together becausewhat best fits the picture for the
you know, the God of theargument of reason, the greatest conceivable being
in terms of logic, in termsof reasoning, in terms of his mind.
And ultimately that's why I say,like, you know that, ultimately
I see apologetics as devotional because ultimatelywe're brought before a God who is worthy

(39:31):
of worship, and we got therethrough logic. It's pretty it's pretty cool.
Hmmm, that's good. I likethat a lot. Yeah, me
too. Now you make a pointin the book to kind of connect the
argument from reason to what the Biblereveals about Jesus. Can you unpack that
a little bit? Yeah? So, Jesus in this really quite extraordinary passage.

(39:52):
Honestly, John one is very veryextraordinary, the prologue to the Gospel
of John, where what John aimsto do is a bunch of things.
Honestly, he aims to sort ofput Jesus. I mean, you get
this very high christology out of Johnone where this is no mere mortal,

(40:15):
this is no mere man. Evenhis divine status is divine being is evident
from the opening line. In thebeginning, there was God and God.
Sorry, in the beginning was theword, and the word was with God,
and the word was God. Theterm for word is log offs,

(40:39):
right, So we see that Jesus, and then later on I think it's
one fourteen, the word is identifiedas Jesus. Okay, he becomes man
and lives amongst us, full ofgrace and truth. Now what's interesting about
this is that that's a Greek wordthat's used in philosophy at the time.
You have various ones Heraclitis and otherswho see the lagos as that like ultimate

(41:04):
ultimate thing. What's so extraordinary whatJohn is doing is he's relating this common
you know, technical term, it'sa common technical term for the Greeks and
saying that Jesus is, that Jesusis the divine lagoss. Right. And
of course we should notice the connectionbetween logos and logic, and there'd be

(41:27):
others who can talk more intelligently aboutthat, but there's obviously a connection there
that Jesus, as it turns out, is the originating logical principle of the
world that orders and unifies the worldwith that kind of logical consistency, you
know. So I think it's GordonClark that puts it. I think I'll

(41:49):
put this in the book. Hekind of gives a paraphrase of it to
say, in the beginning was logic, and logic was with God, and
logic was God. In logic waslife, and the life was the light
of men. He goes on tosay, any translation of John one one
that obscures this emphasis on mind orreason is a bad translation. In the

(42:10):
beginning then was logic, And Ithought that's pretty great. I don't love
you know, I'm not a bigpresuppositionist, but Gordon Clark has a good
point here. So the view ofJohn one is that Jesus is the kind
of logos that is the logic ofcreation. I mean, it's extraordinary that,

(42:31):
like I'm it's the kind of thingthat you know, I think we're
probably meant to spend the rest ofour lives trying to reflect on. And
yeah, you know, maybe wejust get a start at it, you
know, with a lifetime of reflection, but you know, there's maybe no
more profound truth than that. Butthat is a profound truth that that Jesus

(42:51):
is the log ass. He isthe ground of being, the ground of
being, the ground of logic,right, and that's what that's what makes
again, that's why it featured inthe book as an early chapter in a
way, because shouldn't that lead usto reflect so like I mean not to
over spiritualize it here, but likethe reason why we should study logic is

(43:13):
because we're in a sense studying God. We're studying Christ, the mind of
Christ. As we reflect on criticalthinking and using logic, we not only
are you know, using what isthe divine mind in a way, but
we're also thereby sort of living ina way that that has Jesus as our

(43:36):
exemplar because he certainly used logic inhis ministry. And just quick with the
book, I was really struck inwriting the book with how many times people
were astonished by Jesus's logic. Yes, right, it's it's like once you
start looking for it, it's it'sover and over and over again where they're

(43:57):
astonished by his miracles too. Butthat happens repeatedly where Jesus is teaching and
people that are just astonished, orsomething like Matthew twenty two, where the
religious leaders come at him with allthese logical arguments and he just has his
way with them. And these arethe scholars of the day and they're sort
of walking out silent, as itsays, they don't dare to ask him

(44:22):
another question. So in studying logicand studying critical thinking, we are,
you know, in a way livingout that christ follow you know, that
Christian life of being a Christ follower. Yeah. I was just looking up
when you said that. In Matthewtwenty two forty six, this always makes

(44:43):
me laugh. It says no onewas able to answer him a word,
nor did anyone dare from that dayon to ask him another question. Yeah,
and of course that was the religiousleaders, because he just kept politely
humiliating them. Right, I mean, these are to like shut a scholar
up is quite the fate. Right. Yeah, that's good. So we've

(45:06):
talked all about this argument from reason, and we've been philosophical and it's been
great. And now I'm thinking,how can we maybe melt down those philosophical
nuggets into different mold that we coulduse in maybe conversation. How do you
think we could maybe use that practicallyas far as practical apologetics if you will.

(45:27):
Yeah, your a little tool beltfull of apologetic arguments. Right,
How might this be described simply ina way to sort of point people towards
christ I think that, And Icould be wrong, but I think that
there is. This is the onedrawback of the view is that it does
take it does get a little technical, so that this is where I think

(45:49):
the moral argument shines maybe a littlebetter, because I think people understand,
like, yeah, why do Ithink it's just abhorrently wrong to torture a
child? Or fun? Where didthat come from? And now is the
parallel thing possible to say, well, why do I think it's you know,
wrong or or irrational to hold acontradiction before my mind or whatever?

(46:15):
I think? So I think thatshould be able to be used. But
there's there's a way that the moralargument kind of hits you in the gut
that I don't think that this does. It sounds a little more like abstract
or technical or something. Maybe atleast this one's the one you can't deny.
Say, if somebody's got the timeand somebody's got the willingness, and

(46:37):
let's let's really think about it.Then again, it just has that irony
too. I'm not sure if wementioned this, but atheists really tend to
revere reason and logic. Yeah,you know, that's right. I think
to their credit they do. Ireally appreciate that about atheist friends of mine,

(47:00):
that they're especially ones that have sortof walked away from faith. Many
of them they walked away precisely becauseat least this would be their story,
precisely because they looked there's an objectionor there was a problem or an argument,
and they just didn't know where togo with it. They couldn't seem
to answer it. So it wasthe logic that led them away. But

(47:23):
here we're asking this question of like, but how does your worldview explain logic?
Right? The very thing you usedto walk away, Maybe what you've
walked away from is what actually explainedlogic. I mean, that's that's why
I do think it's powerful. Butjust trying to be honest here too,
that I do think that it's it. People dismiss it more for some reason.

(47:46):
They think it's I'm not sure why, but the moral argument seems to
be that one that hits people inthe gut more. Yeah. One thing
just to kind of piggybacking on whatyou said, is you mentioned Lewis and
how Louis didn't typically do very robustarguments, but he always had these very
pithy, powerful ways of putting things. So, Brian, one of the

(48:08):
ways that I have found the argumentfrom reason to get somebody thinking about it
without having to bring out necessarily asyllogism right away, is kind of quoting
Lewis, because he does have acouple ways that he explains it that I
think it doesn't express exactly what Travisis arguing, but I'm interested to hear

(48:29):
what Travis will think of it,and I think this is a good way
to kind of start to wrap upso God. In the doc, Lewis
says this. He says, ifthe Solar System was brought about by an
accidental collision, then the appearance oforganic life on this planet was also an
accident, and the whole evolution ofman was an accident too. If so,
then all our thought processes are mereaccidents, the accidental byproduct of the

(48:50):
movement of atoms. And this holdsfor the materialists and astronomers as well as
for anyone else's but if their thoughtsare merely accident byproducts, why should we
believe them to be true? Isee no reason for believing that one accident
should be able to give a correctaccount for all the other accidents. And
so I think that's kind of apithy way of expressing on the naturalistic view

(49:15):
or the view that God doesn't exist. It kind of undercuts our variability to
reason. And then of course wecould introduce the theistic explanation and show how
it is superior. What do youguys think of that? Well? I
like it because I mean, peopleare familiar with C. S. Lewis
and paints a great picture. Itwas a good, good lead in for

(49:36):
that. Definitely. Yeah, Yeah, I think I think it gets down
to the worldview issues that are reallyrelevant. So it's it's kind of that
idea that you know, there's akind of smuggling in oftentimes in sort of
a atheistic worldview, some very Christianlooking and or a least theistic looking things.

(49:59):
Yeah, so you have logic there, and the person oftentimes holds to
something like objective morality and so on. And again I'm not saying I think
sometimes apologists have gone too strong tosay like the only way, you know,
if there's morality, then there's God. I think that's too quick.
But what I find far more fruitfuland productive is just to ask, like,

(50:23):
so, how do you explain moralfacts? Like how do you explain
something like a logical fact or whatever? And then it's the important task to
say, okay, but be carefuldenying these things, right, And then
if because again I wouldn't suggest denyingmorality, and I definitely wouldn't suggest denying

(50:44):
logic. And then if we can'tdeny them, what are we left with?
What sort of view? And againI just think the there's a sort
of trajectory towards that where at theend of the day. That's why I
say, you know, I alwaysstart this way in my philosophy classes.
I always say the reason why Ilove and revere philosophy is because at the

(51:06):
end of the day, I reallydo think at all points to God.
So when you know, Plato hashis cave where you're sort of, you
know, through philosophy scraping your wayout of the plate, out of the
cave, and you get out andyou see the forms or whatever, I
say, yes, all the wayto the extent that once you're scraping your
way out of the cave. Youget out and you realize, God,

(51:30):
there's God who's been waiting for usthe whole time. Because I really do
think for every philosophical question, theend of it is God. Like I
think the best explanation, the bestanswer to that question is God. Yeah,
that's good. Well, Travis,I know that if people want to
learn more about the argument from reason, they can pick up your book Logic

(51:50):
in the Way of Jesus. Butwhat else would listeners be interested in in
your work? Where else can theylearn more about you and get your great
material? Well, I appreciate that. I have a few books that are
out there, the most recent calledWandering toward God, Finding Faith Amid Doubts
and Big Questions, and we havea podcast on that one as well,

(52:14):
and with you guys. And somy website's kind of the one stop shop.
So that's Travisdickinson dot com. Youcan get all my stuff and I
do offer a free book there,So if you sign up for my newsletter
you can download a free book andmy first book called every Day Apologetics,
and I do about it once amonth. You know, sometimes not too

(52:37):
careful about that, but it's intendedto be once a month newsletter where I
send out three thoughts, one ofwhich is that I'm thinking about, second
is one that I've written about,and then the third one is somebody else's
thought a quote of somebody so excellent, very good. Thanks for joining us
again, Travis. It's been agreat time and we'll see you again next

(53:00):
time. All right, Always ablast, guys, Thanks thanks for listening
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(53:42):
Remember you can find lots of Apologeticsresources at apologeticspreefifteen dot com along with
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That's truthbomb dot blogspot dot com.This has been Brian Auten and Chad Gross
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