Readers: Though I don't usually answer multiple letters from the same person, I've made an exception this time.

IS LOGIC HIGHER THAN GOD?

Dear Professor Theophilus:

I am a Christian, a junior at Brown, and I've been debating with an atheist friend. I'd written to him that God can't do the logically impossible, like make something true and false in the same sense at the same time. He wrote back, "What does it mean that there are logical rules in our universe that not even God can violate? Did He create them? If He did, why would a perfect being cripple Himself by limiting His power like that? If He didn't create them, who did, and why are they the way they are?" As a former atheist yourself, do you have any insight into his questions?

Reply:

Your friend's questions are variations on the famous Euthyphro Dilemma (so called because it originated in a question that Socrates once posed to his friend Euthyphro).

In its original form, the dilemma is about morality, and runs something like this: Does God command the moral law because it is good, or is it good because He commands it? If He commands the moral law because it is good, then it seems that there is something — call it Good or Goodness — which is higher than God. On the other hand, if it is good because He commands it, then it seems that morality is arbitrary. For example, God could have commanded us to hate Him, and then that would be good.

Your friend is posing a version of the same dilemma, but in terms of logical rather than moral laws. Does God ordain the laws of logic because they accord with reason, or are they reasonable because He ordains them? If He ordains the laws of logic because they accord with reason, then it seems that there is something — call it Reason or Reasonableness — which is higher than God. On the other hand, if the laws of logic are reasonable because God ordains them, then it seems that logic is arbitrary. For example, He could have ordained that a statement could be true and false in the same sense at the same time, and then that would be reasonable.

The classical Christian answer to the moral form of the Euthyphro problem is that both of the alternatives are wrong. Have you noticed that the problem is posed incorrectly? The flaw in the way it is posed is that it takes God and Goodness to be different things, so that either God is greater than Goodness, or Goodness is greater than God. But God and Goodness are not different things. The solution is a third alternative: God Himself is the supreme Good. The reason He commands the moral law — which is rooted in His Goodness — is neither because Goodness is higher than He is nor because He is higher than Goodness is, but because He does not contradict His own nature.

A similar solution takes care of your friend's logical variation on the Euthyphro problem. God and Reason are not different things any more than God and Goodness are. Just as He is the supreme Good, so He is the supreme Truth or Reason — as the Gospel of John puts it, the Logos, "the Word." His creation makes logical sense neither because Reason is higher than He is nor because He is higher than Reason is, but — as before — because He does not contradict His own nature.

Remember, though, that philosophical apologetics has limits. Often, atheists like your friend ask questions not because they really want to know the truth, but because they want to hide from it. You see, if an atheist can keep you busy solving logical problems, which can be multiplied endlessly, then, he thinks, He can keep God on the blackboard; he never has to deal with Him in all his personal reality. For this reason you must always try to penetrate your friend's evasions, to go beyond the questions he asks to the real questions he is trying to avoid. For example, I sometimes ask fellows like your friend a question of my own, which runs like this. "You pose a lot of riddles. Suppose we had all the time in the world, and after many weeks of nonstop conversation, I solved every one of them to your complete intellectual satisfaction. Then would you give yourself to Jesus Christ?" You'd be surprised how many people who hear this question get a strange look on their faces, pause for a moment, then answer "No." That allows me to say, "In that case, the riddles aren't your real reason for rejecting Him. Since the real reason is something else, why are we wasting time going down all these rabbit holes? What do you think your real reason is? Do you know?"

One more thing. I see from your signature that you and your friend are of opposite sex, so you need to be careful not to get romantically entangled with him. In the course of intense and extended correspondence, that can happen more easily than you think. It may be a good idea to get some sensible and well-instructed male Christians involved in the correspondence too.

YEAH, BUT CAN'T HE TURN THAT AROUND?

Dear Professor Theophilus:

Me again. Thanks! I've found your reply incredibly helpful in answering my friend's objections. But I suspect that he's not really seeking the truth, so I wonder to what end I'm answering his questions.

Reply:

The great thing is that you don't have to know the end to which you are answering his questions. Perhaps, by God's grace, you will blow away his earplugs and he will have to face the music. Perhaps your example — a Christian who reasons — will make him uncomfortable about his stereotypes. Perhaps he will be moved by your steadfast concern for him, apart from the arguments themselves. Even if you aren't given the grace to "harvest" him, you may be given the grace to plant the seed. Besides, he may be listening more than he lets on to you — even more than he lets on to himself. So although it's true that some atheists don't listen, don't give up on him too soon.

Question, continued:

Also, has any atheist replied to your question "If I answered all of your objections to your complete intellectual satisfaction, then would you become a Christian?" with the response "Likewise if I answered all your objections to your complete intellectual satisfaction, then would you become an atheist?" I think I'd say no because there is much we don't know, and the truth about God may be better explained by some of this knowledge. Does that make me hypocritical? Logically, it seems that the fair answer is "Yes".

Reply:

I always wonder why no one has turned the question around on me that way. There's always a first time. If your friend turns it around, of course you will have to answer his question — but first make him answer yours! Don't let him wiggle off the hook.

Logically, we should follow the argument wherever it leads, so in one sense, you're right — if he could answer all of your objections to your complete intellectual satisfaction, then you should answer "Yes." But there is a difference between his case and yours. As you point out, you recognize the insufficiency of human reasoning by itself — but he doesn't. I don't see how he could prove by reasoning that unaided human reasoning is all-sufficient, because any such argument would be circular; it would assume what it set out to prove. So if he did turn around the question, his premise — "If I answered all of your objections to your complete intellectual satisfaction" — couldn't be satisfied. He couldn't satisfy it because his knowledge is incomplete and his reason is limited in its reach. By contrast, you have another source of knowledge which transcends what human reason could have figured out on its own — although it is reasonable to accept the gift once given.

Notice too that because your friend cannot prove by reasoning that unaided human reason is all-sufficient, it follows his confidence in it is based on a kind of faith. Thus, your disagreement with him is not about whether or not to have faith, but about where such faith should be placed. Now your faith is a reasonable faith, because, considering the limits of our minds, it makes sense that a God who wanted to be known would reveal Himself to us. But your friend's faith is an unreasonable faith, because, according to its own premises, it shouldn't exist. You can trust the gift of reason — so far as it goes — because you trust the giver. He has no reason to trust the gift at all, because he doesn't recognize it as a gift.

BUT DON'T YOU HAVE TO BE COMFORTABLE TO BELIEVE?

Dear Professor Theophilus:

Another thing: I've been blessed in ways that my atheist friend hasn't. I come from a secure, stable home, with opportunities to learn and excel. What about people who reject God and lead sinful lives because they haven't had those opportunities? What if their hearts have been so hardened by the world that it's more difficult to trust a loving God? Surely if they rejected Him for that reason, God wouldn't deny them the joy of knowing them in the afterlife, would he? It would seem unfair. I have another friend who had a rough family life and a bad, hypocritical church; now, belief is a struggle for him. It seems that people like him are exactly the people Jesus died for.

Reply:

Yes, Christ did come especially to those who labor and are heavy-laden, and historically, they have made up most of His followers. But think about that for a moment. Your premise seems to be that people who live hard lives find faith in God difficult, but that people who live easy lives find faith in God easy. Jesus seemed to think the opposite: "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."¹ Paul found out that Jesus was right. "For consider your call, brethren," he wrote; "not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth."²

You see, those who are well off are tempted to trust their many advantages instead of God. Though the poor have great suffering, they are spared that temptation; they have nothing left to trust but Him. Moreover, in Christian faith suffering has meaning, because we can offer it to Jesus, who suffered for us. "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church."³ For an atheist, suffering means precisely nothing. Suffering doesn't override our free will, and it cannot by itself separate us from God.

Perhaps some of us who have advantages, and who think we trust Christ, are really just trusting these advantages! Perhaps we should be asking God for the grace to trust Him despite our softening comforts! The passage about the camel passing through the eye of the needle continues, "When the disciples heard this they were greatly astonished, saying, 'Who then can be saved?' But Jesus looked at them and said to them, 'With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.'"

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1. Matthew 19:24
2. 1 Corinthians 1:26
3. Colossians 1:24