Debate: Billy Carson vs. Christian Wes Huff on Jesus, the Bible, and Christianity

The difference between you and I is I don’t claim to base my foundational beliefs on science. I am not the least bit ashamed to admit that, and I 100% disagree with you that this somehow represents a major flaw in a worldview. If you were being honest and self-reflecting hard enough you would admit that you also have a boatload of beliefs that are not based on science either.

The worldview with foundational beliefs rooted in the Bible, as a divine revelation from God, is by far the most coherent worldview that lays down a working and consistent framework by which we can reason in the disciplines of science, reason, morality, and ethics. The truth is we have no way of knowing anything outside of the physical world without revelation from a being who is outside of this physical world. So, you can't know fundamental things you use every single day such as the laws of logic and the laws of morality without some kind of revelation from outside of this world.

The entire scientific enterprise, which you champion as a superior way of thinking in comparison to the biblical worldview, also depends on other knowledge claims one can only know by revelation. One of those knowledge claims is the belief that our sense perceptions actually give us a representation of reality. That is why revelation about the nature of the world outside of our own bodies and consciousness is essential to the soundness of any scientific argumentation. The other knowledge claim scientific reasoning, moral reasoning, and even logical reasoning depend upon, is the immutability of physical laws, moral laws, and logical laws. An evolutionary worldview maintains that the world is in a constant state of change. Some of these evolutionary worldviews are deistic/theistic in nature and even posit that God evolves like they believe animals do. Many of these evolutionary worldviews rely on argumentation that assumes the immutability of natural law over time horizons of millions and billions of years. Do they know that by the scientific method? No. They don't. That is a non-scientific knowledge claim without any kind of rigorous credentials to back up if you deny revelation. Those beliefs are especially suspect for the person who posits any kind of theism that involves an evolving God.

In the Biblical worldview God does not change. Therefore, since God does not change, the governance and the laws of His universe do not change. That is the Christian worldview. The Biblical worldview has a basis for belief in immutable logical laws, moral laws, and physical laws, which establishes a proper worldview for reasoning, science, and ethics. And God's governance of His universe is not an arbitrary governance, but a governance that flows from His immutable character and attributes.

The problem when revelation is denied as fairy tales is you end up adopting a worldview that is incoherent in accounting for the tools that are necessary to engage in the disciplines of science, reason, and ethics. On the one hand you reject belief in a supernatural being who is not part of the natural world because logic and science do not support belief in such a being. However, in the very same breathe you presuppose logical categories (true and false) that are not part of the natural world and cannot be proven by logic or science. Your own ability to even mount an argument is destroyed by the very objections you make against the God of the Christian worldview. This is the absurdity one is left to if they reject God's revelation as a valid form of knowledge.

My worldview is science is not the only way we can know things. I know things like the laws of logic and moral laws, and science has nothing to do with how I know them. Revelation is how we know the most important fundamental building blocks that allow us to do scientific, logical, and moral reasoning. Your belief in the immutability of the uniformity of nature, your belief in the laws of logic, your belief in moral absolutes, all of these things would need to be rejected because they are not beliefs rooted in science or logic. This is the absurdity and the incoherence you are forced to defend if you reject all knowledge claims outside of the scope of science and reason.

And even when it comes to your non-belief in Santa Claus I think you would not be completely honest if you did not recognize the absolute strongest evidence that exists against Santa Claus is revelation by people who ate the cookies, drank the milk, and wrapped the presents when you were sleeping. But...the absurdity of the worldview that rejects revelation as a valid form of knowledge would poopoo that evidence because all knowledge claims are only valid if we know them by science or logic. You would not poo poo revelation in that instance, which proves IMO that your issue is not with revelation as a form of knowledge itself. It only becomes an issue when that revelation comes from God, which shows the true nature of your objections to this issue.

 

You peaked my interest on Chesterton. I found this quote attributed to him on Christianity and Buddhism:

That Buddhism approves of mercy or of self-restraint is not to say that it is specially like Christianity; it is only to say that it is not utterly unlike all human existence. ... But to say that Buddhism and Christianity give the same philosophy of these things is simply false. All humanity does agree that we are in a net of sin. Most of humanity agrees that there is some way out. But as to what is the way out, I do not think that there are two institutions in the universe which contradict each other so flatly as Buddhism and Christianity.

Even when I thought, with most other well-informed, though unscholarly, people, that Buddhism and Christianity were alike, Even when I thought, with most other well-informed, though unscholarly, people, that Buddhism and Christianity were alike, there was one thing about them that always perplexed me; I mean the startling difference in their type of religious art.

I do not mean in its technical style of representation, but in the things that it was manifestly meant to represent. No two ideals could be more opposite than a Christian saint in a Gothic cathedral and a Buddhist saint in a Chinese temple. The opposition exists at every point; but perhaps the shortest statement of it is that the Buddhist saint always has his eyes shut, while the Christian saint always has them very wide open.

The Buddhist saint has a sleek and harmonious body, but his eyes are heavy and sealed with sleep. The mediaeval saint’s body is wasted to its crazy bones, but his eyes are frightfully alive. There cannot be any real community of spirit between forces that produced symbols so different as that. Granted that both images are extravagances, are perversions of the pure creed, it must be a real divergence which could produce such opposite extravagances. The Buddhist is looking with a peculiar intentness inwards. The Christian is staring with a frantic intentness outwards. If we follow that clue steadily we shall find some interesting things.​

 

I cannot speak for Chesterton as I do not know him well enough to speak for him. I also do not know the specific artwork he is talking about. I can only imagine it. However, I think the contrast Chesterton lays his finger on can be very insightful. He could be driving at something very true. When we make artwork of ourselves it could show something of our own self-perceptions. One art form presents a higher perception of self than the other art form. The gaze in artwork also shows something about what preoccupies the mind of a person. The two are far more connected than we realize IMO.

The book of Isaiah has an insightful passage that might be good food for thought:

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”
​

A couple of comments here:

1. Isaiah sees God on His throne.
2. Isaiah after seeing God comes to understand his sinfulness. He declares woe on himself, and he declares himself to be a lost man.
3. Atonement for sins is declared. Forgiveness of sin is applied because of that atonement. All of this comes from the altar of God (where sacrifices are made to God) from an angel despite the fact Isaiah has done nothing to deserve this. Isaiah was forgiven by grace alone. What was sacrificed on the altar? The text does not say, but we know from the rest of the Bible it was the spotless lamb, Jesus Christ.
4. After Isaiah is declared as being forgiven by grace alone he is now fit and ready to do good works for God.
​

That is Christianity in a nutshell. That is what the life and conversion of a Christian looks like. Everyone who is a Christian is marked by those things. Personally, I do not believe good works are possible without knowledge of God because the cloak of sin's deceitfulness cannot fall without that knowledge. And sin's deceitfulness is so potent in its effect on our hearts that it can make evil works appear before our own eyes as if they are good works. We are truly blind in our moral judgments regarding our own works unless if we have seen the holy God.

That is how I understand the contrast.

 

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Debate: Billy Carson vs. Christian Wes Huff on Jesus, the Bible, and Christianity