Dr. Walter Martin was debating a Mormon professor in
Philosophy from Columbia University with an audience of approximately 11 to 13 million
people spanning 43 states and after about an hour and a half discussion, the professor
looked across the table at Dr. Martin and said,
“You know, part of the problem with Christians is that you persist in circular reasoning. When we ask you for authority to believe in God you quote the Bible and then when we ask for authority to prove the Bible is reliable you quote the Bible to support itself. That’s circular reasoning and I don’t see why you just don’t find a better way of defending your position.”
“You know, part of the problem with Christians is that you persist in circular reasoning. When we ask you for authority to believe in God you quote the Bible and then when we ask for authority to prove the Bible is reliable you quote the Bible to support itself. That’s circular reasoning and I don’t see why you just don’t find a better way of defending your position.”
While Dr. Walter Martin was sitting there as the professor was
spinning this out, he said to himself, “Lord, there is a number of ways I could
answer this but I will lose the audience. The main thing I want to do is hang
on to the audience. I don’t care about this joker because he’s in here to just
fight the gospel. I got to get to these people out there, Lord just give me an
answer please, I just at this moment don’t know what to say!”
Well, the Lord did gave him an answer and boy was it a good
one. He stumped that professor.
The purpose of this post is not to give the reader a good
response to the objection of circular reasoning, but to show you that when
debating someone in the midst of an audience, you have to discern whether or
not the person you are debating is actually searching, or just attacking the
faith. So many Christians, upon realizing that the person is merely attacking
the faith, become silent and walk away… quoting Christ when He says to knock
the dust off your feet. I think this to be a cop out, a cowards way out. Christ
is talking about giving the Gospel, not defending it. So the next time you run
into someone, while in the midst of an audience, who wants to just attack the
faith, you give them both barrels! Don’t care about the person you are
debating, rather focus on the individuals who are standing by actually
listening. For example, Jehovah’s Witnesses usually travel in pairs. There is an older, more experienced one, and then there is a newcomer. Blow up the older one in front of the newcomer. Show them their elder is wrong, thus planting doubt and opening the door for the truth! We live in a world where love is defined as always being gentle, soft spoken, tolerant, sugar coating, and downright passive! Let’s not allow the world to define our actions… be Christ-like… be passionate.
