Tactics by Gregory Koukl Chapter 7: Suicide: Views that Self-Destruct

The first 6 chapters of Tactics looked at the game plan. This week begins part 2, Finding the Flaws. You will begin to identify different flaws in the arguments that people use against you. The first flaw Greg discusses in his book is the suicidal view. These views are self-refuting and will defeat themselves. You don't need to waste much time on these. They will literally destroy themselves. My personal favorite is, "My brother is an only child."

That statement is easily proven wrong by itself. If he is my brother, than he cannot be an only child. The problem with these views is simple. They fail to meet their own criteria of validity. Here are some examples that he lists:

• There is no truth. (Is this statement true?)
• There are no absolutes. (Is this an absolute?)
• No one can know any truth about religion. (How precisely, did you come to know this truth about religion?)
• You can't know anything for sure. (Are you sure about that?)

Basically, the suicide tactic can only work due to a rule of logic called the law of noncontradiction. That law states that two contradictory statements cannot both be true at the same time. All views that are suicidal make claims that are at odds with each other. "A" cannot be the case if "A" is the case.

Imagine someone tells you, "You should never impose you values on other people." Has he not just imposed his values on you? That is why your very next question should be, "Are those your values." When he says yes then ask, "Why are you imposing your values on other people?"

Another example is the following conversation Greg gives in Tactics:
 "You think that God is on your side but you are wrong. God doesn't take sides."
"Let me ask you a question. In this disagreement that we are having on whether or not God takes sides, what do you think God's opinion is?"
"I just told you. God is against taking sides."
"Right. So in our dispute God would agree with you, not me."
"That is right."
"He would side with you in this issue, then. I guess God takes sides after all."

Simply by stating that God does not take sides implies that he has taken sides. The same is true when someone says that the Bible is flawed because people make mistakes. Could they not be mistaken themselves, about the Bible being flawed? If people don't always make mistakes, then the Bible can not be ruled out just because people wrote it.

Another common argument is that religion cannot be true as follows:
"I don't believe in religion."
"Why not?"
"There is no scientific evidence for it."
"Then you should not believe in science either."
"Why not?"
"Because there is no scientific evidence for it."

In this instance, people feel that only science can give reliable truth. If that were to be true, then were is the scientific evidence that proves only science can prove the truth? This is not a testable scientific claim. Instead, it is a philosophical statement about science that is unreliable because it cannot be proven by the scientific method.

Anyone that states all religions are true can be no more right than someone who states all religion is false. When someone dies they may go to Hell, they may go to Heaven, they may go to Valhalla, they might go back in the ground simply turning to dust, they might even be reincarnated but the last thing that they can do is all of these choices at once.

Next you have the pseudo-questions. It would be a question such as "Can God's power defeat His power?" I have heard this asked  before as, "Can God make a rock so big He can't pick it up?" Of course that is a nonsensical question. How can omnipotence defeat omnipotence. Can you ever win a fight against yourself? Logic would tell us no. W can only use the phrase "stronger than" when there are two subjects, not one. Asking if God is stronger than himself is at best an incoherent question.

In closing, Suidical Views are awesome. We have to do very little work to refute them, we need only do several things. First, listen to the claim or premise. Then ask if the claim applies to itself. If it does, does it meet it's own criteria or is there a conflict. IF there is a conflict, rather than pointing that out in a statement use a question to point it out (The Columbo Approach).

Thanks for reading, see you next time when we delve into Practical Suicide!