"Heads I win, tails you lose"

A while back, a non-Christian blog commenter cited an example of what he called typical "heads I win, tails you lose" Christian thinking:

"When God destroys a fetus [in a miscarriage], He has his reasons that are unfathomable to us mere humans. If a fetus survives an illness or an accident, it is a miracle showing the kindness and love of God."

The commenter sees his argument as airtight. Within his own logic, it is. What he does not perceive is the long shadow that Hume and Kant casts over his logic. He thinks he is thinking original thoughts.

He is correct to pick up on a circularity in the Christian's way of handling a pregnancy miscarriage (what he refers to as the "heads I win, tails you lose" logical flaw) but does not recognize two things. One is that all argument is circular, including his own. The difference is that the Christian begins his argument with a commitment to the proposition that the God of the Bible is King; the non-Christian begins his argument with a commitment to his reason as king. He lives by the rule: "What my net can't catch ain't fish!" His "net" is the final judge.

Christian and non-Christian alike therefore think in a circle. The Christian, having refused to allow rationalism, empiricism, and subjectivism to sit in judgment of the Word of God, tries to make sense of the fetus' miscarriage (or the survival) from his presupposition: God's Word is truth. This is not an act of intellectual dishonesty but a reasonable act of worship, surrendering his intellect before the One who has exhaustive knowledge, understanding, and love. The non-Christian, likewise, tries to make sense of the fetus' miscarriage (or survival) from his presupposition: There is no God.

"But if I am the product of Hume and Kant, you are the product of Judeo-Christian thought forms!" our non-Christian friend will now doubtlessly object. "You Christians have just cut the ground out from under your own argument!"

At this point we can all pick up our marbles and go home---admitting that none of us can know anything: Christian and non-Christian alike cannot know for sure that their ideas are not figments of their imagination. We are both ailing from historical hangovers.

Unless. Unless there is a possibility that the non-Christian has not countenanced: that there is a God---a personal and infinite God---who has broken into the closed circle of solipsism with true knowledge. And God's criterion for letting anyone in on this knowledge is total surrender to His Lordship. In that case, the whole enterprise of human knowing is not what the dear commenter has thought it was. Rather, as John M. Frame wrote in The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God:

"Knowing is the act of a covenant service to God. That means that in knowing God, as in any other aspect of human life, we are subject to God's control and authority, confronted with his inevitable presence. . . . [K]nowing is a process that itself is subject to God's lordship."

"Prove it!" the dear non-Christian blog commenter demands. But how can we prove it? What kind of proof would be satisfactory to him? All proof is only proof within a system that has its forgone criteria of proof.

The non-Christian, supposing himself to be independent and clear-eyed, free of all alien influences, and therefore a competent arbiter of truth, actually has no awareness of certain key facts about himself. One is that all day long he is running around in the small circle of his own presuppositions. (That is, he is hindered by noetic limitations.) Secondly, he lacks the exhaustive knowledge of the universe that would be necessary to hold his positions with certainty. (That is, he is hindered by situational limitations.) Thirdly, he has no idea how much his sin clouds his vision, distorting every "fact" he sees, every bit of his "logic." (That is, he is hindered by ethical limitations.)

There is no philosophical common ground here. We will never argue our way to each other. We cannot reach hands across the chasm intellectually, except to extend God's invitation. And His invitation still stands, because "For God so loved the world. . . ." The Spirit says: Man, you want to understand first, and then believe. But you must believe first, and then I will give you understanding. You will understand from the inside, not from the outside looking in.

Why not come in and see what it looks like from here?

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