(The following is an edited response to an inquiry on the topic. As with some of my other posts, it assumes familiarity with my major writings.)

Mr. Cheung,

Gordon Stein asked Greg Bahnsen what it would take to convince him that Christianity is false. I do not recall Bahnsen being too sharp on this issue. How would you deal with this question?

In one sense, this question is difficult. It is difficult because once I have arrived at my current position on the philosophical issues and my current approach to apologetics, any attempt to conceive of how Christianity can be refuted or how I can be convinced that Christianity is false requires a full acceptance of Christianity in the first place. Since it is true that the presuppositions of the biblical worldview are the necessary presuppositions of all thinking and all knowledge, then it is impossible for me to even conceive of how Christianity can be refuted.

Bahnsen once said that if someone were to really dig up the bones of Jesus, then he would admit that Christianity is false. Yes, if you really find the real bones of Jesus, then maybe we can say that. But this is almost irrelevant since apart from the full Christian worldview, how can you have an epistemology that can learn the very words and concepts in the expression, "the bones of Jesus," and an epistemology that enables you to actually identify the bones? That is, even if we grant that, if we find the bones of Jesus, then Christianity is false, given what I have already established elsewhere, we must also grant that, if Christianity is false, then we can never identify the bones of Jesus. In fact, I have established that even given the correct presuppositions by which knowledge is possible, all scientific and empirical methods are in themselves logically fallacious, so that any conclusion derived from the use of such methods is at best an unjustified opinion, not knowledge. Therefore, Christianity can never be refuted by any scientific or empirical method, and a person's bones can never be infallibly identified no matter what.

Thus the question is difficult only in the sense that I cannot provide the type of answer that an unbeliever would expect. But then, the unbeliever's expectation is based on his irrational epistemology, so that I am not rationally obligated to respect it. Perhaps the simplest and truest answer to the question is, "I will believe that Christianity is false if you can prove it to be false"; or, to be more precise, "I will believe that Christianity is false if you can prove that which is true to be false." In other words, I insist that it is logically impossible to refute Christianity, or even to begin to refute Christianity, so that to refute Christianity would be to establish a logical contradiction, which is impossible. Of course, anybody can physically say anything they want, but it does not mean that what he says will make any sense, and I am saying that no argument against Christianity can make any sense at all.

The most I can do is to listen to an unbeliever when he tries to refute Christianity, because I cannot even imagine how I would do it myself. Again, of course unbelievers will have various ideas, and they can try various arguments, but this is because they are stupid and don't realize that their arguments are complete nonsense until someone who knows better come along to point it out, and even then, they might still be too blind to realize their mistake. In my books, I show that I am aware of the relevant issues and the objections from unbelievers, and how I would answer them. I clearly explain my method of apologetics in my writings, and how it can defend the biblical worldview and refute its opponents. So I am not coming from the standpoint of a non-rational or irrational fideism. Rather, Christianity is so rationally necessary that I cannot conceive of how to even begin to refute it without letting my own system of apologetics immediately defeat my attempt. So an unbeliever will have to take his best shot without my help.

Some people assert that if a claim is not logically falsifiable, then neither can it be logically established, or that it is just meaningless. But this depends on what we are talking about and why it is not falsifiable. What if it is not falsifiable because it is necessarily true? If something is necessarily true, then it is not falsifiable; if something is falsifiable, then it is not necessarily true. Our rationally justified claim is that Christianity is necessarily true. Now, if someone claims that nothing is necessarily true, then this claim itself is not necessarily true. He must offer an argument showing that it is necessarily true that nothing is necessarily true, but if his argument is sound, then it refutes itself (which means that it is impossible to construct a sound argument for this conclusion), and if his argument is not sound, then he fails to prove his conclusion (that nothing is necessarily true). But why must we accept any version of the principle of falsifiability in the first place? It is just a "pretty" excuse for failing to refute Christianity. It is not my fault that unbelievers are intellectual wimps. If they can't compete, they should stay out of the ring, instead of inventing silly principles to excuse themselves.

My answer to your question is exactly what it should be if Christianity is true and if I am a Christian. That is, my mind is anchored by the Word of God, and held captive by the truth, so that I can't see a way out and I don't want a way out. If I can see a way out or if I want a way out, then either the gospel does not have the power that it claims, or I am not really a Christian. If the unbeliever has the truth, then he will have to show me; he will have to make his case without my help. But how can he do it without being prevented at the very beginning by our biblical method of apologetics and by our presuppositional argumentation? The truth is that he is also held captive by the Logos of God, and by his innate knowledge of God's attributes and God's laws, so that his mind can only function on God's terms, even as he rebels against Christ the Reason. He is deceived into thinking that he is a "free thinker," but the only thing that he is trying to run free from is Reason — yet he can never escape, for Reason will crush him and grind his futile arguments to powder every time.

Recommended:

Vincent Cheung, Ultimate Questions
Vincent Cheung, Presuppositional Confrontations
Vincent Cheung, Apologetics in Conversation
Vincent Cheung, The Light of Our Minds
(See www.rmiweb.org)

Gordon Clark, The Philosophy of Science and Belief in God
Gordon Clark, Lord God of Truth
Gordon Clark, The Johannine Logos
Augustine, Concerning the Teacher
(See www.trinityfoundation.org)

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