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Excluded by Necessity

Posted by Vincent Cheung on June 30, 2005

(The following is an edited email correspondence.)

My friend has asked one of the most commonly raised objections to Christianity, and I've soberly realized that since I never took the time to read through any critiques of this argument, I find myself unprepared to answer him adequately.

His simple objection is this: why does the Christian God have to be the one true God, and not the God of any other religion/myth? I realize I could go through and point out the insufficiencies of each major religion's god, but is there also a way to positively demonstrate Christianity's sole claim to truth?

Your ministry has been an unimaginable blessing for me as I prepare to go off to a nominally conservative Christian university where liberal theology abounds in disguise. I've just bought two of your books (Presuppositional Confrontations and Apologetics in Conversation) and am absolutely anxious for them to arrive; until then, your blog keeps me well occupied. I thank God for your writings and pray that your ministry will continue to be blessed.

Thanks for your comments. It is enough just to call me "Vincent" in the future.

For any true proposition, there is literally an infinite number of possible errors related to it or deviations from it. For example, if 1+1=2 is true, then the possible errors and deviations would include 1+1=3, 4, 5,….n.

Therefore, it is impossible to make a specific refutation of every individual possible error or deviation from the truth. Instead, what we need is a positive claim or argument that excludes all errors or deviations by logical necessity.

In our case, if Christianity (the Bible) is true, and this same Christianity declares that all non-Christian claims and worldviews are false, then all non-Christian claims and worldviews are therefore false by logical necessity.

Now, to eliminate all non-Christian claims and worldviews by logical necessity would demand that your positive demonstration be correct by logical necessity. Supposing that we have such an apologetic, the situation would become thus:

1. Christianity is true by logical necessity.
2. Christianity excludes all non-Christian views.
3. Therefore, all non-Christian views are false by logical necessity.

So the key is (1) — the rest are easy and automatic. And to attain (1), you will have to read my works on apologetics and learn how to skillfully apply the method. I recommend reading Ultimate Questions (at least ch. 1 and 2), Presuppositional Confrontations, and Apologetics in Conversation, probably best in this order.

Then, this forces your opponent to interact with the Christian's positive construction, rather than allowing him to evade the force of your presentation just by throwing mere possibilities at you — since you have destroyed those possibilities, not by specific refutations, but by logical necessity.

Now, if you are dealing with someone with a specific non-Christian worldview, you might also perform a refutation of his particular belief system. This would function to show that you are not trying to avoid his own positive arguments, and (since some might be confused about elimination by logical necessity) to show him that you are not hiding behind mere sophism.

But remember that you need to actually have a positive case to execute the above. For this, I would prescribe my works on theology and apologetics.

I hope that this is helpful.

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And I hope that it is OK to edit your message and my response for a blog entry, so that others may benefit. As usual, I will eliminate all personal details, and include only what is necessary for readers to understand the context, as well as any comments that would encourage people to give my works their careful consideration.