#STRask - How Would One Argue That a Particular Truth Is Self-Evident?

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

Questions about how one would argue that a particular truth is self-evident, the biblical justification for the claim of our Founding Fathers that God gave us the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and the right to liberty vs. submitting to governing authorities.   How would one argue that a particular truth is self-evident? What is the biblical justification for the claim of our Founding Fathers that God gave us the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and what are the limits of our right to liberty in light of our command to submit to our governing authorities?

I'm Amy Hall and I'm here with Greg Kokel and this is Stand to Reason's Hashtag SDRS Podcast and we're looking forward to hearing from you today, hearing your questions. So Greg, from you today, hearing your questions. So, Greg, here's the first question. It's from HSMS. How would one argue that a particular, quote, truth is, quote, self-evident? Well, it's a curious question because self-evident truths are not argued for precisely because they're self-evident. And in fact, if you didn't have certain self-evident truths that are foundational to knowledge, you couldn't argue for anything. If we're making arguments about things, a case, we usually string together a couple of points that we think conclude with the point of view that we have, properly conclude. But the idea of properly concluding is based on certain

concepts. So you take a simple syllogism, all men are mortal. Socrates is a man, therefore, are mortal. Socrates is a man, therefore, obviously, Socrates is mortal. Now, that's self-evident because the conclusion is contained in the combination of the premises, all right? So, if somebody were to say, well, it's not so obvious to me, prove it. Well, that is, in a certain sense, the proof. You can't go any more foundational than that. And I give you one example of a rational principle that's known by intuition. If I said Amy is shorter than Greg and Greg is shorter than Derek, we would also know that Amy is shorter than Derek. It's a transitive property, which in this case happens to be true with the individuals I mentioned. So these are elements that can't be proven in the sense that you have a series of statements that lead to a conclusion you could depend upon, because even in that case, the series of statements and the relationship between those statements evidencing the conclusion as sound trades on intuitions and intuitive common sense understandings about how thinking works. Okay.

So now sometimes people will use the phrase common sense or it's self-evident in a bit of a sloppy way. It may be obvious to them, so they say it's self-evident in a bit of a sloppy way. It may be obvious to them, so they say it's self-evident, but they're not thinking. For example, I would say, what is it that makes rape wrong? And they say, well, it's just obvious. It's obvious that rape is wrong. Now, when they answered there, they didn't answer my question because I wasn't the nature of morality that actually go deeper. It has to do with abusing valuable human beings. You know, when one animal forces himself on another animal, we don't call that rape because it's not the same kind of thing. So the appeal to self-evident truth sometimes can be misconstrued.

I get that. Because they've misunderstood the nature of the question, and they haven't thought more carefully about it. But the point is, some things must be self-evident, or else we have no foundation for knowledge. Okay? And they're foundational. This is the best way to put it. First principles. They're first principles that might be called primitives.

So when you have a self-evident principle, by its nature, it can't be defended. can't be defended. If somebody says that something is not self-evident to them, which actually is a self-evident principle, principles of reason, for example, or foundational morality, I think Bill Craig's response in that case is a good one. And he said something to the effect of, why would we doubt our own natural intuitions about the nature of reality just because somebody else doubts theirs? Just because somebody says, no, it ain't, you know, doesn't mean that it isn't what it is. And it isn't obvious to everybody else who's thinking reasonably clearly about the matter. So it turns out, though, that self-evident principles do have to be self-evident, and you can't just make claims.

Okay, humans have rights. Oh, that's self-evident. Well, it is self-evident that they have rights, I think. But, in fact, that's the way our founders put it. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that each is endowed by its creator with certain alienable rights. But that doesn't mean that just because we know it's true that we can explain why the world is that way. Rights have to come from a source, and that's why our founders worded the Declaration the way they did. Well, that's what I was going to ask you about, Greg.

This person didn't ask specifically in terms of the kind of truths in the Declaration. But since he uses the truths that are self-evident, that was immediately what I thought of. Do you think that those truths really are self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed with rights? Is that something that you think is self-evident in other words, in the capacity of being human, is valuable. I have this response. What you see in almost all of those cases are reasons or rationales that are given by one side or the other why, in this particular case, it's okay to take life indiscriminately. They're my enemy. They're a different tribe. They are taking over our land. If we don't kill them, they're going to. So it seems like they don't have a high view of human value. Okay. But it turns out since these things require some kind of justification or they stimulate an attempt at justification, that itself is indicating that there's a difference. We don't have to make a justification for cutting down a celery stalk.

Nobody says, well, I'm justified in killing this celery because I'm hungry or whatever, you know, or usually with animals. I think there's more confusion about that nowadays, but it's just that, it's confusion because people object to killing animals and there is no worldview justification that they have that makes any sense of that objection. Characteristically, human beings are the kind of beings that

if you take their life, you need a justification for. And that, to me, intimates that even those who are brutal to other human beings that are not like them, different cast, different race or whatever, that they still understand the basic principle of human dignity, human value. They just think that it's accepted for good reasons in this case. Notice how Hitler characterized Jews. He characterized them as vermin, as ones who were destroying their culture, as enemies. And so we have to get rid of the enemy. He didn't say, he treated Jews in an inhuman way, how he characterized them, but he dehumanized them and therefore was able to justify in some people's minds the terrible treatment they got during the Third Reich. But, of course, the rest of the world understood differently, and so did they. As time went on and they had to face the music for their behaviors, and the German people as well, they were ashamed.

They were ashamed at what they did, even though for a season they found an adequate justification to put their common sense notions about human beings aside. I don't know if I'm convinced that the idea of equality, of equal value, is as self-evident as we'd like to think. And the reason why I say that is, I mean, you're saying that the idea that we're not allowed to just murder human beings because they're valuable. I do agree. I think that is something as self-evident. And I think that's what the justification shows. Well, it seems like a justification for human life. It needs to be in place of some sort. And if there wasn't an innate human value, there would need to be no justification at all. But if the justification works, then I'm not sure I can say that the fact that we are equally valuable is as self-evident. I don't know.

I want to think it is. But because of the interactions I've had with people on abortion, I just wonder how much of the idea that we're equal comes from Christianity. And so it seemed self-evident to the founders that we were all created equal because they were in this Christian worldview and had been shaped by it. And so then it was something that they all accepted and it seemed self-evident. But I fear that the farther we get from that, the more we will see people being treated as unequal, where their value is based on whatever practical value that they have, instrumental value that they have. So I think maybe there are self-evident truths that you can't discover on your own, but then once you see them, you can see their inherent truthfulness and beauty. In other words, maybe you might not think of it. You're in some other worldview where you're taught that they're not equal, so it never occurs to you. But once you see it, and once someone reveals it to you, then you can see that it's actually good and beautiful. Well, if you see it. Do you think that's possible?

Yeah, I think it's possible. But if it is that you're seeing it, that means you possess the intuition and it's just becoming coming to the surface. And I think what happens, let's just say the abortion circumstances. Notice how people characteristically there's exceptions to this. They are in favor of abortion up until the final moment of birth, but they are not in favor of euthanasia. Now, there's no material difference between a pre-born child that is about to be born and one that is just born in terms of itself. It still is itself. It's just changed locations. Okay, but now the child is visible. Now they can't, you know, fool themselves. Now the child is fully formed. It's not a fetus or a zygote. And so these are different factors that I think make it easy for people to

dismiss the human being as not fully human in the sense that they are valuable. But when they reach a certain point, they are valuable qua human. They're just inconsistent about it because they are going by appearances that are irrelevant to the question. You know, human is a human at every stage of development, whether it's zygote or fetus or newborn or teenager or adult or whatever. But the other thing is too, you've got a lot of, in the abortion issue, you've got a whole lot of self-interest elements that are distorting people's thinking about it. And this is one reason why when people are shown pictures of aborted children, they react so violently because, or emotionally powerfully, it's persuasive to them or it makes them angry.

All right. And why? Because it becomes clear what has been going on in the womb that they have been trying to deny. It's not a baby if they don't want it. It's a piece of tissue. Well, that isn't a piece of tissue there that just came out. You can see that as a small human being that's just been cut to pieces and destroyed. So I'm sympathetic to your concern there. I just wonder if the exceptional circumstances are just because of self-interest being involved and also because of, you know, there's a different physical perception of what's going on. People are a long way off, for example, being bombed or whatever, but you're on site and you see it happen. It changes your feelings about it. Same thing with the unborn. Well, that's kind of my point in that it's self-evident in the sense that we can all

see it when it's revealed to us, but maybe because of our own self-interest, we don't come to it on our own by ourselves. But then once somebody explains it to us, we can see that it's true. That's kind of what I'm saying. Or maybe removes some set of circumstances, removes the clouding influence, the deceptive influence or whatever. But I think in order for someone to come to the understanding based on what they now see, oh my gosh, that's what's really going on. There has to be that internal intuition there that can be tapped into even though it's not in play for whatever reason at the moment. Well, let's go on to a question from Daniel.

Daniel? Yes. What is the biblical justification for the claim of our founding fathers that we have been given the right to liberty and pursuit of happiness from God? And what are the limits of our right to liberty in light of our command to submit to our governing authorities? Well, there are three things that are pointed there life liberty and the pursuit of happiness life seems to be obvious in light of the prohibition of taking human life without

proper justification that's in the mosaic law and you also have genesis 9 6 that makes a reference to that issue as well and initiates and justifies capital punishment in light of the value of human life. Okay. Liberty as a matter of freedom, which is a general principle throughout scripture, that people have liberties and they are free to exercise their liberties and a whole host of things that are not immoral. And so I think sometimes Christians get confused on this. They think, I'm not free to do something unless the Bible tells me I'm free to do that thing. And my point here is that you are free to do anything unless some biblical command or principle prohibits it.

You know? And so, it's interesting. Paul says, it is for freedom that Christ set you free. Okay? And this is in Galatians 5, and he's talking about the way the law works in our life. It's a negative element of the law. And he said, don't any longer be under the yoke of slavery. Now, Jesus set us free from the slavery in a certain sense, the fleshly principle that drives us to sin that we are not controlling apart from Christ,

and free to be a better person, but it's still free. We are free to make our decisions, do our things, and especially to operate in virtuous ways. So the concept of freedom is huge in the New Testament. So the concept of freedom is huge in the New Testament. And there was neither slave nor free, for example. There's another example of we are not bound by these cultural things that make inappropriate restrictions on human beings and limit human value. human beings and limit human value. So I think the principle of liberty is still a New Testament principle. I don't—there's another statement in the New Testament, and it says that the—or I should say, not the New Testament, but in the Constitution, it said that the legitimacy

of rulership is based on the consent of the governed, okay? And when you look at church leadership, remember that church leadership is chosen to govern according to certain qualities, okay? And so there is a sense in which we agree to the governing authority over us. I mean, a lot of these things were developed theologically by the founders, and I don't go deep in their writings and stuff, but those who do can clarify the point. I mean, they can track the biblical discussions that they had to come to these conclusions. And I am.

And so but I'm just saying in general, you can see these principles there. The tougher one, I think, is the pursuit of happiness, because the notion of happiness has changed in the last 250 years. All right. 50 years, all right? It used to be this concept as what classically is known as eudaimonia, which is the good life, human flourishing. In other words, free to live the life that, in a sense, God has made us to live, not under the yoke of a totalitarian government that is keeping us from to do the things that are naturally appropriate for us to do. Worship as we will, for example, to speak as we will. By the way, notice that the rights characterized in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, are what are called negative rights. These are, in a sense, rights to be left alone.

are called negative rights. These are, in a sense, rights to be left alone. These are latitudes that we have as human beings that should not be infringed on, taken away. That's in contrast to positive rights, and positive rights is what people, it's a claim that somebody ought to be given something. So the right to healthcare, the right to education, or the right to all of that, those are positive rights. And those are very different. Because every time you have a positive right, I have a right to receive something that creates an obligation on someone else to give it to you. And then that's a restriction on their freedom. And so it restricts their negative rights and imposes upon them an obligation to give you something that you claim ought to be given to you. Okay, so there's a discussion there.

And what people do nowadays is they read happiness, pursuit of happiness, meaning I get to do whatever I want to do. That is not what the founders had in mind. The idea there was the pursuit of a life of flourishing based on the natural liberties and appropriate moral liberties that God has given us. The life of virtue, the good life in the virtuous sense, not the good life in the sense of, you know, you know, laying on the beach and drinking Mai Tais or something like that. That's Hollywood. That's the advertising business. That isn't the founders. So what the founders were saying is we ought to be able to live in an unrestricted way to pursue goodness without inappropriate imposition of the government. And this is what we see throughout the Mosaic Law.

So the Mosaic Law, first of all, God rescued the people from the oppression of a government. He rescued them from the Egyptians. Then he gave them laws to protect people from the oppression of those who would deny them their justice and would take from them things they shouldn't take. And we also see when God, you know, he was supposed to be the king over the nation of Israel. And then everybody wanted to have a king and be like all the other nations. And God says, you don't want that because if you have a king, he's going to take all of your people for wars. He's going to take your money to build things.

He's going to, as a heavy handed sovereign over you, he will oppress you. So all of these ideas are taught against in the Old Testament. And of course, you mentioned, Greg, that the New Testament is about freedom from our slavery to sin, which makes us free to serve God. So that plays into the whole idea that we're free to make our decisions, to receive the result of our own labor, and to benefit from our own labor and not have that taken away from us. And we're free to do what's right. We're not being forced to do things that are wrong. We're free to serve God in a way that causes us to thrive. All of these things we see honored in the Bible because of the fact that we are made in the image of God. And all of this follows from

that. Let me follow up on your comment about human kings. It actually is the case, and we see this in, especially in Deuteronomy, which is the second giving of the law just before Joshua conquers the land, the last thing that Moses leaves with this new generation that has been wandering for 40 years. The old generation who had been in Egypt is now gone. Now you've got a new generation, so the law is given a second time, Deuteronos, the second law. It's interesting the form that it's in. It's in the form of a treaty, much like the treaties of that time. They're called a suzerain vassal treaty, like a king and his subject a treaty. But what it does is it says that, yes, that God is their king. Um, but what it does is it says that, yes, that God is their king.

And it does make the point that God will conscript those men into his army when he needs them and put them into battle. He's just about to do that anyway with Joshua. They take the land and he will extract taxes from them. That's what the tithe is for, tithe and offerings. It's for the functioning of the government that is a theocratic government. The difference, though, is that God, when he gives his designs and conscripts and gives taxes, he does it for all the right reasons. Once they get a king, a king is going to do the same thing, but he's going to do it for the wrong reasons. He's going to do it for his own power and for his own glory, and he's going to tax and tax

and tax. Look at what happened with Solomon. And that created a civil war, you know, because there was no relief with the generation following Solomon and his son. And so that created this split between Northern and Southern kingdoms. So there is an appropriate role of conscription and defending the country and whatever. But when that is in man's hands, it's distorted. And this is exactly what was happening with the American Revolution. And some would say it's happening now. Well, and this is why the whole purpose of the Constitution was to limit the power of the government. Right. whole purpose of the Constitution was to limit the power of the government because they recognized

that we are fallen and they recognized what our inclination is to do when we get power. And so they created these, they acknowledged these natural rights and created these limitations on the government's power so that our rights would be preserved and we wouldn't be oppressed by a powerful government. But Greg, this leads into the second part of his question. What are the limits of our right to liberty in light of our command to submit to our governing authority? And some of this, I think, has to do with the idea of being free to do what's good. But go ahead. Well, that's a much more complicated question, and it's worthy of almost the whole show here with you and I.

But to put it simply, I want to offer a couple of thoughts. Our governing authorities can go beyond their proper province. And so it's appropriate to say no to those governing authorities. Now, we have some examples of that in Acts chapter 3 and 4, maybe 5. But, you know, the early church who is in Peter famously says in Acts chapter 4, you have to decide whether we should obey God rather than men. requiring you to do things that are immoral, or they are depriving you of a legitimate right that is arguably at least a God-given right, well, this is when that governing authority loses its legitimacy. Now, there is a book that I read, it's great, called something of the lesser magistrates. Keep talking.

I'll find it while you're talking here. Say again? Keep talking. I'll find the name of the book while you're talking. Yeah, it's something like the authority of the lesser magistrates. And actually— The doctrine of the lesser magistrates. The doctrine of the lesser magistrates.

And we have a recent example of this. This is when the lesser magistrate says no to the higher magistrate president are demanding of the people is excessive, inappropriate and an inappropriate restriction of their appropriate freedoms. And I, as the lesser magistrate, as a governor, am going to protect my people from you. All right. So that's an example, whether people agree with the politics or not, that's what, that's the dynamic that was going on. And this concept of the doctrine of the lesser magistrates was actually worked out hundreds of years ago, maybe 300 years ago, that the, the, in this book, it chronicles all that. And then it explains the circumstances under which it is appropriate to say no to the government. And there are a lot of them.

Now, here's another thing that I've never heard anybody mention this, actually, but it occurred to me in the last few years as we've been there with COVID, et cetera, there'll be these kinds of discussions. It occurred to me that there is no one thing called the government, the authorities above us, but we have multiple authorities. We have local authorities, we have state authorities, we have federal authorities, and then we have laws governing those authorities that also are authorities, like the Declaration or the Constitution. So it might be that we say no to a local authority. We say no to the king, the president maybe in this case, because there's another authority he ought to be following that he's not called the Bill of Rights or the Constitution. And so this is where I think the impulse is when Christians read about Scripture that says we ought to obey the governing authorities, that we think of that. That's just one governing authority.

If the governor says that we can't meet and have church, then we can't meet. We got to obey. If the president says this, well, wait a minute. They're the only governing authorities over us. And they govern according to law as well, or ought legally one. And they represent the foundation and obligation that ought to be followed by our elected officials. In fact, they all make a pledge, and most of them put their hand on a Bible. And the pledge is to defend, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. So that pledge is acknowledging the Constitution to be the higher authority, okay? Not even the Supreme Court, but the higher authority. So for Christians, it may be that we say no to the governor or even to the president

because there's another authority, a legitimate authority that we are obeying. Now, how that all plays out, that's a matter of discussion and thoughtful, prayerful interaction. But the scripture doesn't require us to say, we do everything the governor tells us to do, because sometimes the governors tell us to do things that are not within their proper province to do. And just to bring it out even to a bigger picture, Romans 13 says that the government is supposed to punish evil and reward the good. That's what we are submitting to. So when the government is preventing good and demanding evil, I think that's an appropriate time to not follow along with that. So when you say the limits to our right to liberty,

I think you have to look at liberty in light of all of those things in terms of our liberty is meant to be to enable us to do what's right and the government is supposed to punish wrong and reward right. So if we are, if they're doing their job, then our liberty will always be in line with that. But if they start to pervert that and switch the evil and the good, now we have examples not just from the New Testament, we have examples from the Old Testament, of course, with Daniel and with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, where they continue to do what was right, even though it was illegal. So if you're looking at your liberties in terms of doing what's right, I think that makes this easier to figure out. If you're looking at your liberties in terms of doing what's right, I think that makes this easier to figure out.

If you're looking at this in terms of liberties, I can do whatever I want, that's when this gets a little harder to figure out. Well, that's when the concept of happiness gets expanded and distorted to mean personal pleasure and personal autonomy. That is not what the founders had in mind. They were working from a different worldview. They were talking about the good life being the moral life, not the profligate life. Well, Greg, we won't wait over it, but I really wanted to include Daniel's question after HSMS because I thought they went well together. So hopefully everyone stuck around. They got a big bonus today.

We're practically a double episode today. Well, thank you for your questions. around. They got a big bonus today. We're practically a double episode today. So, well, thank you for your questions. We'd love to hear from you on X with the hashtag STRask, or you can go through our website at str.org. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokel for Stand to Reason.