Thinking Out Loud with Alan Shlemon - The Bulverism Blunder

Episode Date: May 13, 2019

Sometimes people claim that the only reason someone is a Christian is because they were born in the United States. In this episode, Alan gives three reasons why such a claim is wrong headed. Download the mp3...

The only reason you're a Christian is that you were born in the United States. If you had been born in Saudi Arabia, you'd be a Muslim. Now, that statement right there is something that I've often heard. It's possible someone's told you something similar to that. And on their view, you're basically just a Christian by accident, since you happen to grow up in an American culture that's primarily Christian and not Muslim. Now, though this claim might sound true, it's wrongheaded. And this mistake in thinking is expressed in other ways too, by the way. For example, people will say things like, well, Christianity is just a crutch for you. Or they'll say, you only believe in God because you

want a father figure. And so since you've arrived at your belief for some sort of sociological or psychological reason, so the argument goes, your belief isn't true. But this statement commits a big blunder, or these kinds of statements commit a big blunder. In fact, C.S. Lewis observed this error so often that he invented a name for it, Bulverism. In fact, he joked he'd write a biography about an imaginary person named Ezekiel Bulver, who was allegedly responsible for starting this whole logical mistake. So let me explain at least three problems with the Bulverism blunder. Here's the first one. It confuses motivation with justification. You see, it makes no difference what motivates a person to

arrive at their belief. It only matters whether or not the belief is true. It might be the case that you're a Christian because you grew up in a country whose primary religious affiliation is Christian, but that doesn't mean there aren't good reasons for why Christianity is true. And so if a challenger wants to undermine your faith, then they must first show why it is false with reasons or evidence. And really, no psychological or sociological discovery about the believer can accomplish this. In fact, as C.S. Lewis explained with Bolivarism, he said, you must show that a man is wrong before you start

explaining why he is wrong. You see, it only makes sense to ask someone why someone came to believe something false after you've done the hard work of refuting that belief. So, consider the claim that you believe in God because you want a father figure, all right? Now, it might be true that your real father was awful and abusive, and that this led you to God as a perfect father substitute. But that doesn't mean there aren't good reasons to believe God exists, right? I mean, how does your journey to theism affect whether God exists or not? It doesn't. It can't. It makes no difference what motivates a person to arrive at their belief.

It only matters whether or not it's true. Okay, so that's the first problem. The second problem I note is that nothing follows from that claim. In other words, let's assume for the sake of argument that you did become a Christian and not a Muslim because you grew up in the United States. Well, what can we conclude from that? Nothing. Yeah, it might be true that you'd not a Muslim because you grew up in the United States. Well, what can we conclude from that? Nothing. Yeah, it might be true that you'd be a Muslim if you were born and raised in Saudi Arabia, but does that prove that Christianity is false? No. Does that prove that Islam is true? No. Nothing logically follows from the observation that people who grew up in America tend to become Christian rather than Muslim. It's merely, I don't know, sociologically interesting. Or consider when someone claims that your Christian belief is just a crutch, right?

Now, it might be true that your addiction to, say, pornography or drugs led you to rely on Jesus as a crutch who carries you through each day without succumbing to temptation. But what follows from that? Does that mean that Jesus doesn't exist? Right? I mean, if a skeptic wants to deny Jesus's existence, he needs to refute the historical evidence that Jesus existed and not merely point out what motivated you to believe in him. And the third problem with this particular approach or this particular critique is that the same critique could be leveled against the unbeliever. As they say, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, right? If this type of critique is

legitimate, then the Christian could make an opposite accusation against the atheist. The Christian could say, well, the only reason you're an atheist is that you want to kill a father figure. In other words, if the atheist grew up in a home where the father was absent or emotionally distant or abusive or whatever, perhaps the idea of a heavenly father would be repugnant to him. He'd want to kill a father figure, leading him to atheism, not for logical reasons, but for psychological ones. Now, of course, the atheist is going to protest such a claim, and rightly so, by the way, because his psychological status has no bearing on the merits of atheism. If a theist wants to

show that the atheist is mistaken, he must give evidence for theism or against atheism and not simply describe the atheist's motivation. Anyways, this bulwars and blunder, as we call it, really highlights a challenging aspect of engaging non-Christians in our culture. And that is people don't know how to think. You know, you might make a good point. You might even answer a challenge to your faith. But if the person you're speaking to doesn't know how to evaluate an argument, you're going to make very, very little progress. Now, I'm not trying to sound consenting here. I mean, even Christians are guilty of this mistake too. Because people, though, aren't taught logic,

sometimes it's necessary to have to lay a foundation for good reasoning first before one can even make the case for the Christian worldview.