Apologetics
Russell’s Tea Pot, Snuggies and Talking Frogs
**Guest post by Rob Powell.**
Bertrand Russell was a genius.
He had a bibliography as long as his mustache, was a pioneer in several fields and employed a sharp mind–and even sharper wit.
For all his achievements though he may be best remembered in internet culture today for his teapot analogy…
It goes a little something like this:
“Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake.
“If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes.
“But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. “
His point is well taken, that you can’t prove a negative–but nobody believes there is a vessel of 3 degree Kelvin Earl Gray floating around between the Earth and Mars.
Russell goes on to say that:
“If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time. “
Dr. Russell is implying that the only reason we don’t think it’s crazy to believe in God (who’s negation we can’t prove either) and not the teapot is that our parents, pastors and polite society have brainwashed us into thinking God is real.
In reality, Russell would say, God is no more real than a celestial teapot, unicorn, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
He’s just more socially acceptable.
So what’s the difference between God and this imaginary teapot–and where does this cute little analogy ultimately break down? Let’s take a look.
The Brittle Tea Pot Analogy
There are many hidden assumptions to this comparison but a primary one is that if something is real then science should be able to document it.
We’ve talked about scientism before because it has been a perennial favorite amongst the “brights” since the Enlightenment.
So Russell makes his teapot so far and distant that science can’t detect it–but that doesn’t make it God-like.
In theory we could go to the coordinates of the teapot and take it’s picture. Even if we didn’t know exactly where it was we could scour the range of coordinates and given enough time and effort we could find it or rule out its being in a certain area or at the very least based on its size and the volume it’s contained in say we are X% sure it’s not between Earth and Mars.
But since God is unembodied we could know the exact location of every quark in the universe and still not know where God is and He could still be real or at least authentic to the description given to Him in those ancient texts.
What Russell has done is placed on God the burden of being scientifically detectable in order to be real. But he offers no reason why God can’t exist without fulfilling this requirement?
Is God less God-like if He is uncaliperable?
Dr. Russell is also comparing something with no proof for its existence outside of his fanciful testimony meant to be a zinger to something who’s existence we do have good arguments for.
The ontological, teleological, cosmological, moral…these arguments have kept our greatest thinkers busy for over a thousand centuries.
The list of theists is long and illustrious and will make any honest skeptic pause.
This doesn’t make God real but it does mean that you can be a rational human being and believe in God. Not so much for his teapot.
The Tea Pot Is Under Strain
Let’s ask a question: When is lack of evidence evidence of lack?
Suppose you enter a cozy one room cabin and someone asks you if there are any Kodiak bears in the room. If you don’t see, hear, or smell any Kodiak bears you can assert with confidence that there are no Kodiak bears in the cabin.
But what if you enter the cabin and someone asks you if there are any gnats in the room? You can stare and listen but you will have a much shakier foundation to affirm that there are no gnats in the cabin.
In the first case we can go easily from “I don’t see any bears” to “there are no bears”. In the second case we can only go from “I don’t see any gnats” to “I don’t know if there are any gnats.”
The difference between the two is our epistemic situation, which in broad terms is the limits on our ability to know something through our primary sources of knowing (sense, memory and reason).
Using the terms we usually do around here we could say we’re atheistic about bears in the cabin but remain agnostics about the gnats.
Three Reasons for Our Evidence of God
What Russell is trying to do is stretch our atheism about the teapot into atheism about God. But is that a legitimate analogy? In order for that argument to work two criteria have to be met.
1. If God exists then we would expect there to be evidence for God.
2. If there is evidence for God then we would expect to have knowledge of this evidence.
We deny the bears in the cabin because we expect sufficient evidence to know if bears were in the cabin–but we lack it.
We are less sure about the gnats because even though we lack evidence for them we wouldn’t necessarily expect to have any evidence if they were there.
So with respect to God we would have to expect to have evidence of His existence but lack it to affirm atheism.
But should the skeptic expect to have this evidence? Here’s three reasons why they shouldn’t.
1. Sin
People are fallen and flawed and have willfully and purposefully closed their eyes toward God. We do this because we are proud, licentious, and wicked people in desperate need of a savior.
A crystal clear example of this is atheist Thomas Nagel saying, ” I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers… It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want a universe like that.”
Could a mindset like that cause him to knowingly or not close his eyes to evidence for God?
2. Demands for unreasonable types of evidence.
God could better prove His existence by painting a vibrant picture of Jesus in a different color Snuggie up in the clouds every Sunday from 11 to noon.
Or maybe he could cause frogs to say John 3:16 instead of “ribbit”.
Whatever the demand the implication is that God has a moral obligation to people to make Himself more clearly–even ridiculously!–evident because then more people would believe in God and avoid hell.
This leads us to the last reason.
3. Humble versus forced submission to God.
God doesn’t desire that people merely acknowledge His reality but that they have a redemptive, meaningful, ongoing relationship with Him. He wants to be every bit of our Lord and Father–not just our acknowledged reality.
Would cloudy Snuggie clad saviors and talking frogs lead more people to this type of relationship? Maybe, but I doubt it. We are still bent toward evil and incapable of doing good on our own.
It might just lead to more people like the demons who acknowledge Him but refuse to submit to his authority.
What separates God from Santa Claus, tooth fairies, teapots, and other imaginary beings is that where we can’t necessarily expect to know about evidence for God we would expect to know about evidence for the others.
But our epistemic situation is better.
Evidence of God Superior to Evidence for Tea Pots
We would expect to find factories at the North Pole, orphans getting quarters under their pillows and astronauts telling us about the teapot they left on the wing of Mariner IV.
Now I’ll admit the other option for the teapot could be that it just spontaneously popped into being from nothing in a solar orbit and while that would be extremely more likely than the entire universe doing the same trick (which atheists also believe) nobody really believes that could happen (which makes you wonder why it’s okay for the universe but not a measly teapot).
Which leads me to one final thought.
The crux of this argument is that there is no good reason to believe in the teapot other than widespread indoctrination. Russell is asserting that blind fideism puts faith and reason at odds–and reason must triumph.
You knew we would get here eventually but enter Jesus as the anti-teapot. The uniter of heart and mind.
God saw fit to come to earth in the form of Jesus and become very detectable so that we might know Him, repent, believe, and live in redeemed relationship with Him.
The historicity of the life of Christ allows us to have a reasonable faith. We can study His life, His words, and the lives of the people He interacted with.
In Russell’s analogy he’s given us no reason to believe him about the teapot. If the teapot’s creator had authored a now ancient text describing the out of sight teapot we could study it.
If we had reason to believe the author we’d have reason to believe in the teapot. The same must be said for Jesus. But in Jesus’ case, his life, death and resurrection exist not as dogma but as historical evidence. In other words, facts. Not so for the tea pot.
Saint Augustine on Frustration with Pagans
I don’t know about you, but I’ve got this idea in my head that people in the past had it easy…
That they wrote, thought and taught in a vacuum–free from distractions, objections and frustrations.
Of course we know that’s not true.
What is true is we often read in a vacuum, without the historical context in which a sermon like “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” or a book like Bondage of the Will is written.
The same is true for Augustine’s City of God, a book that’s part of my morning routine.
In this fat book Augustine is doing two things: One, confronting the accusation that the Christian religion is responsible for the destruction of Rome. And two, defining the city of God.
In Book II-1 [a chapter called The limit to be imposed on discussion of objections] you sense Augustine’s frustration with those who “are too blind to see what is put before their face, or they are too perversely obstinate to admit what they see.”
Here’s the whole chapter [it's short and worth reading carefully]:
If the feeble mind of man did not presume to resist the clear evidence of truth, but yielded its infirmity to wholesome doctrines, as to a health-giving medicine, until it obtained from God, by its faith and piety, the grace needed to heal it, they who have just ideas, and express them in suitable language, would need to use no long discourse to refute the errors of empty conjecture. But this mental infirmity is now more prevalent and hurtful than ever, to such an extent that even after the truth has been as fully demonstrated as man can prove it to man, they hold for the very truth their own unreasonable fancies, either on account of their great blindness, which prevents them from seeing what is plainly set before them, or on account of their opinionated obstinacy, which prevents them from acknowledging the force of what they do see.
There therefore frequently arises a necessity of speaking more fully on those points which are already clear, that we may, as it were, present them not to the eye, but even to the touch, so that they may be felt even by those who close their eyes against them.
And yet to what end shall we ever bring our discussions, or what bounds can be set to our discourse, if we proceed on the principle that we must always reply to those who reply to us? For those who are either unable to understand our arguments, or are so hardened by the habit of contradiction, that though they understand they cannot yield to them, reply to us, and, as it is written, speak hard things, and are incorrigibly vain. Now, if we were to propose to confute their objections as often as they with brazen face chose to disregard our arguments, and so often as they could by any means contradict our statements, you see how endless, and fruitless, and painful a task we should be undertaking.
And therefore I do not wish my writings to be judged even by you, my son Marcellinus, nor by any of those others at whose service this work of mine is freely and in all Christian charity put, if at least you intend always to require a reply to every exception which you hear taken to what you read in it; for so you would become like those silly women of whom the apostle says that they are always learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Frankly, this reminds me of my own frustration I defined in An Open Letter to Skeptics and Dead: Our Spiritual Condition Apart from the New Birth.
More importantly it highlights the binding obligation we have of giving a simple, but repeated articulation of the Gospel–to Christian and pagan alike–regardless of our frustration.
Bottom line: The truth of God will be resisted in our world. Jesus said as much–and condemned as much those who resisted it–when he said:
For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them. Matthew 13:15
And there is no apology needed on our part for articulating this “foolish and weak” Gospel of Jesus Christ because in the same breath we warn pagan and Christian alike of the coming judgment and offer eternal life to whoever hears our words and believes on Christ.
It’s the greatest act of love.
And so despite our frustration, we continue in our Christian work. Just like our friend Augustine did.
Anthony Horvath: Director of Apologetics Ministry Talks
I get the feeling that Anthony Horvath doesn’t sleep.
The guy’s got a lot going on.
For starters, he’s the director of Athanatos Christian Ministries, an organization “committed to applying the Christian world view in creative contexts that range from Christian apologetics to education to the edification of the church to literature and the arts.”
He’s also a public speaker on the pro-life circuit [for good reasons]. An author of two fiction books. The founder of a literary apologetics writing contest. And the brains behind this publishing group.
Throw in a wife and four children–and Anthony is busy. But very interesting. As you’re about to see.
1. Give me a little bio of you and your ministry.
I was raised in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and had every intention of becoming a pastor when, in my first year of college, abandoned my beliefs.
When faith returned, my new passion was Christian apologetics.
I graduated with a pastoral ministry degree with a minor in the Biblical languages and then proceeded to be a religion teacher and other church work positions.
In the midst of the professional church work I continued to do apologetics. I started with AOL and then moved to forum discussions.
About five years ago circumstances conspired so that I became a ’stay at home’ dad and apologetics my ‘full time’ activity. I am a father of four, and on account of the birth of my daughter who has spina bifida, my ministry has a distinctly pro-life bend in it, too.
2. What motivated you to start Athanatos Christian Ministries?
ACM made official what had been going on all along. There are any number of duties involved in running a ministry, much of them having nothing to do with ministry at all. People don’t appreciate this fact. I think small businessmen will understand, though.
Most of the ministry activities we’re doing now were started before ACM became an official non-profit. I chose the name ‘Athanatos,’ which is Greek for ‘immortal’ or ‘not dying’ rather than ‘Sntjohnny’ (my AOL presence my ministry began with) to cast a larger vision for an apologetics ministry.
“He has set eternity in the hearts of men…” Solomon said. As Lewis said, “We have never met a mere mortal.”
I take as my starting point that everyone is longing for truth and meaning and they pursue it as naturally as they breathe. ACM seeks to facilitate that pursuit by any means possible.
3. You state on Anthanatos website that you no longer believe “the best, exclusive use of my time is to reach out and contend with atheists.” I like how you qualified that statement, but I’ve found in my own experience that engaging atheists enhances my understanding of my faith and actually better prepares me to answer challenging questions from Christians. Would you agree with that statement or disagree.
Well, I can see how this might come across as not wanting to engage with atheists but perhaps the statement should be understood by contrast to what I was doing before. My discussion forum, slightly a ghost town now used to consume all of my time.
When I say ‘my time’ I mean something on the order of 40 to 60 hours a week.
This includes the loads of reading and research that one would have to do to write intelligently. I draw heavily on this experience as I seek to equip Christians.
I definitely think that that kind of engagement is useful, because it helps us bridge the gap between what we think people’s objections will be and what they actually are.
I still contend with atheists (and others!). It just isn’t as much of my time as before. Also, as alluded to before, much more of my time is needed to management and administration of the ministry, which is a reality I’m not particularly happy about.
4. In 2006, you said that the Church was actually creating atheists. What did you mean by that? You also said that if you made that statement today, it’d hardly get noticed. What’s changed in four years?
That 2006 pronouncement was born of my realization that many, if not most, if not even all, of the atheists I was conversing with had been raised in the Church.
This goes to the other reason why I’ve shifted my time to equipping Christians over against banging heads with atheists: I deemed it might be more practical to stop Christians from falling away in the first place rather than try to win them back after they were long gone.
The really controversial part of my 2006 pronouncement, though, was that the Church itself was instrumental in breeding atheists.
Now, a certain natural cycle of doubt and questioning and a certain amount of people deciding that Christianity doesn’t have the answers is to be expected and is not problematic on its face.
The problem is that the Church is doing a poor job making sure that people are asking the right questions and then exposing them to the best answers. It’s worse than that: much Christian education actually sets people up to be clobbered when they finally started thinking through their faith.
I think Ken Ham’s Already Gone documents this very well. That book represents a survey that he personally commissioned and to his surprise they discovered that those most likely to have hardened positions against Christianity were those who had been through Sunday School, VBS, Confirmation, and the like.
Nonbelievers who were ’softer’ on Christianity hadn’t actually been through any Christian programming! While I don’t agree with Ham’s total conclusions, I think his theory on why this particular phenomena is taking place is probably correct.
Since I made that pronouncement in 2006, there have been a variety of studies that have come out showing that a high percentage of unbelievers were raised in the Church. Ken Ham I mentioned. Barna has produced numerous reports indicating something is amiss. There are others, too.
It isn’t a controversial pronouncement any more because I think generally speaking it is agreed that there is something seriously, seriously wrong in the transmission of the faith.
The remaining dispute is over what is wrong and what to do about it.
The Enemy [It's Not Who You Think]
Books supporting evolution are not in short supply.
Stand just inside my local Barnes and Noble and you’ll see what I mean.
Lining a shelf of the new and notable science publications and you’ll see books like The Universe: Order Without Design.
Nothing unusual.
But it’s that last one–by none other than Richard Dawkins–that did it…
That got the gears going.
An Abundance of Books Easily Amuses Me
What surprised me most about this book was not that he wrote a book on the evidence of evolution…
But that he keeps on doing it. Systematically. Deliberately.
Naturally, his other books are just variations on the theme. The Blind Watchmaker. The God Delusion. The Selfish Gene.
Then there’s the hundreds more published by other authors. It’s a veritable cottage industry breaking into the big time.
But it’s also indicative of a sense of alarm about the future of evolution and the threat of superstition.
So, in the face of this sleepless opposition, what are Christians to do? Enter the Christian apologists.
Soon We Will Resort to Cage Matches
To be fair, neither is there a shortage of books AGAINST evolution.
For example, a month or two down the road Alistair McGrath, Phillip Johnson, Michael Behe, David Aikman–someone in the camp–will write a book called Evidence Against Evolution.
Or The REAL Greatest Show on the Earth: Evidence for Design.
No?
Well, I’m banking on history here, because this is nothing more than the thrust, counter-thrust, counter-counter-thrust, counter-counter-counter thrust of our current scientific-spiritual climate.
A climate brewing for the last forty years.
My observation boils down to this: We get our underwear in a wad, convinced our privileged nation is going to hell in a hand basket, and so we’ve got to roll up our sleeves and single handedly stop the steamroller called evolution.
Or atheism. Or pagan spirituality. Whatever you want to call it.
I’m Guilty, Too
Believe me, I hear that same voice every time a new book opposing Christianity is published.
Whether it’s by Ehrman, Dawkins, Young or Tolle.
I want to write the book that saws off the branch that evolution sits on. That pulls out the rug from under higher criticism. That drowns false prophets.
Vicious, I know.
And don’t get me wrong: This competition is healthy.
Yet in view of this growing, hostile reaction to Christianity, you need to keep these three things in mind as you hash out your plan of attack–or retreat.
Three Reasons Why You Should Chill
One, this shouldn’t surprise one thoughtful Christian at all. Jesus promised both joy AND opposition.
Second, evolution, like all scientific views, has a shelf life.
In fact, it may surprise many to learn that most biologists at the start of the 20th Century rejected Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Darwinism revived when a handful of scientists merged his theory with Mendelian genetics.
This is not an isolated event. The history of science is full of such turnabouts.
Whatever Happened to These Scientific Theories?
Ever heard of the geosynclinal theory? Of course not. It was buried alive by plate tetonics.
Geocentric view of the universe? Shoved aside by Copernicus and his trusty heliocentric view.
That phlogiston caused heat? Well, oxidation burned this one at the stake.
Yes, Darwinism remains the consensus. [As do the others.] How long? A lot longer, I believe, than most because it is truly a great idea.
But that’s where it remains. As an idea.
Didn’t See This Coming
My final and third point is this: the global south–the region that covers South America, Africa and China.
What’s so special about it? It’s a region of the world that’s experiencing unprecedented growth in Christianity.
And here’s the kicker: This is occurring in the face of rigid anti-religious cultures.
It’s really quite astonishing if you think about what’s going on in China, for example.
Millions of converts in a nation very unkind to Christianity.
And while not the poverty and persecution of the extremely repressive Cultural Revolution in 3 decades China’s gone from 3 million Christians to anywhere from 54 million to 130 million.
Conservately, that’s 18-fold jump in Christians. Go with the liberal number and we’re talking a 43-fold leap.
And get this.
This wave of Christianity is not led by foreign missionaries: Christianity in China spreads from person to person.
Government crackdowns and public scrutiny. Christians beaten, arrested and church leaders jailed. Converts remaining anonymous for fear of persecution.
As much as changed in China, much has remained the same. But Christianity spreads.
So, while we fight for legislation to protect our freedom of speech or prayer or our right to insist marriage should remain between a man and woman, our Christian culture weakens.
What Gives?
Quite frankly, we could use a little persecution. And not only of the academic sort.
In the West, we have lots of bandwidth to do much with. No surprise that Christianity comes in 356 colors.
And then some.
And neither is it a surprise that most Christians affirm the view that as long as people leave them alone they’ll leave them alone.
We are comfortable and want to stay that way.
Perhaps it would do us well be stripped of our freedoms. To be limited in our movement.
Perhaps creating laws that decreed publishing a book opposing evolution could lead to death. To make a stand against abortion punishable by torture.
I predict that much of what we know as the church today would run for the woods if this ever occurred…
Or commit outright treason against Christ. [I'm sounding rather alarmist myself, aren't I?]
A Conclusion
In a nutshell, rather than wring our hands over the fear that the sky is falling in, our time would be better spent if we simply rejoiced and made discipleship of the nations a singular and solitary pursuit.
If we first sharpened our sense of sound doctrine and gospel truth.
And that we started with our own people.
Once we get back on that horse, then we can get on with the business of trampling evolution. Whacha think?
Is the Gospel What the World Desperately Needs?
Love.
In the face of doctrine, creeds and faith systems…isn’t the important thing that we just love?
Isn’t love the superior truth we should be after?
Depends.
Depends on what motivates that love. What content is behind that love.
Faith systems like legalism and philistinism, moralism and secularism, lead to arrogance and superiority. Fist fights. Military coups.
Not love.
Only salvation via the Christian gospel can lead to a deep, humble, enemy-embracing love…a love the world desperately needs.
Let me explain.
Why the World Needs a Better Method of Salvation
If your method of salvation is performance based, then you are saved by your performance.
This, not surprisingly, leads to self-righteous arrogant behavior towards others who don’t measure up to your standard.
Think of legalism. Which leads to oppression. Tyranny.
Secularism isn’t any better.
A view that you’re the enlightened intellectual leads to smug feelings toward the dimwitted religious zealot.
Each group snubs the other.
What Christianity does differently is grinds out self-righteous thinking in a believer as he discovers and admits that he is a helpless sinner in need of grace.
It makes him humble before the people who are different from him.
Why the World Needs a Better Purpose Behind Salvation
And if the ultimate purpose of salvation is the restoration of the earth–the elimination of poverty, disease and death–then that should also be our mandate.
Our mandate should be the renewal of our cities. Our neighborhoods. Our homes.
That means we seek to bring peace where we live. We seek to make it a prosperous place…
A region non-believers want to live.
See, this idea that salvation’s ultimate goal is the renewal of heaven and earth humbles us: If God’s goal is the resurrection of ALL creation, why should we prefer anything different?
We should seek to serve our government. Corporations. Schools. Museums. No matter who runs them…
…which brings me to my next point.
Why the World Needs a Better Origin of Salvation
The Bible teaches that Jesus is not just a prophet or a teacher. It teaches he is God. It teaches he is Lord over all–
“Now wait a minute,” you say. “Doesn’t that view lead to a sense of superiority? Arrogance?”
No.
What it does is lead to inclusion. [I know that sounds counterintuitive, but hear me out. ]
One of the most dramatic shifts in society occurred when Christianity introduced the idea that all people–under a just and holy God–were equal.
Jew and Gentile. Greek and non-Greek. Husband and wife. Child and adult. Master and slave. Rich and poor.
All were alike.
Unlike the Greco-Roman separation of classes and races, Christianity compressed all people into one class: sinner.
And when early Christians recognized their position in this new class, it led to patient, humble and compassionate behavior.
Why would this happen?
Think.
In Jesus, ultimate reality appeared as a man.
God entered a world hostile to him. He poured himself out for a people who rejected him. And he died on a cross for those who didn’t deserve their crimes to be forgiven.
All for their salvation in the shadow of a wrathful God.
With that in mind, how can Christians trample and double-cross and snub others? With the truths of the gospel embraced deep in the Christian’s heart, it’s near impossible.
Conclusion
In the last couple days we’ve learned that we all have exclusive beliefs. Christianity included.
The question remains: which one is right? I submit Christianity.
I submit Christianity because of the power embedded in the gospel truths that can radically transform human beings into passionate agents of reconciliation–something the world desperately needs.
That is true love.
And if you are a Christian, take this truth deeper into your being. If you’re not, embrace it now…
The world needs you.
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