Greg Koukl has this book called Tactics where he teaches Christians how to have productive conversations with non-Christians. I read the original a long time ago, but I've been reading the 10th anniversary edition lately because it's been updated. While I think the book is great over all, there is something about it that bothers me.
Greg's third Columbo tactic is to poke holes in other people's views by asking them leading questions designed to get them to recognize the flaws in their views and/or persuade them of your point of view. This is the same tactic Peter Boghossian advocates in his book, A Manual For Creating Atheists. It's basically the Socratic method, but Boghossian and his fans call it "street epistemology."
I have no problem with this method of persuasion. What bothers me, though, is that Greg advocates what appears to me to be a double standard. While in chapter seven, Greg advocates asking "leading questions" to make your points, in chapter nine, he says that if somebody uses this tactic on you that you should "Politely refuse to answer the person's leading questions." Greg even explains how if somebody begins to ask you leading questions, you can turn the tables on them and put them back in the hot spot. The object, in Greg's view, is to control the conversation by making sure you're always the one asking the questions, and they are always the ones having to defend their views.
The whole purpose in Greg's tactics is to take the pressure off of you and put it on the other person. These do seem like good strategies if your goal is just to remain in your comfort zone. You stay in your comfort zone by forcing the other person to defend their claims but avoid having to defend any claims of your own. But what good is that other than giving you psychological comfort? If you have a point of view you want to get across to somebody, then you should be willing to assume the burden of proof at some point. If you just want to stay on the sidelines and poke holes in other people's statements, you may be having a good time, but you're not accomplishing a whole lot.
I don't think anybody is obligated to submit to the Socratic method if they just don't like being on the witness stand. But I think that if you're going to expect other people to be on the witness stand, you should be willing to sit on the witness stand yourself. And if you're not willing to do that, then you shouldn't subject other people to it. This is just Jesus 101--treat others how you want to be treated.
I don't entirely agree with Greg's advice about what to do when somebody uses the Socratic method on you. His advice appears to be that you should never let this happen. But if that's something that one should never let happen, then non-Christians should never let it happen either, and if non-Christians never let it happen, then Greg's third Columbo tactic will be of no use to anybody.
My alternative advice is that if you don't want to be on the witness stand, then it's perfectly alright to ask the person to just spell out their arguments instead of asking you questions. But at the same time, if you're going to expect other people to answer your leading questions, then you should be willing to answer theirs and not play this game of shifting the burden of proof just to avoid discomfort or to control the conversation.
There have been times when I've allowed myself to be put on the witness stand because I think that can be helpful to people. (It can also be fun.) Sometimes people want to challenge you because they hope to change your views, but this is an opportunity for you to give them information. Allowing yourself to be grilled with questions could be helpful to them. People often think they have some killer question that'll stump you and expose the falseness of your views (e.g. "If everything needs a creator, then who created God?"), but you can disabuse them of this confidence by giving good responses to their questions. If they ask you questions you don't know the answers to, you can always just admit you don't know the answer. There's nothing wrong with that. In cases where you don't know the answers, this can help you since it may reveal a weakness in your point of view or something you need to study more. It can give you direction and be a learning experience.
But I'm not always up for being put on the witness stand. Sometimes I just don't have the energy or I'm just not in the mood. That happened a few weeks ago when somebody sent me a private message and wanted to do the Street Epistemology thing on me to challenge my epistemology. I declined, telling him I didn't want to be on the witness stand but that if he thought there was something wrong with my epistemology, he should just tell me what it is, why he thinks I'm wrong, or what point of view he thinks I should adopt. So he wrote me back a short message giving a brief explanation of his epistemology, and that was the end of our conversation. I suppose if I weren't just being lazy I would've chosen to engage with him, but I was tired at the time and didn't feel like it.
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