History of Philosophy and Christian Thought - Lesson 31

Dr. Ronald Nash

History of Philosophy and Christian Thought

th620-31

Skepticism

Lesson Transcript

[00:00:02] Let me say a word or two about Augustine's criticisms of skepticism. This is important stuff. After a Guston turned away from Manichean ism and you must understand that he had he had privately in his own heart, broken with Manichean ism probably two years before he made it public. The reason he got the job as public order in Milan was big was due to the intervention of Manichean friends, but he himself had privately turned away from Manichean ism. He just hadn't told his friends. So after he abandoned Manichean ism, he became a skeptic. That was one of those five Hellenistic systems that I told you about. And therefore, after his conversion, the first book he started to write was a book called Contra Academics. Contra Academics, meaning against the Skeptics. See, there were two kinds of skepticism, and I will not ask you this again. There was a form of philosophical skepticism that was unrelated to Plato's Academy, but the major form of skepticism in the world during that time, that century was an offshoot of stuff that had happened within Plato's Academy. This is hard to believe when you first hear it. Plato's Academy continued to exist until five. I'm going to say 529. I can't remember everything. It was it was within one or two years of 529 A.D. But long before Plato's Academy was closed down, it had become a center, a hotbed of a philosophical position that was actually the opposite of what Plato had taught. Plato's whole position was opposed to skepticism. Plato's whole system intended to lay a foundation that explained how human knowledge was possible. The forms and all of that stuff that you've learned about skepticism taught that no one can know anything, that skepticism, no one can know anything.

[00:02:32] Now, the first and major criticism of skepticism and this is somewhat ironic, does not appear in Augustine's writings. He writes a whole book attacking skepticism, but he doesn't use the best argument. The best argument against skepticism is this. It is self-contradictory. If you say no one can know anything, you can refute this by asking just one simple question of the person who says this. And that question is, Do you know this? Now follow me here. All right. This is this is good stuff. The guy says no one can know anything. Oh, really? Do you know that? Do you know this? Now he's only got two possible answers. If he says yes, then he's contradicting himself. He's saying yes. I know that no one can know anything, which immediately identifies him as a bozo of the first magnitude. Do you want to stand? No one can know anything. And I know that No one can know anything. If this if this guy doesn't understand how he's contradicting himself, get away from him quickly. Don't ever get on an airplane with a person like this. But he's only if once he sees the contradiction, he's only got one other answer. No one can know anything. Do you know that? No, of course not. Do you think I'd contradict myself? In other words, he's saying, I don't know what I'm talking about. Now. I don't know about you, but my mother taught me never to. Never to fellowship with an idiot. All right, So no one can know anything. Do you and all that? No. Never argue with someone who admits he has no idea what he's talking about. Now, for some reason, Augustine doesn't use that argument. I guess he doesn't use it because it hadn't occurred to anybody yet.

[00:04:38] Well, you don't have that excuse anymore. But here are some of Augustine's other criticisms, although, frankly, now that I think about it, the second objection doesn't appear in contra academic course either. It appears in his book The City of God. And this is a this is a beautiful refutation, but it came to Augustine years later and expressed the second criticism by using this Latin expression, See Thal or song, I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to translate this and I'm going to tell you what it means if I am to see if I am wrong. If I am mistaken, I still am hears Augustine's point, even if I am wrong about everything else in life, if I'm wrong about who the current president is, if I'm wrong about who won the World Series, if I'm wrong about the year in which Mark McGwire announced his retirement. Did you hear about that today? What a great hitter he was. Even if I'm wrong about everything else, there is one thing in life about which I can never be mistaken. And if there is one thing in life about which I can never be mistaken, then I know it. And if there is one thing in life that I know, then skepticism can't be true. Because skepticism says I can't know anything. But there is one thing that everybody knows, and you know what that is? He knows that he exists. This is true story. I was once speaking in California at an apologetics conference and it was time to break for lunch. And I was having lunch with a guy who worked for what ministry? Oh, the U. Ross ministry. Yeah. Now, you, Ross is a pretty well known Christian apologist. In fact, I write for you.

[00:06:53] I write regular column for you right across magazine. And I just forgot the ministry to which this kid that I was having lunch with worked for. Now, what this kid did was his task was to take letters from crazy viewers of Hugh Ross's TV program and answer them. And he asked for my help. And I said, Well, what's your problem? He says, Well, Dr. Nass, I I've got this crazy person who keeps writing me. And I keep coming up with every argument that I can. And he he won't shut up. I said, Well, what's his problem? True story. I'm not making this up. He said, This guy is a solipsistic now. Now, let me tell you what a solipsism is. A solipsism is a person who believes that he is alone in the universe, a subsist as a person. This is a true story. Bertrand Russell, the British philosopher who changed his philosophy every time he changed mistresses. Ooh, that's true. Once wrote a book in which he argued for solipsism. And a lady wrote him a letter and she said, Dr. Russell, your arguments on behalf of solipsism are so powerful, Why can't we convince anybody else that they're true? Now, if you're not laughing, you know, you probably do not have a future in philosophy. All right. It's that simple. You're in the wrong course. You don't see the Juma of that. Anyway, I gave that. I told this kid how to answer this weird solipsism. I said, write him this letter. Dear Mr. Smith, I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is you've convinced me that solipsism is true. The bad news is, since you no longer exist, I'm not going to write you anymore. All right.

[00:09:04] Someday I got to write it. I got to run into that guy and tell him if that. If that did any any any good by that. I'm sorry, but that's good stuff right there. And it really happened once in a while. I can be funny. But here's the point. You can't listen. You cannot be wrong about anything unless you exist. Write that down. And give me credit. No, I'm. I'm stealing from somebody else. If you are wrong about something else, there's something that you can't be wrong about, and that is your own existence. What about René Descartes, the French philosopher who died in 1650. Who seems to have stolen from Augustine? Okay. But who denies stealing from Augustine? Well, there are some things I like about Descartes. At least his book, The Meditations. But Descartes did steal from Augustine. Augustine would have put it this way. We're still talking Latin, and you all are learning a whole lot about Latin from this course. Agustin would have said, Do battle, ergo. So he never wrote this particular sentence, but that I doubt. Therefore I am okay if I'm well or c foul or some if I make a mistake, I still must exist. Nonexistent. People don't make mistakes. Nonexistent people can't be wrong. Okay. But Descartes, he wrote Cogito ergo sum, which means I think. Therefore I am. I think, therefore I am. So there's Augustine on skepticism. Don't ever become a skeptic. Don't ever become a skeptic.