At the universities I visit, the exclusivity of Christ is raised in every open forum – “How can you possibly talk about one God or one way when there are so many good options?”
Today, sensitivities are at an all-time high – and rightfully so. Tolerance of different races and religions has been lacking over the years. But pluralism has given way to relativism. Most of the intellectual elite of this country completely disavow the idea of absolute truth.
At the Harvard forum, I established that the law of non-contradiction (that no statement can be true and false at the same time and in the same relationship) must apply to reality. As in virtually every other setting, it stirs up quite a debate, but you would assume it fundamental to rational discourse. When I did, the audience went silent for several minutes. That the laws of logic apply to reality floors people, even though they use logic to attack Christian truths.
Here’s the rub: While the average secular person will believe something WITHOUT subjecting it to rational critique, he disbelieves things on the basis that, he or she says, they are rationally inadmissible. So he critically attacks Christian assumptions using principles of logic that he doesn’t even hold to.
Version used on 12/31/95:
At a forum in Harvard, Ravi Zacharias responded to some critics by using the law of non-contradiction. This law of logic simply states that no statement can be true and false at the same time and in the same relationship.
Zacharias said this law must apply to religion and reality. If Jesus said he was God, he either is or he isn’t. You cannot have it both ways. The same law applies to every other religion. They are ultimately true, or they are not.
When he made this argument, the audience went silent for several minutes. That the laws of logic apply to reality floors people, even though they use logic to attack Christian truths.
Here’s the rub: the average non-religious person will believe something WITHOUT thinking it through. They will believe many things and never investigate if they are rational. But this same non-religious person will disbelieves things on the basis that they are not logical. So they will attack Christian assumptions using principles of logic that they don’t even apply to themselves.