Double-Edged Sword of Authorities

We all like to cite and appeal to people who are well trained in the discipline that we are talking about. We also tend to denigrate arguments or claims of someone who is not trained in the area being discussed. The fact that someone has mastered a subject means that they are an extremely valuable resource that should not be dismissed, while someone who has not studied as in-depth, by necessity of the situation, does not have as much knowledge. It seems only logical to prefer the word of the person with the greater knowledge to the person with lesser knowledge.

All arguments consist of premises and conclusions. A proper authority is preferred when supporting the truth of a premise, but that does not mean that their logic is valid. If the logic is not valid, then the conclusion does not follow. Because of this, appealing to a proper authority does not guarantee that the conclusion follows. So, even though appealing to an authority is helpful, it is not sufficient. It is in this case that someone with lesser knowledge, but good reasoning may have an advantage, but not necessarily. More knowledge could still be used to demonstrate that the conclusion is over-stated.

Appealing to "proper" authorities when making an argument requires more than just someone who can support the truth of the premises. There should also be an appeal to someone who can support the logic of the argument. Interestingly, most of us support our premises with citations, but we rarely support our logic by citing proper authorities on reasoning.

But just as citing an authority to support a premise does not necessitate the truth of the premise, neither does citing an authority to support our logic make the conclusion necessarily follow. This brings up the reason that we all need to make sure that we understand proper reasoning. We have to be able to accurately assess arguments and determine if the conclusions actually do follow. A great introductory resource that I recommend is Norman Geisler's Come, Let Us Reason. Its not too long and is easy for the beginner. All apologists should be familiar with this resource as it may be one that they can recommend to help people understand and evaluate the logic of the arguments presented to them. .

Many great resources regarding proper reasoning and logic can be found at Apologetics 315.


More posts regarding appeals to authorities:
Do You Rely Upon Authorities?
Peer-Reviewed Only, Please

Filling in the Gaps

Many skeptics of theism accuse theists of "god-of-the-gaps" argumentation when it comes to providing evidence for God's existence. Many theists claim that naturalists are guilty of using a "naturalism-of-the-gaps" argumentation to explain away evidence for God's existence. Others prefer to remain agnostic and simply, "I don't know, one way or the other." Yet, still others will say, "No one can know."

I've noticed a pattern here (I'm sure I'm not the first, though). We all know that we are not omniscient- none of us knows everything. Which means that everyone has gaps in their knowledge, and we fill those gaps with something (there are no exceptions, as I am about to show). As mentioned in my previous posts "What is Faith?" and "Do You Rely on Authorities?" we tend to look to past experiences to determine what to put our trust in to fill those gaps.

Experience and Reliability

Over the last several years I've come across a couple of "philosophies" when it comes to how a person's personal relationship to a belief affects their ability to represent it accurately. I have heard people state that if someone does not believe something, then they cannot accurately represent it. The "support" provided is that if they were familiar enough to represent it accurately (and in its most powerful form), the person would believe it. But then I've also heard many say that those who believe something cannot accurately represent it. The "support" provided is if someone believes something, they obviously want it to be true, so they will misrepresent a false belief in order to support its truth.

What's interesting is that I've heard both from a couple of the same people, but with regards to different topics: "You can't trust the disciples of Jesus to tell us the truth about him because they obviously wanted to believe he was God and the resurrection happened," and "You can't trust a Christian who used to be an atheist (or other worldview) to accurately represent atheism (or other worldview) because he does not want it to be true." The only identification of when to use which is, "whichever one supports my own view." But that is not a valid reason because of its subjective foundation. When I apply either critique is dependent totally on me, and I can change it whenever I please.

Do You Rely On Authorities?

Have you noticed that when you make a claim and point out that an authority on the subject agrees, the person who disagrees with the point tends to question the authority? Have you ever noticed that you do the same when you disagree with a point? I have had several people who have said that I was using the authority of the person cited as an argument for the truth of the claim; then dismiss it. Am I wrong?