Now that the debate between Koukl and Copra has aired, what do you think?
Being a long-time fan of Koukl and his methods, I can hardly be objective.
Here is some analysis from Hugh.
Here is some more interesting analysis of how it went.
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Dr. Chopra’s summarized his position when he was asked to describe some fundamental questions all people ask. The first question was, “Who am I?” Dr. Chopra answered by saying, “I am still trying to find out.” That answer, to me, makes absolute sense after watching the answers that he was giving. Certainty is an illusion, truth is vacuous, hope is a fickle dream. I wanted Greg to ask Dr. Chopra what exactly are you certain about? Do you have a name? Do you have a Social Security number? Do you breathe? If someone claims a person can live without breathing are they right? Wow, if this type of view is an expression of love or reality then existence is an exquisite form of torture.
The next puzzling point made was when Dr. Chopra quoted Newsweek as a cite reference for the dating of the New Testament. What’s next, citing the Readers Digest as an explanation on the nature of matter!
Finally, it seems that unless we embrace uncertainty we can’t know truth? I have a hard time believing that an educated man like Dr. Chopra would really say that unless I saw it myself. Wow, I guess Big Bird and Barney are the ultimate expressions of truth since they are so uncertain.
Wow! What an amazing display of divergent worldviews. I think the main point that Koukl was unable to get across to Chopra, although he made it clearly and repeatedly throughout, was that Chopra too had a view that he held to be true. Although Chopra’s worldview is dynamic, based upon further revelations of truth, he still holds it to be true-thus the books, appearances on TV, etc. It is his embracing of this relative truth and his belief that he will know more of it in the future that makes him convinced that he is not narrow minded and dogmatic about it. What it really boils down to is his opinion, and the opinion of millions of other new-age relativists, that those who think (notice I didn’t use the word feel) they know what absolute truth is are dangerous, narrow-minded, war-causing dogmatic zealots.
This is what is so insidious about relativism, aside from the main point that it totally denies our God as truth. There is this inherent disdain and fear of those who think they know the truth that makes the relativist afraid of us. Perhaps it’s based upon envy, perhaps it is based upon a sense of superiority that comes from being “enlightened” as to the nature of truth, I’m not sure. Regardless, society is marching not only away from God, not only away from tolerance of those who claim to know absolute truth, but towards persecution of the dangerous narrow-minded absolutist. “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.’” (John 14:6) May we never waver from our conviction towards the Truth!