First of all, truth is an absolute. The definition of truth is that which conforms to the mind of God. There is no way to account for truth apart from the God of the Bible. Repentance leads you to the truth (2 Tim. 2:25). That is, you first submit to God, and then you have access to truth. So, this post is mostly for people who are already Christians.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of disagreement on various topics among Christians. How do you determine the truth when two or more Christians disagree on something? The best way to find the truth I have found is to engage in debate. Watching or reading other people debate is good, but it is only a useful way to learn good arguments to apply in your own debates. I have had a lot of success in learning new things by learning a little about a topic, debating someone else, which will require you to learn more to win a debate. This will be the blessing of Facebook and other social media. We complain that Facebook sometimes censors Christians and conservatives, but the real benefit is that iron sharpening iron in a massive way through social media will cause the truth to triumph among Christians.
My first tip is that you have to not debate a moron. You have to debate someone knowledgeable. You may not be able to debate a famous person, but there are people who are pretty knowledgeable about every topic that are accessible online. They’re not famous in society at large, but if it’s a specific-enough topic, they are famous in that small circle. Those types of people are usually open to discussion whether it’s on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube or whatever. I would be more than willing to debate the CEO of Planned Parenthood on abortion or a philosophy professor atheist on the existence of God. They may be smarter than me, but their beliefs are false.
That being said, I enjoy talking to morons who like to shoot off their mouth, but have almost no capability to defend what they believe. I don’t do this to test my ideas to find the truth but more to spread the truths I’ve already proven. Other people read those conversations, and learn about your position, or maybe the moron will eventually change their mind. But I can only think of three times out of hundreds where someone has changed their minds or admitted that they were not arguing properly. Twice on a Youtube comment thread, and once through e-mail (I can’t remember how I was introduced to the Jehovah’s Witness I was emailing, but he lived in the Caribbean somewhere.)
This may be the most important part: How do you know whether you’ve won or lost a debate? A lot of people in a written debate can bluster enough so that it can be hard to tell whether you’ve won. As I’ve said, it is extremely rare when someone admits they were wrong. Here are a few guidelines to help discern whether you’ve won or lost.
1. Whose questions are going unanswered or ignored?
2. Whose answers are logically fallacious?
3. An indicator can be: who is calling more names? Though, sometimes the person who is right is just a jerk.
Item 2 took me several years to hone my skills. I intend to teach my children what logical fallacies are so that maybe they’ll have a leg up on me.
I’ve used this method for more than ten years on various topics, such as evangelism methods, the Trinity, what it means to be born again and how it applies to Jehovah’s Witnesses, salvation by grace alone through faith alone, Calvinism, theonomy, open borders, abolishing police, socialism, abolishing public school/the value of homeschooling, creationism, and a few others.
A lot of those topics are related, but rest assured, Scripture always wins. I might be personally lacking knowledge that causes me to lose a debate, but when I go find the answer for the next debate from Scripture, I win. I would like to get started debating postmillennialism with premillennialists. I think that is an important topic.
Have I ever lost a debate? Yes, not necessarily because I was wrong, but because I didn’t have the answer to a question, and by the time I figured out the answer, the debate was stale and I didn’t go back. I’ve lost that way to a guy who was saying that only ordained elders/evangelists/pastors should proclaim the gospel. I’ve lost on the street to the first JW I ever spoke to. I’ve lost to an atheist when he asked why atheism can’t account for why 1+1=2.
The danger is in not knowing when you’ve lost, or being too proud to not admit that you’ve lost or that your beliefs are wrong, or being unwilling to change your mind. I haven’t won the majority of my debates because I’m so smart, but because I was defending what most Christians already believed, or because I happened to choose a belief among Christians that seemed to fit the best with Scripture, even if it was unpopular among other Christians. Sometimes, I have observed debates, and have seen one side win handily. That is a good indication of what the truth is, but you have to be able to defend it yourself.
The reason I write this is because the thought popped into my head that while I’m middle-aged and healthy, anyone could drop dead at anytime. I’m glad I have been writing and debating online for 10 years so that my young children will have a record of my beliefs. I want to put in writing the important things so that even if I died today my children who are too young to understand this now will be able to read this someday.