Justin Holcomb of the Resurgence summarizes the great apologetics debate between Greg Bahnsen and Gordon Stein.
It became known as the Great Debate.
In 1985 the University of California at Irvine hosted a public debate between philosopher Greg Bahnsen and atheist Gordon Stein on the topic “Does God Exist?”
What EnsuedStein came prepared to cut down traditional apologetic arguments for the existence of God, but the philosopher’s approach was unexpected. Bahnsen went on the offensive and presented the Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God: the God of the Bible must exist because no other worldview makes rational sense of the universe and logic, science, and morals ultimately presuppose a theistic worldview. He explained:
The transcendental proof for God’s existence is that without Him it is impossible to prove anything. The atheist worldview is irrational and cannot consistently provide the preconditions of intelligible experience, science, logic, or morality. The atheist worldview cannot allow for laws of logic, the uniformity of nature, the ability for the mind to understand the world, and moral absolutes. In that sense the atheist worldview cannot account for our debate tonight.
Remembering the debate, philosopher and theologian John Frame writes,
I was there, having driven up with several students from Westminster in Escondido. It was in a large lecture hall at U. C. Irvine, and the place was packed. The atmosphere was electric. I don’t know how many were Christians, but it was evident as the debate progressed that the audience became convinced that Bahnsen won the debate.
Read the rest here.
Thanks. I heard the debate, and Bahsen’s assault was withering.
I just played a portion of that debate in Apologetics class. I also used the CT debate between Doug Wilson and Christopher Hitchens, in which Wilson uses a transcendental argument for morality. Hitchens had five separate invitations to debate that point, and he clearly wanted no part of it. All he could do was ignore Wilson’s point and say that atheists can practice morality. But as Wilson often reminded him, he already conceded that point. His question was what grounds morality in an atheistic universe. The clear answer, which even some atheists are now admitting in the N.Y. Times column “The Stone,” is nothing.