Higgins Boats 2.0

Reclaiming Ground to Argue for the Existence of God

It’s D-Day in our postmodern world. As in the World War II Allied invasion to reestablish a foothold in Europe, the challenge for believers today is one of reclamation. For the Christian, it’s a battle to restore the legitimacy of absolute truth, and the God who defines it, in a world where the pursuit of anything transcendent is seen as a fool’s errand. Postmodernism has eliminated the Bible as a source of universal truth, so for those presenting the Gospel, any argument for God must now begin with philosophy.

To reach Normandy, the place of engagement, Allied soldiers traveled across the English Channel in specialized “Higgins boats.” Named for their designer, Andrew Higgins, they allowed troops to invade an open beach. In a culture steeped in postmodernism, believers need philosophical Higgins boats—commonly accepted precepts for building a potent case for the existence of God and absolute truth. To be specific, four presuppositions are necessary.

The following “Higgins boats”—axioms required for any rational debate—have been extracted from Scottish common sense realism, a philosophical system introduced by the Scottish clergyman Thomas Reid in the 18th century.¹ Reid was responding to David Hume’s skepticism—specifically, Hume’s claim that reliable knowledge is impossible. Reid countered Hume by saying that some knowledge is “self-evident” and therefore constitutes “common sense.” In other words, there exist certain axioms that are universal principles shared by everyone. They are confirmed by all mankind, as everyone recognizes that we can’t function normally without presupposing them. As Nancy Pearcey writes in Total Truth, they are “forced upon us simply by the way human nature is constituted.” As Higgins boats were necessary for success on D-Day, these premises are critical in contending effectively for the very idea of truth in a postmodern age.

Higgins Boat #1: The Law of Noncontradiction

The first Higgins boat is the law of noncontradiction. As stated by Reid, it says “that every proposition is either true or false; that no proposition can be both true and false at the same time.” Practically, this means a person cannot say he is a New Orleans Saints fan and is not a New Orleans Saints fan in the same sense and at the same time, although given the Saints, fan status could easily change from minute to minute.

This law is an obvious truth, because, if it were false, we would have patent nonsense. To deny the law of noncontradiction is to say it’s false, which implicitly invokes it. (Think about this too much and you’ll need an aspirin.) If it is false, then the propositions, “a dog is not a cat” and “a dog is a cat” (which is frankly terrifying) can both be true. Meaning ceases to exist, and this essay is unintelligible.

This law directly applies to building a case for the existence of God. For example, take the question of whether the universe is eternal or not. The law of noncontradiction tells us it is one or the other. If an opponent rejects this principle, there can be no further coherent debate. If he accepts it, we can continue, but more boats are needed to continue the argument.

Higgins Boat #2: Truth Is Objective

The second Higgins boat is the objective existence of objects. This asserts that what humans experience empirically is essentially real and accurate. In other words, sensory data is generally reliable. This is self-evident, based on immediate understanding. As Reid notes, “it is not by a train of reasoning and argumentation that we come to be convinced of the existence of what we perceive.” When fans see the Saints score a touchdown, there are real players with a real football who crossed a real goal line (albeit not often enough). Fans are not seeing some illusion from the stands.

This premise is another one that no one can consistently live without. To argue against it requires the very senses you deny. Every profession, science in particular, relies on it daily to ascertain various truths. A clinician sees cancer cells, trusts his sight, and orders chemotherapy. A mother hears her child cry, trusts her ears, and rushes to him. Even the renowned physicist and outspoken atheist Sean Carroll asserts that almost all scientists consider what they observe to be real physical objects.

This law is essential in evaluating whether the universe had a beginning or not. Scientists have run innumerable experiments against the natural world to derive their conclusions. The scientific process assumes these experiments operate on external, physical, real substances—that is, objective entities. The results have included confirmations of such scientific discoveries as the red shift of light traveling toward us from distant galaxies and the existence of the cosmic background radiation. These were two primary observations which only made sense if the universe is expanding. They are phenomena that demand some explanation. The next boat delivers one.

Higgins Boat #3: The Principle of Memory

The third Higgins boat is Reid’s principle of memory—that “those things did really happen which I distinctly remember.” There is no rational argument for this principle. Rather, like consciousness, it is immediately known and accessible to all. When fans observe a Saint fumble the ball, they rant. And because of the preservation of memory, they may rant all week. The key word is “distinctly,” as memories can fade, but lucid recollections are generally trustworthy.

If this principle were false, life would again be chaos. As Reid himself notes regarding memory retention, “no man in his wits calls it in question.” If this is invalid, then read no further, since you won’t remember you did so. Eyewitnesses would be irrelevant, and education would be pointless. In fact, significant memory loss is categorized as abnormal or as a disorder. Memories can be imperfect, but distinct memories, as Reid notes, remain for important events.

This principle is crucial to interpreting scientific observations. The previously mentioned scientific discoveries were recorded and studied by a legion of scientists, who in turn consolidated, analyzed, and evaluated the data. A trustworthy memory was necessary for them to study the totality of information together. As scientists have repeated experiments, they have needed to recall their own expertise as well as comparable results. Their memories have allowed them to interpret the data points gathered using the objectivity boat. The compiled results have compelled nearly all physicists to acknowledge that the expansion of the universe implies a beginning—what we now call the “Big Bang”—and that the universe is therefore finite. This is a critical point in arguing for the existence of God. One more boat gets us to shore.

Higgins Boat #4: The Law of Causality

The final Higgins boat is the law of causality, which states that “whatever begins to exist must have a cause which produced it.” This, too, is axiomatic. It is based on our experience of the laws of nature rather than derived from reason. Because natural laws are consistent, “effects of the same kind must have the same cause.”² This rule means that when the Saints’ quarterback is tackled while trying to pass, there is a reason. It’s because his linemen blocked like his great-grandmother, which in turn is known to cause booing.

If the regularity of cause and effect were not true, every experimental scientist would be looking for work, since scientists spend their days searching for causes behind outcomes, such as cancer, hurricanes, and depression, to name a few. No one lives consistently without assuming this principle. Farmers know water causes crops to grow. Coroners identify a cause of death. Cars stop when you press the brake. Every effect was initiated by something.

This last Higgins boat provides the principle necessary to complete the case for God’s existence: the Big Bang demands a cause for the universe. This cause must itself stand outside of the universe in order to create it. This cause must additionally be immaterial, timeless, spaceless, powerful, and prodigiously intelligent to create such a precisely ordered, complex world. And so, we have here enough specifics to identify this entity as God.

Holding Ground, Moving Forward

Admittedly the reasoning presented here doesn’t force an undeniable conclusion that God exists, much less the conclusion of the Judeo-Christian God. However, our Higgins boats have brought us to the shore. We can contend for belief in God in the face of postmodernism with sound arguments, holding our intellectual ground while arguing effectively for the Creator.

Higgins’s unique boats allowed the Allies to invade the enemy’s territory and ultimately win the war. In 1964, President Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “Andrew Higgins is the man who won the war for us.” Likewise, these four self-evident presuppositions—our Higgins boats—allow us to reclaim from postmodernism solid ground on which we can stand in the intellectual battle for theism. From this foothold, we can press forward to argue for Christianity and truth itself. We may be soldiers marching in strange territory, but unlike the Allies in 1944, we move forward knowing the war has already been won.

Notes
1. Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (Hardpress, 2017). Unless otherwise specified, all quotations are from this resource.
2. Thomas Reid, An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense (Good Press, 2022).