This is a serious attempt to defeat a hated idea. Generally, the actual substance is not considered. Instead, some attempt is made to find some way to discredit the whole concept.

Examples of this abound. If you say, that God exists and that He can be found, the ungodly will attack you, call you ignorant, and then say that you are rude and exclusivistic. If you say that God directly reveals truth to His people, not only the ungodly will attack you but many Christians will attack you. Most people do not know the weakness of their own arguments. The atheist makes the foundational premise, "There is no God." He then seeks to build on this to prove that there is no God. That is circular reasoning. The fundamentalist Christian who doesn't believe that God can reveal makes a foundational premise that the Bible is the Word of God without error. He then seeks to build on this to prove that the Bible is the Word of God without error. This is also circular reasoning.

But, if you start with the foundation of God, there is no circular reasoning involved. This is NOT the same as having a foundational premise that consists of the idea of God, but this is seeking Him, the Creator God and finding Him. In other words, your foundational presence is that you listen to God and He speaks to you. If you do this, there is no unsupported premise. There is no circular reasoning. Yet others who are obviously using circular reasoning will attack your foundational premise: God Himself. They will make believe that it is silly to believe that God could talk. Yet, there is no logical reason that would keep the Almighty Creator of all things from talking to His people whom He loves. The fundamentalist attacks and yet the Bible says that God talks to His people. The Bible is full of references to this and, in fact, no one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws them.

Additional Examples:

• Trying to manufacture an attack against the premise: God is and God can be found.
• Trying to manufacture an attack against the premise: God speaks to His people, for example: His sheep know His voice, and man shall not live by bread alone but by every word the proceeds from the mouth of the Father, and faith comes by hearing, that is hearing the word [literally utterance] of God. (some caveats about hearing God's Voice)
• Often, this consists of misrepresentations of the premise
• Examples:
  • Attacks against the Gospel through the centuries
  • Claims that Christ didn't rise
  • Claims against the Bible
    • Claims of errors
    • Claims of many translations
    • Claims contesting authorship
    • Da Vinci Code and other fiction
  • Unrealistic and silly claims for the scientific method
  • Post Modernism--there is no such thing as truth

Source:

Dr. Frank Wright

Message Control

• Ignore the viewpoint
• Marginalization
• Contention with the Foundational Premise
• Summary Dismissal
• Ad Hominem Attacks
• Obstructions to stating opposing opinion
• Prohibitions against stating opposing opinion