They can't all be right...

...therefore they must all be wrong.

I realized today that I might be holding a strong bias against academics.  Many mutually exclusive worldviews exist.  There cannot be many gods, no gods, and only one God at the same time.  Christianity and Atheism are in direct opposition.  Every champion for each side has his opponent, otherwise we would all be of one mind.  If every argument for the existence/nonexistence of God can be disagreed upon, then they must all be incorrect in some way.  I don't want to waste my time studying ideas that are incorrect, yet the pursuit of truth requires that falsehood is exactly where I begin.  Yet with such an anti-scholar bias, would I believe the truth once I found it?

The idea of an absolute truth is absolutely unquestionable to me.  While we may all perceive the truth in different ways, there cannot be conflicting explanations as to why I exist.  If I do not exist, I would never be able to prove it because I am limited to the realm of "existence" from which to collect my data and form my conclusions.  Since I cannot know anything about nonexistence, I must work within the realm of existence.  So why do I exist?  Am I the product of a combination of chemicals obeying physical laws created by the reverberations of dimensional strings caused by random chance, or was I specifically designed and created by a Creator who operates outside the perceivable universe?  Both cannot be simultaneously true.  There exists an answer; the only question is whether or not the answer can be obtained.  We have been given eyewitness accounts of the interventions of a Creator that exists outside of the perceivable universe.  But what of the places where the eyewitness accounts seem to contradict naturalistic observation?

One of the arguments that I have always hated most is the idea that simply because a worldview can be properly constructed in which a Creator is unnecessary, a Creator must not exist.  A fundamental tenet of the Christian faith is that knowledge of God cannot be acquired without God revealing himself.  Indeed, this seems to agree with the idea of a being that exists outside of the testable universe.  If this is true, then nature should never prove that a Creator exists.  If so, man has created his own path to the knowledge of God and faith is no longer required.  If the presence of a Creator can be proven, then God's action in the universe would be unwarranted and mankind would all be of one belief, albeit not all of one doctrine.  Christianity smacks of parallelisms to this idea, namely the Fall and the Tower of Babel.  If the Bible is true, then the only way to believe in God is for Him to reveal himself to the heart personally.  The Intelligent Design movement, therefore, is mutually exclusive to orthodox Christianity.  They can't all be right, and everyone seems to have at least some wrongness about their arguments.

In an interest in deepening my knowledge of modern arguments in apologetics, I recently picked up "If God, Why Evil?" by Norman Geisler.  While the foundation that he lays in the book seems to be logical, it breaks down once the ideas are drawn to their full conclusions.  For example, one of his arguments is that man was created with free will.  Since all that God created was very good, free will mus therefore be very good.  Yet God cannot have free will.  It presents a logical paradox analogous to asking "Could God create a stone so heavy even he couldn't lift it?" or my personal favorite "Could God create an argument so stupid even he couldn't answer it?"  The Bible seems pretty clear on the fact that God is unchanging, cannot lie, and cannot denounce himself.  If that is the case, then He is (in some sense) bound by his own will.  While there are many interpretations of his will (specifically where his Will seems to run contrary to his actions), each of those wills cannot be to oppose himself.  God would be in conflict, and therefore imperfect.  If free will is not a trait which God possesses, then either...
1. God possesses free will and is imperfect
2. God lack free will and therefore lacks something good
3. Free will is not good, and therefore man was not created very good
4. Man was not created with free will
While the 4th option intuitively seems to run contrary to what the Bible says, Martin Luther once wrote on the "bondage of the will".  Clearly this is a book that I will need to read if I am to pursue this mystery further.

To underscore my initial point, Geisler makes multiple illogical arguments (not limited to the example described here).  It could simply be that I misunderstood his point or that he could not adequately address these seeming contradictions in the scope of his book, yet I find myself wanting to become superior to an author that is considered one of the greatest apologists of our time.  I want to feel as if I have something to contribute to the intellectual community that is genuinely unique and valuable.  This desire aligns perfectly with my angsty "No one truly understands me" perception which I never fully outgrew.  Perhaps this desire is to be embraced as motivation to work and study.  Alternatively, it could lead me to become an arrogant asshole that would deny the obvious truths that many others embrace.

EDIT: I came down a bit too hard on Geisler.  As I progress further through his thought process, his ideas are well-reasoned and explained.  Before I make judgments about his assertions on free will, I should probably read his book designated for the subject.