The Hidden Assumption Method
What does this argument have to assume?
The single question I ask before engaging with any argument about faith.
Why most debates go nowhere
Most responses to hard questions about Christianity follow the same pattern. Someone raises an objection. Someone else defends against it. Both sides argue on the same ground, using the same assumptions, and nobody moves.
The argument cycles. The positions harden. The conversation ends where it began.
There is a different place to start.
The one question that changes everything
Before engaging with any argument, ask: what does this argument have to assume in order to work?
Most arguments against Christianity, when you trace them back far enough, depend on an assumption that has never been examined. An assumption that is never stated. Quietly smuggled in as though everyone already agreed.
Some arguments sound convincing the first time you hear them. Not because they are strong, but because their assumption was never questioned.
Once you find it, the whole structure shifts.
The Move
Find what the argument has to assume. Surface it as a question, not a verdict. Let it sit.
You are not trying to win the assumption. You are making it visible. A question someone cannot answer follows them home.
The suffering argument shows the move
The argument from suffering sounds devastating on the surface. But it only works if suffering is objectively, cosmically wrong. Not just unpleasant. Actually wrong in a way that exists independently of human opinion.
That is not a small assumption. That is a theistic assumption.
The argument was borrowing from the very worldview it was trying to disprove.
Once you see that, the whole structure shifts. You are not debating suffering anymore. You are examining whether the foundation can hold its own weight.
Read the full argument: Does suffering disprove God?
Where the argument actually stands
This approach does not always dissolve an objection. Sometimes the foundation holds, and the question remains hard. But at least you know where you actually stand.
Most people argue about the verdict. This method asks whether the evidence was admissible in the first place.
Because some arguments sound convincing not because they are strong, but because the assumption underneath them was never put on the table.
Go Deeper
The Hidden Assumption Method is taught as a learnable skill in the course. The book collects every argument in one place.