How To Refute (Disprove) Something?

How To Refute (Disprove) Something?

Bodie Hodge, M.Sc., B.Sc., PEI

Biblical Authority Ministries, August 28, 2025 (Donate)

In a culture that battles over what is right and wrong, it’s good to know how to think logically. This helps us make sense of specific topics that are being discussed and debated.

This is also why it is imperative that you know how to disprove something. Sadly, I’ve seen positions thoroughly refuted and the person espousing the false position has no clue that their position in a debate was just obliterated. So it is wise to know how to refute a false position and how to recognize it.

In Contradiction With The 66 Books Of The Bible

If something is in disagreement with God and the 66 books of His Word, then it is wrong. I’m going to say this again because it is so simple people, including Christians, often miss the importance of this point—if an argument contradicts God’s Word, then that argument, worldview, or position is false. 

The all-knowing God of the Bible who is the very embodiment of correct thinking is the only One who is always right on all matters to which He speaks—He is the absolute authority on all matters as to whether something is right or wrong. Period.

For those paying close attention, the concepts of right, wrong, true, false, correct, and incorrect stem from God in His Word. He defines them.

If something is in contradiction with God's Word, it is wrong and refuted; Image from Presentation Library

If someone objects to what is written in God’s Word, then by what authority do they object? They are not all-knowing. They do not have all authority. They cannot compete with God who created and upholds all things into existence.

So their objection is merely arbitrary (no basis or power behind their arguments) because they are a lesser authority than God. It is a lower standard. Thus, any objection to God is a faulty appeal to authority fallacy (this is also called a false authority fallacy or misplaced authority fallacy). The point is that is it fallacious and illogical right from the start when someone objects to God and His Word.

So as an immediate point on a checklist, if someone uses an argument, takes a position, espouses a worldview, and/or has an objection that is in opposition to the clear teachings of the Bible, then it is refuted and proved false; and the Bible remains true and correct and the standard for correct reasoning.

AIP Argument Analysis Checklist

Besides being in direct contradiction with the Bible, there are other ways to disprove a worldview or argument. This can be done by refuting it within its own story, own worldview, or own argument.

In other words, it can be done by doing an internal critique of their story or belief. When we do this we look for instances:

· Where they are Arbitrary

· Where they are Inconsistent

· Where they violate the Preconditions of Intelligibility

This is from where the acronym AIP comes (Arbitrary, Inconsistent, and Preconditions). By the way, don’t let the fancy philosophical terms scare you. I’ll define them in each section. But from a big picture we are going to use these to look for errors in reasoning to disprove something from its own story.

Is It Arbitrary?

The first on our list is arbitrariness. Philosophically, arbitrariness is bad. What is arbitrariness? Being arbitrary simply means there is nothing of substance behind the argument like unreasonable whims, blind opinions, or unjustified choices.

For example, when you look at the argument or worldview it could just be conjectures, opinions, or bias. None of these carry any weight in an actual logical argument. Consider some obvious arbitrary glitches:

• “Genie believes China doesn’t exist but is a make-believe concept that was developed in industry to trick us into believing that certain goods were not made in this country.”

This is a conjecture—but not just any conjecture—it is called an ignorant conjecture in philosophy because the person making this conjecture has done so without the slightest amount of research. An ignorant conjecture is arbitrary; it has no real weight behind the belief. Consider this one:

• “Billy, in second grade, said that the cure to cancer was eating chocolate.”

Billy’s opinion has a serious lack of authority behind it! It is just an opinion and in philosophy, this is called a “mere opinion”. Mere opinions are arbitrary and have no weight behind their claims. How about this next one:

• “Mr. Richie decided to give Tommy a zero on his term paper but didn’t mark anything wrong—even though he completed the assignment according to the instructions. We found out later that it was because Tommy’s older brother was a troublemaker when he came through the class.”

This is an arbitrary reason based on a bias or a prejudice that the teacher had toward Tommy’s family.

• “Gordy’s mom’s said it wasn’t good to kick to the cat, but Gordy decided that he could make his own rules because his teacher told him that his individual truth can be different from other people’s individual truth; so he decided that kicking the cat was indeed good.”

This is an example of an arbitrary assertion based on relativism. Again, there is no real meat behind this whim of an assertion and it is arbitrary. Thus, in each case there, they are not logical. And just to clarify—I’m not advocating that anyone go kick their cat!

Arbitrariness is broken into four categories or type of arbitrariness philosophically. They are:

• Mere Opinion
• Relativism
• Ignorant Conjecture
• Unargued Bias

Is It Inconsistent?

Many people understand that if someone is being inconsistent in their argument, then they are being illogical. The most obvious way to show someone is being inconsistent is to find logical fallacies. These are common errors in reasoning.

Many logical fallacies have names and have been documented for thousands of years. Some still use ancient Latin names for instance—even though we do have modern English names for them too! The following chapter gives you a breakdown of many of the common logical fallacies.

Besides, logical fallacies, the next way to show inconsistency is by reducing the argument to absurdity by where it leads. The fancy name in Latin is Reductio Ad Absurdum. It simply asks what are the consequences of this argument and if leads to something crazy or absurd, then it is wrong and inconsistent.

Do you remember when the person criticized me for believing all the people today came from Adam and Eve and yet his view was that all the people in the world came from a rock? I showed his inconsistency by showing the absurdity of his own belief.

Another way to show inconsistency is through behavior. If someone preaches one thing and lives another way, that shows a behavioral inconsistency. This type of inconsistency is just as bad as any other inconsistency. It reveals those who don’t “practice what they preach” or the principle that “actions speak louder than words”.

When your actions are in disagreement with your words, it shows this type of inconsistency. Sadly, there are a number of politicians today who say one thing and do another—I won’t name names!

The final type of inconsistency is presuppositional tension. This is where you look at the basis for your argument to see if there is consistency for it. It’s like the opposite version of Reductio Ad Absurdum. Instead of looking where the arguments leads, it looks at potential inconsistencies right up front to see if their worldview’s foundation is consistent with stated initial beliefs. This tension can show a contradiction.

A good example here is when a materialist is arguing with someone that his materialistic worldview must be true. The problem is that if his materialism is correct, then truth can’t exist because truth isn’t material—do you spot the tension in the materialist’s worldview? This is contradictory to his stated belief.

This last form of inconsistency can have crossover with the final forms of refutation (preconditions of intelligibility) which I will get to in a moment. It takes this angle much further.

But I want you to realize that sometimes an argument can be wrong in more than one way. Sometimes someone can commit a logical fallacy and be arbitrary at the same time. Sometimes someone can commit multiple logical fallacies at the same time too! Don’t let that confuse you. There have been times people can commit multiple errors in reasoning in a single short sentence.

At any rate, there are four major ways that people can be inconsistent and they are:

• Logical Fallacies
• Reduced to Absurdity
• Behavioral Inconsistencies
• Presuppositional Tension

What Are The Preconditions Of Intelligibility Of The Argument?

Showing where an argument, position, or worldview is inconsistent or arbitrary is powerful. But this last method is also very commanding when it is understood properly. Naturally, the problem is that most people haven’t learned to master this section like they have the other two sections.

However, I love this section because it is like “pulling the rug out from underneath” the false view. It could also be likened to “holding up a mirror to the false belief so they can see that they are sinking into quicksand” with their false belief. Dr. Jason Lisle, an astrophysicist and philosopher, likes to relate it as a “nuclear strength” apologetic! Hopefully, those visuals give you an idea of how potent this style of refutation really is.

This portion of refutation asks “what must be true prior to making the argument at hand?” In other words, what must be predicated to make the argument in the first place?

This can be done in many ways such as utilizing:

• Laws of Logic (rationality)
• Uniformity of Nature (which make science and technology possible)
• Absolute Morality
• Reliability of Sense
• Reliability of Memory
• Personal Dignity and Freedom
• Truth
• Knowledge
• Etc.

In The Great Debate with famous atheist Dr. Gordon Stein, Christian philosopher Dr. Greg Bahnsen used the laws of logic to undermine Stein’s atheistic and materialistic position (the only things that exist are material like matter and energy in Stein’s atheistic view).  Thus, logic cannot exist in the consistent atheist’s worldview. Logic is not made of material and so if Stein’s position was correct, then logic doesn’t exist. Since Stein admits logic does exist, his worldview is false.

The Great Debate

At that point in the debate, Stein realized that the rug had been pulled out from underneath of him and he was falling to ground with no foundation and his feet in the air! This is just one example of dealing with the preconditions of intelligibility.

To understand this line of defense better, one asks a simple question: “What must be predicated as true upfront for something to make sense?” These are the preconditions of intelligibility. The atheist can’t account for truth, logic, knowledge, and so on in his own worldview right from the start being that they are materialistic (the only things that exist are material things like matter and energy so abstract things like logic, truth, and knowledge shouldn’t exist). 

Other worldviews also fail to account for these preconditions as will get into in subsequent chapters. But hopefully this gives you a small taste of the power of the preconditions in a debate.

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Bodie Hodge, Ken Ham's son in law, has been an apologist since 1998 helping out in various churches and running an apologetics website. He spent 21 years working at Answers in Genesis as a speaker, writer, and researcher as well as a founding news anchor for Answers News. He was also head of the Oversight Council.  

Bodie launched Biblical Authority Ministries in 2015 as a personal website and it was organized officially in 2025 as a 501(c)(3). He has spoken on multiple continents and hosts of US states in churches, colleges, and universities. He is married with four children.