Before you debate any topic — Hell, slavery, science, problem of evil, any of the Twenty Moves — you walk them through three gates. These are not arguments. They are prerequisites. If your opponent won't commit to these, they can't argue anything at all. If they do commit, they've locked themselves in and can't retreat later.
Each gate is self-refuting to deny. That's the weapon. You don't have to win the argument — the argument wins itself the moment they try to reject it.
Is There Truth?
The question that kills relativism before the fight starts.
"Before we go any further — do you believe truth exists? Is there such a thing as something being actually true or actually false?"
If they say YES
Good. You now have shared ground. They cannot retreat to "well, that's just your truth" later in the debate. If they try, you say: "Hold on — you already told me truth exists. You can't take that back now that it's inconvenient."
This ground is now SOLID. You don't have to fight about it again. Every claim either of you makes from here forward is subject to being true or false. No escape into relativism.
If they say NO
Self-refuting. Immediate win. "Is it TRUE that there's no truth? You just made a truth claim to tell me truth doesn't exist. You used the thing you're denying to deny it."
They cannot get out of this. Every attempt to rephrase it ("well, what I mean is...") will also be a truth claim. The judgment layer activates every time they open their mouth.
Aristotle identified this first. The principle of non-contradiction is the one thing you cannot deny without using it. It has survived 2,400 years of philosophical attack because it is structurally invincible.
Why This Matters for Every Debate
- "Christianity is harmful" — is that true? Then truth exists. Thank you.
- "Science shows there's no God" — is that a true finding? Then truth exists. Thank you.
- "The Bible contradicts itself" — is that actually the case? Then truth exists. Thank you.
They can't make a single claim against you without standing on truth. Gate 1 makes them admit that before the fight starts.
Can Truth Be Known Outside of Science?
Kills scientism. Opens the door for philosophy, history, and mathematics.
"You agree truth exists. Now — is science the ONLY way to know what's true? Or can truth be known through other means — logic, mathematics, philosophy, history, personal experience?"
If they say "science isn't the only way"
Good. Now they can't dismiss the Bible, theology, philosophy, or historical testimony just because "it's not science." They have to actually engage with the claims on their own terms.
This shuts down the most common TikTok atheist move: "There's no SCIENTIFIC evidence for God." Okay — but you just admitted science isn't the only way to know truth. So what about the philosophical evidence? The historical evidence? The mathematical evidence? You can't wave those away anymore.
If they say "yes, science is the only way" (scientism)
Self-refuting. Immediate win. "Is that claim itself a scientific finding? Did you run an experiment to determine that? Was there a control group? Was it peer-reviewed? No? Then by your own standard, you can't know that's true. You just used philosophy to tell me only science produces knowledge."
The statement "all knowledge is scientific knowledge" is a philosophical claim, not a scientific one. It fails its own test. Even most scientists reject it. Physics can't tell you whether murder is wrong. Mathematics isn't an empirical science. Logic precedes science — you need logic to do science, so logic can't be a product of science.
The framework uses mathematics, formal logic, structural isomorphism — none of which are "scientific experiments" but all of which produce knowledge. Gate 2 forces them to engage with philosophical and historical arguments for God rather than hiding behind "show me the lab results."
Are There Moral Facts?
The gate that makes moral realism inescapable — and asks where it came from.
"You agree truth exists and it can be known in multiple ways. Now — are there things that are actually right or actually wrong? Not just opinions, not just preferences — actual moral facts?"
If they say YES
Good. Now they can't argue that morality is "just subjective" or "culturally relative." If moral facts exist, then there is a right answer about slavery, murder, oppression — and we can discover what it is.
This is where you ask: "WHERE do those moral facts come from? What grounds them? Why do they exist?"
Richard Carrier spent 126 pages in a peer-reviewed journal proving moral facts exist for all rational agents. Great. He never once explained where rational agency comes from or why the judgment layer exists. He just starts with "given a rational agent..." Genesis 3 starts with the origin of the judgment layer itself.
If they say NO
Self-refuting in practice. "So when you say secular humanism is BETTER for society — better by what standard? You just told me there are no moral facts. Better is a moral claim. You can't say one system is better than another if there's no actual right or wrong."
This destroys Carrier's entire debate position. His whole argument is "secular humanism produces better outcomes." Better requires a standard. No moral facts = no standard = no argument.
If they say "morality evolved as a survival strategy"
Okay — then it's not actually TRUE, it's just useful. Slavery was useful too. So was infanticide in Sparta. "Useful for survival" and "actually right" are not the same thing. If morality is just evolution, then there's no basis for saying the Holocaust was WRONG — only that it was maladaptive.