I take it as axiomatic that any battle between armies, if it is going to be fought at all and thus won or lost, must be fought upon a common field of battle. And if this holds true for battles it holds equally true for debates upon fundamental spiritual absolutes: unless the theoretical grounds are common to both parties argument is futile. Precisely because of this, debate is often futile in our time because agreement upon fundamentals is rarely possible within a world as. badly fissioned spiritually as is our own. It is of ten,'better to retire from the game than merely go through the motions mechanically, scoring debater's points and winning empty victories due to a superiority in dialectical skills.