Apologetics Session 4 - Truth - Part 2

I want to pray for something kind of special that's going to happen tomorrow. There was a preaching camp here earlier today, and the man who came was the same man who preached on Sunday.

Dr. Tim. Dr. Tim was here helping us try to get through exposition and theology and systematic theology and canonical theology and everything like that, straightening us all out.

A few of the folks in this room are going to be preaching tomorrow, and he's going to be critiquing that preaching, and we're really looking forward to it.

So I'm going to pray right now for that. Are all the guys here that are actually doing that tomorrow?

Enough. You two guys are, and you, I think, are too, right?

He's on. You know, Ivan Cohen, can you open this up for us? Sure, absolutely.

Father, thank you so much for this gathering of brothers. Thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to serve you, learning apologetics, learning from each other, and honoring you in this way.

And we pray for the gentlemen that are going to be testing the waters tomorrow with their own servants and give them the joy and confidence.

And we all are very happy that you're going to have the opportunity to be part of this.

We thank you, Lord, for that. So give us a good night here, and we ask this all in your name.

Amen. Amen. So I don't want to do a lot of backtracking from what we did last time, but I think we need a little bit of context where we got off from what we were talking about.

We were talking about relativism was the last thing we kind of hit on. And you remember we put up the

Richard Dawkins video, and, you know, he talked about why absolute morality is not a thing, but morality is kind of an evolving thing, we're getting smarter and smarter, and we're getting, and we talked about the arguments against that.

But we didn't finish up the section in a sense that I wanted to bring out, there's some basic problems with relativism that we can just put in bullet points right now.

And it has to do with the assumption of the relativist that says, you know, if you declare there's absolute truth, then what's going to happen is that absolute truth is going to oppress the masses.

That is always going to lead to oppression. It is going to lead to, you know,

Muslim women wearing the headdresses and having to cover up. It's going to lead to the

Spanish Inquisition. And I would agree with the relativist in the sense that if you start with the wrong absolute truth premise, yes, you will end up in trouble.

But the problem with the relativist, and what they don't see, is this. Relativism, and I'm reading bullet one now, relativism always causes oppression by the majority.

Because relativism by definition is what the popular opinion of the culture says at that time.

Which means there is a democracy, viewed as a democracy, let's all take public opinion right now, we're going to say this is what our truth is today in our culture.

What's the problem with that? Things change, people change their mind. Sometimes they believe, you know, you can believe that one thing is true, and then change your mind about it.

And that's why you end up with situations like, we can say that Jewish people were the problem, you know, in 1930s

Germany. They're our problem. So we need to get rid of them. We need to take care of them.

That was the popular opinion of the day. There's obviously great problems with that.

And we had the chart up before, which showed if you take all of your civil law, I won't put the chart up again, from public opinion as opposed to something that is absolute and solid, you're going to end up on shaky ground.

And that's what that first bullet is. Now the second bullet with relativism is this. Relativism isn't even logical.

Because obviously, and you've heard this before, if you say that truth is relative, is that statement absolutely true?

It's self -defeating. It is self -defeating, because if it is absolutely true, that means there's absolute truth.

If it's not absolutely true, then it's self -defeating. That's not true. Then it's self -defeating, and they defeated their purpose.

So it's not logical. It's not reasonable to say that relativism is truth.

You can have your truth and my truth. It doesn't make any sense. And the last thing, we talked about this before, but relativism causes the stifling of critical thinking.

So society no longer uses intellect and rationality, the mind, to attempt to figure out truth and to determine the nature of truth and reality.

Basically, it's all shut down. And we said, you know, based upon what we feel, that is what is going to be our truth for the day.

So that's kind of where we ended up. And what I'd like to do now is go into a section about what we call the correspondence theory.

And the correspondence theory is anti -relativism.

What it is, it says there are concrete things in reality. This is different and opposite from subjectivism or relativism.

The truth is not based upon the perception of the observer. And John Locke realized that objective truth was comprehensible.

Now, he also realized that objective truth was to be appropriated by our very fallible senses.

You remember last time, we talked about the senses quite a bit, and how easily we're fooled, how easily we can come to the wrong conclusion based upon sensory perception.

And that's a problem. But Locke takes a common sense approach, and he takes it from an empirical standpoint.

Empiricism was, I am going to appropriate the physical world and figure out that I can understand truth from the physical things and the sensory perception

I have. So let's go through what he thought could be accomplished through our senses.

So, he acknowledged that it was difficult to actually get to the point where we understood the essence of things, the essence of objects in reality.

But, he said we can certainly determine that there is objective reality, and we do so by examining the qualities that objects in our world have.

Now, what does he mean by qualities? He says there are primary qualities, and there are secondary qualities.

So, this is supposed to be a baseball, but I thought this was a lot cooler, actually.

I might take this home with me. I was in that age group, you know.

I found that over in the top of the room, and I was like, man, I might take this thing home with me. Now, there are certain things, certain qualities that this has that are primary qualities.

And Locke kind of spells some of those things out. But there's also secondary qualities. The secondary qualities are things that would be only, basically, things that the observer would know.

And let's talk about what these things are. So, the primary qualities of things, you can just shout out, like, how would you describe this thing?

And we'll talk about whether it's a primary or a secondary quality. It's round. That was like a baseball was supposed to be.

He said it was a baseball. It moves. Yeah, movement, roundness.

Those things are primary qualities, and you already know about that at this point, because I have it up there. Those are things that are primary.

They're not dependent upon the observer at all. They're not debatable. Those are objective truths about the object.

But if you say this object is fast, you know, the movement is fast, that's kind of a relative thing, right?

It's like, what's that? Or this object is white. And we talked about color last time, and how we sense color, and is the color itself inherent in the object?

And we talked about the reflections of the electromagnetic spectrum, where really this thing isn't white at all.

And that gets a little bit of a mind -blowing situation there. But this thing also has secondary qualities that would be observable to the person who is examining it.

But the primary qualities, Locke is saying, that we actually can determine that there is an existence that we can know, an existence that we can feel, an existence we can experience, and we can live and operate in the world we live in, because objects have primary qualities.

Now, Locke is not like some of our friends, in a sense that Locke feels that the greater truth is outside this physical world.

Metaphysics, right? We were talking about metaphysics. People like Plato, and Aristotle, and others, felt like there was something, it must be an external force that was outside of the physical world we see.

Because of the three laws we talked about, which was ex nihilo, nihilo fit, which was out of nothing, nothing comes.

Which means that this all had to come from somewhere, and the physical world does not explain where all this came from.

Because we do not see self -creation in this physical world. We don't see spontaneous generation in this physical world.

One of the other laws was cause and effect, meaning that there is something here now, something must have caused it.

And that something, Plato and others felt like, was a force in the unseen realm.

There must be a greater reality that we don't see with our senses, or detect with our senses, but it is out there.

We live in a physical world and we can determine physical things, but there is a greater truth that is out there.

Now, Locke's conclusions, he realized that they were going to come up against arguments.

And people would say, well, you know, and I'm down with this paragraph now. He's going to use the

Rene Descartes argument for why he thinks we can have reliability in our central perception.

Because he knows people are going to say, well, yeah, Locke, our senses can be fooled all over the place.

We already proved that. But he's saying, well, I'm going to take the Rene Descartes approach to this, because Rene Descartes was the one, and he lived just before Locke did.

And he said that, well, yeah, there might be, this world might be an entire illusion.

There might be a cosmic deceiver out there, a cosmic joker, who is simply providing illusions that we think are reality in our world.

And Descartes was reduced to the point where he said, you know what, I'm not sure what

I can tell right now, but I know I have my intellect. I know I have cognitive thinking.

And he said, I think therefore I am. And he got down to that basic building block.

And that was the building block last time I said, oh, wow, that's really deep, you know. Well, Locke kind of does the same thing, because he says, okay, if you say we are having sensations within us, that we can feel things, we can touch things, we can taste things.

Even if our senses are fooled, even if the things are an illusion, he says, the fact that I can have those sensations at all means there must be something that stimulates those sensations, which means that there must be an external reality that is stimulating.

Even if I can't detect if that's an illusion right now, but that our senses are triggered by something tells us that there is a reality out there.

And now, the real thing is, okay, you say that, but what about the

Matrix movies? What about those Matrix movies? Were you Red Pill or Black Pill? Well, that's right.

We're going to take a pill. Which pill are we taking? I don't remember, which one was it?

Red Pill is reality. The other one you're living in a fantasy world. Okay. Now, the people, right?

The people were living in a situation. Now, some people may not have seen the movies. Okay, Bill's like, oh my gosh, what are you talking about?

Don't ruin it. The people were locked away by the machines that were in control.

And the machines were stimulating the senses of the people who were under control.

They were kept in these little pods, but they didn't know it. They felt like they were out walking the streets every day, right?

Seeing their neighbors, waving hi, driving cars, that all those things were experiences that were put inside their mind and in their brain by the machines that figured out that they could stimulate the electronic impulses of our minds.

And we're kind of back to the same argument again. It's like, well, how do we know we are not cosmically deceived?

We're kind of almost in the Rene Descartes argument again.

Is there a pill we can take that will illuminate us? The Bible.

Because that's the thing. Well, we're going to get there. But right now I just want to talk about truth itself.

Is there a way to determine if there is truth? Now, remember also, we talked last time, and I'm going to scroll down here.

Do you remember we talked about Plato's cave? Plato's cave was a situation where people were locked away and they could not see the light of day.

The only thing they could see in that cave was a projection of light from behind them.

They would look forward and they would see shadows of trees or bushes or animals, whatever it was.

And for them, that was their reality. They did not know anything else.

That's all they knew about. And one day somebody escaped from that cave. And they experienced the light of day.

And they realized there was a whole other reality that they did not know about. And this is the argument here.

That even if there is a grand illusion, even if there is something out there that is preventing us from knowing things to the fullest extent, even in these situations, it wasn't that there wasn't reality.

It was they had limited experience and knowledge of that reality. For, was it

Nilo or Nilo? Nio. Nio. In the Matrix movie, his illumination was taking the red pill.

And once he took that red pill, he found out there was a whole other reality he did not know about or understand.

For the prisoner in the cave, it was coming out to the light of day and seeing things that he had never seen before.

And now understanding that there were bigger and greater things. The question is, is there something that illuminates us where we can know reality?

Was Plato's cave an experiment? No, it was a story. It was something he... It was a story shared.

Was it a true story? No, I don't think there were a lot of people. So it was a myth. So, okay.

I'm just curious because, like I said, it was a story. It was a philosophical exercise. Now, I'm just curious, you know, how they explained it and everything because I'm just trying to wrap my head around it.

I'll tell you honestly, though, over the years, I wouldn't be surprised if people had experiments like that. There is a new hip thing in Philadelphia where you go to a restaurant and it's sensory deprecation.

Where the complete restaurant is black and then you eat with blindfolds and experience the food.

It's supposed to be the new hip sensory thing. You know, not like... Yeah, exactly.

They serve you with a mask and your fries tell you it's steak and lobster. Right. Yeah. And I guess that's in the name of being more experimental.

That's what they're claiming is that you can taste the food. Trying to figure out a greater reality. I think that's going more to the darkness, actually.

No, it just gives you a reason for more expensive food. So, there's a couple of people we haven't talked about so far.

We've talked a lot about the problems of our sensory perception. We've talked a lot about the problems of our intellect. We've talked about some theories that people have had.

And even John Locke, as much as I like the way he used the correspondence theory and saying that, yes, there is a physical world and we can know it.

You know, I can pick up the Mach 5 here and feel it and know that it's hard and know that it has a certain shape to it.

He says that's real. But John Locke was not necessarily a promoter of God, per se.

What John Locke would say is he said that, you know, I can't explain this physical world or why it's here.

And because of that, I have to acknowledge the existence of God.

Not because I'm necessarily a follower of God, but because I cannot resolve in my mind how this world could be, given that nothing comes out of nothing and there's causal relationships in the things of our world.

And there's also the law of non -contradiction. But he did not go so far to say that truth lied beyond the physical world.

We said, however, according to Plato and others, that we think truth does lie outside the physical world because the greater truth is the thing that created the physical world.

We talked last time about the things that are seen here were created by things that are unseen, something that is self -existent, which doesn't exist in our physical world.

But putting all the pieces together with the arguments of philosophy, the conclusion is there must be something outside this world that is immutable and self -existent.

So what about our physical world? Well, we're going to look at a couple of people right now, one named

Augustine. And if I could get a little help, if somebody could read loudly, just this whole in italics, what

Augustine said about basically knowledge and knowing. Could somebody read that loudly?

Phil, you're close to me. The concept of divine revelation was central to Augustine's epistemology or theory of knowledge.

He saw that revelation is the necessary condition for all knowledge. As Plato argued that to escape the shadows of the cave wall, in Plato's cave example, the prisoner must see things in the light of day.

So Augustine argued that the light of divine revelation was necessary for knowledge. The metaphor of light is instructive.

In our present earthly state, we are equipped with the faculty of sight. We have eyes, optic nerves, and so forth, all the equipment needed for seeing.

But a man with the keenest eyesight can see nothing if he is locked in a totally dark room. So just as an external source of light is needed for seeing, so an external revelation from God is needed for knowing.

So Augustine is using the term God. So others may use the term external force.

Augustine is making the jump to God himself. And as I said before, we're not necessarily trying to prove the existence of God, but prove the existence of absolute truth.

But his concept is very interesting. And he uses the physical world, describing a situation where if we turn out all the lights, yet not only can we not see if this is white or black or anything else, we can't actually see the object at all.

And if it wasn't for physical light, we wouldn't be able to detect objects in this world.

And he's saying that very thing is a gift from God, but he's saying also more than that, meaning this.

Look at the conclusion he's drawing. But a man with the keenest eyesight can see nothing if he's locked in a totally dark room.

Okay, that's his first premise. And that's true. So just as an external source of light is needed for seeing, so an external revelation from God is needed for knowing.

That's a big statement, because it means that we can have all the faculties for knowing.

He's talking about all the faculties for eyesight here. He's talking about all the faculties for knowing.

We have a mind. We have an intellect that can reason and think.

And we can have central perceptions from various data that comes into our life. And he says that's not enough.

You have to have the gift of God's natural revelation to understand this physical world.

Everything that we see, everything that we have, everything that we know about in this world is a gift from God's natural revelation.

And that's a concept a lot of people don't think about. But it's because he is the one who has created as the external source the external power.

He is the one who knows the parameters of this world, and he knows what is needed in this world to perceive, know, think, understand.

Let's look at it this way. So if we say we have all the physical apparatus for eyesight, and we have a physical brain, but without the light in the room we can't see the baseball, the

Mach 5, it has a secondary quality of whiteness. But in addition,

Augustine is saying that we also need revelation to resolve what our eyes see, what our brain thinks, the ball's reality, and the light itself that illumines it.

We have to have his gift of revelation to even understand the light, because it's coming upon us.

And that's a heavy theory. But the fact is, is we don't understand things unless God himself reveals them to us.

And obviously I'm transitioning now from just kind of general truth theory to the fact that we need an external source, an external power to reveal things in this physical world.

Now, many people reject that. But the people that reject it are often in the relativism room, and they can't explain where things came from.

They can't explain why things are the way they are. And as a matter of fact, at this point in time...

Well, let's talk about Thomas Aquinas for a second. Because Thomas Aquinas built on what Augustine said.

So Aquinas was later on. He was in like around 1200,

I believe. Augustine was much earlier than that. But Aquinas said this.

All knowledge rests and depends upon God's revelation. This revelation, however, is not found exclusively in the

Bible, but shines through the cosmos as well. So how does this work?

This little chart gives us some examples of what is natural general revelation of God.

Or specific... Could you raise that up a little bit? Oh, yeah. So an example of what we can know.

The body's circulatory system. How do we find that out? Well, we do experiments in the natural world.

And we can examine people, animals, things that we've seen. Blood flow.

The heart muscle. All the things that happen within the circulatory system we all have. And the thing is, is we would never be able to know that unless God has revealed those things through his general revelation.

Now, what about God's existence? We've talked about that a little bit. Can we know

God's existence? Well, we can know God's existence either through the

Bible and reading that, or through the natural world itself. Romans 1 .20

Yeah, God has given us either special revelation of himself or general revelation.

And we do want to read Romans right now. So if somebody could turn to Romans 1 .18

through 20, I think. Or 1 .18 through 19. And the point is that God, as the external force, has not hidden these things from us.

He has clearly revealed all of these things in the natural world so that we may know them, experience them, and trust them.

The things that we have in the natural world, as fallen as it is, as fallible as it is, we still have many, many things we can trust and know.

So, who has Romans 1 .18 and 19? For the wrath of God is revealed from the heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.

And we know that verse. We know that there is truth in this world, and it's being suppressed.

Not just truth about the reality around us, but truth about God himself. That people deny the existence of God and attempt to worship the creation rather than the creator.

So, our founding fathers also understood that there were some basic things about the existence we have that are readily understandable.

These things aren't a mystery in the world we live in, but they are truths that we hold on to because they are self -evident.

They are out in the open. They are very understandable. And among those things, as they say endowed by their creator, are the unalienable rights, which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Those things are undeniable truths. Those things exist.

And even people who want to talk about relativism and the fact that there is not absolute truth would still, in their attempt to define what is good and what is right, are going to eventually come to the conclusion that these things are good.

And that's just what it says in Romans chapter 2, where it talks about those even without the law of God understand that there is a natural law that God has put into place.

And they themselves, understanding what the law of God is in their hearts, that there's things written on the conscience of man.

Now, man can get to the point where you suppress the truth, suppress the truth, suppress the truth, and get to the point where the

Lord will hand you over to a mind that will reject those things which are good and right and appropriate.

But, no man is going to have an excuse before the Lord that they did not know the truth about who he was.

Now, we're going to jump to a video right now, because I had a video last time which talked about, which showed

Richard Dawkins, and how he attacked the idea of absolute morality.

Chances are, you're not going to get into a discussion with Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris.

But you will probably get into a discussion with folks like this. And these are the folks who have been basically taught in our society through our school systems and education.

So let's say you have to read an incredibly long email from your boss that you have to finish before the big meeting starts in 10 minutes.

Or you're prepping for an exam and... Hey, these are our people, folks.

Do you believe in absolute truth? Uh, no. Alright. If truth is relative, where, what's the basis of that truth?

I can't really answer it. Where does absolute truth come from? I'm not sure. Never really thought about it.

There's more than one answer here. How would I know? I don't know about absolute truth. I don't know what absolute truth is exactly, so I don't know where it is.

Is there a problem? Uh, in the absolute truth? I asked you first. Oh, no, no. Nothing.

Yeah. I believe in absolute truth. Where does absolute truth come from? Um, you can help here.

Yes, you could. Good question.

That's a good question. Yeah. Absolute truth comes from my thinking inside, from your mind and your heart, whatever you feel is right.

So absolute truth is inside of you? Yeah. Do you believe in absolute truth? Sure. Yeah, I do.

What is an absolute truth? Something that's universal. All right. And where does that truth come from?

Um, it comes from the society. So what if the society changes its mind?

Then the absolute truth changes. Does that mean it's relative? Everything's relative, though.

If truth is relative, what is its basis? It's relative to who you are and what you consider truth to be.

Everybody's definition of truth is to think. A lot of confused people out there. You get the idea, right?

You know, our Paget's class is not for being a tack sheep, where we go out and prove our point and, uh, and rassle someone to the ground and convince them that we're, we contain, you know, all knowledge and truth.

But it's having a heart for people like these that are out there, and they're really bewildered and lost.

And I think if I was to take from what I've seen and read in these things that we've gone over so far, you know, the things that stand out to me are the three laws, really.

The nothing comes out of nothing, meaning that something must have created all this, and that does get into God's existence.

The fact that there is a causal relationship in the world, that there's not anything that has happened that didn't have a primary cause underneath of it.

So what is that primary cause? Can we know it? And then, you know, talking about the fact that, you know, there are things that have been revealed to us.

There are realities that we can know because they are right in front of us, and we can handle them, and they do point to the existence of a beloved creator who has created this world, you know, for our well -being, and has given us, you know, the ability to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.

Now, that jumping -off point, and just saying that there is a creative force outside of us, and that we are experiencing truth, and that that truth is contained in the external, the metaphysical world, and that doesn't change.

That's a very good thing. Things aren't going to change from day to day. Things aren't going to change from week to week.

There is absolute good and absolute evil. There is right and wrong. And that's a very comforting thing, even though the society, you know, continues to say, well, that's your opinion, or that's your judgment.

You know, I think we can point to the fact that there's an external reality outside of the physical world, and that has to come, obviously, through God's revelation in the person's, you know, heart and life that we're talking to.

So let's get into an example of a possible argument. I have one from Sean McDowell right here.

So, you haven't seen the rest of it, but I'll read this. I know some can't see this right now. It says, the skeptic says,

How can you say that abortion is wrong? That's your preference.

So if you do not want to abort a child, then don't do it. Don't take part in it in your life.

Have you heard that before? Why bother other people? Just don't do it yourself.

Then you can have your truth, and I can have my truth. There's only like a three -verse response to this, where he turns it on its head.

And I think studying through or looking through some of these things is really helpful. So Sean says,

Well, my friend, are you against racism and or slavery? And that's a hot topic, hot -button item, right?

The person says, Of course. That is evil, that is wrong, right? And Sean says,

Well, okay, if you're against slavery, don't own a slave. What did he do?

He turned the argument from something that is absolutely true in that person's eyes to,

Oh, that's your preference. If you don't like slavery, don't have one yourself.

I won't have one myself. That will be my truth, and that will be your truth. But then, of course, the person is going to say,

But no, slavery is wrong. But where is that coming from?

And then you can launch into, Obviously, no, there are things that are absolutely true, and even you know that.

You know that because these things are on your heart already, and all people know certain things about this world.

They know all societies across the world have created laws against stealing, that you have property and you don't steal from one another.

There's laws about if you take your neighbor's wife, that kind of thing. Now, I said before, if you suppress the truth, you can get into some really debauched societies, but there are still absolute moral statements you can make that anyone in the world will say,

You know what? Yeah, that's true. And I think when we get into a situation like this, having the wisdom to know how to handle an argument is important.

And, like I said, we're not going to be debating Sam Harris, but we probably would talk to our neighbor down the street, the young man who is graduating high school this year or something, and he would be like one in the video, who would say,

Well, there isn't an absolute truth, it's all relative. And then you can say to him something like,

Well, is it okay for people to torture children for the sake of fun?

And they're aghast at that. What are you thinking about? Who would torture a child for fun?

Well, nobody would. And that's universally known throughout the world. You do not torture children for fun.

That's something that's easily understandable as something that is absolutely true. So if there's a bedrock of truth that we kind of all know about, how can we say things are relative?

And how can we know what is right and wrong? The first part is to say that there is absolute truth and acknowledge that there are things in this world that are absolute.

So I don't think I'm doing that great of a job of explaining it this time. I hope some of the videos will. But I want to go down to another video from Sam Harris now and just talk about his arguments again and how

Sam Drew, before you go there, the counterargument would be that morality, truth is about morality, are cultural constructs, right?

They're societal constructs. And that a society chooses what is acceptable or not acceptable.

And it's not that it's absolutely true, but that it's mutually agreed upon within a culture. But the problem is there are cultures who have deemed certain things as morally acceptable.

Take the United States during the time of slavery. Take primitive cultures that thought that killing and eating other humans was acceptable.

Take Nazi Germany as an example, the extermination of the Jews. There were societal constructs that were created by evil people.

I mean, there was in the Bible child sacrifice and some other primitive cultures, child sacrifice.

And today we would say that that's morally wrong. It's absolutely morally wrong.

And so the true relativist, if they're honest with themselves, would have to say that because our culture deems it as wrong doesn't mean it's actually wrong.

It just means that we don't feel like it is acceptable. But everyone knows in their heart that these things are wrong.

And that is because I think the God of the universe set the rules. He set what is morally acceptable.

And I think that that is sort of written somewhere inside us so that we know when we see things that are evil when we see them.

To piggyback what you're saying, and I touched on this at the first and second session, it gets drilled down to conviction versus convenience.

And if you think of movement of truth, convenience would always have a quicker movement towards relativism and cultural relevance.

So conviction is always the stopgap. It's always going to be the stopgap because of a greater or higher power that's outside of us.

Convenience is always going to be about us, and that's always continuing that. So moral relativism feeds off convenience, and it's always attained to whatever the culture is at that time.

And the perfect way to do that is the Judges 21 -25. In those days there were no king, and everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

So it's not a new concept. It's something that was built up and brought to the forefront.

And like what Matt said, there is conscience. And conscience being conned with science knowledge.

We have knowledge with God of what's right and wrong. But isn't there somewhere where Paul says that if the person sinning thinks it's a sin, then it is sinning?

If it's not a faith, it's sin, yeah. Right, if it's not... You're talking about the weaker part?

I'm talking about in Romans... I'm not sure where it is. We talked about it this morning.

In Romans 14. Yeah. What they're talking about, yeah.

Let's say somebody... Basically you're violating your conscience. Right, if you violate your own conscience, even though maybe it's not a sin under the

Ten Commandments of God, but you yourself think it's a sin, then you're sinning.

Somewhere, I think it's in Romans. Thomas Aquinas went deep on that one. I've read Thomas Aquinas on that.

He had some very interesting things to say about that. Basically every time you violate your conscience, he said, yes, you are sinning.

Even if your conscience is wrong. Yeah. Which is very interesting. Now, the reason

I bring up this Sam Harris video is not because I want to get into an argument with Sam Harris. But I want you to see where he goes as far as things that he's going to argue for.

Now, Sam is a very... He takes things from a very scientific, he says, approach.

Some science, to him, proves out morality. So he definitely is an atheist.

He does not believe in God at all. The forehorse of the new atheism. Yes, he is. He's also a neuroscientist.

So that's his field of study. Right. And maybe just some background, so you know

Sam a little bit. He is not one of the people that would say, let's do abortion at all, all the time.

The biggest blight on the planet is the fact of overpopulation or the fact that people are burdened down by these unborn children or anything like that.

He doesn't say that. He says that it's a scientific thing and that as soon as a child can feel pain in the womb, don't abort.

So he's like kind of a tweener, in a sense, that he's like under 15 weeks or under 14 weeks.

Whatever that line is, he said he'd be okay with doing that. So he's not quite like all of maybe the other atheists we think of.

He has rationales for what he believes. But I want you to think carefully about what he says here, about what he thinks morality can be based upon.

There are going to be right and wrong answers to these questions, and it's just patently obvious that certain cultures are not maximizing human well -being at this moment.

And I cited as an example the violent misogyny and religious bamboozlement of the

Taliban as a culture that was not perfectly conducive to human well -being. Now it turns out to criticize the

Taliban at a scientific meeting is to court controversy. And so after I spoke, another speaker came up to me and said, well, how could you ever say from the point of view of science that the compulsory bailing of women is wrong?

And I said, well, the moment you relate right and wrong to the question of how human beings flourish, then

I think it's pretty easy to see that forcing half the population to live in cloth bags and beating them or killing them when they try to get out is not a way of maximizing human well -being.

And she said, well, that's just your opinion. Wait, it gets better.

And I said, okay, well, let's make it easier. Let's just imagine we found a culture that was removing the eyeballs of every third child.

Would you then agree that we had found a culture that was not perfectly maximizing human well -being?

And she said, it would depend on why they were doing it. I said, okay, after I kicked my jaw up off the floor.

Okay. Sam's an atheist. He does not believe that there is a

God who has created all things and created them well. And he does not believe that there are governing laws for the reality that God has created.

How do atheists deny something they don't believe in? Say that again? How does an atheist deny something they don't believe in?

Are you talking about God himself? Yeah. I mean, I'm just saying, how can an atheist... He doesn't believe in God. So how is he denying it?

Why does he even have a... He's going to have to stack theory on top of theory to get to the point where, you know, this world is created.

This world has order to it. Maybe I'm splitting hairs. I'm just saying, how are you denying it? Why are you even thinking about it?

Because you don't believe in it. So why do you even exist with it? Well, that just blows my mind.

It's a reaction to those of us who do. It's just a hard one. It's a reaction to those of us who do. It's a naturalistic viewpoint, right?

An atheistic viewpoint is a viewpoint that only naturalistic explanations can be utilized to describe why things are the way they are.

So he's going to have to stack theory and say, yes, there is a possibility of something to come out of nothing.

Then he's going to have to stack a theory to say, well, then life can come out of that matter that came out of nothing.

And then he's going to have to talk about order. He's going to have to talk about the laws of which govern the physical world we live in and why there are so many symmetries and synthesises that we see, you know, with the living beings and, you know, the atmosphere and the planets.

And there are a million of theory, theory, theory, theory, but what it comes down to is he kind of brushes that all aside and just says, well, this is just the way it is.

But my question about what Sam just said is, how can he say that poking the eyeballs out of a child is wrong?

How can he say, you know, the Sharia laws in Islam are wrong?

See, because other atheists have said, like Nish was one of them. Nishi, yeah.

Nishi. And Machiavelli. Machiavelli. Who said the real sin of humanity is not to display the power that we have and the aggressive nature to take what is ours, the strong survive, and we should not deal with this weak

Christianity stuff. It's all about humility. It's all about being kind to others.

They believe as atheists that the true potential of man is showing our aggression and taking it out on others.

So why would Nish be wrong and Sam Harris be right?

What are they basing it upon? Sam says he's basing it upon science.

They're barring a Christian worldview or at least a theistic worldview when they use the terms right and wrong.

Now Sam Harris tries to swap in maximizing human flourishing as the definition for right and wrong, but again, you know, that's slight of hand because how does he know that that particular society, that 90 % of the murders weren't committed by the third child in the family and that in doing this they were actually maximizing human flourishing in their society by poking these child's eyes out?

It's slight of hand because he's assuming that he understands what maximizing human flourishing is and then he is swapping in a theistic worldview to claim things are right and wrong.

So basically he ends up being God is what it comes down to. His definition of what is right and wrong ends up being what the definition of God is.

He is God and every relativist comes to that same position. So when we're dealing with these arguments,

I think there are some things we can bring out about why did you come to this conclusion?

Or don't you think that this is evil or this is good? Why do you think so?

If you do think that that is good or evil, do you think there's an underlying principle that there is absolute truth and that there is a creator who made laws that govern us, things that are good and that are right, that we should be kind to others and we should care for life and liberty, property, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness?

Are those things universal things? I think we can point to those things for those folks who we saw in the video earlier that are confused and bewildered and really haven't thought about that before.

I know I was in that boat when I was younger and I was just living society's life and I was taking everything in and loving everything that was past my way and I was just living in the physical world that was around me and I didn't think about these things and that's where many of those people were.

We don't have to all be theologians, though, to care about our neighbor and say, you know, where are you?

Where are you in your life? And hopefully some of the things we've gone over will help us communicate with those in this world that are really lost and they don't even realize it.

They're not searching for anything right now. So, I'm going to scroll to something else, but go ahead,

Rich. You were going to say something? No. Oh, you weren't? Actually, yeah,

Friedrich Nietzsche. I read a lot of Nietzsche. And, of course, he inspired Adolf Hitler. He said,

Christianity is a religion for the weak, for the slaves, and for the desiccated residue of racial scum.

Yeah, Nietzsche. Some of the conclusions that atheists have made is that Christianity is a religion of the weak and it has promoted a weak society and that it should be exterminated.

And, you know, that's just one of the positions that has come across. So, with all the things we've spoken of so far,

I didn't really want to get to the point where I defined what

I think truth is because what I'd like this first couple of sessions to be is just, is there absolute truth?

And then Matt is going to go into why we think, if there is absolute truth, can we trust that the

Bible tells us what truth is? And that's what Matt's going to do next time. But I can't just stop here where I am without talking about Jesus walking into our world because Jesus was not a philosopher.

Jesus walked into our world after that great period of Greek thinkers, right?

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and that was in like the 300s B .C.

in that realm, a little bit before that. But then after them came a period of skepticism and we heard about the

Stoics and the Epicureans and they kind of went back to the whole, well, let's not worry about this metaphysical world you're talking about.

Let's go back to just the physical world and that's all we have and there's nothing else. There's nothing else out there.

But then a man comes and he doesn't claim to know the truth.

He claims to be the truth. We know John 14, 6. For I am the way, the truth, and the life.

And no one comes to the Father but by me. But how can we, how can a man say that he is the truth?

And as a Christian I've thought about this. It's like, what does that mean? Like, here's my question, it's like, oh my goodness.

Even if we say that a baseball is round and solid, that statement is true, but how does that relate to Jesus if he is the encompassing of all truth?

And I think at this point in time, let's actually define what truth is.

And I never, I haven't done this so far. So truth in the Oxford Dictionary says, in accordance with fact or reality, an accurate or exact representation,

I think might be, I don't know. I think I did copy this right. Accurate or exact, loyal or faithful.

Meaning that if I say that the Mach 5 here is hard, that that's a truthful statement because it corresponds, the correspondence theory with reality.

The reality of the Mach 5. But that is not truth. That is a true statement.

But truth is entirely contained in Jesus Christ. So I think we need a little bit better definition of truth.

Truth, that which is constant and unchangeable.

See, this is the Mach 5 today. But you let some of your children play with this car.

Might be a few wheels missing. Leave it out in the rain. It might get a little rusty. Eventually it's going to deteriorate.

Not be a Mach 5 anymore. This thing doesn't last forever.

But Jesus does. Something that is immutable and changeable. Aristotle had this concept as well.

I'll get back to these verses in a second. Jesus is the answer to Aristotle's question of the immovable mover.

If you have heard of that argument from Aristotle. The uncaused cause. Yeah, the uncaused cause.

There's got to be something out there that has created all things, that has caused motion, has caused energy, has caused substance, has caused relational things that we have in the world.

Causality. He calls that the immovable mover. And Aristotle didn't know what that was.

He didn't know how to define it exactly. But he defined some attributes of what that immovable mover must be like.

And he said this. The ultimate cause of motion, according to Aristotle, must be rooted in a pure being.

Pure actuality. It must be eternal, immaterial, and immutable.

That is the truth. And that is Aristotle's concept of an immovable mover.

Something that is outside space and time and has created the physical world we live in. Jesus is the answer to that question.

And because he is immutable, it doesn't change. Because he is eternal, because he has created and made all things, he then not just contains truth, but he is truth.

Because all things consist of him. So, let's read a few verses about this self -existent immovable mover.

Let's read John 5 .26. I've got it.

Go ahead, Matt. The Son contains life within himself, just as the

Father does. He's self -existent. And read that.

That is what it says, Mr. Ritchie. Go ahead. For I, the

Lord, do not change. Therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. That's a good thing, because he was going to have mercy on Israel in that particular context, for the fact that the

Lord does not change. And we know what this verse says also. Back up in Hebrews, it says,

Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and yes, forever. He doesn't change.

That is why he is the truth. And he will always be the truth.

It's not going to change. Now, that's great.

We can say this. We haven't really proved it yet. But the fact that there is an external force, like God Almighty, outside of space and time, that has created this physical world and revealed natural revelation, and we say we can feel it, we can touch it, we can know it, there is objective reality, and we've kind of come to that conclusion.

I hope we have. But then the question is, well, can we know the one who created all this?

We've talked about general revelation in knowing from the physical world around us that there is a great creator.

But can we actually know him? Can we know the truth?

Because that's what we're after. We want to know the truth. Can we know the one defined as truth?

And that's going to get into these verses here. It is possible to know the truth.

And I'm going to ask you guys, maybe just pick them out. You can just read off this thing if you can see it.

So, Matthew 11, 27. Can someone read that? All things have been handed over to me by my

Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the

Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. So the revelation of who

He is comes by the will of God.

When God Himself desires to give a specific revelation, and we mean by specific revelation, to an individual, to know in your heart that the

Father is real. Let's read John 6, 65. Jack, why don't you read that?

No one can come. No one is going to understand just by natural revelation and figuring it out in their minds.

They need a special revelation from the Lord to understand the truth.

We just read that verse a second ago. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

Let's read John 8, 31 and 32. That's what the special revelation of God gives us.

It goes beyond just understanding the physical world. It goes to understanding the great

God who created everything. And more than that, how that great

God laid His life down for us on the cross so that we may know Him through His Son. Now, I don't think

I've done a great job today explaining absolute truth. Everybody probably got bumbled through it. But if anyone is watching this video and you understand now that it is possible to know the

Creator of the world through the revelation that He would give and your heart is stirred because you know there's something out there.

You know there's something external outside this world. You know there's something good and there's absolute truth.

But you don't know how to know it. If your heart is pricked and changed, ask the

Lord to reveal Himself to you. He's faithful and He's gracious.

And that's the way we will know who He is because He has decided to reveal Himself to us. And thank

God that He has because we wouldn't have figured it out on our own. So, that's kind of the end of my little section here.

You know, general revelation is really kind of the bedrock of where I wanted to get to.

But we had to talk about the special revelation of God that He reveals Himself to those who

He desires. And that is how we truly know the One who is external, almighty, self -existent.

And you can have a relationship with Him through His Son, Jesus. That is a wonderful truth.

And that truth will make you free. Any questions on this section or things that I didn't specify very well tonight?

Philosophy is not my bag, so I apologize for that. It was fun to go through it, but, you know, some folks know philosophy a little bit better than I do, that's for sure.

Okay, if there's no questions, what I'd like to do is pray now.

And I want to pray for the people in our lives because we know people that are out there who need the

Lord, who believe that all things are relative. It just doesn't matter.

We can think whatever we want to think. We can do whatever we want to do. And there's not a holy

God that's going to hold us accountable. And that's a scary place to be in.

So let's pray. Father, thank You for tonight. And I thank You for these guys.

I thank You, Father, for the desire to, Father, just learn about You. And Father, as just poorly as I felt like it came out tonight,

I just pray that whatever truth came out and whatever arguments of Your reality, whether it be out of nothing, nothing comes, or whether it be, well, this is just Your preference.

Some of the arguments we talked about with Sean McDowell or with Sam Harris we saw, or with Richard Dawkins before.

Father, please help us, Lord. We want to be Your ambassadors in this world. We want to share

Your truth with a world that needs You. And Father, we know that there are many, many people in this world like the young people we saw on that video.

And Lord, our hearts just cry out for them, Lord. We pray, Father, that there be an effective movement of Your Spirit who are in our lives and as a result the lives of those who would be changed by Your gospel message,

Father. Please help us, Lord. We want to be those who defend the faith in this world.