A Conversation with Darth Dawkins

Revealed Apologetics

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00:02

Welcome back to another episode. I'm your host, Eli Ayala, and this is Revealed Apologetics, an apologetics ministry that focuses on apologetics in general and presuppositional apologetics more specifically, and of course we cover things like Reformed theology and all sorts of stuff.

00:20

So as I have now always say in my introductions, I'm super excited.

00:25

I have to be honest, I am super excited every time that I say it, and especially for today that I'm happy to have our guest on today,

00:34

Darth Dawkins. Many of you might know who he is from Discord and other venues, but he is a friend and I thought it'd be a great opportunity to have a conversation with him about apologetic methodology, and I'm hoping that the nature of the conversation will be informative to folks, and I encourage people to send in their questions so that we could address some questions towards the back end of the episode.

00:58

And so that's all. So I'm going to introduce, without further ado, Darth Dawkins.

01:05

Why don't you say hi to folks? Hold on, I'm having some sound issues here.

01:12

Okay. Can you hear me? I can hear you okay. Can you hear me?

01:20

Yep, I can hear you. Okay.

01:27

All right. I can hear you okay. You're good. Okay. Hello, Eli.

01:34

Hello, internet. It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood. All right.

01:40

Yes, it is indeed a wonderful day in the neighborhood. I like the helmet you got going on there. That looks right.

01:45

I love Star Wars. Well, I have to thank an atheist who was very disturbed with my interaction and debate with him.

01:55

Okay. He got defeated so resoundingly that I was previously Duncan Dawkins, and he said, you're not

02:02

Duncan Dawkins. You're evil. You're Darth Dawkins. All right.

02:08

Real quick, Darth. Someone's saying that they could understand you, but your volume is a

02:16

Yeah. Why don't you check and I'll just make a couple of announcements here. Okay. So while he's getting that sorted out.

02:25

Okay. All right. Well, let me make this quick announcement. Actually, I forgot to say before. So if those of you guys have been following Revealed Apologetics, you know that I just recently released online courses,

02:36

Precept U, An Introduction to Biblical Apologetics, and so I'm very happy with the turnout with regards to the folks that signed up, especially for those who signed up for the premium course, where we'll be meeting once a week to go a little deeper into the course content.

02:51

But for those who are interested in signing up, you still can sign up because we will be re -releasing the courses along with the premium option where I can interact with you guys a bit by February 20.

03:05

Let me double check that 20. Oh, I'm sorry. Apologize. February 15. So you can sign up from now until February 15.

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If you're interested in taking the course that has just been released, of course, with the option to have some interaction with me, your instructor.

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And so far, I haven't heard anything bad so far. So hopefully folks are enjoying the content.

03:27

And so if you want to sign up, you can check that out at revealedapologetics .com. All right. Welcome back.

03:33

Let's get back to... I'm getting confused here because I advertised this as Darth Dawkins, a conversation with Darth Dawkins, but your name there says

03:41

Duncan Atheism. You have a couple... Oh, I apologize. No, no, no. No worries. No worries. You have a whole...

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You're known by many names. Yeah. But by the way, you hold a special elite position that because your camera's off, there's only one other guest, a very highly esteemed guest that I've had on this show, that decided to keep his camera off too.

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Do you know who that is? No, I don't.

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It was Dr. Scott Oliphant. So that's it. You and Dr. Oliphant are the only people who have come on the show with no camera, which is completely fine, but I thought it'd be cool to place you in that nice little category.

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He's a good guy. Yeah, well, he's a good looking guy. People won't be surprised one day when

04:28

I come on camera. I'm an average looking person. Hey, no, it's all good, man. So why don't you tell folks a little bit about what you do and a little bit about who you are, however, whatever you want to say.

04:42

Well, I've been a Christian for 40 years. I became a Christian in my late teens. I was raised nominally

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Catholic. I've never seriously doubted the existence of God. I felt there wasn't any reason to doubt the existence of God.

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When I became a Christian, I began getting interested in apologetics and theology. I started reading books like by Josh McDowell, evidence that demands a verdict.

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But I didn't start really getting into debating apologetics until about 10 years ago when

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I began encountering certain online social networks. And when I went from one social network to another, we found more and more opportunities to do apologetics and share the gospel at the same time.

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So it's been about a 10 year process. I started off more evidential and classical.

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I wasn't really familiar with the presuppositional distinctive, although I've always held to it in a in a kernel basic form,

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I guess all Christians do. But, you know, we get intimidated by trying to capitulate to some of the world's false beliefs to try to, quote, convince them.

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And then after, you know, listening to some of the listening to Bobson's, Greg Bobson's lectures, readings material,

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Van Til's material, I became convinced that that evidentialism in and of itself was not sufficient, that it had to be presented in a in a fully biblical context.

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So that means we start with what God has basically said, no matter how simple and not wavering from it and recognizing that no one's neutral.

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We're not neutral and unbelievers aren't neutral. And then just holding their feet to the fire in terms of what

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God says. When they challenge what God says, then they're going to have to give an account of that. Now, I could hear

06:27

I could hear you fine, but I am getting some comments here that you sound a little garbled. So I'm not sure some folks are suggesting maybe you have the wrong output or something like that.

06:36

I'm not sure if you're familiar. Let me let me reload the page. Okay, maybe I don't. Okay, no problem.

06:43

All right. While he is adjusting there. Again, if you guys have any questions, now's the time to send them in.

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It would be very helpful to me. If you send in the question while saying question so that I could differentiate between a question and comments.

06:57

Okay. So I'm hoping folks will get some questions and we can get some interesting discussion going on.

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So if you have any questions or if you want to wait a little bit, just be sure to label it questions. So we know to get to those specifically without getting lost in the mix there.

07:11

All right. Let's see if it looks a little better or sounds a little better rather. Okay, it should. I reloaded it.

07:17

It should be working fine now. Okay. All right. Go ahead.

07:24

Can you say something again? Okay. Mary had a little. Yeah, you sound a little like a like a

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I mean, I can understand you, but you sound a little robotic. Kind of like Darth Vader.

07:38

All right, let me let me let me quit. Let me quit the program and restart it. Okay. All right.

07:44

No worries. If you guys can be patient with the technical difficulties, that's fine. Well, you guys will be very familiar with technical difficulties.

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If you remember just a few shows back, I had Dr. Braxton Hunter and Dr. Tim Stratton, and I got kicked off my own show.

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I was unable to get back on. So please bear with me for a moment here.

08:07

All right. If he's unable to get back on, maybe I'll do a little dance and a little song and we'll do apologetics some other way.

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I'll do a monologue. So let's see here. I'll just wait a few moments. Once again, if you guys are just tuning in, check out

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RevealedApologetics .com under the category PresubU and you could sign up for online courses to learn presuppositional apologetics.

08:33

All right. And let's see. Let's see if he's if he's on now. Let's see. All right.

08:39

Should be working. Much. Okay. Keep saying. Keep talking. And now

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I quit the program. Yeah, your voice still sounds like it sounds like it's skipping a little.

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Are you using like a what kind of device are you using? You like a laptop, an iPad? No, it's my lap. I should.

08:59

Hold on. Let's try something. All right. Yeah, I hear static as well.

09:07

All right. Is it better now? Your voice sounds good, but there's static in the background.

09:18

Let's try this one more time. I apologize, Eli. That's okay. No worries. All right.

09:24

That's the way the cookie crumbles, man. All right. Okay. Let's see here.

09:34

Let's see. We got some questions already. Very good. Let's see. Let's see.

09:46

Oh, here's a question. I'm curious if Darth Dawkins can speak on internalism versus externalism justification and its relation to Christian epistemology.

09:53

That's an excellent question. So we'll definitely make sure we'll cover that one. It's actually not the first time someone's asked that.

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It's come up quite often. All right. Let's see here.

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All right, folks, just bear with me. Also, I want to throw this out there.

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If those of you guys want to see me interview someone that you think would be a good guest on the show,

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I would love suggestions either in the comments or if you could email me at revealedapologeticsatgmail .com.

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So definitely looking for new guests. Believe it or not, it's pretty hard to get some of the people.

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I know towards the beginning, folks were very excited that I was able to get a lot of guests on consecutively.

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And ironically, the reason for that is it's not because I have connections, but it's actually because of the whole quarantine issue, right?

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It was easy to get in touch with people because everyone was home. So but it's been a huge blessing and I've really enjoyed the conversations that I've had with all sorts of folks.

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So looking forward to some good interviews in the future. Let's see here.

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Star Wars question. All right, fine. We'll take one. Eli question. While we wait on Darth, what are your thoughts of Lucasfilm retroing the last trilogy?

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Hmm. OK, so do you mean with like the the sequel, the sequel trilogy?

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I didn't like that. I really was. I love The Force Awakens. OK, when I saw

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The Force Awakens, I was like, yes, things are going to be great. And then The Last Jedi really did it for me.

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OK, I'm a huge Luke Skywalker fan, so I was not happy at all what they did with Luke Skywalker.

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I was looking to see Luke's powers revealed in its in its full force.

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No pun intended. But that's not what we got. We got an old grumpy man, so I wasn't very happy with that.

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OK, that's a good question, though. That was for the other other show. I would have addressed that in my previous episode.

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Let's see. OK, Darth is back on. Let's see if it is fixed. All right.

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I'm switching to my headset now, so there might be some feedback. I had to restart my system. I apologize. No worries, no worries, no worries.

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Now I'm getting an echo. Let me see. Let me turn my mic off.

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Can you hear me? Yeah, I'm just trying to set up my headset so I can hear you.

12:39

So not through the speakers. For some reason, I'm having a Bluetooth glitch doing my headset. It should it should connect momentarily.

12:56

Murphy's law. I don't know why my headset's not connecting up now.

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Everything's going wrong at once. Here, please.

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And then I'll try to leave and then come back. Is that can we do that or not?

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I won't leave the room now because he's left the room. All right. All right.

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I guess we'll take a couple of other ones here. All right. Oh, that's an interesting question.

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All right. Clown Dog asks, what is my biggest concern of 2021?

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Oh, man. Uh, my biggest concern of 2021.

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I don't know. To be perfectly honest, I don't have any major concerns. I mean, I don't mean to be like churchy and like, you know, overly

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Christian. But I really do believe that God is in control. Our job as the church is to remain faithful.

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It doesn't matter, you know, who's the president, you know, what policies are being passed. And we fight for the truth.

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We stand for the truth. We speak the truth. In context that God has placed us in. So I don't have any particular worries that come to mind, except for the fact that a lot of things that I think are unbiblical will be being put forth in ways that perhaps it wasn't done so in the past.

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But for the most part, I mean, staying faithful and speaking the truth in whatever context.

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I mean, think in terms of the early Christians, you know, during the time of Emperor Nero. I mean, things were really bad.

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Yet Christians had to live out the truth and show the love of God in the context that they were in.

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So I don't have any worries in that sense. I think God is in control and Christians need to stand up and do what they're commanded to do in scripture.

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So that's what that in the famous words of Forrest Gump. That's all I've got to say about that. Okay. All right.

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Darth is back. Let's see if this works. All right. I'm so sorry. Let's see.

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It should work. I restarted everything. Okay. You sound perfect. Good.

15:14

All right. There we go. Sorry about that. No, no worries. All the atheists are cheering.

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It's all right. No worries. Okay. So you were explaining.

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Let me see if I remember what you were explaining. You were explaining what got you into apologetics or something to that effect.

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Let's just start from there. So how did you get into apologetics? You said that you became a Christian. You started doing that more of the evidential approach.

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What was the specific? I wanted to learn more about the history of the Bible, why I should believe it, not just accept it ipso facto.

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And I started reading books by Josh McDowell, but I didn't do serious reading in apologetics as I didn't have that many apologetic encounters until I started interacting online about 10 years ago.

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And so I approached it from a more classical and evidential type of debating approach.

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And then when I heard Greg Bonson, it just floored me because I'd never heard anything like that.

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And I went, wait a minute. As I thought about it, it was solidly biblical. He's simply appealing to the truth of what

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God says in various parts of scripture and their implications and ramifications, which the atheists cannot escape from.

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And I've been a biblical presuppositionalist ever since. Okay. So for you, it's been, and that's very similar for me as well.

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I mean, even atheists know this at this time, when we speak of presuppositionalism, most people come to it through the

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Bonson Stein debate. Now, admittedly, Dr. Stein was not the best opponent, but I still think even if he was a better opponent, the arguments were pretty rock solid.

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And it was definitely a perfect exemplification of presuppositionalism applied.

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And so I just wish that Dr. Bonson was able to do more debates. I mean, we only have that one.

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It's the one with Edward Tabash. And then there was one with George Smith, I believe, which was a radio. Yeah. I wouldn't sell

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Stein so short. He was probably the most well -studied and well -read atheist in the world.

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His PhD was in library scientists, and he set up at least one profound atheist library.

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So he's probably one of the most well -read atheists on the planet at the time. Okay. I did not know that.

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He's an exceptional philosopher. I guess I made my judgment based upon how bad his representation of the classical arguments were.

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If you listen to the debate, it is like Gordon Stein is debating a classicalist, which he wasn't.

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And he's trying to refute arguments that weren't being made, because I think the presuppositional approach kind of stymied him.

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He didn't expect it. He was blindsided. Oh, yes. He was blindsided, but even his attempts to critique the more traditional arguments,

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I thought they were terrible. So I didn't really think he was as intellectually astute as perhaps he actually was.

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Well, that's par for the course for atheism. Okay. There you go. All right. So let's talk about presuppositionalism, and let's get into some of the nitty -gritty and perhaps clarify a lot of misunderstanding for folks, because I do think, and people have heard me say this before, that presuppositionalists can do a better job in explaining their position.

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But I think the opponents can do a better job in listening, because a lot of the times when the methodology is presented,

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I do think that it's presented rather clearly and forcefully, and yet there is either a refusal to listen, or there's some disconnect that prevents them from really grasping the nature of what we're saying.

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So let's go for just a bare definition. In a bare definition, if someone were to ask you, what is presuppositionalism?

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How would you respond to that? And how would you, in a general sense, lay out a presuppositional argument? Well, I would first explain to them that everybody comes to the table with a worldview, a model of reality, a metaphysic.

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Even children do. None of us are exempt from that. Within that worldview are certain foundational beliefs or parameters that we all hold to, consciously or unconsciously, explicitly or implicitly.

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Some of those most foundational positions, or the final one, we would say that these are our presuppositions, right?

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And because we have different worldviews, we have a conflict of worldview, not just an interpretation of the facts, because the facts cannot be the same because the worldviews are in conflict.

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One of the worldviews has to be at least false. So in a presuppositional approach, we present the revelation of God as he has given it through natural and special revelation.

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We explain what our fundamental beliefs are, our presuppositions, how we arrived at them and why we hold to them.

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And then the unbeliever has the opportunity to accept this, which the majority of time they're well familiar with the

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Christian worldview. They then reject it. And then in a very simple way, we show that the denial of the

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Christian worldview and its fundamental presuppositions is an implicit counterclaim, which would entail their worldview.

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And then upon looking into that, as we would call an internal critique, that that worldview cannot be sustained in any shape or form.

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No matter how they attempt at it, intellectually, educationally, emotionally, they will not be able to defend their worldview without an appeal to some aspect of God's revelatory actions.

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So the denial of God's revelatory actions through natural revelation and special revelation of Christian scriptures results that whatever they assert will ultimately be absurd given their worldview or metaphysics.

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There will be no background information for which them to place and defend facts.

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They think they have facts, but only because they're borrowing from the Christian worldview and they're not thoroughly examining their metaphysics, their worldview.

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They can't ground anything they say. So when you present the presuppositional argument,

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God has revealed himself in general and special revelation such that we could know what his revelation is, right?

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We know God innately. And so you present the Christian worldview and then you say the rejection thereof reduces one's position to absurdity.

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How do you respond to people who say, well, that's a really nice claim. You're just making assertions.

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That doesn't mean your assertion is true. How would you engage someone who says something like that? I would say the rejection of the referencing

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God's revelation of himself is itself a counterclaim, okay? If they feel that the revelation of God that we point to,

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God's natural and special revelation, when they say it's a claim, they've already made an evaluation.

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They've judged that it is unworthy of belief, right? Their response is, well, you haven't proven it.

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And we point out that God's natural and special revelation, to the extent that we're familiar with it, is self -justifying.

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It's self -attesting and demonstrating, okay? Not only because of its source, but because of its internal content, the properties and attributes of the

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God of the Bible, the parameters that the Bible says are from God's world are the necessary preconditions in order for there to be any kind of reason or intelligibility.

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Now, when they reject that, either they're not understanding it or they're just playing word games.

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Oh, you haven't demonstrated. Well, the fact that they say it hasn't been demonstrated doesn't mean it does. They're making a counterclaim, right?

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And so, if they're going to evaluate that the Christian worldview is not objectively defensible, or that there's no reason to believe it, that itself is a claim.

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To say that the Christian worldview is just a claim, right, is itself a counterclaim.

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And they're going to have to defend that, okay? Because they're not neutral. They're going to constantly want to present themselves in a neutral position.

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Oh, well, you haven't proved it. But to say you haven't proved it to the extent that they're acquainted with God's revelation is a counterclaim, right?

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Which they cannot sustain. So, why don't you unfold for us? So, because here's the thing.

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When people say you haven't asserted it, or where's your evidence, or this, that, or the other thing, it almost is the case that a lot of unbelievers are so wedded to these concepts of autonomy and neutrality that when they say you haven't proved it, what they really mean is you haven't proved it in an independent, you know, unbiased fashion to their satisfaction.

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So, they're basically asking you to prove it in a way that we would say is impossible to prove anything. Namely, from a neutral and autonomous perspective.

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Would that be on point? Yeah, their criterion of belief that they put forth, you know, whether they state it or explicitly, is just a smokescreen to, as you stated, to engage their autonomous reasoning.

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It's a smokescreen. Because the very criterion of belief that they apply to God's natural and special revelation, the

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Christian scriptures, okay, they abandon when they advocate directly or indirectly for their worldview.

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I'm constantly telling unbelievers on Discord, you're violating your own criterion of belief.

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I'll ask them, why don't you believe in God? Why don't you believe in Christianity? And they'll say, oh, well, you haven't proven it.

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You haven't justified it. And then I say to them, oh, and so your not Christian worldview has been proven and justified?

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Do you follow your own criterion of belief? Because in order to not accept the

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Christian worldview, right, that means that you're going to have to be adopting your worldview, your non -Christian worldview, as actual, as true, as veridical.

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But they haven't justified it. They haven't proven it. They simply adopt it. Now, they adopt it apparently arbitrarily, but in reality, we know from scripture that they don't adopt it arbitrarily because they have motivated reasoning.

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They do not want God to exist. They do not want to acknowledge God. They do not want to be thankful to him as creator.

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So as I say all the time on the interweb, as George Bush would say, they collect cliches, catchphrases, aphorisms to assuage their conscience.

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And so when they say, well, you haven't proven it. Okay, well, fine. That's a counterclaim. Okay, so they're going to have to establish that their worldview can evaluate things.

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See, the Christian worldview is not only proven because of its source, because of who

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God is, God's word is self -attesting, but the actual internal parameters and content itself reveal that these are the preconditions.

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God's character, his nature, his revelation cannot be dispensed with.

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Van Til said that Christianity is indispensable for human intelligibility, meaning that the

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Christian worldview is ontologically true. Now, they think that they have intelligibility because they don't believe in God or the

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Christian worldview. But what we're not, we're not simply talking about mere belief. We're saying that the Christian God and his attributes said must exist ontologically.

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Otherwise, there will be no metaphysical background information, absolute or ultimate to appeal to.

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Okay, so right there. So you say it has to be the case. So the unbeliever says, why? I don't see, I don't see the connection as to why you say, for example, it has to be the case.

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Why? Because if it isn't the case, we couldn't make sense out of anything. And then there, you know, well, I don't see that that's,

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I don't see how that makes sense. How would you unpack that a little bit more? Well, I would say in order for there to be truth and falsity, accessibility or apprehension of truth and falsity and reason, things like that.

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We're going to have to be in a world where what is ultimate and fundamental and foundational is

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God, where God is a mind. He's eternal. He then institutes his creation.

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And then he imposes all of the parameters, how things work, including ourselves to permit us to be intelligible and to reason.

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The reason why we can be coherent, intelligible and reason, because it reflects the creator who created these things.

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Now, when they don't believe in that, then they're going to be operating off of the metaphysical premise that is the negation of God as creator and sustainer.

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But you see, no such foundational premise can be attested to. They have nothing identifiable or demonstrable.

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They say, well, you haven't proven you're God. You haven't proven the scriptures. Well, God's existence has been proven by God.

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The scriptures have been proven, but because of their motivated reasoning, they blind themselves to the objective proof that the

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Christian scriptures are true. And the icing on the cake is that they're true due to the impossibility of their denial or negation, that the non -Christian worldview can never be established.

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So in the Christian worldview, God is, he reveals himself, right?

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We could only know God exists by virtue of the way he constructs this world, right?

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In the non -Christian worldview, there would be no way to identify or demonstrate what is fundamental, what is ultimate, what is absolute.

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So whatever parameters of existence that they appeal to for their reason, for their acquisition of truth and falsity, the foundation could never be identified or attested to.

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So their worldview, everything that they assert, okay, including, well, I don't have a reason to believe in God, their so -called reason that they say to reason

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I don't have a reason to believe in God is shrouded in ultimate mystery, right? So when we have the revelation from God, our model of reality is not shrouded in ultimate mystery.

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We know that what is eternal, ultimate, and absolute is a mind and that he has revealed that he is

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God and that he is creator and sustainer and that he is unfolding a redemptive plan of human history.

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But when they reject that, which Ventile says is a closed system because some things cannot happen, some things are impossible, when they reject

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God's revelation and they say, oh, it's not God's revelation, then they're not going to be in a position to discern truth or falsity because now they're in an open system, right?

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Where anything goes, nothing is impossible. Because nothing is impossible from their frame of reference, then truth and falsity is inaccessible.

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And if truth and falsity are inaccessible, then so is reason and intelligibility and it's game over, lights out for them.

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But they don't care. So when you say given their rejection, if their rejection, the worldview upon which they're standing that rejects the

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Christian God, if that were true, you would say that they could not in principle know the very things that they take for granted that they know.

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And so suppose... Yeah. Yeah, suppose... It's worse than that. Okay, you can expand. It's worse than that.

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It's not even that they could know, they couldn't predicate. They could not offer propositions that will be intelligible because there's no background context.

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There's no metaphysical system from which these propositions or facts can derive from.

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So what if the person says, well, I don't need a foundation? I mean, I've heard some interactions that you've had and people said, like,

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I don't know why you're making a big deal about foundation. Then what they're saying is, I'm arbitrary in whatever

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I say. And well, you know, that's what we call crazy. Because I think, as I asked you the question on purpose, because I knew what your answer was going to be, but I think it's a key point that I think would be good to emphasize.

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So if they don't need a foundation, how is the lack of a foundation... How does lacking a foundation result in arbitrariness with regards to asserting the truth or falsity of some fact?

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Because nothing can be grounded. Nothing can be defended as being either true or false.

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It's not just that they're wrong. They don't have access to truth and falsity.

31:27

Why? Because their metaphysic, their worldview cannot provide for it. So for example, if we have a fact, a putative fact, the fact is only what it is because it starts in the mind of God and God's creation and his sustaining of the creation.

31:46

And that all of those particulars and facts are part of God's unfolding plan of creation and redemption.

31:53

So God is the ultimate reference point that makes any fact a fact. When they say, oh, well, you haven't proven your

32:01

God, whatever their reason is for rejecting God's revelation, remember, it's not so much that they're rejecting what you and I are saying, they are rejecting

32:09

God's revelation to the extent that they are in fact acquainted with it. And once they reject

32:15

God's revelation, then there's no ultimate reference point for facts.

32:22

Because what you think is a fact today in relationship to some things could change tomorrow or next week, which is an open system.

32:30

Now I've confronted unbelievers about this, and I say a closed system is where we have an eternal, absolute, ultimate creator

32:37

God. He institutes creation, he sustains it, and he operates it according to his plan, his redemptive plan of human history.

32:45

So any given fact is what it is within God's plan of human history. But when you reject that, then what is your reference for that fact?

32:54

Just some other facts? Well, what's their reference point? What they want to do is they want to borrow from the

32:59

Christian worldview that we have access to truth and falsity and the capacity to know some things that we cannot be wrong about, but they have no background information for it.

33:11

So they're violating, when they ask for proof of the Christian worldview, they're speaking a reasoning from a worldview for which they have no proof.

33:20

So their position, according to their own stated criterion, is self -annihilating.

33:27

That's why Van Til said Christianity is true due to the impossibility of its denial.

33:33

Or Bonson would say the impossibility to the contrary. What I see as a common misunderstanding is when we make that claim, a lot of people think it's an empty assertion that can be replaced with any supposed deity, right?

33:48

So if someone says, oh, well, Allah is the necessary precondition for intelligibility, how would we respond?

33:54

Why is our argument not simply a claim that can be replaced with any

33:59

X? You know, my transcendental argument for, you know, Mormonism, my transcendental argument for Islam.

34:06

How would you address that specific objection? Well, in order to have human intelligibility, we have to have a creator who has certain attributes and properties.

34:17

He has to be ultimate and absolute. There are no ultimate and absolute gods on the religious landscape, either now or in human history.

34:25

Those gods that are pretenders, such as the derivational cults, reveal that they're simply ripping off the

34:32

Christian God. They're poor imitators, like the God of Islam. The Quran says that Allah is the greatest of all deceivers.

34:40

If you have a God who is not always truth revealing, then you can't have human intelligibility because human intelligibility is going to require the creation, which is

34:50

God's revelation, where God always reveals the truth, which would entail the law of identity and non -contradiction.

34:58

And in the Islamic world, you never know when Allah might be actually deceiving you.

35:03

Now, in the Christian worldview, people can be deceived about some things, but only after they reject a love of the truth, right?

35:11

Just like in the Garden of Eden, they could not have been deceived about God's revelation about the tree.

35:17

But once they rebelled and they opted for autonomous reasoning, then they get pulled away into deception.

35:24

So these other gods do not have the attributes and the properties that only the

35:29

Christian God has ontologically, so that there can be human intelligibility, right?

35:36

If God is not omnipotent, then we don't know that he's constructed a world in such a way that we can know that he exists and that we can know anything at all.

35:46

If he's not omniscient, then he may not have set up the world sufficiently so that we can have intelligibility or to know things.

35:55

So it's not just the concept of God, it's that it has to be a God that has specific attributes, and only the

36:02

Christian God has it. And they hate that. They have a special hatred for the Christian God.

36:07

That's why most of these online internet atheists like to mock and ridicule and pretend like they don't take the

36:13

Christian God seriously, but they do. You can show up by the amount of time that they spend devoted to attacking and mocking the

36:19

Christian God. Sure, sure. Let's get back to this issue of foundations. I thought that was interesting.

36:25

So you said we need a metaphysical foundation that can ground all derivational facts. And for those who don't know what a derivational fact is, it is any fact that is derived from something more ultimate.

36:34

So what happens when someone appeals to brute factuality? They'll just say, well, there are certain brute facts that are a given.

36:41

And that's completely fine. You don't need a God to be the fundamental grounding of all facts.

36:47

There are certain brute facts, or some people might even appeal to properly basic facts or things like that. How would you address someone who might bring that up?

36:55

I think there's a very simple aphorism that Van Til gave us that I love. Brute facts are mute facts.

37:02

They're meaningless. They have no context for their existence. In other words, whatever these brute facts are, they simply exist without any metaphysical basis whatsoever.

37:16

They just are without further explanation, which means they emanate from a chance realm or an open system.

37:24

So what you think is a fact today could change in any moment. So a brute fact is...

37:31

I guess you're using the word brute fact the same way I do, which is in a

37:36

Van Tilian sense that a brute fact is just something that is attested to be without any ultimate or foundational basis as to why it exists.

37:45

Well, that means it's a contextless fact. And contextless facts are meaningless. They're mute.

37:51

They don't mean anything. The only reason why unbelievers think that they're meaningful is because they're ignoring their larger problem, their metaphysical problem.

38:01

They don't care that they have no ultimate metaphysic or grounding. They want

38:08

God as the ultimate metaphysic to be proven and justified, or so they claim. But when it comes to their ultimate metaphysic, their grounding, their ultimate, they don't care.

38:19

Or they'll just lie and make one up that they don't really believe. Mm -hmm. Well, what if someone says, well,

38:25

I don't, I mean, okay, fine. We, perhaps we need an ultimate metaphysic, an ultimate grounding for all derivational facts, you know, metaphysics.

38:32

What happens if the person says, I don't know. I have no idea what ultimate reality is. I don't see why it has to be your

38:38

God, but I don't see why I have to know what it is. I mean, I get along just fine. You know, he kind of appeals to kind of a pragmatic perspective.

38:46

How might you address that? Well, then he's basically claiming without realizing it is that he can have facts without context.

38:54

Okay. How so? Well, because he has no ultimate frame of reference. There's no ultimate reference point for why any facts are the way they are.

39:02

So for you and I, when we point to any particular fact, no matter how complex or sophisticated or how simple, we know that these facts are, the creative facts are within God's hand.

39:14

God instituted this world. Everything runs and operates according to his parameters, whether it's a rock by the side of the road or the

39:22

Eiffel Tower or a brand new cell phone. These things are operating according to God's facts and things are operating according to the principle of causality and the uniformity of nature that he instituted in it and imposes.

39:37

Now, what they want to say is that there are facts because of the uniformity of nature and causality and matter energy.

39:43

Well, my answer is, well, where did you get those absolutes from? Okay. Are they the illusion of causality and the uniformity of nature or do they really exist?

39:52

And if they really exist, are they ultimate in and of themselves or are they instituted and imposed by something that will perpetuate its continuity?

40:01

They cannot answer any of these questions. So what if they say, well, all right, fine.

40:07

I don't know what institutes them or whatever, but I know that causality is a thing because of the impossibility of the contrary.

40:13

I have no choice. But no, no. How do they, how do they ask the contrary? They're just, they're just, they're, they're assuming that certain events are not spontaneous.

40:22

Okay. Now you said spontaneous. You also talked about like possibility and impossibility. And you mentioned something about an open and closed system.

40:29

Why don't you explain a little bit about what that is? What do you mean by an open and closed system? And why is it relevant to this specific apologetic application?

40:38

Yeah. In reading Van Til, he made this point and it just, it, it, uh, it blew me away where he explained as God is ultimate

40:46

God, who is the most foundational parameter. He referred to God as the concrete universal.

40:52

He's the all conditioner. Okay. Right. It can be summed up as simple as a child's song lyric.

40:59

He's got the whole world in his hands. Okay. Right. I mean, it's, it's that simple. Sure. Right.

41:05

So, um, then, then all facts are within the context of God as creator where Van Til talked about the creator creature distinction.

41:15

Right. And this goes right back to scripture in the beginning. God, God is creator. We see this theme all throughout scripture.

41:21

We see it in the, in the new Testament, all throughout the new Testament, even to, to, you know, the last chapter of the book of revelation.

41:32

Okay. Hello? Yeah, I'm here. Oh, okay. I'm just, I just don't want to hog the mic time from you.

41:39

No, that's okay. It's because when you stopped talking, it was so quiet. There was like nothing. I thought I was like, all right.

41:47

All right. Well, that, that's good stuff. And don't worry about hogging the mic. You're my guest. I'm sure people want to hear what you have to say.

41:52

So no worries there. Um, all right. So, so a lot of people have an issue with, uh, the transcendental argument, which is really what you were, what we're talking about, right.

42:02

Van Til's presuppositional approach is a transcendental approach. Um, it might not be the best to utilize that language because it, it often has, um, you know, uh, linguistic ties to like, um, idealistic philosophy,

42:14

Kantian philosophy, things like that. Um, but basically what we're saying is you said that we're saying that God holds the whole world in his hands and it's by his light.

42:22

We see light these sorts of things. Um, but when people object to what you're saying, they say, fine, we need a metaphysical ultimate and fine.

42:29

A God has to be in that place holder. How do you know it's the Christian God specifically? Um, and the

42:35

Christian worldview, you know, how do you know that that argument actually proves that I think that you're trying to say too much,

42:41

Darth. Um, you know, maybe you're onto something, but I don't see how this necessarily connects us to the, uh, the truth of the impossibility of the contrary with regards to the

42:49

Christian God. How would you expand on that? Well, how do I know it's a Christian God? Same way we, you know, we, we know our mother's middle name.

42:57

They revealed it. Okay. That's just too simple for him because they already reject that God revealed it.

43:03

But if I gave any other answer, then it wouldn't be biblical. Okay. So God revealed it.

43:10

But then we look at further the content of what he is revealed about himself. He reveals what his character and nature is, what his attribute beauts are, are as creator.

43:21

If we remove, if, if we try to imitate the Christian God for by providing an alternative, if we fiddle around with God's attributes, like we remove his omniscience or omnipotence, or that he is the savior and he has an unfolding plan of salvation, or we decide that we want a

43:40

Unitarian God rather than a Trinitarian God, the removal or tampering with any of the properties that God has revealed are all gathered together in his necessary being for actuality intelligibility, then it destroys intelligibility.

43:56

Okay. Like, for example, we have the Islamic God or like the God Jehovah's Witnesses where they present a

44:01

Unitarian God and they say, oh, well, your belief in the Trinitarian God is, it's false. And our God is true.

44:07

Well, I just simply point out, well, what we then have is an autistic God in eternity past who is incapacitated to relate.

44:15

Right. I've been, I was explaining to a Muslim today that autism is, is to varying degrees and incapacity to actualize relationalness.

44:28

Right. And he agreed with that. And I don't think anybody would agree with this, this definition. Well, the

44:34

Islamic God and Unitarian Gods have no capacity to actualize relationality in eternity past.

44:41

There's no one to relate to. But the God of the Bible who is true has revealed he is one

44:47

God, one being, one essence, but he is, he is a plurality of persons. Each of the persons can relate to another person in the

44:55

Godhead in context within the third. And so there's always a mutual relationalness between the persons of the

45:04

Godhead. So, so I'm not trying to be insultive here using his insult, but they truly have an autistic

45:11

God in eternity past because he cannot relate to any other personal being because they don't exist.

45:18

Now, now it's a feature, I think essential strength, a philosophical strength. And it's interesting because, uh, well, we believe

45:25

Christianity is true. And so we don't believe this is developed by people. Um, but the idea of the

45:30

Trinity, um, was not understood within the context of trying to answer philosophical questions, but ironically it answers the most profound philosophical.

45:40

Yeah, that's, that's interesting. It wasn't, it wasn't, the Trinity wasn't developed within a context of, we need to answer these deep metaphysical questions.

45:49

It almost came out of left field and said like, like, oh wow. Okay. And then it just so happens to answer the most deepest philosophical question that's been asked throughout the course of Western philosophy.

46:00

Now I have heard people say, um, the problem of the one in the many is not an actual problem.

46:06

You Christians made that up so that you could answer and come to the rescue with your doctrine of the Trinity. Why don't you,

46:11

I, again, that's just, uh, that's just, uh, I say this respectfully, that is an ignorance of the history of philosophy, or this is something that's, that was very prevalent in the history of philosophy, especially, um, within the pre -Socratics.

46:24

But why don't you explain to folks, what is the actual problem? How have some people tried to respond to the problem, but failed?

46:33

And how does the Triune God answer this philosophical conundrum of the one in the many? Yeah. Would you follow that?

46:40

One in the many, yeah, the one in the many, it's a perennial philosophy, philosophical problem. It just goes down.

46:45

What is the most fundamental nature of reality in total? What is the fundamental, ultimate nature of reality?

46:54

Is it, is it a concrete one? It's an actual one thing without distinctions or particulars, or is, is reality just simply a set of an innumerable number of discrete particulars, right?

47:09

Is it, is it, is it one or is it many? Meaning of plurality. If you answer the question either way, it will destroy human intelligibility, right?

47:21

And so when, when the Christian answers the question that the ultimate and fundamental nature of, of God is he is both the one and the many.

47:30

He, he is a, he is a, he is a concrete one, but within that concrete oneness, there is a plurality, a diversity.

47:37

So he has unity and diversity. And as Ventile says, they have equal ultimacy.

47:44

Neither one of them have supremacy over each other in terms of how we, how we understand

47:49

God. So God is a, is an absolute unity and, and, and a plurality.

47:55

He then creates the world, okay, where we have the creator, creation, distinction, and the world is going to reflect

48:02

God's nature and character. That's why we can have the law of identity and non -contradiction, because all of the world is

48:10

God's revelation, and God cannot, cannot lie. He cannot exude falsehood. So that's why something is what it is in a given time index.

48:18

But the world also reflects God in that, because God is internally coherent, and he is the ultimate one of the many, that's reflected in creation, where we have one creation, we have unity, but then there is a plurality of particulars.

48:34

But then even those, those particulars have categories, classes, and universals to, to provide unity among diversity so that there can be coherence and intelligibility.

48:45

So the very intelligibility of the world around us requires various aspects of unity and diversity.

48:54

And without unity and diversity, there can't be intelligibility or coherence, and that reflects the creator.

49:01

Now, if they want to claim that the ultimate nature of reality is not the God of the

49:06

Bible, and being the creator, then they, then they're going to have to opt that the ultimate nature of reality is a concrete one without any distinctions or particulars.

49:17

Well, then that will destroy the ability to someone, to anyone speaking intelligibly, because anytime you invoke any particulars or distinctions, they wouldn't exist.

49:26

All you could talk about was the one. On the other hand, if they say that there is a innumerable number of particulars, okay, then there is nothing that ultimately unifies this from their, their perspective.

49:39

So all we would have is an array of unconnected, unrelated particulars, and you couldn't talk about classes or universals or, or categories because what would impose it?

49:51

They would have to identify that. Now, they might opt to say, well, you know, there's unity and diversity by borrowing from the

49:58

Christian worldview, but the question is, where did you get that from? Okay, if, if it's there, if it's real, it hasn't been imposed, right?

50:11

So they, they can't, they cannot explain this, right? Now, what if you have people who they try to bring up some hypotheticals?

50:18

Well, suppose we have a, you know, a religion that's very similar to God. They have a God that is, that is, well, let's say, let's say a copycat religion that believes in a triune

50:29

God, but a different story, different content to the revelation. So we won't even go with like, how do we, you know, what if you have a bininity?

50:37

Like there's one God who exists as two persons or a quadrinity, one God who exists as four persons.

50:43

What if someone says, well, what if there's another religion that has a triune God, but there's a different story?

50:49

You know, it's not the biblical story. This God has revealed himself in a different way. How would you respond to kind of these copycat attempts to show that the

50:58

Christian God is not the necessarily only God that must exist? I would say this is a perfect example of the sinful autonomous mind trying to evade the

51:09

God that they know that has revealed himself in the triune God. And there's just simply trying to imitate the

51:14

God of the Bible, you know, and knowing that the God of the Bible and his attributes that are necessary, but they try to imitate him by leaving off or changing some of God's properties and attributes.

51:24

I've run into people like this before. I even caught one atheist who actually pulled something like this.

51:30

And then in a conference with an apologetic leader, Saiten Brutengate, who both of us know, and this atheist tried a line of reasoning like that.

51:40

I ran into him a year later. I asked him some similar questions, but not about that incident. And he was caught lying.

51:47

So my first reaction is they're just making this garbage up. Right. Now, when we get beyond that, once you alter the attributes of the

51:57

God of the Bible, who is and is coherent, you immediately introduce a God who is not coherent and cannot provide for intelligibility.

52:06

Well, first of all, the God of the Bible, he historically reveals himself over time through the

52:11

Bible. The Bible is a historical book written over several thousand years, written by 40 different authors.

52:16

How has your God, who you say is a contender or a replacement for the Christian God, where has he revealed himself through the course of history?

52:24

Where is his plan of salvation? Where is that? So they're just making this stuff up so they can run from the

52:31

God that they know, because they know judgment day is coming. They take Jesus Christ very seriously, but they do not want to bow to him as Lord.

52:39

So like what I say all the time, they're whistling past the graveyard with these excuses.

52:45

Okay. They're just trying to assuage their guilty conscious until the day of judgment. Yeah, very good.

52:52

Now, here's a question that I was thinking about before, and I was wondering if you could address it.

52:58

Okay. So when you say, when you present your argument, you say that God has revealed himself both in general and special revelation. And when you're speaking of special revelation,

53:05

I would take you have in mind the scriptures, right? Yes. Okay. So how would, okay, and this has been asked often, how would an old

53:13

Testament saint use presuppositionalism without a new Testament revelation?

53:19

Okay. Have you ever heard that question before? Yes, but not quite in that form.

53:29

Well, the Christian God wasn't revealed 2000 years ago. He was revealed to Adam when he opened up his eyes.

53:37

That is the same Christian God as we have today. And we did 2000 years ago. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, yesterday and today.

53:47

Okay. Now it's hinted at God's plurality and unity is hinted at in scripture.

53:53

There are some very clear passages which hinted that, and that God also says that he is going to provide our salvation.

54:01

Since God cannot lie, okay, he will in some way, according to his own judgment and his own wisdom, effectuate, which might even seem impossible, right?

54:12

So we can appeal to God's characteristics in the Old Testament. Now, contemporary Unitarianism, for example, in Judaism, is an explicit denial of God's internal plurality.

54:23

As opposed to Old Testament believers, they did not explicitly deny the Trinity. So we can just say the same thing, even though they didn't know about the

54:32

Trinity, that Yahweh, the God of the Bible, is the only one who exists and has the capacities and the power to institute and sustain creation.

54:43

You know, Isaiah 43, 44, 45, 46. I am the only God. There are no other gods. I am the first and I am last.

54:50

I am the beginning and the end. We find these same types of remarks. The only thing that we don't have is a full revelation and detailing of God's Trinitarian nature, right?

55:00

We can find the majority of the characteristics that we find in the New Testament, in the

55:05

Old Testament, although some of it is foreshadowed and veiled. And I suppose, too, that even though Scripture is special revelation, prior to Scripture, there was still special revelation.

55:17

So there wasn't ever a point where there was never special revelation, all right? Soon as God spoke to Adam, that's special revelation.

55:24

Yeah, okay. All right, very good. Now, here's more of a historical sort of question, and then I want to jump back into a philosophical question that I know you're familiar with, and folks who will be listening are probably familiar with the phraseology that I'm going to use, okay?

55:39

By the way, just to let you know, I do not have the YouTube window open or seeing what's going on in the text chat, because usually, you know, there's people throwing questions and all that.

55:49

So if there's any questions from there that you want to ask, you'd have to repeat that for me, because I just want to concentrate.

55:55

Oh, no problem. These are all my own questions. And then when we go into the Q &A, I put them up on the screen so people who are looking on YouTube, they can see it, and I'll just repeat it and read it to you.

56:05

It'll be fun, okay? So here's a question. So how might we respond to someone who says, if presuppositionalism is so biblical, then why hasn't it been used throughout church history?

56:17

It actually has. It's just that it's just not explicit. But you see, in church history, there were people who made blunders, because, well, for example, it was used in church history by the apostles.

56:31

They didn't use the specific nomenclature. Well played. Well played. That was a good one. Yeah. They didn't use the explicit technical jargon that we may do.

56:43

They may not have gone into a philosophical representation of these theological truths.

56:50

A lot of my reasoning, my debate tactics, I take certain scriptural truths that God has said, and I say, okay, how can these truths be understood and expressed in a philosophical sense?

57:04

And then I derive questions based upon that. You know, the

57:09

Apostle Paul was not really dealing with rank atheists or even agnostics.

57:15

He was just dealing with a lot of polytheism, right? You read Acts 17, that's extremely presuppositional.

57:24

It's not going to, he's not going to have this, you know, the apostles did have the same kind of nuances that we will have as presuppositionalists, but the content is the same.

57:35

We're appealing to the ontological trinity, and that the denial thereof is just foolishness.

57:42

First Corinthians chapter one, chapter three, has not God turned the wisdom of the world into foolishness?

57:48

Right? Well, why? Because when you deny God and his character set, what are you going to base anything on?

57:55

Right? That's presuppositional. Second Corinthians 10, was it chapter five?

58:03

It's late, I'm getting tired. I'm trying to remember. Second Corinthians 10, five, okay?

58:09

Where it says, we are destroying all speculations. Look up the verse reference for me. We are destroying all speculations and every lofty thing that races itself above the knowledge of God and bringing every thought into captivity of Christ.

58:20

That is biblical presuppositionalism right there. In a nutshell, we are destroying all speculations and every lofty thing that raises itself above the knowledge of God.

58:32

So when somebody starts talking about not acknowledging God as creator, that's a lofty thing they're raising above the knowledge of God.

58:38

That is a speculation and we're called to destroy that. All right. Very good. Very good.

58:44

Okay. So I am going to, let's go to the Q and A now, because there are a lot of questions and I wanna get people's questions in.

58:53

Okay. And before you do, after I come on some of these shows like Modern Day Debate or other places, the comment section explodes with vitriol and angst and spewing hatred and denunciations.

59:12

And I warmly welcome any of my critics, okay, who do not have a history of stalking or trolling.

59:21

And you want to say that what I'm saying here is garbage or false.

59:27

I welcome you to go one -on -one and we can discuss these things. And I'm sure Eli or someone else like himself will be a very firm, fair and strict monitor and we can talk about this.

59:40

But I think that many of my critics in the comment section on YouTube channels are just keyboard warriors.

59:46

Okay. That's all they are. Well, hopefully the comments are good here. I haven't read through all of them.

59:51

So here's one. You can't see it on the screen, but someone says, Helen says, wait.

59:58

Oh, I thought it was, okay. I thought it was Darth. I thought he said you were saying - Daryl. Daryl.

01:00:03

I'm looking like small inside. I thought it said Darth. I thought they were saying that you sound like Greg Kockel.

01:00:08

Guess not. Nevermind. Well, that's a nice remark. Thank you. Greg Kockel is a really smart guy.

01:00:14

I don't agree with everything he says, but I do appreciate his ministry. And I do agree with a lot of things that he says.

01:00:21

Okay. So let's see here. I have to scroll through. So I do apologize.

01:00:27

I'm just taking the one. You got to skip all the nasty ones, right? They're actually not too many.

01:00:33

I don't even see a nasty one. Okay. Jesus name magnified says, hello, Eli. Love the channel.

01:00:38

Thank you so much for that. Let's see here. Okay. Here's a question. Um, from rational evidence.

01:00:46

Why do preceptors think you need reformed theology to do presuppositional apologetics consistently? What's the logical issue with being an

01:00:53

Arminian preceptor? Now, before you answer that question, I did have, um, uh, an episode on that with presuppositionalism and reformed theology.

01:01:00

So you might want to check that out. I think it was with Emilio Ramos. Um, but I, I'll let

01:01:06

Darth answer that from his own perspective. Go for it, Darth. Well, um, even though I consider myself a, uh, a dyed in the wool presuppositionalist, uh,

01:01:15

I'm not, I'm not reformed. I certainly understand and respect the position of my reformed brothers and sisters in Christ who feel that it's a necessity, but since I'm not reformed, then

01:01:26

I don't, I wouldn't consider a necessity. What I do agree with is the extreme important emphasis on the sovereignty and providence of God.

01:01:36

And that the, the persistent unrepentance and sinfulness of man, um, is, is what is blocking them from receiving the good news.

01:01:46

And that's why we have to resort to nuclear strength arguments. Otherwise they're just going to go, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh.

01:01:54

So I disagree, but I have the utmost respect for, you know, people like Ventile and Bonson who strongly emphasize the reform basis.

01:02:05

All right. Thank you for that. Um, there we go. See, look, not all the comments are bad. Many of them are good.

01:02:11

Darth is an awesome presuppositional teacher. There you go. I'm going to try to, I'm going to try to be intentional. Well, that's, that's truth speller.

01:02:16

He, he, he got paid to say that. Okay. I'll be sure to, uh, uh, uh, include the, the nice comments as well.

01:02:25

Um, okay. So atomic apologetics, that's not, sorry. Uh, then a very asked the question, how does Darth know his metaphysical theory is true?

01:02:32

I think that goes back to the main point of your argument. Why don't you, why don't you address that? Oh, yeah. Well, it'd be, how do

01:02:38

I know it's true? The same way I know my mother's middle name. Okay. It was revealed. Okay.

01:02:43

Is there any other way, Ben and Barry? If God, if God did not give revelation, right, then how could, how could

01:02:51

I know anything? Number two, right? It's, it's because the revelation and its content are the necessary preconditions without which there could not be human intelligibility.

01:03:05

In other words, the, the, the denial of the contents and the parameters of God's revelation will immediately place somebody into an open system, a, a metaphysic of pure chance and contingency where truth and falsity as, as concepts would never be accessible or defendable.

01:03:34

Okay. So it's the, the properties and attributes of the Christian God, the parameters of the Christian worldview as instituted by, by God are the necessary conditions ontologically.

01:03:45

And if somebody says, well, I don't accept that, say, good, then you can explain to me what your metaphysic is without those parameters, without the attributes of the

01:03:55

God of the Bible and how that realm will provide for human intelligibility. The answer is you won't be able to.

01:04:02

I've been doing this for several years now. I have yet to have an atheist or an agnostic or anyone who seriously challenges a

01:04:09

Christian worldview be able to defend what is it is that is actually ultimate, absolute, and the foundational nature of reality.

01:04:19

Very good. Because they can't. Yeah, very good. Scott, Terry asked the question, who has the bigger library, you or Darth Dawkins?

01:04:29

I don't know. I know you have a big digital library. I don't know how many physical books you have, but do you have enough books yet?

01:04:37

I don't. Well, to be honest with you, in terms of my actual hard copy library that, that I have,

01:04:44

I don't have a lot of hard copy apologetic books. Okay. I do in digital form.

01:04:53

Most of my hard copy books are just general, you know, books on theology and then things like that.

01:05:00

Sure. All right. Very good. I'm going to go into my Kindle and see if I could, how many books do

01:05:05

I have? Let me see. Does it even say when you go in your Kindle? I think I have like in my

01:05:10

Kindle, like seven or 800 books, which I haven't read all of them. They're just books that I don't want to get to, whatever, blah, blah.

01:05:17

But okay. So Beneberry asked the question or makes the statement, maybe you could address this.

01:05:22

God is a brute fact because God has no explanation. No, Beneberry, you know, shame on you.

01:05:28

We've been over this many, many, many, many, many times. Okay. A brute fact is something that exists without ultimate and foundational attestation.

01:05:39

Okay. Okay. Right. God is not a brute fact. God is self -existent.

01:05:46

He's eternal. He's ultimate, right? There is no ultimate reason why a brute fact exists.

01:05:55

It just simply exists with no explanation. God has revealed the explanation of his existence, that he is simply eternal without beginning.

01:06:05

Now, if you want to say that there are brute facts, that they're like God, they're a brute fact, well, are they eternal?

01:06:14

Are they ultimate? Because you can't have a plurality of ultimates. You can only have a singular that's ultimate.

01:06:22

Because if you have a plurality of eternal things, then they would be independent of each other, right?

01:06:29

And therefore, none of them would be ultimate, right? So we've been, you know, I hate to be mean, but shame on you,

01:06:36

Beneberry. We've been over this before. God, by definition, cannot be, nor is defined as a brute fact, right?

01:06:45

God in theological terms is aese. The aese of gods means he's self -contained.

01:06:52

He does not need anything. He does not derive anything. That's why he said to Moses, I am that I am.

01:07:00

Brute facts do not possess aeseity. They just happen to exist.

01:07:06

There's no appeal to themselves. Now, if you told me that there was a brute fact out there, right, and then you told me that it was ultimate, it's absolute, it has aeseity, it's self -contained, non -absolute, unconditionally non -dependent, well, then it would not be characterized or defined as a brute fact then.

01:07:27

A brute fact has no explanation why it is. That's an important, that's actually a very important distinction.

01:07:34

So like one of the contingency arguments used in more of the classical approach, there is one of the premises where it explains that a thing can only exist either because it exists contingently or it exists out of a necessity of its own nature.

01:07:48

God exists out of a necessity of his own nature, but that's not the same as you've explained as just calling God a brute fact.

01:07:53

That's a great answer. I like that. This is a mistake that a lot of unbelievers make because there is still in a state of rebellion against God clinging desperately to that human autonomy.

01:08:07

And what they wanna do is they just wanna minimize God. They do not wanna acknowledge his complete lordship over everything.

01:08:16

The fact that he is Lord over all meaning he's ultimate, he's absolute. It means he possesses satiety and he exists simply within himself.

01:08:26

Brute facts are just simply, they exist out of a realm of chance. In other words, the brute fact is not attributed to being ultimate where God is represented or defined as ultimate.

01:08:42

So if you tell me that there's a fact that's ultimate, then it cannot be a brute fact.

01:08:49

All right, very good. Nate Werner asked the question, can you expand on the statement that in order to have human intelligibility, we have to have a creator with certain traits and properties.

01:09:00

Atheists believe this ability comes from evolution. How would you respond to that? Okay, that's a really good question.

01:09:05

Well, in order to understand why the non -Christian position is futile is you have to understand what you don't believe.

01:09:14

Where we have an ultimate creator God, he is entirely and completely self -conscious of everything about himself and he is omniscient.

01:09:23

He then creates the world, institutes all the particulars and parameters and then endows his creation with certain capacities and abilities including our ability to reason which reflects his ultimate ability to reason.

01:09:37

In a world without God, there is no metaphysical foundation for reason. You might be a determinist, you might not be a determinist, but either one that you select, it will destroy human reason and intelligibility.

01:09:51

Intelligibility isn't just going to require that humans possess reason. It requires a metaphysical framework of what is absolute and ultimate and instituting and securing what's possible and impossible.

01:10:06

You see, this is the great achievement of Charles Darwin. According to Julian Huxley, he said

01:10:11

Darwin's greatest achievement was to remove God from the sphere of rational discussion.

01:10:17

You want to believe that you have reason from an evolutionary perspective. Well, you can't.

01:10:23

Alvin Plantica has destroyed this with his argument against a naturalism from evolution.

01:10:29

It might be the case that naturalism is true, but you could never know it if evolution was true because evolution doesn't select for truth.

01:10:38

It selects for behavior. Now, evolution, you could never have actual intelligibility because any given mental state that you have is just simply the clicking molecular and neurological dominoes that have been going on for billions of years in your scenario.

01:10:57

But even that you could not attest to because that would require that your metaphysic, your worldview, establish the causal principle, right?

01:11:09

If you believe in evolution, then you are presupposing the actuality of matter and energy, the causal principle that there's a cause and effect relationship between events and that the apparent regularity of nature is real.

01:11:23

Now, if it is real, if causality and the regularity of nature is real, what imposes and sustains it?

01:11:32

Or on the other hand, is it illusory? Is it an illusion, Nate? Okay?

01:11:38

So either way you dice it or slice it, whether you adopt determinism or not, determinism and non -determinism is going to destroy your ability to reason and your background information or your metaphysic, your worldview that will have to have the parameters which provide for intelligibility.

01:12:00

You cannot attest to it. You might devoutly believe they're there, but you could never attest and defend it.

01:12:07

So I could just simply ask Nate, evolution depends upon the presupposition of causality.

01:12:14

What institutes or imposes and secures not only causality, but its perpetuity?

01:12:21

Okay? Since it's not God, what is it? And you're just going to be left by just saying, well, causality just is.

01:12:28

Well, now you're in a chance realm. You're in an open system. Never forget, if you adopt evolution, you're basically in an open system because you're removing

01:12:37

God from the sphere of rational discussion. If you're in an open system, truth and falsity are inaccessible.

01:12:43

If truth and falsity are inaccessible, there cannot be human intelligibility.

01:12:48

All right. Thank you so much for that. Very good answer there. Thanks for the

01:12:54

Super Chat Gospel Edge, $5. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. He writes, or she writes, a concept of karmic reincarnation denies the mind of God, but in the next birth punishment for deeds.

01:13:09

How do, I guess they're asking, how do you articulate that to Hindus? Well, it's going to be a little bit more tough to do that with the

01:13:17

Hindus, but we have to show them that the Hindu, and there's a variety of Hindu worldviews that are overlapping.

01:13:24

There's not just one concrete worldview of Hinduism, but overlapping, but we have to show them whatever worldview that they're holding to.

01:13:32

Let's say it's classical Hinduism where we have Brahman, and then we have he manifests himself in all these gods.

01:13:38

We have to show them that whatever metaphysic, whatever model of reality, which is a direct or an indirect denial of the

01:13:44

God of the Bible, it is incoherent. The only coherent worldview is and can be the

01:13:54

Christian worldview because of the internal coherence of the triune God, right?

01:14:00

So because God is internally coherent, he creates his world, the world reflects his coherence, okay?

01:14:07

Now, if we're positing a make -believe worldview, such as in Hinduism, it could never be coherent because it would have to reflect the ultimacy of reality, which is itself coherent, and then that reflecting in the creation, which is derived from that.

01:14:27

So the ultimacy in Hinduism cannot be coherent. For classical

01:14:33

Hinduism, it's Brahman who all is one. There are no distinctions. Brahman is a concrete one.

01:14:39

Any distinctions or manifestations are illusory. So therefore, you can't, in hardcore

01:14:45

Hinduism, where Brahman is all and distinctions are not real, it destroys the ability to predicate.

01:14:52

When we have to show them, these are just false beliefs that people go to because they want their itching ears tickled so that they can run from the

01:15:02

God that they know that they're gonna await when they die, okay? Mm -hmm, okay.

01:15:07

All right, Atomic Apologetics asked the question, please expand on the impossibility of the contrary, the impossibility to the contrary.

01:15:14

Right, so when we deny the Christian God, since the Christian God is the creator, he is the ultimate and the absolute, then positing propositions, meaningfulness and intelligibility that derive from idolatry is impossible.

01:15:31

It doesn't exist, right? And also, the putative ultimacy that they will offer instead of the

01:15:40

Christian God does not have the sufficient and complete attribute set that the Christian God has.

01:15:47

So the impossibility of the contrary is that there is no hope of intelligibility, reason or truth, or accessibility to truth and falsehood, right?

01:15:57

In other words, outright deny the Christian God to the extent that he has revealed himself and you have a metaphysic that is shrouded in mystery, okay?

01:16:08

And if your metaphysic is shrouded in mystery, then you're not gonna be able to speak intelligibly about anything in spite of the fact that you think you can.

01:16:16

But those who think they can, they're only doing so because they're robbing from the Christian worldview and they're stealing the parameters of God's creation without acknowledging him.

01:16:26

They're just basically cosmic plagiarists. That's a good way to put it.

01:16:32

All right, Rational Evidence asked the question, how can you prove that an atheist actually knows things?

01:16:38

Couldn't an atheist simply say, they assume things with a degree of certainty and claim everyone does this?

01:16:45

All I have to do is just cite what God says, game over, lights out. Lights out, okay.

01:16:54

And if somebody objects to that, then I simply say, then you have no grounds if you do not rely on God's revelatory actions, both in natural and special revelation as our metaphysical grounding, so that truth and falsity are accessible.

01:17:13

Then you have no background information, you have no metaphysic to say anything at all.

01:17:19

It's not just a matter of certainty. It's not just a matter of knowing anything. When they refuse to acknowledge

01:17:26

God as God, when they refuse to acknowledge the creator -creature distinction, then whatever propositions, whatever putative facts that they invoke, it's shrouded in a complete realm of chance and mystery.

01:17:40

And if your propositions and so -called facts are shrouded in mystery, you have no facts at all.

01:17:48

Very good. How are you doing? Are you okay? Yeah, I don't want you to feel like these are too many questions.

01:17:56

Are you doing okay? No, not at all. I'm fine. All right, wonderful. Just give me, again, 10 seconds and get a drink of water.

01:18:02

Sure, sure. All right, all right. Well, these are great questions. I hope that you guys are enjoying the content.

01:18:09

If you're just listening, if you haven't subscribed to Revealed Apologetics, I mean, like, what's up with you, bro? All right, go and click the little notification bell, subscribe, and get notifications.

01:18:17

And just a reminder, just a reminder for all those Darth haters out there and critics out there, okay?

01:18:23

I know I'm an imperfect person. How do I know? Because Eli told me so, okay?

01:18:29

No, Eli's a good guy. You know, if you want to say I'm stupid or my reason is convoluted,

01:18:36

I welcome you to come on Eli's show. Eli will strictly put a leash on me.

01:18:43

He will, he will even, I even have given him permission to muzzle me if needed. Spray me with pepper spray or capsaicin.

01:18:51

We're gonna let you talk. Every time you talk out of turn, I'll just shock you. But you see, I would say that 99 % of all these keyboard warriors who attacked me in the comments section don't have the intestinal fortitude to come on and challenge the biblical worldview, even under good, fair, and tight moderation that somebody like Eli will give.

01:19:12

They'll do it with other moderators from other debate platforms that are jellyfishes, okay?

01:19:18

So if you want to challenge the Christian worldview, contact Eli Elia. We'll set it up and you can challenge the

01:19:26

Christian. I apologize. I said, Iyalla. Again, I didn't know. Listen, listen,

01:19:32

I apologize. I'm older than you are and I'm having a Joe Biden moment. Okay, oh my goodness.

01:19:40

All right, don't worry about it. Everyone messes up on my name. It's all good. Yeah, I would be happy to moderate something. So if anyone wants to -

01:19:45

There you go. There you go. But guess what? I will be surprised if any of these keyboard warriors take it up.

01:19:53

And remember, it applies to those people who don't have a chronic history of stalking or trolling.

01:19:59

Okay, all right. Sounds good. If anyone's interested in that, you could email me at revealedapologetics at gmail .com.

01:20:04

I think that'd be something fun and informative. Let's move along. And here's a question from a theist.

01:20:12

Okay, now this is a good question because I think you get accused of doing this often.

01:20:17

And I think people wrongfully understand the presuppositional claim as being something to this effect.

01:20:22

Here's the question. Is Darth's strategy to make assertions, define God into existence, redirect and burden shift?

01:20:29

Why is it the case, Darth, that the nature of your argument is not that? You're not simply making assertions.

01:20:36

You're not simply defining God into existence, nor do you desire to redirect. And if you're redirecting, what is the purpose and importance for your redirection?

01:20:44

Okay? Okay. So each one of us at any given moment, any time of the day, any day out of the week or month, we're gonna have to decide whether all the facts that we're acquainted with, excuse me, are revelatory of God.

01:21:01

So I'm coming to my unbelievers, acquaintances, and saying, look,

01:21:09

God has revealed himself in all facts. Because if he didn't, they wouldn't be facts.

01:21:15

The moment you do not accept that and you just say, well, that's just assertion, you've just revealed that you are holding to its negation.

01:21:25

That all of these facts individually and collectively are revelatory of God.

01:21:32

Right? So you're not in a neutral position. So when you say that, when

01:21:37

I say that all facts that we're acquainted with necessitate referencing

01:21:42

God as the necessary precondition, and they reveal God because they couldn't be facts otherwise, if we believe that we have access to facts at all, then they reveal

01:21:53

God. Because if they don't, they couldn't be facts. There can only be facts in a

01:22:00

God world. Okay? And if you want to challenge that, be my guest. Come on the show and we'll talk about it.

01:22:07

So it's not just an assertion. You think it's a mere assertion. Right? Because you reject automatically that all facts are indicative of God.

01:22:17

So because you have already concluded that all facts do not reveal God, then when

01:22:23

I say all facts do reveal God according to his plan, you just think that that's a naked assertion.

01:22:30

I'm not defining God into existence. Okay? My stipulation that God exists is in virtue of God revealing himself.

01:22:38

The fact that you do not believe that or don't accept it, it's that's not my problem. Okay? So I didn't just one day wake up and make this stuff out of my head.

01:22:49

Okay? Now, you obviously believe that. Right? Our position is that God took the initiative.

01:22:55

He reveals himself through natural revelation, through creation. He reveals himself through all facts. Otherwise, they wouldn't be facts.

01:23:02

Right? But you reject that. The moment you do not accept that, you say, oh, well, that's an assertion.

01:23:09

Oh, you haven't proven that. You have already made a counterclaim, but you're unaware of it. Because unbelievers in the late 20th and early 20th century have fooled themselves into thinking that they're in a neutral position.

01:23:21

The end part of your question, you said burden shift. The very fact that you say burden shift indicates your mindset is that you're in a neutral position and that I haven't made the case.

01:23:33

Now, that might be true for gold on Mars. But when it comes to God, who is in a completely different metaphysical category.

01:23:40

Right? You will either decide all facts indicate God, or you will decide that all facts do not indicate God. There's no burden shifting here.

01:23:48

Okay? Because you can't be neutral toward God. Nobody can. And it is a popular belief that you can be neutral toward God.

01:23:56

It makes people feel good. Right? But it's simply to insulate themselves from having to defend what their real position.

01:24:04

Mr. Atheist, or however you say your name. All I would have to show you that you're not neutral and there's not burden shifting here is simply this.

01:24:13

Do you believe that it is necessary to reference God as the necessary precondition?

01:24:18

There's no way you can give a neutral answer to that. If you say, I don't know. I'll say, well, I didn't ask you if you know.

01:24:24

I asked you, do you believe? So there's no burden shifting here. If you claim on burden shifting, it's because you have fooled yourself into thinking that you can take a neutral position toward God and take a neutral position as to whether all facts are indicative of God or they are not.

01:24:44

All right. Very good. We're almost done. You're doing great. I appreciate it too. This is a good point here.

01:24:50

I'm getting paid for this, right? Yeah. Yeah, sure. Sure. Paid in friendship. Wait a minute.

01:24:58

I breached a contract. But hey, my friendship is worth something, right? I'd like, I mean, I'd hope.

01:25:04

I guess so. I got a Christmas card, right? Yeah, you technically did. You technically did. I did.

01:25:09

I did. And you know what? Those are beautiful kids. Okay. Thank you.

01:25:14

I appreciate it. Did the adoption take very long? I know it was very quick. Just kidding, folks.

01:25:22

Just kidding. That's hilarious. All right. So rational evidence asked the question, can unbelievers suppress the truth against their will, i .e.

01:25:32

they want to believe but can no longer get there because of Hebrews 6, 4, a seared conscience, unforgivable sin, and all that.

01:25:41

Can unbelievers suppress the truth against their own will? I'm not sure I understand that, okay?

01:25:46

If they want to believe it. No, I think that Jesus said, there's only one unforgivable sin, and that is blasphemy against the

01:25:55

Holy Spirit. All manner of sins among men can be forgiven, but the only sin that is unforgivable is the blasphemy against the

01:26:01

Holy Spirit. And that is the persistent chronic rejection of the convicting power of the Holy Spirit to repent and turn to God's revelation as they know it, and in this age,

01:26:12

Jesus Christ. And people who do that, they will die in their sins and be separated from God, and they will have no one to blame but themselves on judgment day.

01:26:22

All right, very good. Converse Contender, thank you for the $1 .99

01:26:28

Super Chat. I appreciate it. He's saying, tell Darth, I've been trying to get in touch with him.

01:26:33

I don't know if you know who that person is. Yeah, Converse Contender, I'm regularly on the Reformation server on Discord.

01:26:40

All you have to do is Google or Bing Reformation server and find the link. Okay, all right, very good.

01:26:48

Let's see here. Oh, gotta move down some of the comments. Let's see here.

01:27:02

That might be, that might be. Well, interesting. You said there weren't a lot of nasty comments, maybe because it's due to the nature of the host.

01:27:12

Because when I've been on modern day debates, the nasty comments are run amok.

01:27:23

Maybe, I have no idea. I'm glad that people are behaving. And even people who disagree with you, they might say like, hey, your arguments are whack or whatever, but they're, for the most part,

01:27:34

I mean, I don't see anything too crazy. People are being somewhat nice about it. So I do appreciate that.

01:27:40

And just, I mean, that's helpful for communication. So if you're doing that within the comments, I think that's a great thing, so.

01:27:47

Yeah, and remember, if any of you out there in YouTube land, you think

01:27:52

I'm whacked, you think I'm offering specious reasoning, and you think that it can be destroyed, contact

01:28:00

Eli and we can talk about it where it'll be strictly moderated by Eli.

01:28:07

Yeah, I'll definitely moderate it. Yep, definitely reach out to me. I'm just trying to scroll and make sure I didn't skip anything.

01:28:13

I do apologize if I've skipped anything that someone might've asked. Okay, and I think, no, that's not a real question.

01:28:23

If you want, they're like these rhetorical questions. I have to, let me see here. I think that is it.

01:28:31

That is it. Hey, I think this went very well. And I think you did an excellent job. You addressed a whole host of issues and hopefully people will, let me erase that comment.

01:28:40

There's no way I could erase that comment there. Hopefully people can listen back at this and get a lot from it.

01:28:46

I think this was very helpful. I really appreciate your time, Darth. Well, thank you for having me on.

01:28:52

You wore down my resistance with your charm.

01:28:58

Oh, thank you. Yeah, go ahead. Were you gonna say something?

01:29:07

No, just the begging, the pleading, the cajoling. It just wore me down. Just for everybody knows,

01:29:14

I like busting Eli's chops because he's just such a nice guy most of the time.

01:29:19

Well, and I appreciate that. And I know a lot of people give you flack for various reasons and interactions that you've had.

01:29:25

But I have to say that my interactions with you and just the communicating back and forth, you've been nothing but helpful, respectful.

01:29:31

And we've had some great conversations in the past. And so I very much appreciate the time you have spent helping me in my various questions and things that I bring up.

01:29:41

So I appreciate that. Well, I appreciate what you're doing. I think that some of the interviews that you have done are unique and haven't been done on other outlets.

01:29:49

And I've actually enjoyed listening to many of your guests and I've learned, especially like listening to Scott Oliphant.

01:29:57

I really enjoyed listening to, I'm having another Joe Biden moment.

01:30:03

Chris Bolt, is that his name? Yes, yes. I love listening to Chris Bolt.

01:30:10

He was great. There was one other guy. I can't remember what his name was.

01:30:18

It was a couple of months ago, but I just, I don't think there's really, I haven't watched all your videos, but there's never one that I've been disappointed with.

01:30:27

Always been pleased with what you're doing. Well, I very much appreciate that. So folks, if - Of course, this is my favorite one right here now.

01:30:33

Apart from the technical difficulties in the beginning, I thought this was very great.

01:30:39

We covered a lot of ground. I apologize for that. I'm using an audio program to get other soundtrack when

01:30:46

I'm on Discord and I forgot to turn that off and I had to reboot my system. So that was my fault.

01:30:52

Well, no problem. Well, thank you so much. And guys, please subscribe to Revealed Apologetics on YouTube and iTunes.

01:30:59

I apologize for my iTunes podcast listeners. I haven't updated the podcast recently. So I'll be sure to, within the next day or two, upload the most recent episodes.

01:31:08

So once again - Yeah, just for my fellow believers out there, please pray for all the Darth haters out there that they haven't had a heart attack tonight.

01:31:16

And have to be rushed to the hospital. I just - One more quick announcement.

01:31:21

You can still sign up for a free sub view on revealedapologetics .com. I will be releasing another session of the course that's currently out now.

01:31:31

And you can sign up from now until February 15th. So if you're interested in doing that, you can do that on the website.