Presuppositional Apologetics | Rapp Report Weekly 0030 | Striving for Eternity

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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Today's show is going to deal with a subject called pre -subpositional apologetics. It is a message that was delivered at the 2018

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Equip NorCal conference in Redwood City, California. That will be what we are going to have for you today on The Rap Report.

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Welcome to The Rap Report with Andrew Rapaport, where we provide biblical interpretations and applications.

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This is the ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

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All right, so we have a cool episode for you today. It is, like I said, a message that was delivered at the recent

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Equip NorCal on the issue of pre -subpositional apologetics. But first, unfortunately,

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I have to deal with some guys over at Theology Driven. I hope you find this entertaining, because I want you to realize these guys are a real serious type of podcast.

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I got to respond to what they did, because they called me out. Here it is. Yo, James, Andrew Rapaport, Andrew Rapaport is going to be doing a podcast talking about the

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Sabbath. Oh, is he? Yeah. He was making fun of me, because he was like, all you ever do is post memes and one -word responses.

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Do you ever do anything more than that? So I just wrote back, and I was like, yes.

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You nailed his voice. I'm spot on. I've never met him, but that was a good

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New Jersey accent. It's very New Jersey. I agree. No, no, it wasn't. It wasn't.

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Just saying. It's totally New Jersian. Hey, if you guys don't want to come up to Jersey, we have terrible smog and even worse driving.

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Okay, we don't have smog, but yeah, you guys on Theology Driven, I challenge you to come here and drive in Jersey.

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I don't think you can handle it. Oh, man.

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Andrew, I can't imagine what you're going to do in retaliation. Well, now you get to see, because boys, it's on.

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Jersey's that part of New York you drive through on your way to Canada. Excuse me. What was that?

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The part of where exactly? Goodness gracious.

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Anyways, I don't think that's even geographically accurate, but I don't care. It's not. It's totally not. It sounded wonderful.

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No, no, it wasn't accurate at all. And you guys are going to say that you're going to respond to me with things like this?

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We're going to be working on something. I'm just going to say this so that if I say it out loud on this podcast, we have to do it.

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We are working on addressing Andrew Rappaport's recent podcast where he addresses a recent podcast by Theology Gals on the

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Sabbath. So you got Presbyterians versus Baptists versus Reformed Baptists.

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It's going to be awesome. I don't know what it's going to look like, but it's going to be sweet. So I'm holding it.

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It doth been decreed. What, next week? Yeah, I say we could do it next week. We'll start planning on it now, and we'll find out.

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Andrew did this really cool thing where he interacted with what they actually said, like playing it, and we'll just try to make it nice and neat for you guys.

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But anyways. Yeah, I don't think they can handle it. Why? Because, well, I know they got their soundboard that they use to make it sound like they're driving.

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We're going to get to that later. But the reality is, sorry, boys, you're just not up to the snuff here.

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You're not up to this class to be able to really know how to use your soundboard other than playing your little bit of sound like you're driving.

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Just saying. So these guys want to call us out here at The Rappaport, and they're going to respond to us.

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Well, bring it on, boys. Bring it on. Let's see what you got. Because, yes, we responded to the

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Theology Gals, and we did that on the Sabbath. Let's see what you guys can do, because really, guys, listen, folks who are listening,

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I want you to realize, the guys over at Theology Driven are very serious. I mean, they get into discussions like this.

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www .heretoday .com www. I didn't want people to think

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I was actually giving an actual. Are there? Are you serious? Okay, there's actually four W's?

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Okay, let's see if they realize what www actually stands for.

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I bet they can't do it. What does it stand for? For real, like, it was a, I believe it was a big server problem thing.

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It was back in, I think it started in like. Now, by the way that you notice here, just pay attention.

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All of a sudden, they start playing X -Files music, and you don't hear the sound of the car anymore?

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Hmm, maybe they only know how to do one thing at a time on their sound board. 2005, but it didn't really get very widespread for some reason.

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I mean, I don't know. I think it might have had to do with handling big data. Like some servers really didn't know how to handle it or something.

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Big data, big data, big data. Kevin, at this portion, at this entire portion, you need to sub over the

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X -Files theme song or the Twilight Zone one. As James is describing it, because that's some trippy stuff

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I've never heard of before. I'm going to look it up. Yeah, well, you go look that up, and what you're going to find is

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WWW stands for World Wide Web. That's what it stands for, boys.

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Now, they start making statements like this on their recent podcast. By the way, they mentioned me five times in their podcast, ripping me most of the time, but they make statements.

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I'm sorry, boys. You're false. Here's what they end up saying about a certain statement. But anyways, yeah, we're talking about the statement on social justice and the gospel, because we know nobody else is talking about this.

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Yeah, we're really the first ones. We're the first ones to break ground on that. The first ones to break ground?

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Are you kidding me? Let me go back and look at my podcast. Oh, look at that. Recorded 8 .15,

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boys. 8 .15. You probably don't even know that the original date of the drop was supposed to be 8 .20.

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It was delayed by a couple weeks. Sorry, boys. You were not first out of the gate.

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I think I was the first signer. Were you? No. He was the first signer. Just kidding.

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I think I was J -Mac. Wrong there, too? Probably. But who knows?

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I do. Yeah, we got, I'm looking at some of the initial signers right now. We have Dr. John MacArthur.

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What's that? Ah, funny. He's punny. That's a pun. That's a pun there.

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I get it. Yeah, we got John. We got John MacArthur. We got Tom Askall, who we had on our podcast, what, two weeks ago.

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We got, of course, Voti, Josh Bice from G3, Darryl Harrison. Do you need a second to pick up that name you just dropped?

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Yeah, they need to pick up that name that just dropped. Let's see how they handled that name on a previous podcast.

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This is the first time I've had coffee from Zambia, and it is... From where?

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Zambia. It's Zambia, bro. Says you. How do you know it's not a soft

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A? Because I've heard everyone, I've heard Voti Bakken pronounce it. I've heard Conrad pronounce it.

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Voti's got some... Voti just has, he has a heavy, thick voice. It just comes out horrible.

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James can't even pronounce Bakken. Raise your hand, raise your hand if you've been to Zambia. Okay, Voti wins.

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Okay, so they want to talk about Voti Bakken, but you notice they ended up, he just had to mention Voti because of the name that he dropped.

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Why? Because, well, he couldn't pronounce the last name, maybe. All right, so they've been calling me out for a long time because I've been calling them out.

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I want evidence that they're actually driving while they're talking theology. That's their podcast,

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Theology Driven. And they ended up making a challenge like this to me.

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Hey, Andrew, by the way, I know you're listening and you're judging us right now because you don't think we're driving. Oh, I am judging you right now.

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So, I had an idea. I can't think of a single soundboard or sound effect that has driving down the road and opening the windows.

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So, I just opened the windows. So, now it's going to be windier. I don't know how I'm going to recreate that on a soundboard.

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That's a refreshing breeze. Maybe he'll think you're blowing into a microphone. That's probably what he thinks is happening. Oh, man.

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I think the only way to fix this is we just got to have him in the car with us and do an episode. Okay, before we get to the rest of that clip, let us deal with the fact that, is it really that hard to produce that sound?

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Well, let's see if I, on my little soundboard, can do just that.

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Here we go. Here we got some internal noise. And all I got to do is kind of crank it up a little bit.

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Oh, look. I'm opening the window. It just got louder. I can even add some street ambience to it if I want to.

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I can also add some rain. Can you add the rain?

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No. Maybe I want some night sounds while I'm driving. I can do that.

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You just need a better soundboard, boys. That's all. Just get yourself a better soundboard.

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Because I can do these things. You should be able to, too. I guess maybe your soundboard can only handle one thing at a time, like X -Files or driving.

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Yeah, Andrew, that's a challenge. And a challenge taken. It's many miles from New Jersey.

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He and I have been talking a little bit behind the scenes. We're going to try to work that out pretty soon. Oh, that would be so cool. Stay tuned for that.

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We would love to have you, Andrew. I would love to meet you. We'll have to do that on a weekend when I'm in town.

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That would be sweet. I'll talk to you about the details. Ooh, secret podcast stuff.

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You guys don't get to hear it. All five of you. Okay, that's probably about all they got.

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Maybe I should break the news before you guys even do that. Nah, I won't do that. Because you know what?

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Even if I did, you guys would probably forget. This is actually what goes on on their podcast. Sorry, I'm at a weird angle trying to make a turn.

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Do you hear how he put it? Weird angle trying to make a turn. Really? I didn't even hear anything. Just kidding,

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Andrew Rappaport. I'm just sitting in a studio. I think you are. Watch out for those other studios that might hit you.

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We coming for you, Andrew. What was the point you were trying to make? You're absolutely right.

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That is something we can all work on. I forgot what my point was.

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There you go. I just tried to drop James off at his house. We're kind of closing up here in a second.

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I forgot that he drove to my house. I pulled up and parked in front of his house. He looked at me like I had two heads. I thought you just like driving around my neighborhood.

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It's pretty nice, I guess. Do you see the efforts these guys go through to try to argue that they're actually driving when

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I don't think they are. I don't think they're driving. And then they talk about a phrase that I've been...

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I know that I've been saying this longer than they know, but I know where I got this phrase from from my seminary professor.

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Actually, he was the dean of the seminary. But they talk about this because there's something very interesting that happens. Listen to this from Theology Driven.

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There's a guy that I talk to every once in a while. Every time I see him, I'm like, Hey man, how are you?

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His response every single time is, Better than I deserve. At first, I kind of made fun of that.

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I was like, that's super. That's like saying that the answer is Jesus at Sunday school.

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That's kind of the corny thing. But the reality is, he's right.

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He's not doing what I do and what other people do, which is let me give you the top 30 things that are bothering me about my life right now.

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He's saying, in light of Christ, I am doing better than I deserve. Let me let you guys know something over there.

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Saying when people ask, How are you doing? They don't care about an answer. They just are asking it.

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Here's the reason I end up saying it. One, because it's true. Second, I have had so many gospel witnessing opportunities because I've said, better than I deserve when someone asks how

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I'm doing. And they say, don't you deserve the best? I say, no. Because of my sin, I deserve hell and damnation.

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But God has given me grace and has forgiven me and given me eternal life. And then

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I start to share how they can have it. I think throughout this podcast already, I've mentioned their podcast several times.

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They call me out so many times and not once do they even mention my podcast. Really?

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But when they talk about Rich talking about better than I deserve, I think

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I understand why they can't mention my podcast. They're the biggest jerks.

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I know, right? Oh my gosh. Oh yes, you do. Go search. Quick, search. Theology Hillbillies.

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Go search it already. Why can't I think of their podcast name? Because you don't care. Goodness gracious.

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Listen, pretend like they knew it all along. Voice of Raisins. Voice of Raisins. Chris, Richard, did you hear that?

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Those guys don't even know the name of the podcast. That's what I think is the reason they don't mention mine. Maybe it's because, well,

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I think they're devolving. All right, y 'all. We're going to leave you with some scripture to wrap this bad boy up because we are starting to, what's the word, devolve?

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Starting? I think we started that in episode one. I think I agree. Episode one. I've actually gone all the way back to episode one and binged listened to all of them.

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I think I agree with them. Now, I got to be fair. They did say some nice things about me.

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I'll react with that as well. Well, hey, if you guys want to leave us a review on whatever podcast client you use, we would love that.

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It would be encouraging and edifying for us. Something Andrew Rappaport said, we talk into our microphones all the time and we don't really always get to interact with you guys.

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Some of you guys aren't on social media, so I get that, but we'd love to hear from you and interact with you.

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Maybe we'll read it on the show and maybe we'll interact with it as well. Oh, man.

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The reason we're laughing is because we've seen some old comments that we didn't get to address and we feel like total buttheads.

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Old comments? How old could those comments be? Well, don't worry, boys and girls.

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We find out. Well, whatever client you use to listen to us with, leave us a review.

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Leave us a review. I was listening to Andrew Rappaport and I liked what he said. It doesn't do anything for us necessarily, but it can be encouraging.

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One of the reasons why people probably don't leave us any comments is because we don't ever read them. We got a comment from Papa John1962.

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I think the 1962 part was the year that he left the comment. Maybe. I like it.

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It's awesome. He says that we are truck driver approved.

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He said, as a truck driver on a dedicated run, I have lots of drive time to listen to Orthodox Biblical teaching and preaching.

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I'm glad to add your podcast to my daily lineup. One request. Yeah, it's really sweet.

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One request. This is back in January 29, 2018. I'm sorry, we stink.

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January? This was recorded, by the way, guys, in September? Nine months later?

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That was our first or second episode. Could you please send contact information?

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So the guy contacts him on their first episode and they're finally getting back to him. He's a Navy veteran. I would love to have an opportunity to talk with one or more of you.

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Hey, Papa John, if you still listen to us, check us out. I don't know if he still does.

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He probably doesn't listen after nine months of you guys not responding to him. Edit that out.

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This is the best. We're finally getting back to Papa John nine months later.

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That pizza's cold. Alright, we can edit that out. That's fair. Oh no, please don't edit that out.

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But don't worry, I got it for you. Listen, guys, I hope you do go over to Theology Driven.

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They're a great podcast. Clearly not as serious as we are here, I think, but yeah.

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They wanted to call me out. I'm sorry I had to do the extended to give all the clips for what they've been calling me out on.

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They pretend to be driving. They're not really driving. I see no evidence for it. But we are talking.

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They are correct. There is discussion of doing a special where they actually drive and do theology.

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Hope that you enjoyed that. Some entertainment for you. After this commercial, or a couple commercials, we're going to play basically the message from Equip NorCal on presuppositional apologetics.

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Ding dong! Jehovah's Witnesses. Ding dong! Mormons. Christian, are you ready to defend the faith when false religions ring your doorbell?

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Do you know what your Muslim and Jewish friends believe? You will if you get Andrew Rappaport's book

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What Do They Believe? When we witness to people, we need to present the truth. But it is very wise to know what they believe.

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And you will get Andrew Rappaport's book at WhatDoTheyBelieve .com The good news is

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Striving for Eternity would love to come to your church to spend two days with your folks teaching them biblical hermeneutics.

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That's right. The art and science of interpreting scripture. The bad news is somebody attending might be really upset to discover

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Jeremiah 29 11 should not be their life verse. To learn more, go to StrivingForEternity .org

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to host a Bible interpretation made easy seminar in your area. Here's what

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I'd like you to do. I'd like you to open to Romans 1 as we get going. I'm going to talk about something called presuppositional apologetics.

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Is there anybody who's heard of that before? Raise your hands. Okay, a couple. For the rest of you, does that sound intimidating?

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Yes. I know. And if I do my job well, you will be able to understand it.

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And it'll make it so easy to go, why that sounds so hard? That's my hope.

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Okay, how many of you know someone who is an atheist? Raise your hand.

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Okay. How many of you know someone that says they're agnostic?

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Raise your hand. Okay, so let's define those really quick. An atheist is someone who knows that God does not exist.

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Right? Okay. Let's see if that's possible really quick. To know that God doesn't exist would first require me to know everything there is in the universe, wouldn't it?

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Because I'd have to know everything to know that God does not exist. If I knew everything there is to know in the universe, what would you call me?

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Thank you. Therefore, atheism is impossible. Because to be an atheist, you'd have to be a

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God. And guess what? God's not an atheist. Okay, so there's people who are agnostic, right?

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Really. Let us turn to Romans chapter 1 and see if that is true.

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We're going to look at Romans 1, 18 to 23. Let's see if God believes in atheists or agnostics.

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And this is the key text for our subject. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

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

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For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.

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So they are without excuse. For although they knew

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God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

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Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal

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God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

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It's amazing, isn't it? Doesn't so much of that describe our culture? Those who think they're wise and yet they become foolish.

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We're going to see why they become foolish, what makes them foolish in a few minutes, but are there agnostics?

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Not according to that verse. According to that verse, every single person knows that God exists.

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He's made it abundantly clear to everyone. Just look at creation. They know

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God exists, but what do they do? They suppress that in unrighteousness. They try to push it down.

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By the way, the people that try to push it down the most are usually the ones that think about God the most. Ever wonder why it is that those who profess to be atheists think about God more than Christians?

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It's really an amazing thing. I like to point that out to them. These guys that spend their entire day online trying to prove

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God doesn't exist. It's really a puzzling thing to me. I'll ask them sometimes.

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Let me understand. You read blogs about atheism, right? Oh, yeah. I love that stuff.

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You read books about it? Oh, yeah. There's some great books out. Sam Harris has a great one. You read books about this.

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You watch documentaries and movies? Oh, yeah. But you don't believe

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God exists? No. Every December, do you go to the mall to stand outside where they're taking the pictures and say,

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Santa doesn't exist! And they go, no! Why not? You know what the answer

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I always get? Because everyone knows he doesn't exist. I go, thank you. I wait for it to sink in.

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The reason you're reading all these blogs and books and documentaries is because you're trying to convince yourself that God doesn't exist.

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Because if you really believed he doesn't exist, like Santa Claus at the mall, you wouldn't waste your time.

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And that's the thing we have to start with to realize they know God exists. So I take this as an axiom.

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An axiom is a starting point without proof that you cannot prove. So when

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I look at this, I end up saying, well, you see, we look at this and say the necessary starting point for any knowledge is going to be

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God. Now I'm not saying that you can't have knowledge without believing in God. What I'm saying is in order for knowledge to make sense,

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God must exist. I was going on a cruise with my wife last

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December. Pray for my family. Especially my wife. The kids moved out.

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They don't have to deal with me as a dad anymore. But pray for my wife. She still has to live with me and go through experiences like this.

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We're going on a cruise. Have you ever been on a cruise before? Okay, before you get on the cruise they put you on this holding pen like an animal going to slaughter.

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And they put you there and you're sitting and waiting for your number to be called to go onto the ship. What do

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I do? I turn to the guy sitting across me. I start a conversation. I say, hey, did you get one of these?

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He's like, what's this? It's a gospel tract. It has good news for Jesus Christ. He goes, I'm an atheist. Oh, hey, cool.

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Hey, could you give me your best argument for atheism? He goes, I'm a scientist. I said, yeah, well, okay,

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I argue you can't do science without God, but I asked for your best argument for atheism. He's like, I told you, I'm a scientist.

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Okay. But you can't do science without God first existing. He's like, no.

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Science is the answer to everything. I said, okay, so you do science, right? He says, yes. So science requires things like knowledge, right?

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Truth? Laws of logic? Yeah, yeah. I said, okay, those things are all immaterial things.

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They can't come about by natural processes like a chemical reaction, can they? You see, that's something that's immaterial.

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I can't pour you a cup of logic, can I? So I said, well, you have some things you require to do science like truth, knowledge, an ability to reason, laws of logic.

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So for you to be able to do science, you first need an immaterial source for those abilities.

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We call him God. At that point, he's like, I just want to have a nice cruise. Needless to say, by the way,

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I finished the story, is that we saw him the last day of the cruise. He had no one to eat dinner with. Jack, you want to come and have dinner with us?

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Sure. Poor Jack. Jack made the bad argument that there's no intelligent

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Christians. There's not intelligent people that would be a Christian. I said, what would you define as intelligence?

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He's like, well, there's not smart people that do science. Well, it turns out, Jack, I'm in the same branch of science as you.

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And by the way, I have 168 IQ. How's that sound? And so he turned to the other guy at the table who was sitting with us and he didn't realize that guy was a

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Christian at that point. He said, what do you think? He goes, well, I'm a Christian too and I'm a mechanical engineer. It didn't go well for Jack that night.

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But you notice how quickly I could go through that. You see, the argument that they have fails because of one thing.

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They have to steal from our worldview for theirs. And what do they do?

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This is what they argue. They say, could you do me a favor? Can you take this book of yours? Put it over there and let's have a dialogue.

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Why would I want to do that? Why would I want to leave the truth and then talk about your falsehood to be neutral?

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Really? Are you neutral? Will you agree to throw out all of your science books so we can talk about science?

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Well, why would I do that? That wouldn't make sense. But you want me to take the Bible, God's word, and then talk about God.

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Throw this out. That doesn't make any sense either. Right? If we're going to talk about God or creation, let's start with the only scientific evidence we have for the creation of the universe.

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Why do I say that? Are you familiar with the scientific method? It requires observation, repeatability, someone that can create something as an experiment, repeat this, and they have to observe it and then write it down.

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In the beginning, there was this big bang. Who observed it?

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Well, I think we know because someone spoke and bang, it happened. He said, let there be light.

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And then he wrote it down for us to know. Do you know that this is the only scientific evidence for the creation of the universe?

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Because the person who observed it and made it happen wrote it down. By the way, one day he's going to wipe it away and recreate it.

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So we even got the recreation of it. So we got the repeating. You see, what you end up with is they want to deny that.

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And it's a really kind of funny, isn't it? You talk to someone that says they're an atheist. I had a guy on Twitter back and forth a couple of months ago, and he was like, he's arguing

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God doesn't exist. I said, okay, in the beginning, we agree that matter had a beginning, right?

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He says, yeah. I said, okay, what was it in the beginning that created the matter? He's like, well, nothing.

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I said, okay, so nothing created it. He's like, yeah, nothing doesn't do anything.

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Nothing is nothing. It doesn't create. He said, we don't quite know what the nothing is.

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I said, okay, so there was something in the beginning that created the whole matter, energy and everything, but we don't know what it is.

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He says, yes, but you know it can't be God. Yes. And my response was, are you reading what you're saying?

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I mean, it seems so simple, right? But the thing is, is that when we look at what

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God says, why don't they understand? It's very simple because they already know that truth and want to deny it.

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A person who is in denial of the truth will believe anything, I mean anything, other than the truth.

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I mean, they make up fairy tales for adults. You ever hear of evolution? I got into this long

31:05

Twitter battle with a guy because I made the statement, I don't believe, me being a Christian, I believe in fairy tales.

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I said, I'm not the one that believes frogs can become a prince. It's amazing how so many of them want to tell me, you don't understand evolution.

31:18

You mean a frog could never become a prince if evolution was true? Given enough time, can't this happen?

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And they, no, it can't. Well, I agree, it can't. But you can't say that from your world view.

31:33

Right? Because they know that a frog becoming a man is a fairy tale. I mean, instead of a kiss, supplement millions of years, and they still know it's a fairy tale.

31:44

By the way, we're not the ones that believe in magic. They say we believe in magic. The Big Bang is magic.

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I mean, there was nothing and then boom, a magical bang and everything comes into existence. That's magic.

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We believe in a person who created, people create, right?

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We create things. So a being that can create, that's not unusual.

32:08

More extraordinary claim is to say that nothing created something. And you could be really, really smart. You could be as smart as Stephen Hawking.

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If you've read his book, he has a book out where he basically says that we have to understand that in the beginning of the universe, before the

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Big Bang, there was this really incident, really small point of energy that was so small it didn't even exist.

32:28

And this was nothing. And this nothing was actually something that exploded into everything. I was outside of NYU University.

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Washington Square Park. You have really smart people there. I was talking with a PhD candidate. And he was talking to me about Stephen Hawking's brilliance.

32:46

And I said, wait a minute. Is nothing nothing or is nothing something? He said, nothing is something.

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I said, look, you may be much smarter than me. I may be having a hard time understanding this. But to me, nothing is nothing and something nothing can be something.

33:01

Something can be nothing. Nothing is nothing. Something is something. Which is it? Is nothing something or is nothing nothing? He says, it was something.

33:08

Okay, so it was something, not nothing. He says, no, it was nothing. And the crowd starts laughing. I'm going, is anyone else having a hard time with this?

33:14

You see how easy it is to get them into a pretzel. Why? Because their starting point is flawed.

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And they will go anywhere that they think will make sense to get them to a point to say, this is right.

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But it's not right. So this is the argument that we would make in what's called presuppositional apologetics.

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Presupposition is something you believe before. Right? A supposition you first have.

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I have two presuppositions. God exists. He has spoken.

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Those two. Without those two, we can't know the things of the universe. We can't have a way of explaining our ability to have reason.

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You see, if you take chemical reactions, maybe some of you did this as a child, you had to make that clay volcano, and you put a little bit of baking soda in there, and you pour a little bit of vinegar in there, and what happens?

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It foams over, right? Okay, I hope none of you were like me and said, well, if a little bit of baking soda and a little bit of vinegar makes a cool foam, what does a whole box of baking soda and a whole, you know, bottle of vinegar make?

34:38

It makes a spanking. I've learned this from personal experience, and a big mess that you have to clean up before dinner.

34:47

And so, the thing is, chemical reactions, now this chemical reaction of the baking soda and vinegar, is it morally right or wrong?

34:57

You're picking up on this, right? It's not either, is it? You see, chemical reactions aren't moral.

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They just are. You see, a chemical reaction cannot create something that is immaterial.

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They can only make a material thing. So when you look at something like the laws of logic, chemical reactions can't create that.

35:26

Now there's two ways, I'm going to give you two ways to argue a presuppositional approach to sharing with folks that say

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God does not exist. I like the way of using the law of logic, but most people like the rule of morality.

35:43

So, I'm going to start with logic, I'm going to end with morality. The laws of logic, most people are going to argue that the laws of logic are from the human mind.

35:56

Okay? Alright, well let's take a look at that. I was actually out in Los Angeles, California with the other speaker who will be here tonight,

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Mark Spence, and we're in different areas sharing the gospel and I had six high school kids and I had this guy come up to me and he's trying to make an argument that God doesn't exist, but it's really funny, he was kind of doing like, you know, he'd be like,

36:20

God doesn't exist! And he'd come back, like six times! He's just like, drive -by, you know, heckling.

36:27

You know? And so finally I stopped him and I said, look, why don't you stop just dropping your things, like, let's discuss this.

36:34

He's like, alright. I said, okay, so you argue God doesn't exist. Let's talk about the law of logic.

36:41

How can we have laws of logic? The first law of logic, when you understand logic and learn logic, the first law is the law of identity, okay?

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You have to know what something is and it is what it is. The second law of logic is the law of non -contradiction.

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I always go to the second law. The law of non -contradiction would say you can't have A and not A at the same time in the same way.

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In other words, I could have $20 in my wallet, or I could not have $20 in my wallet, but I can't have $20 in my wallet and not have $20 in my wallet at the same time.

37:19

I usually have $20 in my wallet until my wife finds my wallet. No. That doesn't happen.

37:26

She takes it from the kids. Actually, we do. Every Chinese New Year, the kids get more money than us from all their aunts and uncles.

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That just becomes our cash. We just write them a check and put it in their bank. That becomes how we get checks.

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It's kind of our ATM, you know, once a year. The thing is that I could have $20 in my wallet or not have it in my wallet, but I can't have both at the same time.

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I could have had it in my wallet and then went to Starbucks. I would never go there. Go to Dunkin Donuts if you have them out here and spend that $20.

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Now, at one point I had it. At a later point, I didn't. That seems simple enough to understand.

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Let's think about this. I always ask this question. Before there was a human mind, we all believe there was a point before human minds.

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I just believe it was five days. You think it was millions of years, but we agree there was a time before human minds, right?

38:26

Yeah, okay. I said, sir, let me ask you this. Could the universe have existed and not existed at the same time and in the same way before there was a human mind?

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See, if it's the human mind that created logic, then the answer should be true. Now, most people want to say it's not true because they want to follow what's logical.

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Not this guy. He wanted to stick to his faith. So he says, yes, it could have existed and not existed at the same time in the same way.

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I said, so you accept contradictions? He said, yes. He said so proudly. I said, well, you're wrong.

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He says, I'm right. I said, you're wrong. I'm right. I said, sir, you are wrong.

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And you should not disagree with me because you accept contradictions. But if you think that you're right and I'm wrong, then you've left your world being entered mind that we can't have contradictions.

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Now he was stuck. Isn't that simple enough to do? And it's so much fun because you see them going like they want to tell you you're wrong.

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But now all of a sudden they realize if I say you're wrong, you're right. They're really stuck now.

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That's why I love the law of logic. It's funny you can see their face kind of cringe and they realize when the realization hits them.

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But you see the laws of logic are not something that we can say happen by a human mind or evolution.

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No, where we get the laws of logic are from the very nature of God.

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God is logical. So when he created everything had the laws of logic instilled into that because he is a logical being.

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You see why God becomes a necessary starting point for our thinking? Because I can explain this.

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In fact, let me give you something from Dr. Silvestro's book. He'll be speaking tomorrow.

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But he has an introduction, chapter 7, an introduction to presuppositional apologetics.

40:36

He stole something. Well, he credited it so it's not really stealing, right? But he took something from a friend of ours,

40:44

Dr. Jason Lyle, and it's called an AIP test. Three ways to test a worldview to see if it's valid.

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The first is, is it arbitrary? And he says this, he says, a worldview to be valid at first must not be arbitrary.

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In other words, you can't just make it up as you go along. It can't be some personal preference. It has to be something that has a standard that's universally true, right?

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So it can't be just arbitrary. It can't, his second one is inconsistent. The second, for a worldview to be valid, it must be consistent.

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It must be able to support itself and not have any things that conflict with it.

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And the third, the P, is the precondition of intelligibility. And Dr. Svesh says, for a worldview to be valid, it must satisfy the preconditions of intelligibility and these include a basis of knowledge, uniformity of nature, absolute morality, reliability of senses and memory, laws of logic.

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Okay, so inconsistent. For it to be valid, it has to have a consistency to it.

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Is atheism able to hold to that? Well, let's see.

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If you ask an atheist about the laws of logic, where do they go? The human mind. And yet, that means that logic couldn't have existed before that.

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Well, okay, let's look at some of the others. Let's look at some like truth or knowledge or ability to reason.

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How do you know you have an ability to reason? Well, my senses tell me so. And how do you know your senses are correct?

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Because I've observed it. And how do you know that your observation is true? Because my senses tell me so.

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And how do you know your senses are right? Because I've observed it. And how do you know the observation is true?

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Because my senses tell me. Anyone see a problem here? It's a circular argument. It's a loop they can't get out of.

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Because the thing that they use to prove the other requires the previous thing.

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They accuse us of that. They'll accuse us that we only, the reason we believe in the Bible or in God is because the

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Bible tells me so. Okay, well, let's look at that for a second. Is the reason that I believe in God because the

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Bible tells me so? Well, that's partially true, right? Because Romans 1, what do we see? What do we, what is the evidence that everybody has so that they are without excuse?

43:27

Creation. Now, is creation going to tell me everything about God? No. So, I'm going to say, well,

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I could believe in God outside and know he exists outside of the Bible. Okay, but the only reason you believe the

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Bible, right, that's my second presupposition, right? God exists as one. He is spoken as two.

43:48

The only reason you believe the Bible is because the Bible says it's trustworthy. Oh, no. No, no, no.

43:54

You see, the reason I believe the Bible is trustworthy is because its author cannot lie.

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Again, what am I going back to? The nature of God. So, because of the nature of God, that he can't lie, therefore, if he writes something, it must be true.

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Now, I'm not in a circular argument. And they go, uh, uh, uh, uh. And they have trouble.

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You see, because their worldview is inconsistent. So, they want ours to be, too.

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But, yeah, what do they do? They borrow from our worldview. They want to argue for the laws of logic, knowledge, truth, an ability to reason, and morality.

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I like to ask them, look, if you believe in a purely natural world, would you do me a favor? Could you argue from your worldview?

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Please, don't use reasoning. Don't use logic. Don't use knowledge. Don't use truth.

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And don't say anything's right and wrong. Go. Just use natural things.

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They can't do that. I said, then you're arguing from my worldview. Don't use my worldview to deny my worldview.

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That doesn't make sense. In fact, the Bible says something about that. Um, you don't have to turn there.

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It's only one verse, so I'll read it. This is actually twice in the scripture, but I'm going to read from Psalm 14.

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The fool says in his heart there is no God. Now, I know that on April 1st, there's people every

45:26

April 1st that says it's Atheist Day. You know, the fool says in his heart there is no

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God. If you folks know of Living Waters, Mark Spence works with Living Waters.

45:38

He's going to be here after me, and he'll talk about, from Living Waters. But the thing that's interesting, they got a call one year because there was someone that had a bumper sticker that said

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National Atheist Day, April 1st. The fool says in his heart there is no God. Some guy threatened a lawsuit against Living Waters.

45:54

A bunch of atheists told him to drop the lawsuit. You're embarrassing us. Why is it that God says that the person who says there is no

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God is a fool? Have you ever wondered that? I did until I started to understand this presuppositional apologetics.

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Why? Because to argue that God does not exist, what do

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I first have to have? Well, I have to have a truth, a knowledge, an ability to reason, right and wrong, and laws of logic.

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Therefore, in order for me to argue that God doesn't exist, and this is the way I word it to people that profess to be an atheist,

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I say God says there, a fool says in his heart there is no God, because you have to use your God -given ability to reason, to reason that there is no

46:43

God. So God has to first exist for you to have the ability to reason, and then you use that God -given reasoning to say that he doesn't exist.

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But your ability to reason is the proof. You see? Now does this seem easy?

46:59

I'm hoping that I'm making this easy enough for us to understand. We really don't have to argue these. I know some people are afraid of apologetics.

47:06

Not only is that a big sounding word, they think it means everyone's apologizing. But the reality is what it means is a defense, and sometimes it seems so difficult because you'll hear people like Dr.

47:16

Silvestro, who seems like they've been studying science for decades. Oh wait, he has. By the way, he's a dentist, so be careful.

47:24

He's going to judge you by your teeth, I'm just saying. But you know what? He's been studying this for years.

47:30

And you go, man, he talks about carbon -14 dating, and I can't understand all the things he's saying.

47:37

I don't get that. That's okay. There's some people that are really smart like him that can study that.

47:44

If you're dumb like me, you just stick to this. It's really easy. We can understand this. We can say, look, how do you have an ability to reason apart from God?

47:56

Because when you say that God doesn't exist, you're relying on an ability that you can only get from God.

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Have you ever seen the whales holding a save the human sign?

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I mean, we need saving, don't we? You've seen the ants, and they collect all the food in the summer for the winter.

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Have you ever seen them with a 401k? Why don't animals do this?

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Because they weren't made in the image of God. We were. We were given this ability to reason because we were made in the image of God.

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That's how we have this. That's what sets us apart from animals. This is the reason why when an atheist argues

48:43

God doesn't exist, they sound like a fool. It's not that we're making a characterization about them in that way, but it is the fact that they're using something that requires

48:55

God to argue that God doesn't exist. That would be foolishness. It's, you know, there's people who use different illustrations of this.

49:08

You know, I know one person says, you know, please, I don't believe that writing exists. Please show me in written form that writing doesn't exist.

49:18

You know, or I don't believe air exists. I've never seen it. Right? You know it exists.

49:24

You breathe it in all the time. Hold your breath. You'll know air exists. Because you want it. But the thing is this, is that when we deny the very thing that's required to prove something, you don't need to try to prove it.

49:38

That's what an axiom is. We don't try to prove God. He is the necessary starting point for us to make sense of everything else.

49:48

If you want, as I read from Dr. Svester's book, you want that AIP test, it is only found within Christianity.

49:57

Only in Christianity can you get something that is consistent. That you have, that passes that test for the preconditions.

50:08

That's not arbitrary. It doesn't matter what I believe. It matters what

50:13

God has said. So let's look at the moral argument, because this is really, for a lot of people, the easiest.

50:19

And if you're trying to share the gospel, I actually think it is, because it's very easy to get from someone having morality, being right and wrong, to the question of do you consider yourself to be a good person?

50:31

It's a very easy jump once they admit that there's a right and wrong, because now we're talking what wrong is. But have you ever considered when someone professes to be an atheist, and they say that Christianity is evil?

50:47

Excuse me. Hold it. How can you have evil in your worldview? How can you say anything is good or bad in your worldview?

50:56

You see, that comes from a starting point that God exists to say good and bad.

51:02

In your worldview, it just is. There shouldn't be a problem. I mean, survival of the fittest.

51:08

We really shouldn't be taking care of those whales that need saving, or the spotted owl.

51:15

Just kill them off. They're not as fit as us. You know, someone actually believed this in history.

51:22

You may have heard of him. His name's somewhat known, but he actually got a whole group of people to try to practice this out to say people that are less fit than others should just be eliminated.

51:30

You ever hear of Hitler before? Yeah. Killed six million Jews and five million blacks and handicapped and gypsies because he wanted to create a super race.

51:43

And the atheist tried to argue he didn't believe in it. He didn't do it because of evolution. Really?

51:49

So the Jews were half man, half ape? That sounds like evolution to me. You see, the interesting thing is when the

52:00

Nuremberg trials occurred. It's a very interesting thing. Go search Nuremberg trials and read what the arguments were.

52:08

The arguments that the Nazis that were captured after the end of the Second World War, the argument that they made was one of a true atheist.

52:19

There is no right and wrong. We just are. We can't be held to someone else's standard.

52:25

Our society said this was okay. Your society shouldn't tell us it's not.

52:33

If their world view is right, they would hold to that. But their world view is not right and they show it every time they tell us that we're wrong.

52:44

Here's the question I like to ask them. They want to deny absolutes and if you read

52:50

Dr. Schlesinger's chapter, he's going to talk about absolute standards. Absolute morality. Morality is an absolute.

52:57

Where do we get morality from? It comes from the very nature of God.

53:04

It's not from God's word. I'll give you a side note in case you ever hear some people talk about a dilemma called the oh

53:12

I just went blank on it. And what this dilemma is, is the argument is that people say that something is right or wrong just because God says it's right or wrong.

53:24

Therefore it makes God guilty of being wrong. Because he's the one that says something is evil and therefore he becomes evil.

53:32

But here's the problem. We don't say as a Christian we don't say something's good or bad based on what

53:38

God says. We say something is good or bad based on the way on who God is.

53:45

It is his nature. You know why lying is wrong? Because God is not a liar. You know why rape is wrong?

53:52

Because God is not a rapist. You know why stealing is wrong? Because God is not a thief.

53:59

I didn't say steal. That's a football team in Pittsburgh. I at least know that of football. Maybe not much else.

54:06

But you know we base it in the nature of God. Who God is.

54:15

So when people say that we're wrong they're actually appealing to God. And what you're quickly going to find is they want to get away from an absolute morality.

54:24

They want to leave that to go into a morality that's subjective.

54:30

I believe it's wrong. That is exactly what we see going on in our culture where now, by the way

54:38

Hitler did this before he was able to do what he did. He first had to get rid of absolute morality.

54:44

It's one of the reasons he first targeted Christians. The real Christians. He was fine with the fake

54:50

Christians that said they were Christian and really believed in German liberalism. They were okay. It was the true

54:55

Bible believing Christians that believed in absolute morality. You see it's going on in China right now. You also see it going on in America.

55:02

I do challenge you because in America as hard as it is for folks to believe we are coming up against another holocaust and it will not be the

55:11

Jews this time. It will be us. Look at the history. It will repeat.

55:17

I say that because I look and I see what has gone on before and in Germany nobody believed it was going to happen.

55:24

Even when it was happening they denied that it was happening. They said we are too civilized for that to be true.

55:32

Mark Spence worked on a documentary called 180. You could ask him,

55:38

I'm sure he's not going to talk about it, but you ask him what it was like to have to put that documentary together. To sit and look at footage of what the holocaust was like with these people that were going in, they're cheerful walking in after the war was over.

55:51

They're all cheerful walking in, laughing as they're going into the Ashwitz and places like that.

55:57

And then he's got the footage of them leaving. They believed that they were not as civilized as they believed.

56:05

I believe there's another holocaust coming and we'll be the ones this time. Many are unprepared because they want to live like the world and not be in this book.

56:15

Brothers and sisters, we need to prepare. Now, I'll say this as a side note because there may be people here who don't believe in Christ and you're going, if that's the case,

56:26

I don't ever want to believe that. Let me tell you something. As Christians, it means that we get right with God by His standard, not ours.

56:36

We spend eternity with Him. It's not about being in heaven, by the way. I don't care where it is as long as I'm with Christ.

56:45

He's the one who died and paid a punishment for me that I can never repay. I love Him so much. I want to be with Him. That outweighs anything that I would have to go through in this earth.

56:56

Does that mean that if trials come that I won't fall under? I might.

57:02

I don't know. Never know what will happen at that moment. I would like to think that I wouldn't, right? But I know one thing.

57:09

Having eternal life means that I'll be with Christ for all of eternity, sitting at His feet and learning from Him and just loving

57:18

Him and worshipping Him. So the laws of the morality argument is really this simple.

57:26

You can't have right and wrong without God first existing. And it has to be absolute. Why? Because God doesn't change.

57:37

They will argue that there are absolutes. They always end up doing it. I have a friend of ours that she is on college campuses and she says, how do

57:45

I deal with these people that argue for a relative morality? I said, ask them for their wallet. And when they hand it over, walk away.

57:56

So she tried it. And she called me up and said, Andrew, I have a problem. And by the way, she always has an audio recorder on her, so if anyone says anything, she's got the audio.

58:05

She says, Andrew, I tried this. I said, okay, how'd it go? She goes, there's a problem. I said, why? She goes, they didn't stop me.

58:12

I said, maybe you didn't walk far enough. She goes, I walked to my car. I went back to go to find them.

58:20

Well, at least they're being consistent. So she's like, how do I argue this? Here's the argument

58:25

I give that I've never had it fail yet. I ask the question, is the act of rape always wrong?

58:36

It's a very specific question. What am I saying is wrong? Not rape. The act of rape.

58:43

Why? It's the action. There's a reason I like to ask it that way.

58:48

They always say that the act of rape is always wrong. And I'll say, well, that sounds like an absolute.

58:56

It's always wrong. Universally everywhere, right? Now, here's the dilemma.

59:02

They want to say no to that. Okay, so it's not. So what is it that makes rape wrong then?

59:08

If it's not wrong because God's not a rapist, what makes it wrong? The argument that they always appeal to first is harm.

59:18

It harms another person. I say, well, okay. Harm. So harm makes it wrong?

59:24

Yes. Okay. Well, I, you know, there was this dentist in New Jersey. Sorry, Anthony. I can't help his profession.

59:30

There was this dentist in New Jersey who got accused of basically when he sedated a woman, he had raped her.

59:38

How were they able to prove it? Well, what ended up happening is one woman got pregnant and she figured she didn't believe in an immaculate conception.

59:47

Or really in a virgin birth, I should say. I made a mistake there. Immaculate conception is actually the birth of Mary, not

59:54

Jesus, in case you didn't know. But in a virgin birth. And so she realized there was a problem and the only time she was not aware of her actions as she thought it could have been was when she was sedated.

01:00:04

She actually had a paternity test done and sure enough, he's the father. And all of a sudden a bunch of women who thought their children were their husbands but thought it strange went and got tested.

01:00:16

Here's a very interesting thing that ended up occurring. Several of these women who had been raped did not have any harm or trauma until they found out that they had been raped.

01:00:32

Therefore the harm was not in the act of rape, the harm was in telling them they were raped. Therefore we should just not tell them.

01:00:39

Right? People go wait, no, no, no, it's not the harm that's done.

01:00:45

It's the lack of consent. What did they just do? Just move the goalpost.

01:00:51

Oh that didn't work, I'll move the goalpost. Because this is what confirmation bias is. I'm going to start with a conclusion,

01:00:57

I'm only going to accept anything that supports my conclusion. And they move the goalpost. I say well how do you know when they were unconscious?

01:01:04

They didn't give consent. I mean they didn't need to give consent, they were unconscious. So is the act wrong?

01:01:12

Or is it the lack of consent that's wrong? You see why I ask, is the act?

01:01:18

Because if the act itself is wrong then it doesn't matter that if there's consent or not.

01:01:25

It matters that the act is wrong. This is the way I try to argue to show that there is an absolute that they have to hold to when it comes to the issue of rape.

01:01:35

Their arguments don't pan out. Now why is it that rape is always wrong? Because the nature of God.

01:01:42

Because God is not a rapist. That's why. And so I hope,

01:01:48

I know that for some this presuppositional project sounds scary, but I hope this was easy enough that you know,

01:01:54

I can do this. I can ask someone, wait a minute. You're making an argument and you're using things that first require

01:02:02

God's existence. You're arguing from an immaterial world. Sometimes they'll say,

01:02:08

I don't know, it came about by evolution. Right? That's why I like the law of logic, because before evolution occurred, the laws of logic exist.

01:02:20

You see, it couldn't have evolved, it had to be from the beginning. Why? Because God.

01:02:27

And here's the thing we end up seeing. We look at these things. They're universal.

01:02:34

They're absolute. Right? Do we know someone else that would be universal?

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Absolute? Because you need a source. You need, for these things to be true, for the ability to reason, truth, knowledge, laws of logic, morality, you need someone or something, whichever you want to call it, someone or something that is immaterial, universal, and absolute.

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The only difference between the professing atheist and us, we know who he is. Well, they know who he is, too.

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They just suppress it. There's no reason we have to fear arguing with someone that professes to be an atheist.

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You know why? They already know we're right. And we get so intimidated.

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And they want us to put this book aside for the argument? No. This book tells me that you already know

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God exists. So when people tell me, I'm an atheist, I say, God doesn't believe you. Should I believe you or God?

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Have you ever been wrong in your life? They go, yeah, God hasn't. I'll trust him. I hope this was practical enough for you to see that it is easy to understand and it is easy for us to put into practice,

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I hope. Now, here's the thing. The rest of what we're going to talk about this weekend, Mark is going to come up and he's going to talk about what the gospel is.

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That's essential. Because first we have to know that God exists and he has spoken.

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Then we're going to talk about what the gospel is. Tomorrow we're going to talk about the fact of, can we trust this book?

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But then, okay, so we could trust the New Testament, but what about that first book in Genesis? Can we trust that one?

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Does that have any application to our life? You know, but then we get into that problem that there are people that ask really tough questions.

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I don't have the answers. That's okay. He's going to answer them. Dr. Sevesh will give you the answer.

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Now, I can answer, I do this in New York, it's always fun, I get up and I say, I can answer any question that you have about God in the

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Bible. I can. And then someone throws some really technical answer or question out there and I go,

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I don't know. You said you can answer anything! I did. And I think I don't know is a perfectly good answer.

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It's an answer. I could study it, maybe I could learn it and it could be a different answer, but right now I don't know is the answer. Alright, so I hope this was practical and I hope this sets a foundation for you for the rest of what you're going to get this weekend.

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I hope it encourages you. I hope that it helps for those of us who know Christ. I hope it helps you to realize we have a firm foundation.

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In fact, it's the only foundation that makes sense of any worldview that we see.

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Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we live in a culture that's turning very much against you and it becomes something that causes us very often to be fearful and we lack the boldness to go out and share the good news, especially when we live in liberal states like New Jersey and California.

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It's hard, Lord. We get so intimidated and yet at this other time we know we have your word, we know we have an absolute truth from a source that can be trusted.

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We ask, Lord, that we would trust in your word, that we would look to your word and know that you are accurate.

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That we would look to you and that we would know that the world that says you don't exist and denies you, that we could look to you and say, you say that they already know you exist.

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That you will not punish anyone for a knowledge that they don't have. You will punish people because they know you exist and deny you.

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We ask, Lord, that you would use us, use this church to be such a bright beacon of truth in this community that it would shine in such a way that people would know the truth is proclaimed from this pulpit and that people would know when they have troubles in life, they can come here to hear the truth of your word.

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That many would come to know you and be discipled and be spiritually matured through the ministry you do here.

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We ask this in Christ's name. Amen. Go to SimonForEternity .org