What I Learned about Apologetics from Matt Slick of Carm.org.

Revealed Apologetics

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:02

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Eli Ayala, and today, or tonight, rather, is a surprise livestream.

00:12

I had no idea that I was gonna go live today, but I figured, hey, why not? What do you do when your house is filled with women drinking hot apple cider and dessert foods and mingling downstairs?

00:29

Well, you put the kids to bed and you get in the office and you do a livestream.

00:35

So this is kind of random, and I figured

00:40

I'd just go live. So I hope, I'm gonna wait a little bit for people to get in. I see some, Tatiana.

00:46

Hello, Tatiana, how are you? Tatiana is a student of mine. Very, very fun person.

00:55

She's very cool, and I'm glad she's listening in. All right, love you too. Appreciate it.

01:01

All right, we'll wait for a couple of people to come in. And so the topic that I wanted to talk about today is pretty random.

01:10

I have been talking to Matt Slick over the years.

01:19

Matt Slick is the president of CARM, the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, and I was reflecting upon how much of an impact that that ministry has had on me.

01:29

And so I was like, you know what? Let me do a livestream and maybe kind of just go through some stuff. What did

01:34

I learn from my years of reading through the CARM website and having long conversations with Matt Slick about theology, the scripture and apologetics?

01:45

And I wanted to do that in the form of going through this really cool outline that can be found on his website called

01:51

How to Do Apologetics, an outline. That's one of the things I learned from Matt Slick is how to do outlines.

01:58

Outlines have been super, super helpful. So I wanna kind of go through some of these and kind of give my own comments on them because he has kind of a good list of things that I think are important for people to know if they're going to do apologetics.

02:12

So this is kind of a, hey, I don't do a lot of apologetics, but if I want to get into apologetics, what are some of the things

02:20

I should know? Things like that. So that's what I wanna cover in this livestream, okay?

02:26

So again, this is unplanned. I have no idea who's going to be watching this live since it's literally,

02:32

I just decided to do it just a couple of minutes ago. But if you do have any questions about the

02:38

Bible, apologetics, theology or anything like that, I will try my best to get to them.

02:43

So just throwing that out there. I just wanna kind of throw this also out there.

02:49

I am in the midst of planning an online presuppositional apologetics conference with speakers and everything.

02:57

And so I'm going to, I'm not going to go over the details now but just throwing that out there and I will be promoting that soon.

03:07

And so if folks are interested in that, I definitely will share that on my social media, my

03:13

Instagram, Facebook, of course, and YouTube as well. So without further ado. Okay, so a while back,

03:19

I put a kind of a poll out on Facebook. I think you could do this.

03:24

I don't remember how I did it but you can kind of put a poll out on Facebook and people can vote and choose amongst a list of choices.

03:34

And the poll was something to the effect of, can anyone guess which apologist has impacted me the most in my own development in Christian apologetics, the defense of the faith.

03:47

And of course I had a list of people. And of course you have Greg Ponson there. You have Cornelius Van Til. I think

03:53

William Lane Craig was on it or something. I don't remember who else I had on. I know Matt Slick was on it and he was on the bottom of the list.

04:00

And it was interesting that most people chose, I think it was

04:06

Greg Ponson. Now I have to admit, I have been heavily influenced, obviously, based upon what

04:12

I do here on this channel. I've been heavily influenced by Dr. Greg Ponson. But believe it or not, okay,

04:20

I'm the largest, most impactful influence in my own personal development in apologetics has been

04:28

Matt Slick of karm .org. Matt Slick is not a scholar by any means.

04:35

He doesn't have a PhD. He's written a few books, but he's not a prolific writer in the sense of like published works.

04:42

Although he has one of the largest apologetics websites on the internet. But I remember when

04:48

I first got into apologetics, I found the website Karm and I used to spend hours just reading through the articles there.

04:57

And of course, he's got articles on everything. And I found it to be vitally, vitally, vitally helpful to me especially with respect to his emphasis on scripture.

05:10

Matt Slick, as you know, if you've ever watched his debates, he's got a lot of scripture memorized, which

05:15

I think is a very effective tool in apologetics. Of course, as a Christian, we want to memorize scripture. As Psalm 119 says, may

05:22

I hide your word in my heart so that I might not sin against you.

05:27

So there's a great spiritual value in hiding God's word in our heart. But of course, as you know, dealing with the cults,

05:35

Mormons, Jehovah's witnesses, people who use the Bible as part of their position, but of course it's contrary to Christianity.

05:43

Memorizing scripture is vitally important. And so that was one of the most important things that I've learned from Matt Slick among many other things.

05:50

So I want to go through this outline here, how to do apologetics. And again, this is not original to me, but it is found on the karm .org

05:59

website. And I just want to go through some stuff and kind of expand on some of the points he has here. Now, if you hear people talking in the background, those are the women

06:08

I was talking about at the beginning, right? My kids are in bed, my wife is downstairs. She's got a bunch of lady friends over and there's just a lot going on downstairs.

06:18

So I was like, what am I going to do to escape? And I figured why not do a live stream?

06:25

So here I am. And by the way, if you have, or if you think of an apologist that has impacted you, why don't you leave it in the comments?

06:33

I'd be interested in the sort of the folks and resources that have been helpful to you, the listener in your own personal development in apologetics.

06:41

Here I see here, New Reformation Apologetics says Greg Koukl. Yep, Greg Koukl is the man.

06:48

Folks don't know who Greg Koukl is. He is a Christian apologist over there at Stand to Reason, I believe.

06:54

And he's written an excellent book, which I highly, highly, highly recommend. And that is Tactics. Tactics by Greg Koukl.

07:02

Maybe New Reformation Apologetics can leave a link, maybe an Amazon link for folks who live under a rock and don't actually have the book, all right?

07:10

So Tactics is an excellent book. So Greg Koukl, also, if you look at the backlog of some of the interviews that I've done,

07:16

I have had, I've had Greg Koukl on the show before, and we had an excellent conversation.

07:23

So if you look at the backlog, some old interviews that I've done, Greg Koukl's there. Also, oops, sorry, sorry.

07:32

New Reformation Apologetics also suggests Frank Turek. Yes, Frank Turek has been a very useful resource as well.

07:37

Had him on the show also. So, yeah, but I have to say, more than Greg Koukl, more than Frank Turek, even more than Greg Bonson, Cornelius Van Til, and William Lane Craig, I have been impacted the most by Matt Slick.

07:55

And here's the reason why. Number one, Matt Slick made himself accessible so that when

08:00

I had questions based on some of the articles that he wrote, and I was kind of just learning theology, he made himself available to speak with me, a stranger.

08:09

And I remember when I told him that I wanted to do apologetics, he kind of put me through this theology test, okay?

08:17

Started asking me questions of, all right, well, what's the hypostatic union? What's the communicatio idiomatum?

08:22

What is justification, sanctification, propitiation, imputation? All these super important theological terms.

08:29

And because I listened to his podcast and I've listened to him defend and explain those theological points,

08:37

I was able to answer him. But I remember saying, yes, I passed the test, you know? And he really imprinted upon my mind the importance of the

08:46

Bible, and of course, the importance of theology, okay? Now this is true regardless if you disagree with Matt.

08:53

Matt Slick, for example, is a Calvinist. You might not be a Calvinist, but if you're a Christian, you could appreciate the fact that in order to do apologetics faithfully and effectively, we need to know our theology.

09:06

We need to know what the scriptures teach, okay? So again, so Matt Slick has been super influential.

09:13

I think here, I don't know how to pronounce your name. I do apologize, but it says here,

09:20

Matt was super influential in my Christian walk. I bought his MOAN. Yes, MOAN is an acronym for the

09:26

Mother of All Notebooks, the Mother of All Notebooks. You could actually purchase this, I think, online.

09:32

And it's literally the entire CARM website in notebook form. I've actually ordered it, things like this big, and I put it in binders, and I had maybe like four or five binders because they can't fit under one binder.

09:44

So super, super helpful. It's got information on the cult, atheism, various arguments for God's existence, and so on and so forth.

09:54

But at any rate, so let's move along. And just again, I know, so there's some people listening now. If you have any questions, you want me to answer your questions, or you have comments you want to share, feel free to leave them in the comments here, okay?

10:07

All right, and as I go through the outline, I won't wait till the end. I will try my best to address your questions because this is kind of unplanned, okay?

10:17

So, oh, we have a question already. Okay, so let's take a look. So let's take a look before we get into the outline here.

10:24

Okay, Joel Hartinger, Hartinger. I don't know if I'm saying that right.

10:31

He asks, how do you handle atheists that want to bring up contradictions in the Bible, specifically Old Testament commands to Israel, or Jesus saying, go sell everything you have?

10:41

Well, first of all, what I find useful when someone brings up a contradiction is not automatically to jump into responding to the apparent contradiction.

10:51

I find it useful to ask what a contradiction is. Someone says, hey, what about Bible contradictions?

10:57

I simply ask the person, well, what do you mean by contradiction? And this is important because we want to define our terms clearly, okay?

11:03

So according to the second law of logic, which is the law of non -contradiction, the second law states that a statement cannot be both true and false at the same time and in the same way.

11:13

Now, those two parts of the definition are vitally important. A statement cannot be both true and false at the same time and in the same way, okay?

11:23

So there are statements that can sound contradictory, but one is true in one sense and it's false in another sense or something along those lines, okay?

11:31

Now, the reason why it's important to establish the definition of a contradiction is because now you have the standard, the definition of a contradiction, and then you take the specific apparent contradictions that the person is bringing up in scripture and you filter those scriptures through the second law and see if it in fact is a violation of the law of non -contradiction, okay?

11:54

So for example, if someone brings up a problematic scriptural passage or set of passages, that person must demonstrate that it is impossible to reconcile those passages.

12:06

If there's even remotely a possibility that the passages can be reconciled, then by definition, okay, it's not contradictory, okay?

12:14

When someone brings up apparent contradictions, it is not incumbent upon me to offer the correct reconciliation, okay?

12:22

It's incumbent upon me to show that reconciliation is possible. If it's even remotely possible, then it follows by definition, there's no contradiction, okay?

12:32

So again, so you don't want to take too much of the burden in terms of, because the Bible's big.

12:37

I mean, you got 66 books in the entire Bible, 39 books in the Old Testament, 27 books in the New Testament. It's a very large book, it's a library of books.

12:45

So you don't want to debate endlessly by answering a hundred apparent

12:50

Bible contradictions, right? So you want to kind of make sure you focus the conversation using specific examples, okay?

12:56

Now, the specific examples that this gentleman gave here, specifically Old Testament commands to Israel or Jesus saying, go sell everything you have, there's no contradiction in any of those.

13:07

So for example, when God commands Israel to remove the Canaanites from the promised land, and so you have these issues of say, you know,

13:18

God telling the Israelites to wipe them out or something along those lines, that's not contradictory, right?

13:24

That's not contradictory to God's love, it's not contradictory to any particular scripture, okay? So for instance, when someone says, you know, how can a

13:31

God of love command the Israelites to destroy the people of the promised land, the

13:38

Canaanites, right? Because Israel is going to act as God's rod of judgment, okay, that's not contradictory to the love of God, okay?

13:45

Now, this is important because a lot of people have a very imbalanced view of God. We say, how can a loving God do

13:51

A, B, and C? How can a loving God send people to hell? How can a loving God command, you know, genocide, these sorts of things?

13:58

Well, the answer to that is number one, God's love and God's justice and judgment are not contradictory, that's number one.

14:06

Number two, when we say God is love, he's not only love, right? Sometimes we have a very imbalanced view of God.

14:12

God is love, but he is also just, he's also holy, he's also righteous, he is also a judge.

14:20

And so he functions in all those capacities. And if we have an imbalanced view of God in which we're only focusing on his love, then a contradiction in the character of God develops and appears in our mind, but it's something that is of our own making, not something that is problematic within the scripture itself, all right?

14:38

So again, someone says there's a contradiction in the Bible, you need to ask them, what do you mean by a contradiction? And can you give me a specific example?

14:45

One more on this point, and then I'll jump into this outline here, but then again, feel free to ask questions as I move along.

14:52

I remember sitting around a table at Applebee's and I used to be a, I used to be in theater, okay?

15:01

I used to be in theater and we all went out to Applebee's after a rehearsal or something along those lines. And I don't know how we got on the conversation, but the conversation got on the

15:09

Bible and someone said, well, there was a girl across from me, she says, well, the

15:14

Bible's filled with a bunch of contradictions, so it can't be trusted. And I said, well, and people looking at me, of course, because they, even back in the day, people knew me as kind of the

15:23

Bible guy and the Christian, so you got the shots fired there at Applebee's.

15:31

But I told the girl, I said, well, I've read the Bible a bunch of times, I haven't seen a contradiction, can you give me an example?

15:37

And so she said, well, there's a bunch of contradictions, this is known, I'm like, okay, can you give me an example?

15:44

She's like, well, I don't have an example off the top of my head, I was like, oh, okay, all right. You see, that's important because a lot of people make claims about the

15:50

Bible, but actually don't have the specific examples to provide right there, so that's very important.

15:57

However, when someone says there are contradictions in the Bible and they actually give you an example, then you have to be able to address it, okay?

16:05

And this is where it's required of us to know the scriptures and this is a very important point, it is also incumbent upon us to know how to say,

16:16

I don't know, okay? A pleading ignorance, there's nothing wrong with that, right, I don't know the answer to every apparent

16:22

Bible contradiction. Sometimes I'd have to say, hey, that's a great point, let me look into that, I'd wanna read the context and see what's going on there and maybe we can talk about it, right?

16:31

So you don't have to be kind of the Bible answer guy, right? There's nothing wrong with saying, hey, that's a great point, let me get back to you on that.

16:41

Okay, all right, let me get to a couple of points here and then we'll jump into this outline and I'll share a little bit about the stuff that I've learned from my good friend,

16:49

Matt Slick of karm .org. All right, so we have a count here, thank you, account.

16:57

I offered Eli a debate with one of the smartest atheists on Discord, he declined. How can you call yourself an apologist?

17:03

Easy, ready? I'm going to call myself an apologist. I defend the Christian faith and it is not incumbent upon me as a defender of the

17:11

Christian faith to say yes to every debate offer that I get from people that I don't know,

17:17

I have no idea of their platform, nor do I have the social time to prepare for a debate because I'm very busy.

17:23

So I get to choose the manner in which I defend the faith, right? I choose to do it through teaching,

17:29

I have done debates, but I have not had time to do debates recently and so I've turned down many debates, yet I can call myself an apologist because being an apologist does not require me to accept every debate challenge.

17:43

So there you go, okay? And congratulations for knowing one of the smartest atheists on Discord, that's great.

17:51

Okay, thank you, account, I appreciate it. All right, so Mark Winlead, Winlead, Wine, I'm so sorry if I mispronounced that.

17:58

How do you respond to atheists who bring up if God has free will, if he knows his future choices?

18:05

Well, what do we mean by free will? Okay, we have to define our terms, right?

18:10

What do we mean by free will? Have them define it. Okay, that's their, it's their question. What do you think by free will?

18:17

Does God do what he desires? Is God coerced by anything external to himself?

18:25

Well, no, God is free in that regard. The fact that he knows what he's going to do from all of eternity doesn't make him not free.

18:31

So that would have to open up a whole discussion on the issue of free will. And since the person is asking the question, I would just push it back on them.

18:38

What do you mean by free will? And then kind of see where the conversation goes. And then eventually we can get to the biblical categories as to how we would define what we mean when we say

18:47

God is sovereign, God is free and uncoerced. He is, he has aseity. He does not depend on anything external to himself.

18:54

All these sorts of things would be part of that discussion, all right? New Reformation Apologetics brings up the book, the big book of Bible contradictions.

19:04

I think I have that somewhere. Let me see here. Somewhere, somewhere over the rainbow.

19:11

Maybe, maybe, no, I have, I have a couple of Norman Geisler books, but for some reason,

19:17

I don't know where that particular one is. It exists somewhere back there, all right? Okay, so let's take a look.

19:24

So what did I learn from Matt Slick? A couple of things, and I think they are captured very well in this outline.

19:29

If you're interested in reading through this outline, it is found on karm .org. It is entitled, How to Do Apologetics, an

19:35

Outline, okay? And it says here, the following is an outline of a presentation that I delivered at a conference entitled,

19:41

How to Be an Effective Apologist Right Where You Are, or How to Integrate Apologetics into Your Personal Ministry.

19:47

It is here to help you see a logical approach to presenting apologetics. Please feel free to use it in a class or study, okay?

19:55

And so I'm using it for a study right here. We're gonna walk through it, okay?

20:03

Here, we got another question here. Let's see. Let's see here.

20:12

Okay, so Certainty Exists says, Eli, have you dealt with any universalists who claim

20:19

Jesus saves everyone? Every knee will bow whether or not they accept him? It's a question, it's a question.

20:26

I have never interacted with a universalist ever. I've never confronted, I've never been confronted by a universalist.

20:34

When I read the scriptures, I have no hint in the scriptures, in my reading of the scriptures, that universalism is true.

20:42

This view, the view that eventually everyone will be saved. I mean, as you read the scriptures, the urgency to repentance, the warnings of judgment, and this idea of eternal separation from God, heaven and hell, these sorts of things, salvation.

20:58

There's no indication in my reading of the scripture that universalism is even remotely true. And so my understanding of universalism,

21:06

I don't think it is strongly supported in scripture. I do know that there are some lines of argumentation that some people use with respect to penal substitution, and if Christ is truly our substitute, relating to issues relating to the atonement, where they kind of expand that over God redeeming the world in Jesus Christ.

21:25

I don't, I'm not at all convinced by universalism at all, but I have never confronted one.

21:30

So that's all I can say with respect to that. All right, so let's take a look at this outline here.

21:38

Well, you're just gonna take a listen. I'm not gonna share my screen because it's kind of weirdly formatted here. But Matt Slick has here, and this is very important, the foundations and tools for effective apologetics.

21:49

He lists salvation and spiritual maturity, okay? Salvation and spiritual maturity.

21:55

To be a Christian apologist, to be someone who is going to share and defend the faith, you must understand what salvation is.

22:04

You need to understand what the gospel is, okay? The gospel is defined for us in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses three through four.

22:15

For I deliver to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures.

22:25

The gospel has to do with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and what that means for us and how we can be made right with God, okay?

22:35

And how this gospel is a free gift that God offers to people, okay?

22:43

Ephesians chapter two, verses eight through nine says, for by grace you've been saved through faith and that not of yourself, that is a gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one will boast, okay?

22:52

We are saved by the work of Christ on the cross and we access that gift through faith, which is a gift of God, right?

23:02

We are justified before God by faith in Christ and not by what we do.

23:08

So understanding that salvation is by grace through faith alone, okay? In Romans 3, 28, it says, for we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law or my specific favorite verse on this issue,

23:22

Romans 4, 5, but to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, okay?

23:30

Very important. But to the one who does not work, there's the works, but believes, there's the faith, you have work, you have faith, negate the one to the one who does not work and what remains?

23:42

The belief, the faith. We're saved by faith alone. And yes, I know about James chapter two, which we won't get into right now, where it says that you're not justified by faith alone and it gives the indication that there's salvation is also by faith plus our works.

23:57

I won't get into that at the very moment, but I have addressed it in the past and I think I have a video somewhere on it.

24:03

But to do effective apologetics, we need to be saved ourselves. So apologetics is not someone who's just intellectually curious and likes to debate religion, just generically speaking.

24:14

Apologetics is something that Christians do, right? And of course it requires us to understand what the gospel is, what salvation is.

24:21

All right, real quick. So Judd Noel, thank you so much for your $10 super chat. Judd asks, since you had

24:28

Sam Frost on the show, would you be willing to have a full preterist on your show like Michael Sullivan to discuss apologetics and eschatology?

24:35

Maybe, that might be something that I might be interested in doing. Who was that other guy that I had interacted with very briefly?

24:45

Preston, something Preston, leading full preterist thinker. I don't remember his name, his full name.

24:53

I do apologize. It's been a while since I've dealt with preterism, but I'm not against that.

24:58

I would actually like at some point a debate on full preterism. That might be interesting.

25:03

I did have Chris Date and Michael Miano, I think his name is, where they were talking about the issue of the resurrection and Michael was a full preterist and Chris Date is not.

25:15

And so that's a very fiery debate on my channel. You can find that on there in the backlog of videos.

25:22

So if you're interested in that, you can definitely check that out. But thank you so much Judd for the super chat. Greatly, greatly appreciate your support.

25:29

All right. Okay, so salvation. We need to know what salvation is. We need to know how to explain it, defend it scripturally against distorted views of salvation.

25:40

This is something that I learned from Matt Slick, especially in his discussions with Roman Catholics and Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons and people who affirm that salvation requires more than just faith.

25:52

You have this idea of faith and works. Is baptism necessary for salvation?

25:58

In order to be saved, you have to follow, you have to believe plus a list of all these things. One of the things that I've learned from Matt Slick is the importance of defending what

26:06

I take to be the biblical view of salvation, which is a salvation by grace through faith alone. This is for me, the beauty of the gospel, right?

26:14

We are saved not by what we do, right? We are saved by the works of Christ and understanding that for ourselves is such a liberating experience.

26:25

It allows us to experience what it means to be set free from the law and to live in freedom in Christ.

26:33

And it's important because we need to defend the gospel of grace. And we need to be able to do that and understand the scriptures that go along with that and proclaim that with confidence and with an articulation that allows us to explain how that works out, how salvation works.

26:51

So we need to know what salvation is. We need to know how to defend it scripturally, okay? Point two,

26:56

Matt has here, spiritual maturity, okay? We need to be spiritually mature.

27:03

We need to engage in what we call the spiritual disciplines, okay? And we have here in 2

27:10

Timothy 2, verse 15, it says, be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth, okay?

27:23

Now, regardless of what you think of Matt Slick and regardless of what you think of karm .org and regardless of whether you think

27:29

Matt Slick is a great apologist, not a great apologist, what I've learned personally from him, okay?

27:36

Both in listening to him and having a friendship with him is the importance of spiritual maturity.

27:42

Now that's true even if you think that you don't think he's spiritually mature. I know that Matt Slick on the internet is a controversial person, right?

27:50

People have all sorts of different views on him. Either love him, either hate him. I know him personally and he's been a great benefit and encouragement to me in this area, okay?

28:00

He has taught me the difference between reading the Bible and studying the Bible, okay?

28:06

He has taught me the importance of accurately handling the word of truth, even if you happen to disagree with how he handles the word of truth.

28:13

For me, he has placed a great emphasis on the importance of engaging in that task.

28:20

And while we're all works in progress, it is an important thing in Christian apologetics to engage in that aspect of the spiritual disciplines, which is studying

28:29

God's word. Do not simply read God's word. You need to study God's word.

28:34

You need to dive deep and to take your shovel, if you will, and dig deep into the depths of the treasures of the word of God, okay?

28:43

Spiritual disciplines also include worship. The Christian apologist should not be a rogue

28:49

Christian. They should not be a rogue apologist.

28:55

And what I mean by that is you should not be engaging in the defense of the faith completely independent of the context of the church and independent of the context of fellowship and accountability, okay?

29:07

We should be a part of a local body. We should be participating in worship, doing more than just the apologetic side hustle that we have.

29:16

We need to be engaged in the life of the church. So worship is very important. Prayer, this is an area that I am failing miserably and I need to pray much more, but it's a very important part about being spiritually mature, all right?

29:32

We need to study the Bible, pray, worship, and really try our best to live those things out by the grace of God, exemplify the fruit of the spirit, love, patience, gentleness.

29:44

And you have this listed out in Galatians chapter five, verses 22 through 23. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self -control against such things, there is no law, okay?

29:57

So Matt Slick here recommends some resources in doing apologetics.

30:04

And again, they're very helpful. I agree with them. And he has taught me the importance of using these sorts of resources, okay?

30:12

Do we use them perfectly? No. Does Matt Slick use them perfectly? No. Are we always consistent? Of course not, right?

30:18

But these are important nonetheless. His recommended source, okay? Matt Slick's number one recommended source in doing apologetics, right?

30:26

Drum roll, is the Bible, okay? That sounds obvious and silly, but it is vitally important.

30:34

For many Christian apologists, their primary resource, they will say is the Bible, but oftentimes it is something else.

30:42

It is a theological system or a philosophical model, a philosophical way of thinking of things.

30:50

And while they use the Bible, it's sprinkled throughout their apologetic. Their apologetic is not grounded in the authority of the word of God.

30:56

Indeed, many apologists question whether the word of God has the sort of authority that it actually has, okay?

31:04

So Matt writes here, he says, "'The Bible must be the first and only standard of absolute truth. Defend the

31:10

Bible, teach the Bible. It is the word of God and everything we do and teach must be consistent with what it already reveals."

31:18

Very, very important. Let me see if I'm plugged in here. Let me see here.

31:24

Sorry. Okay, I don't see my laptop charging. That's not a good sign. Let me see, hold up.

31:30

Let's see what we got over here. Hmm, that doesn't seem right.

31:38

Technical difficulties. I hope my computer doesn't die. All right, we'll see.

31:44

How much time? I think you can hover over 22%, come on. All right, all right.

31:49

Let's see here. All right, we'll keep going. I don't know what's happening. Everything seems to be plugged in.

31:58

Yeah, huh, that's odd. Well, I guess time is of the essence then,

32:04

Sean. I should probably not waste time. All right, all right. So you want to use the

32:10

Bible as your primary resource, right? We are defending the faith once for all delivered. What has been delivered to us?

32:17

If not God's revelation, right? The Old and New Testament. We need to know the living daylights out of the

32:23

Bible. You can quote that, put that on a T -shirt or something. Know the living daylights out of the Bible so that that is our primary source, our only infallible source of authority.

32:33

Not our only authority, our only infallible source of authority. It is the only thing that we have that is theanoustos, okay?

32:40

Very, very important. Okay, also you want to get your hands on Bible commentaries and dictionaries, okay?

32:47

Looking up key words that will help us understand a passage or a pericope of scripture. Get a good commentary dictionary.

32:54

Now this is apologetics focused. I'm not gonna go into specific examples, but we will eventually go into some examples of some books that I think are very helpful.

33:03

Ed Simon says, I have not heard Josh McDowell. Of course,

33:08

Josh McDowell. This is a presuppositional apologetics YouTube channel. If I say that, people will unsubscribe.

33:15

No, I'm just kidding. I highly recommend Josh McDowell's work and Sean McDowell's. I think I have, let me see if I have it.

33:22

There we go, there we go. Every presuppositionalist needs this in their library, okay?

33:31

Who else will take all of the evidence of Christianity and properly contextualize it within a presuppositional framework, okay?

33:39

Super, super important. Excellent book, hey, given my love to my evidentialist brothers, okay?

33:46

Highly recommend this book. I mean, it's got so much in here. Let me see. Let's see here.

33:56

There we go. We got, it's got a bunch of chapters.

34:03

It's got like 26 chapters. I think it's 26 chapters. Nope, it's got 32 chapters and covers topics from the reliability of the

34:11

Old Testament, reliability of the New Testament, you know, the authorship of the

34:16

Pentateuch, the deity of Christ, the historicity of the Exodus, alleged contradictions in the

34:23

Old Testament. I mean, this book covers a wide range of very relevant and important apologetic issues.

34:30

All right, so also in apologetics, and this is something I learned, again, whether you love them, whether you hate them,

34:37

I've learned a lot from Matt Slick with respect to critical thinking, okay? Critical thinking is so foundational, all right?

34:45

In Matthew 22, 37, it is said, Jesus said to them, oh, let me quote it correctly here.

34:52

And he said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, okay?

34:59

The Bible, okay, commands us to love the Lord our God with all our mind. How you think will affect how you do theology, evangelism, and apologetics.

35:10

I'm gonna say that again, okay? Again, this is not for me, this is from Matt Slick, and I 100 % agree with him, and this is a lesson that very much

35:18

I learned from him, okay? He says, how you think will affect how you do theology, evangelism, and apologetics, all right?

35:28

And this is why it's important that philosophy is part of our apologetic tool belt, okay?

35:36

Philosophy, he writes here, is the great synthesizer of all major disciplines. It is a form of logic and is worth studying, but only in subjection to God's word.

35:46

So our philosophy must flow from the soil of scripture.

35:51

Our philosophy must be guarded by the boundaries that scripture sets, but philosophy is an essential, unavoidable aspect of having a consistent worldview perspective, and it is,

36:06

I think it's necessary to help us kind of think systematically, okay?

36:11

So philosophy is super, super important, but a philosophy that is after Christ, not after the elementary principles of the world.

36:20

As Colossians 2, 8 says, see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the traditions of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.

36:32

So the Bible is not against philosophy, but it does warn us of a particular kind of philosophy, a philosophy that is grounded in empty deception, according to the traditions of men and according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ, according to Christ.

36:48

What is according to Christ? A philosophy that is according to Christ. So the existence of a philosophy that is according to empty deception, traditions of men, and elementary principles of the world demonstrates the counter existence of a philosophy that is grounded in Christ, hence the

37:03

Christian apologist must have a Christian philosophy that is grounded in God's revelation. I hope that makes sense, okay?

37:09

Now having a systematic philosophical perspective that's grounded in Scripture helps us understand why

37:15

Christianity is a worldview system. It is not just a compilation of independent disjointed beliefs about God, the

37:22

Bible, and the world, and things like that. Christianity is a worldview, okay?

37:28

I love how, well here's what Matt says, okay? To be perfectly honest,

37:34

I didn't learn from Matt to think of Christianity in worldview categories, okay?

37:40

So I have to give that credit to Greg Bonson, okay? Listening to Greg Bonson really helped me understand that Christianity is a worldview, and that we argue in apologetics at the worldview level, okay?

37:51

So that all of our beliefs are interconnected and related to each other, and so it's important to know how our system, the

37:57

Christian system, works, okay? So Matt Slick has a definition here, and then

38:03

I'm going to give you the definition that I learned from Greg Bonson. But nevertheless, it's still helpful here. So Matt says, understand

38:09

Christianity as a worldview, and he says a worldview is a set of presuppositions that you hold by which and with which you judge what is true, morally acceptable, and how we relate to the world.

38:19

Greg Bonson defined for, I mean this is not necessarily original to him, but he defined in his books a worldview as a network of presuppositions not verified by empirical science and in terms of which all reality is interpreted.

38:34

It is the intellectual lens through which we filter all of the world around us. It is the lens by which we interpret everything, okay?

38:43

Now this is very important, especially when we're dealing with discussion of evidence, when you're interacting with someone apologetically, we often talk about the evidence for or against a perspective, and it is vitally important to understand that evidence and facts do not speak for themselves, but rather they are interpreted in light of someone's worldview perspective.

39:04

So thinking in terms of worldviews, as you know, is a very important aspect of doing apologetics, all right?

39:10

So that's one thing I learned from Greg Bonson, not Matt Slick, but everything else I learned from from Matt Slick and listening to him over the years and reading his stuff and having conversations with him.

39:18

All right, understanding Christianity as a worldview, Matt also says here, formal debates, formal debates exhibit the importance of critical thinking.

39:27

I agree. I have done some debates. They're on my YouTube channel. You can check those out. I do not do formal debates now, not because I don't want to.

39:37

I think that formal debates require prep, a lot of time, and not everyone has the time to do those things.

39:44

Matter of fact, not everyone is good at debating. I had maybe four or five debates,

39:51

I think. I haven't been keeping track, and I think they're good. I'm very happy with them, but I don't see myself as a debater necessarily.

39:58

I'm more of a teacher, so I definitely love debates and want to eventually do it in the future, but it's not something that I've focused on now.

40:06

But they are a good tool, Matt says here, to exhibit the importance of critical thinking.

40:13

So when you are debating someone, it's kind of like playing intellectual chess.

40:19

You need to kind of be two or three steps ahead of your opponent, anticipating what they're going to say.

40:24

You need to be fully equipped in the knowledge of your own position, and you need to have a thorough knowledge of your opponent's position.

40:32

So there's a lot of strategy, critical thinking that is involved in informal debate, and that's kind of what some people describe as the power encounter.

40:42

You have the encounter of these two perspectives that are coming head -on, and so it is an excellent medium to really see whether you have articulated and are able to defend your own position.

40:55

So Matt Slick says here, debating people is always important because it solidifies your thinking, it helps you formulate your ideas, and there can be formal debates and informal discussions.

41:04

Both are very useful, but not all people can do this, and that's okay. Informal discussions are where most people will defend the

41:13

Christian faith. So don't think that when you're doing apologetics it requires you to do formal debates.

41:19

The average believer is going to have informal discussions with people they, you know, maybe that's part of their family, or someone you meet on the street, or maybe a family member, or something along those lines.

41:32

All right, so my battery... Jeez Louise, I don't know what's happening here.

41:37

Let's see here. I might have to disconnect my microphone or my camera.

41:46

I don't know. This is odd, or it's just gonna turn off. Hmm, let's see how much percentage

41:54

I have left. I apologize. This is, this is odd. So sometimes

42:00

I will plug in my charger. I have a dongle. If you guys know anything about a dongle, where you can kind of plug in these other things, and I have my charger plugged in the dongle, and it normally powers my laptop, but for some reason it's not working.

42:18

Okay, that's plugged in. Okay, I think that's on. Let's see what happens.

42:24

Oh boy, let me see. Don't know if... let me see that.

42:31

How about now? Did that work? Nope. I just turned my light off. Huh, sorry.

42:39

Well, I have nine percent, nine percent left. Okay, so I have a choice to continue going on and, or take some questions.

42:52

Okay, my dongle isn't working. That's correct. That's correct. I don't know what's happening.

42:58

This never happens. Let me see here. Now, if I disconnect that, then my camera will go to my crummy camera of my laptop.

43:07

That won't work. Maybe I need a bigger dongle. Okay, all right.

43:15

Well, you know what? Let's play it safe. I want to play it safe, and I'm going to stop discussing this outline.

43:21

Just basically, here's what I've learned from Matt Slick. If I can kind of summarize that, maybe take some questions before my computer passes away, and then

43:28

I have to figure out how to charge it. Here's what I learned about... here's what

43:34

I've learned from Matt Slick. I've learned the importance of Scripture memory. I've learned the importance of knowing theology, right?

43:41

The importance of knowing the system of Christian belief, and I know that Matt Slick sometimes can come across a certain way, but believe it or not, when

43:50

I started doing apologetics, I was very timid in how I interact with people, and by listening to Matt Slick's debates and discussions,

43:57

I actually learned how to have confidence. Now, of course, some might say, wow, Matt Slick's a really cocky person.

44:03

Okay, maybe that's true, right? But for me, me personally, what I learned is how to speak with confidence, and to ask questions, and to not be afraid to get in the fight, so to speak, and so for that,

44:17

I greatly appreciate Matt Slick's impact on me in that regard. All right, so let me go over some questions here before my computer dies, and then we'll wrap things up.

44:30

Sorry, I do apologize. I don't know what's happening, but that's the way the cookie crumbles, so we're gonna go super fast, and then

44:36

I'll sign off, okay? And thank you guys so much for watching. I do appreciate you guys and the super chats.

44:42

I appreciate the support as well. I definitely need it because I got to pay the bills. I got subscriptions. I got back -end stuff that cost money, and so super chats definitely help, so thank you.

44:53

All right, so let's see here. Judd Noel, we're gonna go super fast. What is the biggest objection that keeps you from becoming a

45:01

Presbyterian? Okay, so I like covenant theology, but I don't see the covenantal application of like infant baptism.

45:09

I'm not convinced that infant baptism is true. I had a friend who was a very strong proponent of infant baptism.

45:17

His name is Pastor Will Shishko. He actually had a formal debate with James White on the topic, and I actually think that he won the debate.

45:26

His position was made stronger, so I appreciated the infant baptism position.

45:31

It was through listening to Bill Shishko, and he was a mentor of mine, having conversations with him. It helped me appreciate the infant baptism from the

45:39

Presbyterian perspective. It helped me appreciate the position, but it wasn't enough to actually convince me, so I'm not convinced of infant baptism.

45:46

I would lean more towards a Reformed Baptist perspective. All right, okay.

45:53

Flip the connector, sometimes that works. Thank you, Matt. Flipping the connector, I don't even know what that means.

45:58

I am a technological virgin. I have a YouTube channel, but I have no clue what I'm doing, so I don't even know what it means to flip the connector.

46:06

If I disconnect something, then my camera might turn off. We don't want that to happen, so thank you so much, though.

46:13

I appreciate the suggestion. Okay, so let's see here. That's not a question for me.

46:25

Yeah, so Scott, I agree with you, man. Love Matt Slick or hate him. He's one of the hardest -working Christian apologists out there.

46:31

Yeah, I agree. He is always, always working, whether it's writing, whether it's answering emails, doing debates, and things like that.

46:38

Whether you love him or hate him, the guy works hard, and as a guy who's always trying to get off edges, he has been a great benefit and encouragement to me.

46:46

So I consider it a pleasure and an honor to speak highly of him in this venue here.

46:53

All right, let's see here. Power connector on the laptop. If it's reversible, can be plugged in upside down.

47:02

Well, I have a US, it's like a USCB. I don't even know if I said that right. Now I'm gonna embarrass myself.

47:08

Let me see. If I disconnect it, it's this guy. You see that in the camera?

47:15

I don't know how to plug. I mean, this never happens.

47:21

Okay, let me see. Turn on. No, still not going. Four percent.

47:27

Okay, I have to stop. I have to actually just continue. USB. Yeah, thank you.

47:33

Thank you. All right, let's see. How about this? So I'm sure you guys don't mind if I turn my camera off and use my webcam.

47:44

It's terrible. It's actually okay. So that's the only way I will be able to stay longer. So let's see what happens.

47:50

I'm going to. I'm going to. Oh, no. Okay. No, that won't work either.

47:57

Oh, man, this is so ghetto right now. All right. So I'm just gonna keep going through some questions.

48:03

And then once I get to like one percent, I'll shut it down. Okay, let's see how many questions we get to. All right. What apologetic questions are you researching right now for yourself?

48:11

That's a great question, Judd. I am currently studying. Pardon. I'm studying the doctrine of hell because I'm speaking at a conference, a

48:23

Rethinking Hell conference that's put out by Chris Date, who is a conditional. He holds to the view known as conditional immortality.

48:31

And I'm going to be one of the speakers at that conference. I take the traditional view of hell. I believe that hell is eternal conscious torment.

48:37

And my topic, okay, is, is eternal conscious torment a problem for Christian apologetics?

48:44

And so I'm currently researching that topic so that I can formulate my my talk and give it, I believe it's on October 28th, something along those lines.

48:52

So if you guys are interested, it's somewhere on if you look up Chris Date Rethinking Hell, he's posted it all over. If you're in Indiana around that late

48:59

October date, you know, love to see you guys there. But that's what I'm currently researching, along with some other issues relating to presuppositional apologetics, specifically the objection to Christianity called

49:11

Frishtianity. So I've been researching that and have been. Yeah.

49:18

Okay. I have to go quick, running out of time. All right. Certainty Exists says, have you considered doing a stream where you critique one of Bonson's debates?

49:25

Yes, that's something I totally want to do. I want to do that and the Gordon Stein debate. All right. Moving along, moving along, moving along.

49:31

We got to go fast. I'm so sorry. Let's see here. Okay. That's not a question.

49:40

That's not a question. All right. Let's see here.

49:48

Hmm. Okay. Okay. So New Reformation Apologetics says, do you like reform the epistemological approach to apologetics?

49:56

Reform the epistemology is not an apologetic method, contrary to popular opinion. As a matter of fact, in reform the epistemology, if you're dealing with, say, something along the lines of like Alvin Plantinga's proper basicality of beliefs, he argues something along the lines that belief in God is properly basic and that you can be justified in believing in God independent of having arguments for God.

50:17

Okay. I'm down with that. In that sense, I don't think that you need an argument in order to be rationally justified in affirming the existence of God.

50:25

I do believe that the belief in God is properly basic. I think it's something that we know independent of arguments.

50:34

I believe in innate knowledge of God, that we know God innately in light of the fact that we are image bearers of God.

50:40

So I believe, I agree with John Calvin, who says something along the lines that we cannot know ourselves truly, lest we also simultaneously know our maker.

50:49

Now that's not a direct quote, but you get what I'm saying. All right. I hope that helps. Let's see here.

50:57

Okay. I think, let me see. I have to go back down. Navigating the comments is really hard.

51:05

Okay. Toto Bermundo says, it's not much Eli, but it's 5 ,000 Korean won, in case you're wondering, around 4 .99.

51:13

Thank you so much. I appreciate that. You want me to comment on the MacArthur RC Sproul debate?

51:20

You know what? I have not listened to that debate in its entirety, but what I want to do, and maybe you guys can put this in the comments and let me know if this is something you're interested.

51:28

If you want me to kind of interact with debates and comments on them, if you want me to do that on a regular basis, let me know in the comments, which

51:36

I probably won't be able to read now because my computer's about to die, but I eventually will go back and listen to them and read them.

51:44

Okay. Oh, I'm so flummoxed because I just don't know what to say with this charger thing. All right.

51:52

Okay. So Judd Noel says, what do you think is the weakest point of Chris Date's position?

51:59

All right. That's a hard question to answer. I'm not of the position of conditional immortality, but I think

52:09

Chris Date is one of the best defenders of his position. I wouldn't debate him on the topic.

52:15

I'm not knowledgeable on the topic. I don't know if I can identify off the top of my head, the weakest point.

52:21

I do think that he argues very well for it. And it's one of those things I need to sit back and kind of just think through slowly and interact with the position in a little more depth so that I can have a much more kind of honest and thoughtful response as to why

52:34

I don't agree. Okay. Now my computer just gave me a notification. There was 1 % left.

52:40

That means we need to end. I'm so sorry. Again, I got to check this whole charger thing out, guys.

52:46

Thank you so much. This was a surprise live stream. I didn't know I was going to do it. Thank you so much for listening.

52:52

Thank you for the super chats and your support until next time, guys, take care and God bless.