John Lennox: Top 3 MOST REPLAYED Mic Drops

Why is John Lennox one of the best Christian debaters out there? Have you seen how he handles himself on the stage? It's absolutely amazing. Take a look at this.

It is absurd to complain that it is unthinkable for an unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing and then to pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself.

Into everything. Dr. Lennox has gone toe to toe on the debate stage against the likes of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Peter Atkins, and he's considered by many Christians to be one of the best debaters out there.

But why? What about his strategy or tactics on the stage make him so good? I'm going to highlight one thing that John Lennox does better than just about any debater, and he does this in every single one of his debates.

And when you figure out how to do what John Lennox does, it's going to change the game when you engage others for Christ as well. So let's get into it. Welcome back to Wise Disciple. My name is Nate Sala, and I'm helping you become the effective Christian that you were meant to be.

Before I jumped into this ministry full time, I was a pastor and a debate teacher, and it's from that unique intersection that I make these videos. Make sure to like, sub, and share this video around, but only if it blesses you.

Laying a Debate Framework by Reframing the Opponent’s Argument

Well, presumably if there was a creation, let's try to talk in your kind of language. If there was a creation, then presumably the something that we now experience was preceded by the absence of something.

And I presume that we can call the absence of something or the absence of anything, nothing. So presumably at the creation, somehow or other, absolutely nothing changed into, I use the term rolled over, changed into something.

Is that what happened? By principles of indolence and ignorance and... No, those come later. Oh, I see. I need to read this, you see, Peter. I'm sorry you catch me out.

Little jab there by Lennox. So this is Peter Atkins. He's attempting to reiterate the Christian view on creation. Now, Atkins is a chemist, he's a former professor at Oxford, and he's an atheist who is arguing that science can explain everything, including the origin of the universe.

Lennox, who is a mathematician, he is a professor at Oxford, he's pushing back against Atkins' position, and he just gave a little academic jab at Atkins' characterization, suggesting that it really is based on laziness and ignorance, anyway.

But I think... No, let me speak to the point. Let me just finish. So presumably you think that if there was absolutely nothing and it turned into absolutely something, that there was an agent involved in causing that.

Is that the creation? I wouldn't quite put it that way. I would say that the universe comes from nothing physical, but it doesn't come from nothing. God is not nothing. In fact, we get the whole thing upside down.

We tend to think, partly because of the way we're educated in terms of science, that mass energy and material is the basic stuff of the universe. Of course, now we've come down to nothing being the basic stuff.

I would want to say about that is, I don't believe it, but secondly, God is not physical. God is spirit. And the fundamental stuff of the universe is mind and spirit. It's not material. So then, if I could finish, the universe comes from nothing physical, but it doesn't come from nothing.

It comes from God, who created it. Let there be light, and there was light. And so that is my position.

All right. Let's talk about what just happened. And really, as we highlight this, it's going to become more obvious. It looks like, right now, this is merely a discussion between two individuals moderated by Justin Briley.

That's not what's going on. This is a very informal debate, just about to the point where I wouldn't even call it a debate. But it's in front of a live audience. And it also has a video audience, because I grabbed this off YouTube, and as of right now, there's almost a million views to this video.

So what Atkins did, was he just tried to characterize the view of Christians, but in a manner that is disadvantageous to them. Okay? Notice the part where he says this.

So presumably, at the creation, somehow or other, absolutely nothing changed into, I use the term rolled over, changed into something.

Okay, you see that? This characterization, it seems to me, is meant to level the playing field for the Christian and the atheist. Because something came out of nothing, somehow. That's what he said. And if that's the Christian view, and that's the atheist view, then the positing of God is unnecessary.

You see that? This is the implicit suggestion by framing it like this. Okay? But you see how Lennox immediately rejected that framework, and then he relayed his own.

Framework for the audience. Watch this. I would say that the universe comes from nothing physical, but it doesn't come from nothing. God is not nothing.

Okay, this is key, guys. So what he just did is a debate move that will serve you well on the debate stage. Or forget it, even if you don't want to get on the debate stage, just in your own circles of influence in regular conversations.

Okay? What he did just here. Now, let me show you another example of this, and then I'll start explaining what the move is.

Reframing Dawkins on Atheism, Stalin, and the Cold War

You ask us to imagine with John Lennon a world without religion. Well, I'd like you to imagine with John Lennox a world without atheism, with no Stalin, with no Mao, with no Pol Pot, to name the heads of the three officially atheistic states.

A world with no gulag, no cultural revolution, no killing fields. I think that would be a world worth imagining, too. And I must say, I'm very disturbed in your book by what seems to me to be an attempt to airbrush out the atrocities of the world.

I've spent a lot of time visiting that part of the world, and I don't recognize anything that you say. Atheism was not peripheral to Marxism. For Marx, the criticism of religion was the foundation of all criticism.

And so, it concerns me that a scientist who's very interested in historical science, in the sense of evolutionary biology unraveling history, is content with a.

Superficial analysis of the period of the Cold War. That's brutal. Okay? That's brutal. So, okay, in this clip, Richard Dawkins is debating John Lennox over some of the views that he expressed in his book, The God Delusion.

Okay? And he said, quoting John Lennon, so this is Dawkins, said, imagine a world with no heaven or hell. Right? This is a way of getting the audience to think through the debate in a manner that is advantageous to Dawkins' position.

Okay? And this is called, in debate, it's called laying a framework. All right? But what Lennox just did is literally, in two seconds, flip the script and laid his own framework. Right? Imagine a world with no God in it.

He's relaying a framework for the audience that helps his position. And even that last bit there, about history, right? How can an evolutionary professor be so comfortable with such a shallow view of history, right?

Of the Cold War. That's cueing the audience about how to view Dawkins moving forward. Okay? You see that? Simply by choosing these well-timed, concise statements, Lennox lays a framework for the audience and narrates to them how to think through and adjudicate the issues.

And that's what laying a framework is. It's telling the audience how to think through the debate and judge it correctly. If you can do that more and more, work this into your conversations, or if you are on the debate stage, do this a lot.

Keep coming back to laying the framework and relaying it. You will do extremely well in your engagements. Clearly, both debaters attempt to do this kind of a thing, but Lennox is truly a master at this.

Because he's really, he's both adept at laying a framework, but also just the way that he phrases things, and the way that he phrases his framework, it's incredibly memorable, it's striking, it's funny at times, you know?

Well, I invite you to hear a quote from John Lennox instead of John Lennon, right? The whole audience laughed, you know? And when the audience adopts your framework, as a debater on the stage, you win.

More often than not, even over substance, if the audience or the judge adopts your framework, you win the debate. Now, this is not to say that Lennox does not have substance on his side, of course he does.

But what I'm showing you is why he's so powerful on that stage. It's because he's very good at laying a framework. As a matter of fact, watch how he does it here in his speech at the Oxford Union.

Ah, he's a beast. He's incredibly good at this.

How to Lay a Framework in Everyday Christian Conversations

And again, what he's doing is he's helping the audience think through the opposing side's thought process. Can you see that? He's showing them how absurd the pushback from his interlocutors really are, and he's doing it by telling them how to think through the issue.

He's framing the debate for his audience so that they can come to an appropriate conclusion. Now, this is really, it's going to be a short video, because here's what I want you to do. I just want you to think about how you can start laying a framework in your regular conversations as a Christian at home, work, or school.

Okay? Now, if you do that and you practice this, you will get better and better. Now, some of you will go on to the debate stage, most of you won't. It's fine. Just start at home now. Right? So let's talk about three things that are going to help you along these lines.

Forethought, Anticipating Objections, and Practice

Number one, it begins with forethought. You gotta think ahead, okay? Which, let's face it, a lot of times we find ourselves in conversations, particularly conversations that matter, with no game plan, because we essentially fell down the stairs backwards into the conversation, right?

But if you can start thinking ahead of time, you know, just get into the practice of it. Like, oh, okay, well, wait a second. I know today I'm going to be hanging out with my friend, and I know my friend is a skeptic.

Well, now you can start thinking about what you'd like to say if you had the opportunity to say it. This is what I mean. This is forethought. This is prep. All right? This is what debaters do, but on a much grander scale.

All right? The next thing you should do is anticipate your opponent. So this is something debaters do in their prep. They start thinking about not only what they want to say, but also think about how their opponent might respond, about how their opponent might provide pushback.

This all happens before they get out there and engage. Now, for some of you, you're thinking, well, Nate, this is too much work already. Okay, fine. This video is not for you. Don't, you know, I don't know.

Don't hear the video. Don't be productive in your conversations. I'm not sure what to tell you, okay? Because the bottom line is, there is no such thing as an excellent speaker or debater that has not done what I'm telling you right now.

Even people who get up and speak, quote-unquote, extemporaneously are pulling information and communication pieces from their time in prep at some point in the past. And that's, again, prep, forethought.

That's what I'm talking about, okay? So there's, right, prep or forethought, right? There's anticipating your opponent, and then, finally, you should practice what you want to say before you say it in real-world situations.

You should get up and hear yourself say your piece, right, whatever you want to say, and also practice responding as you anticipate your opponent. You should be doing this, kind of like drills, okay? Because here's how that all comes together to help you lay a framework.

Laying a framework is, essentially, the product of thinking and thinking and thinking about issues over and over. Wrestling with it, prepping for it, anticipating how somebody's going to respond to it, and then also practicing out loud what you're going to say, right?

It's you thinking about these things back and front, up and down, right? That is, those are the elements that lay the groundwork for laying a framework, okay? And why is that? Well, because when you are so familiar with an issue, because you've just thought about it over and over and over again, right?

It becomes much easier to explain it to others. It becomes much easier to narrate the issue to somebody else, help them understand how to think about it, right? Particularly when someone is challenging you to your face, you know?

When someone challenges you with, you know, something that you've never heard before, what happens? All of a sudden, right, the heart starts beating fast, right? The blood starts pumping in the veins, okay?

But when someone challenges you with an issue that you know, you're very familiar with front and back, you remain calm, and you can find multiple ways to respond, not just one. So, forethought, anticipating your opponent, and practice.

These are the elements that provide the conditions for laying a framework, all right? Now, I go into these pieces and a ton more in a much deeper level in my Debate Masterclass that is about to go live.

So, if you're someone who found this video encouraging and you want to know more, stick with me, because I'm about to let you know when that Masterclass is going to be available, okay? Thank you. All right, anyway, now it's your turn.

What do you think about John Lennox? Why do you think he's such a great communicator? Let me know in the comments below. As always, if you made it this far, you got to join up with the Patreon community.

Just simply to sit with me, we can do exclusive live streams together. We can do a Zoom together and chat one-on-one. There's lots of pieces that would bless you if you were to jump over to the Patreon community.

Also, the link for the Patreon is below. Also, don't forget, I am going to be making the announcement very soon about the Debate Masterclass. So, again, just stay tuned to the channel and I hope that all of these pieces bless you somehow.

Hey, I will return soon with more videos, but in the meantime, I'll say bye for now.