Apologetics Class 5 - Textbook Discussion

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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May 6, 2021

00:11: All right, I'm going to give you guys one more thing before we get to this classical arguments thing.
00:15: I do want to give you one more question.
00:17: We ran out of time, but I want to give this to you so you have it.
00:20: Another good question you can ask a person who says, I don't believe in God, is say, if you believe life came from non-life, and that's Darwinism, Darwinism is life came from non-life, if you believe life came from non-life, what is life? That goes back to the whole stardust question, are we just that? Here's a consideration on that.
00:44: If a person is a materialist, a materialist is a person who believes that the only thing that exists is the material world, there's nothing spiritual, you don't have a spirit, what you think is your spirit is just your brain functioning.
00:56: If a person is an absolute materialist, consciousness in an individual is simply the experience of chemical reactions in the brain, and if thought is nothing more than a chemical reaction, then there's no such thing as genuine rationality, and rationality is actually reactionality, chemicals reacting in the brain, and you have to ask them, why would you trust that? And why would you trust it? Like I said, why trust that, if that's all that it is? I want to give you two quotes, this is why I didn't want to leave this without giving you these quotes, because if you ask a person, why do you not believe in God, they'll often say, I'm a free thinker.
01:45: In fact, like I told you earlier, the free thinker's movement, right? But do you understand that atheism is actually the opposite of free thinking, because let me give you why I say that.
01:56: Because if what you believe is that you are simply organic material, and chemicals is what create the sensation you believe is thought, then you don't really have any control over that.
02:12: You are biologically predestined to be the way that you are.
02:17: So I would say, I'm biologically predestined to believe in God.
02:22: So why would you be upset with me for doing that? It's the way I was, well, I wasn't created according to your old view, I guess this is just the way the universe made me.
02:32: But here's the thing, Stephen Hawking, you remember him? He was, now he's the guy in, now he died.
02:45: Well, listen to what he said though about will, human will.
02:50: The molecular basis of biology shows that biological processes are governed by the laws of physics and chemistry and therefore are as determined as the orbits of the planet.
03:01: Recent experiments in neuroscience support the view that it is our physical brain following the known laws of science that determines our actions and not some agency that exists outside of those laws.
03:12: So it seems that we are no more than biological machines and free will is just an illusion.
03:21: Well, why would free will be something if all you are is the reactionary chemicals in your brain? You don't have a will, you have chemicals reacting.
03:31: See, it's not a will.
03:33: That's the point he's making, you're predestined to be what you are because you're just a chemical, you just happen to be the chemicals that make up Janus and it's different chemicals that make up Darien.
03:47: Sam Harris, another atheist, neuroscientist said this, this is from a neuroscientist, free will is an illusion.
03:56: Our wills are simply not of our own making.
03:58: Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control.
04:05: We do not have freedom, we do not have the freedom we think we have.
04:12: Huh? Well, yeah, in that sense it's saying that we don't have any power, but ultimately he's saying we don't have a will, it's all an illusion.
04:26: Everything that we experience that we think is us deciding is just our brains.
04:30: Like Mozart's type of? No, not like that, even though, what he's saying is, we talk about free will and everybody wants to have free will, right, and I'm a free thinker.
04:42: But if you are simply the product of organic material, if all you are is organic material, there's no spirit within you, then there's really no will, it's just your brain, and it's just chemicals, and that's it.
04:59: You are doing what the chemicals in your brain do.
05:05: This is, I'm not saying this is true, I'm saying this is their argument, this is all they got.
05:09: Yeah.
05:13: What? Okay, that's somewhat of a different conversation, but I will answer the question.
05:26: The Bible says that our will is bound in sin, but that's not what they're talking about.
05:32: We don't deny the existence of a will, we say our will is bound in sin and that we function as slaves to sin before we're set free by Christ for righteousness.
05:42: That's what we're talking about, but we don't deny the existence of will, we don't deny the existence of spirit, we don't deny the existence of soul, but they do.
05:50: They have to, because they believe the only thing that exists is that which is organic, that which is material.
05:58: They're materialists, therefore they only believe in that which is material.
06:02: And the will is not material, therefore it doesn't exist.
06:05: That's the point.
06:06: You don't have a free will, you simply do what the chemicals do, and that's why some people act the way they act and some people don't.
06:14: And that's why I say, why are you upset with me for believing that's what my chemicals do? According to your worldview, you shouldn't be upset with me, you should be celebrating the way my chemicals are, we celebrate diversity.
06:25: My chemicals are different than your chemicals.
06:36: There isn't.
06:37: Atheism gives no room for hope, and that's the thing that's the most sickening thing of all, is to hear them proselytize, they make it sound as if they have the best worldview of all because their worldview doesn't depend on making God happy, I can just make myself happy.
06:53: That's the, I can do what I, what I think is right.
07:06: Well, that is, there is some truth to that, Ed, because you don't see, you don't, you don't typically see atheism in places where there is despair, because people look, looking for something to hope in.
07:18: Yeah, Bobby, you had a.
07:19: Yeah, I thought it was interesting, but they're getting together.
07:32: That's right.
07:33: I always thought it was odd, I don't see one for people getting together.
07:42: Yeah.
07:42: You know, I mean, I don't see other things gathering together.
07:51: Yeah.
08:12: Well, the two most consistent, the two most consistent belief, beliefs among atheists are, number one, God does not exist, and number two, I hate him.
08:26: That's the two most consistent beliefs among atheists.
08:29: And that's why you asked the question, if it can be proven to your satisfaction that God did exist, would you worship him? No.
08:38: The answer is no, almost always, no, because it's not about not knowing that God exists.
08:44: But again, has this been somewhat helpful in how to engage, just little thoughts on how to engage? We're not we're not out there trying to trying to become, you know, smarter than the other person.
08:54: We're just asking questions and and pointing to the Bible, our presupposition.
08:59: This is what we believe is true, and this is what we're going to share with you.
09:02: Don't start with never start with, well, I'm going to set the Bible aside and let's just have no, no, no, no, no.
09:09: You're giving up the the one sword, the one weapon God has given you.
09:13: Don't put it to the side and say, hey, we're just going to start neutrally because what was our second class? There is no neutrality.
09:20: All right.
09:20: So all of this is based on this is all just another form of how to have that presuppositional conversation.
09:26: All right.
09:26: So in your book this week, we looked at.
09:31: Chapter five, apologetics is proof.
09:36: And Dr.
09:36: Frame dealt with the classic arguments for the existence of God.
09:43: And let me tell you how funny this is.
09:44: I did that video yesterday, and if you haven't seen it yet, please go back and watch it.
09:49: It is a 30 minute podcast where I outline the cosmological, teleological, ontological and moral arguments.
09:55: I try to help you understand what they are.
09:58: And if you haven't watched it, please do.
10:00: But what's interesting, I posted that video yesterday at about four o'clock because I filmed it here in the room.
10:06: I posted it around four o'clock.
10:09: By the time I got home last night, I already had an atheist post a comment.
10:16: Yeah, immediately.
10:17: And he said classical arguments equal fallacious.
10:21: That's all I said, but that was the response.
10:25: It's on our YouTube page.
10:28: We're everywhere.
10:32: That's the only place that people can actually engage, except for, of course, Facebook.
10:36: But if you go to our YouTube page and go through our videos, we don't have a ton of views because we don't have a popular page.
10:44: You know, the most views we have is like the debate I did.
10:46: There's a bunch of views on that.
10:48: But there are comments, comments on it.
10:52: And YouTube brings out the commenters.
11:00: So, in this chapter, what's that? Keyboard bullies, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:07: Keyboard commandos.
11:12: One of the things that Dr.
11:14: Frame did in this chapter that I really thought was good is he made the argument, and I hope you caught this.
11:22: He made the argument that really all of these boil down to the moral argument.
11:25: And what he was saying, essentially, is that moral argument is to say there is right and wrong.
11:38: And so, let's say that a scientist comes to you and says, this is a scientifically proven fact.
11:48: And you say to that person, I don't believe it.
11:53: And they say, but it's scientifically proven.
11:54: I don't care.
11:57: Well, it's wrong not to believe something that's true.
12:01: Why? Why is it wrong? That's the point Dr.
12:07: Frame is making.
12:08: That really all of this boils down, even really the teleological argument, it all sort of boils down to the moral argument.
12:14: You're saying something is not right.
12:16: But by what standard is it not right? This is getting to that by what standard? You know, hashtag precept.
12:23: That's the reason.
12:24: By what standard is it not right? By what standard is it right or is it wrong for me to believe in a flat Earth? I don't, but what if I did? By what standard? Somebody says, well, we have pictures.
12:37: We can show you the Earth is round.
12:38: We can show you the other planets around.
12:39: We know the Earth is round.
12:41: I don't care.
12:41: I believe what I want to believe.
12:44: But you're morally wrong for believing wrong.
12:46: They would say that.
12:48: By what standard? Is it wrong for me to believe what's wrong? By what standard is it wrong for me to teach what's wrong? By what standard is it wrong? By what standard is anything wrong? That's the moral argument.
13:03: If you don't have a standard for ought, then you don't have ought.
13:08: All you have with the material world is is.
13:12: That's the point.
13:13: And don't miss this.
13:15: All you have with materialism is is.
13:17: You do not have ought.
13:21: A material world cannot give you ought.
13:25: Can only give you is.
13:27: Can give you what is, not what ought to be.
13:34: The concept of ought and ought not is a moral concept.
13:38: And it really exists in all of science.
13:40: Because what does science say? You ought to believe this because it's true.
13:43: Why? Who cares what's true? How can you give me an ought if there's no standard for right and wrong? So that really is the heart of Frame's argument.
13:54: He's saying that really it all boils down to the argument of ought.
14:00: And as I said, I've seen guys use this with some, really with some fantastic success.
14:07: Because it boils down to the question of by what standard? What standard? Let's look, look at, look at your sheet I gave you.
14:19: This is the, the summary of chapter five.
14:25: This chapter will argue moral values, comma, therefore God.
14:30: Moral values exist, yet they are not material, nor are they perceived through the empirical means.
14:36: Prescription is not the same as description.
14:39: Objective moral values are real as physical laws.
14:44: Excuse me, are as real as physical laws.
14:46: Ethical laws are more than merely subjective and emotional preferences.
14:51: If there are no moral obligations, then we are free to believe, think, and do whatever we want.
14:58: Epistemological duties can't be divorced from morality.
15:01: Hear that again.
15:02: If there are no moral obligations, we're free to believe, think, and do whatever we want.
15:06: Now, it's not on here, but just remember this quote.
15:14: Without God, all things are permissible.
15:17: Without God, all things are permissible.
15:19: Does that connect to the implications argument, the implications? Yes, yeah, you know, when you're dealing, when you ask the question, what are the implications of your world view? There are no standards in your world view.
15:35: Everyone must acknowledge a highest moral norm.
15:38: And where does the highest moral principle get its authority? In personal realities.
15:43: That is a material world, a material universe, cannot create ought.
15:49: Since we cannot derive an ought, a prescription, from what is a description.
15:56: Obligations arise in the context of personal relationships, so an absolute obligation would require an absolute person.
16:03: By the way, if you haven't picked it up in the book yet, Frame began this argument back in chapter one and chapter two.
16:09: Because he said, we're not just arguing for some impersonal deity who started the world spinning like a top.
16:14: That's what the deist believes.
16:16: The deist believes that the world was started by some powerful being, but that it just keeps going on its own.
16:22: The theist says, not only did God create the world, but that he is personally active in his world.
16:30: And provides the basis for morality.
16:34: Provides the basis for objective truth.
16:41: Some have objective that if goodness is based on the character of God, then to say God is good is tautological.
16:46: Now that's, we don't know if we have time to get into that.
16:51: Tautological means, in a sense, circular.
16:54: If you say, God is good, well, what is good? Good is God, and it's this.
17:01: How do you define good? It's not bad.
17:13: Who said that? You get a gold star, James.
17:17: What's good? Not bad.
17:21: But how do you define the ultimate standard of good? Without God, you wouldn't be able to.
17:29: That's right.
17:30: But notice in the book what he said, though.
17:32: He made the point that if you say God is the standard of goodness, then what you're saying is that God is good, and that's what good is.
17:45: Good is God, right? And so that becomes a tautology or a circular statement.
17:50: Really, it has no meaning.
17:52: Did you know the word God actually is, it's the word good actually comes from its etymology is God.
17:58: Good speed, God speed, both have the same etymological foundation.
18:02: Good and God do have somewhat, in English, a common linguistic ancestor.
18:09: But going back, we talk about, how do you know something? We talked about this in ethics, right? Remember, Jackie? I think you were probably the only one that was here for that class.
18:18: Well, John, were you here for ethics? Remember what we said? We said, if we said this is a line, and this represents good.
18:26: We said, where is God? We said, God is the line, right? Because if God does it, it's good.
18:32: But when you're talking about that, and you're having that conversation with someone, you don't have to give more than that, but you have to explain it in such a way that say, goodness is God's nature.
18:47: We're saying that that is what God is, and so that's how we define it.
18:52: We define goodness as that which is flowing out of God's being.
18:59: The Bible says, God is good.
19:07: And I'm simply making the point that some would have an issue with that and say, well, how do you understand? But notice what it goes on to say, whatever God says or does is good no matter what that is.
19:17: And somebody says, well, what about the times when God does things in the Bible that we don't think are good? Well, we're not the standard.
19:26: We're not the standard.
19:27: If the standard of goodness is outside of God, then he is subordinate to it, and God is subordinate to nothing.
19:38: This objection assumes that ultimate standards must be impersonal.
19:42: That's not true.
19:43: There is no impersonal standard that God, God's not below the line of good trying to reach it.
19:49: That's what we talked about in ethics class.
19:50: God's not down here trying to reach up to meet goodness.
19:53: God is the standard.
19:55: So, here's a tough one.
19:57: When God determined to kill every firstborn child in Egypt, because of the disobedience of Pharaoh, was that good? Yes.
20:15: His ways are higher than our ways.
20:16: His ways are higher than our ways, that's true.
20:18: But that's a difficult one.
20:20: This is what we're gonna get to next week when we talk about evil and how do we understand it.
20:25: But when God does it, there is no standard above him that he has to reach.
20:31: He is the standard, and so- I used to think it was kind of, you didn't do this.
20:46: When you can do this, when you can make them out, build them out.
20:48: He did what now? He came and gave God, he gave, did you just say, and I wanna make sure the microphone gets this, did you just say God gave Job the business? Well, instead of answering the question, he's like, look here now, hold on.
21:07: But then it's like, hey, if you can create the star, then you can decide what to do.
21:12: I just love the fact that you- That's great.
21:20: I was just gonna say, he just quoted Wally from Leave it to Beaver.
21:39: That's actually gonna be part of next week's lesson.
21:41: Actually, not the business, but we're gonna- It's a concept.
21:46: Well, because if you look forward at chapter 7 and 8, he actually addresses Job.
21:52: He says, what was the answer God gave for what all Job went through? I'm God.
21:57: Yeah, it wasn't deal with it, but what's your deal, brother? It was like, God gave him the business and said deal with it.
22:08: He's like, look, I'm God, that's the way it is.
22:11: You're not.
22:12: But the heart of it is that God's ways are above our ways, and understanding is sometimes beyond us.
22:24: Look at the second paragraph on your sheet, it says, in epistemology, our minds and knowledge correlated with the comprehensibility of the universe makes far more sense given the absolute personality of the creator God who created ourselves and the world.
22:40: Impersonal rules of logic cannot obligate us to reason in a particular way.
22:46: Metaphysical arguments should try to show that to explain some aspect of reality presupposes God.
22:54: The teleological argument is intuitively very powerful but difficult to formulate in a rigorous way.
23:00: Given that the world was designed and created by God, we would expect it to be analogous to human creations but with dissimilarities too.
23:09: Our ability to distinguish facts and ends assumes knowledge, which as we saw assumes moral values, which requires a personal absolute God.
23:19: In cosmological arguments, we seek causes, reasons for phenomena.
23:23: Rational beings seek explanations for things.
23:25: At some point, there must be an ultimate explanation.
23:29: Just stop right there.
23:33: That's what the classical arguments are.
23:36: If you haven't understood this yet, hopefully you will by tonight's end.
23:41: The classical arguments, as I said from the very first class, seek to give rational and logical reasons, arguments for the existence of God.
23:53: So the cosmological arguments say what? Something is, and nothing comes from nothing, therefore something always had to have been.
24:03: That's one of the classic cosmological arguments.
24:06: There's something rather than nothing, and since something is, something always had to have been, right? What's another one of the classical arguments? Things are moving, there must be something to have moved them, and that thing that moved them must be himself unmoved.
24:23: So that's the unmoved mover argument.
24:25: There has to be something that moved all this, because nothing moves on its own, it has to be moved by something else.
24:30: There has to be something that was, this is again rational, right? There has to be a starting point.
24:35: It can't be an infinite regression of movers.
24:38: There has to be an unmoved mover, just like there has to be an uncaused cause.
24:43: These are classic cosmological arguments.
24:46: St.
24:46: Thomas Aquinas was known for his five proofs for the existence of God.
24:51: Three of those proofs were cosmological arguments.
24:55: The unmoved mover, what's the second one? I have them on here.
25:01: Just ran out of my mind.
25:03: It's the unmoved mover, the motion, the cause and effect, the uncaused cause, and the contingency, the dependent, independent one upon which everything else is dependent, right? That's the three of his five arguments for the existence of God, sometimes called the five proofs for the existence of God.
25:26: Those are St.
25:27: Thomas Aquinas's, and when I teach church history, I actually go over those as part of our Middle Ages study, because Aquinas was probably the greatest thinker in the Middle Ages of the church, at least one of the greatest thinkers.
25:41: And he had the five proofs for God's existence.
25:44: The first three were cosmological arguments.
25:47: Logic and reason lead us to believe that there must be something that has always been.
25:54: So that's a cosmological argument, and the teleological argument is purpose.
25:57: That's William Paley.
25:59: You've all heard the watchmaker analogy, especially if you listen to my video, because I talked about it in the video.
26:04: If you were walking on the beach, and you found a watch, and it was running, and you picked it up, and it was set to the right time, you would have to assume that that came about through an intelligent creator.
26:15: It did not come about by wind and erosion and chance.
26:20: In fact, I think I've told this story.
26:22: I know I have it set free, but I don't know that I've ever told it here.
26:26: I have a good example of this from my own life.
26:28: When I was early in the ministry, we had a youth leader here, a man named James.
26:35: And he did a youth camp, and we all went to camp, and I went with them.
26:39: And while we were at camp, we went canoeing.
26:42: And while we were canoeing down the Suwannee River, I looked on the bank of the Suwannee River, and I saw a park bench that someone had put on the bank of the river, apparently, to sit and look at the river go by.
26:56: But the bench had been covered with sand.
26:59: Apparently, the person who put it there hadn't used it in years, and it was covered in sand, and it was covered with all kinds of ick.
27:06: But the shape of the park bench was still very clearly evident in the midst of all the dirt and all the ick.
27:13: And I remember thinking, that is a good example of Pele's argument.
27:17: Cuz I know simply by looking at that, that that didn't come about by accident.
27:23: Simply by looking at the design of that bench, that that didn't just come about by erosion on the beaches of the Suwannee River.
27:32: The water didn't create that.
27:35: In the same way that I can look at the Grand Canyon and say, yeah, I could see how water could cut that canyon away.
27:40: But if I looked at the Mount Rushmore heads, there's no way that could have accidentally happened.
27:48: Now you look at the cell.
27:50: Now you look at the intricacies of the body.
27:52: You look at all these things, and you say there's design, there's purpose.
27:58: The world around us has so many things.
28:02: We talked about this earlier, Bobby.
28:04: Just the amount of things that are required for this world to not only produce life, but to sustain it.
28:12: You realize this world creates medicine? Well, everything comes from the Earth.
28:20: Now we mix it up and shake it up, but it all comes from the Earth.
28:24: Nobody's ever made anything.
28:26: It's all been taken from the Earth.
28:30: It's all here.
28:32: Now we, because we're made in the image of God, have ability to put things together and mix them up, but we've never made anything.
28:39: It's always just been redoing what's already here.
28:43: It's just amazing.
28:44: This world produces food, it produces medicine, produces air for us to breathe, water for us to drink, all seemingly for a purpose, sustaining of life.
28:57: That's the teleological argument.
28:59: The ontological argument, as I said in my video, it's one that I find the least persuasive, but still nonetheless true.
29:11: But I'll let you watch the video and see what you come up with out of that.
29:16: And of course, the moral argument is the argument from ought.
29:18: That's the one we've spent the most time with.
29:21: Do you have any questions on this week's reading? Is the book starting to make more sense? Enjoying it a little better? Hopefully you are.
29:32: Well, next week we're gonna deal with the problem, we're gonna talk about the problem of evil.
29:37: But I wanna say this, there's two chapters to read.
29:41: These chapters are heavy duty.
29:44: My recommendation to you is read the summary first.
29:47: Try to read as much of the chapters as you can.
29:49: You may have a hard work week or whatever.
29:52: If you don't read it all, obviously I'm not gonna penalize you.
29:56: Try to read as much as you can, so that when we come back in next week, we're ready to hit the ground running.
30:01: And don't forget, in two weeks from tonight, we're gonna have a very special guest speaker.
30:08: Rich Suplita is going to be here, askaformeratheist.com.
30:11: If you wanna learn about him, go to askaformeratheist.com.
30:15: Look at his information.
30:16: He will be here.
30:18: We may meet that night in the sanctuary, cuz people from church want to come and hear him speak.
30:23: He's gonna be speaking here twice.
30:24: He's gonna be speaking here Wednesday night.
30:26: He's gonna be preaching Wednesday night.
30:27: And then Thursday night, he's gonna be giving a lesson on, I think it was the five fallacies of atheism, I think is what his lesson is for us.
30:35: But those two nights, if you wanna be here, I would encourage you to come to both.
30:39: Be a lot of good stuff.
30:41: Any questions? All right, let's pray.
30:45: We'll leave.
30:47: Father of glory, we thank you so much for this opportunity to be here tonight, and to continue to look at the question of, how do we deal with people who are suppressing the truth and unrighteousness? And how do we give a defense for the hope that is within us? Lord, I pray that this class will be useful for all of us, to help us to do that very thing.
31:13: In Jesus' name, amen.
31:15: Amen.