Epic Apologetics Roundtable Discussion

Revealed Apologetics

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Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala and today we have a very special live stream with some good brothers here that are returning guests in various capacities.

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I've had roundtable discussions before. I've had these individuals on individually and I'm very much looking forward to our discussion this evening.

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And so we're going to jump right into things right away.

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Just real quick just to give folks an update super fast is that I just recently came back from Kansas speaking at a conference there on apologetics, atheism and Roman Catholicism.

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It went very well. It's really encouraging to see college age kind of Christians there.

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That was kind of the primary audience. They were very much excited about learning about apologetics and they had a bunch of questions.

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So it was really, really good. And I'm thankful to God for the church and for the event and the young people there.

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So I won't be having any other speaking engagement until I think way out in January. So I'll keep folks updated on that.

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So without further ado, let's jump right in. We're not going to do kind of generic intro since everyone should know who you guys are.

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But if you want to, you know what, why don't you go around and maybe just real quick tell folks who you are just in case someone who's listening for the first time.

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They're like, who are these old guys? And this one really good young looking Puerto Rican guy. How about you?

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Whoever's the oldest? Who's the oldest here? Age before beauty. I guess that would be me because I'm 67 next month.

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Okay, Methuselah, you can go first. Yeah, thanks. He was a nice guy actually.

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We get along great. Yeah, I'm Matt Slick from CARM .org. We're doing apologetics since 1980,

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Calvinist, presuppositional, and there you go. All right.

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Thank you for that. And we'll go down the line, I suppose. I don't know who's older and who's older.

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I'm so scared. I don't mind going because it's probably me. Okay. I don't look

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Puerto Rican, so I don't know where you get this young, good looking Puerto Rican. You're an albino Rican. You got the white skin, but I'm going to get flagged for racism.

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Go ahead, bro. I'm Josiah Timberingade. I'm up in Canada. I'm a dude with a website. And if you want to learn about presuppositional apologetics,

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I did a film a number of years ago. It's called How to Answer the Fool. And that's available on YouTube at the

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Dutch price. Free. So you can check that out. And also I did a documentary on a debate that I did with Matt Delahunty.

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It's called Debating Delahunty. And it's also on my YouTube channel called Answer Anyone. So you could check out the work that I've done there.

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Awesome. Thank you. What about your brother, Anthony? Yeah, my name is Anthony Rogers.

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I have a website or YouTube page under my name. I am a pastor in South Carolina in the

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Presbyterian Church of America. In that capacity, I serve as the regional director for Metanoia Prison Ministry.

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So my primary duties day in and day out are to prisoners, which I love.

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And I've been doing apologetics for 30 years. Ever since I became a Christian, had an overwhelming desire to tell people about Christ.

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And that brought me into conflict. People didn't want to hear what they needed to hear. So I started learning how to tell it to them.

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All right. Wait a second. I just noticed

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I am the only Reformed Baptist on this panel. Is that correct? For now.

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What, the rest are Presbyterian? Yeah. Cy, you're Presby, right? Anthony, you're

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Presbyterian, right? Okay. I think we need to talk about infant baptism tonight, all night. You're a bunch of baby dippers.

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It's okay. It's all right. Maybe sprinklers, just like Jesus was sprinkled. Okay. I'm not falling for that one,

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Matt. What do you mean sprinkle? Then we're off running. But by the way, guys, real quick. Glad you asked. The first time I ever met

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Matt, and I walked into a room in a church in New Jersey, and he was trying to convince people of infant baptism.

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He was just surrounded by a bunch of dudes, and he was like talking about, you know, the implausibility of interpreting the gospels as them being fully immersed.

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That was the first time ever. So that was fun. I want to share real quick something interesting about all three of you that I think is a lot of fun, because the first time

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I knew about Anthony was, and maybe you can share this a little bit. You were on an

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Instagram live chat with, what's that guy? He's kind of like a political commentator.

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Brandon Tatum. Brandon Tatum. That's right. When I first watched that video, I was like, this looks interesting.

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This looks like this kind of high profile guy, and there's this guy with like a wool hat on drinking Starbucks.

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He looked like you were like out in the alleyway somewhere, and you were completely owning him. There you go. This is a different hat.

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It says Justified Sola Fide. So the backstory is I was working for Ligonier Ministries while I was going to seminary.

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I was in the basement of my house. It was really cold. I was sitting there with a beanie on. And what

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I was doing was remote work. So I would answer live theological questions through typing and so forth.

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People would write in. I would answer questions. I had a friend of mine who told me that Brandon Tatum had sort of veered off the political trail and started waxing eloquent about theological topics.

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Decided because things weren't going the way he liked politically, he got tired of that and was making some theological comments.

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But he decided that he was not a Orthodox Christian. He denied the Trinity and so forth.

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And anyways, a friend of mine was trying to get me to interact with him, and that wasn't working out.

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He wasn't responding. Then I was told while I was working that he's live on Instagram. And my friend asked me to go on, and I was like, well,

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I can't. I'm working. And I started listening to it in the background while I was working, and it was irking me so much.

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I felt like Paul in Acts 17 walking around, seeing all the idols and his spirit being stirred.

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And I thought, well, I'm going to try and do double duty here. I'm going to answer people's questions as they're coming in for Ligonier while I'm interacting with him.

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And so I didn't even think about my appearance. I had a big old beard, had this beanie on. I looked like some guy coming down out of the hills or something.

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And yeah, anyways, we had a I thought he was going to get rid of me after a couple of minutes after he decided it wasn't going the way he might like.

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And instead, he kept me on for 45 minutes. I loved every bit of it. What I enjoyed was you looked like kind of a guy off the street and you had this kind of high profile guy and you're the one going into the

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Greek. It was hilarious. And the comments were were hilarious as well. So that was the first time

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I met you. And guys, if you're interested, you should definitely check out that that interaction. Can you mention the gentleman's name one more time,

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Anthony? Brandon Tatum. Brandon, Brandon Tatum and master class in the defense of the

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Trinity right there in kind of an informal back and forth discussion. It was excellent. You guys should check that out.

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Now, Cy, I know I think the first time I ever saw you or heard of you was at a Bible study during that time back in the early 2000s where you had kind of the young, restless and reformed.

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So there are reformed Bible studies of young men across the country. And I happened to be invited to one of those.

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And people were super happy, excited about reformed theology and even presuppositional apologetics.

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And so we watched a video of some of your interactions. And that was the first time I ever

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I ever saw you. What I want to point out here, maybe you can share. And I thought this was really fun.

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I saw a video of you floating around on the Interwebs and the video is entitled

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The Shortest Debate Ever. Can you tell us a little bit about that? And by the way, it's got to be a record.

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I don't know how many seconds it was. It probably under 10 seconds or like 12 seconds or something like that. It was how long was it?

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14 seconds. 14 seconds. So can you tell us a little bit about the background of that debate and why it was so short and why it's important?

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I think it was actually a statement you made without saying anything. The fact that you left showed a no compromising position on your end.

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And I thought that was very telling. Why don't you share that with us? Very early on in my apologetic career,

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I did a number of podcasts on these atheistic podcasts in England called Fundamentally Flawed with a guy named

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Alex Botten and a guy named Jim. I don't remember his last name right off the bat. But I was on there,

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I think, three different times. They're all available on my YouTube channel. If you go to ProofThatGodExists .org and go to the multimedia audio section, they're all available there.

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I think I had two encounters with the both of them and then one with Alex on his own.

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You can listen to them. I don't think it went well for these fellows. And they actually really despised me because they did not like the argumentation.

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And then they had a fellow on who was a presuppositionalist. But he was very young in, I think, using the presuppositional argument.

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And so they were saying that presuppositional apologetics is dead, that they've crushed it.

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They've annihilated it. And I said, I'll go back on. And they said, fine.

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And as they're introducing me, they said, as long as he doesn't use the arguments that he's used with us in the past.

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As they're introducing me. I think they said, then it'll be over before it begins. I said, well, then it's over right now because I'm not going to give up my ultimate authority.

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And they said goodbye. And I said goodbye. And that was it. So you can come on the show and we can talk about precept.

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But the only precondition, the necessary precondition of you coming on is not using precept.

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Right. And they were allowed to use their arguments, of course. I wasn't allowed to use mine. And the funny thing is, so I had that.

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I recorded it myself as well. Somebody actually made that video that I end up using on my channel for me out of that clip.

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I believe I posted it. They were trying to say that it was copyright, that I was not even allowed to use that 14 second clip.

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Because I think they understand that that didn't even go well for them. Yeah. Yeah. But it's out there. It's also on my channel.

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The shortest debate I've ever done. 14 seconds. I will not surrender my ultimate authority. That's right.

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Yeah, that's right. We're committed to Christ and that's where we're going to stand. So I really appreciated that.

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Now, out of all of the quote unquote high profile apologists that I've ever interacted with, the first, what

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I would consider high profile in my eyes, and I think his history can give him, his history and experience can give him this, at least in a general sense.

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The first person that I spoke with was Matt Slick. I remember reading your website in between classes when

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I was supposed to do my homework in college. I'm like, okay, we're going to hang out. I just finished a class on secondary education and I'm going to the library.

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I'm going to read a bunch of Karm articles. And I remember on my way home, I called the number there and Matt picked up.

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And I was shocked that it was him that picked up. I thought at the Karm super headquarters, world headquarters, he would have some servant or a secretary or something like that.

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He was like, hello? And I was like, oh my goodness, this is Matt Slick. So Matt and I go way, way back.

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So I've learned so much from you and I'm very much appreciative, not just of your content, but your friendship as well.

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Now, there's something I want to ask you, Matt. Maybe you could remember and you can tell us the backdrop because you've done so many debates.

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There was this one debate. This is the one debate that I actually bursted out in laughter.

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And I've said this before. And once I start telling the story, Matt will know. Matt is debating a gentleman on baptism.

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Is baptism necessary for salvation? Okay. And of course, Matt is kind of like machine gunning these scriptures that he thinks contradicts the position of his opponent.

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And so he leaves his opponent with a particular passage. I don't remember which one it was. And then you're like,

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I got to use the bathroom, man. I got to go to the bathroom. So he goes to the bathroom. He literally walks off the screen.

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And you see this gentleman looking at the scriptures and you could hear him sub -vocally. He's like, and you hear

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Matt from the bathroom, read the next verse. And I'm like, Matt is literally debating this guy from the bathroom because it matched so well with the gentleman's confusion.

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He was really grappling with the passage. Why don't you share with us some funny moments?

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I thought that was a funny moment that I really appreciated. What are some funny moments you could remember from some debates if you can pull a quick story out of your pocket?

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Well, I really don't remember. I mean that. I think I know who that was.

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I was at Living Waters. I think that's what the house. And I didn't know

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I was going to be on camera. And they impromptu, hey, you want to do a debate? I go, sure. But they had lots of debates.

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And I don't remember too much about them. But I just do them, and I go do the next thing. So you and I, like you said, though, we've had a lot of really good conversations.

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You and I have a lot of good. And I really appreciate that. But I can't remember any off the top of my head. That's fair.

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That's fair. And I appreciate. I've had private conversations with each of you guys. And you guys have been such a blessing and really a blessing to me in a bunch of different ways.

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So I appreciate you guys. Well, let's jump right into some specifics. I wanted to talk a little bit about some people.

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How would you suggest one would interact with the people I'm going to mention here?

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And one of them you've had interactions with. Maybe you've had interactions with all of these, just three people

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I was mentioning. And they're pretty popular on the internet. And so first I want to talk. It's kind of within the realm of Islam.

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And if you're not – I don't know how much experience you have, Sai, with Islam. If you do, great.

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If you don't, I still want to hear your thoughts coming from – I think you're more explicitly presuppositional than all of us.

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I think we're all presuppositional, but there is a very explicit and intentional way that you do it. And it's kind of different the way maybe myself or Matt or Anthony, in my opinion.

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So I do want to hear what you have to say. But how about Anthony first? Jake, the Muslim metaphysician.

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This guy is a popular guy. Matt, you've debated him. What would be your advice to someone who says, hey,

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I'm going to meet up with Jake at a coffee shop. And we're going to talk about Christianity and Islam.

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What are some pieces of advice you would give someone in speaking with a philosophically informed

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Muslim? Because that's not typical of proponents of Islam. They're not typically familiar with the philosophy and things that go into discussions on the trinity and things like that.

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What would you say to someone like that? You're on mute, brother.

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He probably said something super profound. Yeah, that was it. Now, second point. Yeah, so first of all, it doesn't matter whether Jake's philosophically inclined or not and the person who's talking to him is or not.

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As a Muslim, he's obligated to believe in the previous scriptures. That's a fundamental presupposition of his worldview.

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His worldview endorses the Quran as the literal speech of Allah according to the

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Quran. Repeatedly, the Bible is the word of God. And you knew that already quite apart from the

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Quran. You didn't need the Quran to tell you that. So the point I'm making, though, is that he's obligated to do that by his own scriptures.

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So he might want to wrangle philosophically with a person, but you have no obligation to do that.

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He has every obligation to listen to what the scriptures say and try and deal with that. So that's one thing I would recommend.

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I don't think most people are going to be up on the ins and outs of Trinitarian arguments of a philosophical sort.

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And I don't think people need to be necessarily. I think it's a good thing, but I don't think it's necessary. Okay, that's very helpful.

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So you're saying that he's obligated to listen to scripture. You're not obligated to indulge in the philosophical analysis, if that's the direction someone like that would want to go.

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Yeah, I mean, because here's one thing. As Christians, we've said from ancient times that faith precedes understanding.

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We believe in order to understand. Tertullian taught that. Augustine taught that. And in principle, anybody who thinks through the implications of what it means to call

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God God has to recognize the propriety of that, right? If God is

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God, then we begin with what he says, and then we try and reason from that, not to that.

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His word is criteriological. And so that being the case, if God has told us something in his word, then our obligation is to, you know, if we have some difficulty understanding it, we don't first try to understand it in order to determine whether it's true or not.

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We begin accepting from God's mouth what he's told us. And then on that basis, we seek to try and make further sense out of it in our own understanding.

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And so the point that I'm making with somebody like Jake, or when I say you should talk to somebody like Jake this way, is you are

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God's creature. You have an obligation to believe what he says, and you can bring up philosophical problems all day long, but those don't in principle undermine the truth of what

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God has revealed. Your duty as a creature is to try and understand that, not attack that.

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Okay. Yeah, that's very helpful. Thank you for that. Sai, so if someone were to watch a video of you, you know, back in the day, your repeated phrase, you know, how do you get truth without God?

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Would you take that approach with someone that's more philosophically astute? Like I don't know if you're familiar with Jake, the

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Muslim metaphysician, but someone who can actually engage in some of those more nuanced discussions.

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Using your explicitly presuppositional approach, how would you give advice to someone who would interact with someone like that?

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The more that I do this, the less philosophical I get, actually. And it was actually somebody who was viewing one of my videos, and he confronted me on something, because I'm reluctant to call somebody an atheist.

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I say, according to Scripture, you're actually a professed atheist. Now, of course, we say an unbeliever, you know, Scripture uses the term unbeliever, but what it really means is somebody who professes unbelief.

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And then somebody said to me, well, aren't they really professed Muslims and professed Mormons? And I had to think about that.

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They're exactly right. Now, this is my question. You're about to talk to this Muslim fellow, and just before you get to talk to him, he gets hit by a bus.

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Where is he going? I think all Christians would argue that that person is going to hell. Why? For his sin against the

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God that he knows exists. So I think if you had to refute the minutiae of his worldview, there's over 4 ,000 worldviews out there.

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Nobody could do it. You'd have to be an expert in all of them. So I think that I would encourage people to tell them about Christ, to tell them about the love of Christ.

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One of the most incredible reactions you get with a Muslim is when you say that the Bible teaches to love your enemies.

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And, you know, the thing is, it's a Reformed apologetic. Jesus said, his sheep will hear his voice.

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So I think when we talk to the unbelieving Muslim, we give them the voice of Christ because his sheep will hear that voice.

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Now, if they want to talk about the Hadiths and stuff, there's lots of Christians that will do that. That's not me. I'm concerned for their soul if they get hit by that bus tonight.

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And I want to tell them about the God that I believe in. I think that's a very presuppositional stance. Now, there's a video going around on YouTube.

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We're at the end of my debate with Matt Dillahunty. Somebody asked me a question about Islam. And the video is called

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Refutation of Islam in 56 Seconds. You can look it up on YouTube. It has almost 10 million views.

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And it's just a few months old. So it really blew up. That's a philosophical takedown of Islam.

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And it is possible. We can do that. It's called the Islamic dilemma. However, the more that I do this, the less inclined

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I am to get into the philosophy but to tell them what the Bible says about them and to tell them about the only way out of hell for all of us.

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You know, it's a way for them. It's a way for us. It's Jesus Christ. We share the gospel with them. And like I say, the more that I do that, the more

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I engage presuppositionally that way with the Bible is true. That's my worldview. And if you don't want to believe it, if you don't want to confess that you believe it,

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I can't help that. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for that. I think that's important, too, to have a balance between kind of the apologetic side.

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I know they're related, right? And evangelism. We can't be so, like, eager to jump into the apologetic argument that we forget, like, actually, we should be presenting the gospel.

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And as I think it was Dr. Walter Martin said that apologetics is the handmaiden of evangelism.

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So, you know, it's there and they're connected, but we want to present Christ. And it's very important to make a difference for people who are watching.

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And I think all of you guys will agree. The way you interact with an unbeliever on YouTube is different than the way you interact with an unbeliever in person.

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We can't think of, like, we're in debate mode. Sometimes you just need to have a good conversation and listen to where someone's coming from and interact kind of in that more informal context.

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So thank you so much for that. That's a really good reminder. Now, Matt, you debated Jake, the

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Muslim metaphysician, and I believe you debated him on the topic of the Trinity. And I watched that debate.

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Folks can check that out. What was your mindset going into that, knowing a little bit about Jake and how he's kind of familiar with really a lot of the philosophical literature?

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I think he makes some pretty big mistakes, obviously. But what was your mindset in going?

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What was your strategy there? Well, when I debate people, I used to find out who and what they are.

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And sometimes you don't know that until you're in the debate. So for me, a lot of times the first 10 minutes is where you learn about your opponent.

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I didn't prep for this guy like I did with Dan Barker, the atheist. So, you know, what he does is he likes to think he's an expert in our theology, but he's only as good as his

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Islam allows him to be, which is insufficient. What I noticed is that what he likes, he's got a skill of being able to sound like he knows what he's talking about when he's covering his ignorance and illogic in a lot of big words and fast talk.

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So he wasn't able to answer my difficult questions. And he has a tendency to avoid them where I was answering his questions, almost all of them, because you only have so much time you can do so many.

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So with him, you have to understand some philosophy because he likes to use it and wield it against those who aren't trained in it.

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So other than that, you know, that's it. He likes philosophy and, you know, we do another debate.

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It'll be good. But at any rate, I would just say, define your terms, know your theology, make sure he knows what he's talking about.

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And don't let him snow you with philosophy because he's good at mixing terms and causing confusion.

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So how he words things. And so, for example, he'll say the Trinity is of identity or Jesus as God is of identity or is a predication.

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And when I asked him, I said, is the statement God is a

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Trinity, is that it is of identity or predication or both? And he shuts down.

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He has to go to a different topic because he can't answer it. So his idea is of a debate is to try and appear to be in control and victorious, but while avoiding the difficult questions.

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And so you've got to watch out for that with him. Okay, very good. That's important, too, when you're having just informal discussion, not get distracted with a lot of the philosophical terminology.

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By the way, there's nothing wrong with philosophy, but you want to be careful with that terminology and you can get lost in rabbit trails and things like that.

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So unless they're relevant terminology and you need to address them, that's there, too. I want to throw out there's a super chat here and maybe anyone could jump in and tackle this one.

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I have my own thoughts, but you're my guest. So thank you so much. Reform Disciple 1689 for the five dollar super chat.

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And thank you. I really do appreciate super chats. I appreciate the support. So I really do. I'm very grateful for that.

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So here's a question. The very presuppositional related question. How is the Christian God the only necessary precondition for intelligibility?

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I've heard that presuppers just assert that. So here's my question. I'm going to rephrase the question. I think captures the heart of this one.

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Is the presuppositional claim of which the transcendental argument is really the heart of the presuppositional argumentation?

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Is the claim merely an assertion? Why or why not? Anybody, if you want to take a stab, don't be shy.

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Well, I think it's an assertion that can be argued for. I mean, that's the whole difference between the Vantillian and the Clarkian approach.

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Like the Vantillian approach will say that the existence of God is a necessary precondition to intelligibility.

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Whereas the Clarkian will say it's an axiom, which is unprovable. And, of course, I lean on the Vantillian approach.

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But again, the more I do this, the more I do say it. You know, I don't mind saying that it's a statement.

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And the thing is, if you reject that statement, your worldview is absurd. And I might take them how that is the case.

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That rejecting the statement that God is a necessary precondition for intelligibility, that God exists, and you know

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He exists. And rejecting that claim, your worldview is absurd. And I might take them to that, through that, in the hope that the

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Holy Spirit uses that to open their eyes. And, you know, God can strike a straight blow with a bent stick.

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And I say when you talk to these people, just do it in a way that doesn't make God a liar, that doesn't make His Word a liar.

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So, yeah, we can engage with these people, speak the truth to them, love them. And, yeah, that's the approach that I would take.

25:31

Yeah, thank you so much for that. Anthony, got thoughts on that? Yeah, so I think what gives rise to this kind of question, in part, is people see us, people who engage in presuppositional apologetics, applying this line of thinking to particular worldviews.

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And they think, well, because this worldview has this problem, doesn't mean the next one does. So how is it that the

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Christian worldview is the only one, right? So, for example, if I were talking to an atheist, or Cy, or Matt, and that person happened to be a materialist and an empiricist, we might say, well, how do you, in terms of your worldview, account for abstract entities, right?

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How do you account for laws, concept, principles, and so forth? And, of course, the atheistic materialist, the empiricist can't do so.

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He can't account for norms, criteria, identity over time. He can't account for any of those things.

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But that doesn't appear to a person to show how the triune God and the

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Christian worldview that is part and parcel of that is the only precondition for intelligibility.

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But what they're missing, and we can't talk about everything at once. And what we're doing when we talk to somebody like the atheist

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I just described is we're just pointing out some particular flaws within his worldview, given his denial of the triune

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God. The next person might try and explain something different as the way of accounting for reality, and we're going to point out flaws in that.

26:59

And I'm not suggesting here that the way we arrive at saying it's the triune God is just because we've inductively sort of gone through all these different worldviews and say each one gets knocked down.

27:09

I'm just saying that as a worldview, the Christian worldview accounts for this, and each and every instance of the non -Christian denial of that ends up being incoherent and self -refuting and all the rest.

27:22

And it takes some time if you want to see what that looks like, sort of going through some of these different issues.

27:29

But you could take the Platonist who believes in immaterial realities and show that he has a problem accounting for things as well.

27:38

How do you relate universal abstract entities to the particulars of our experience, the changing world in which we live?

27:46

You need to have both unity and diversity, and you only have that in the way that you can preserve both of these without destroying them in the triune

27:54

God who is both one and many. See, I mentioned all that, and I actually am sympathetic to all that Cy is saying, because I'm not going to go to the vast majority of people

28:04

I'm talking to and say that sort of stuff. It's not what I'm going to say. It's something I have available to me to say, but for the most part,

28:11

I'm going to go to the person and say, this is what God has revealed to you. This is what you need to believe. And we go from there, and I'm happy to ramp things up to some degree.

28:21

But at the end of the day, I don't think it's an intellectual problem that this person has that's keeping him from the faith, except in the sense that Scripture speaks of him having a darkened mind, which is rooted ultimately in his fallen heart and all the rest.

28:36

The gospel needed to address that. Which incidentally is an ad hominem argument that God uses, that God knows the heart, so he is perfectly within his right to use an ad hominem from a season four.

28:48

Yep, ad hominems are not always fallacies, yeah. Only when Matt uses them. I'm just kidding. Matt, what are your thoughts there, bud?

28:55

Actually, I was going to say— One second, I'm going to interrupt you, Matt. Sure. I want you to—you know what

29:01

I miss? There's something you used to do that I miss. When someone obstreperous is talking to you, can you put your hand—

29:10

Put your hand in front of your face, vertical, look to your left, now slap yourself upside the head.

29:16

Not everyone listens to you when you do it, but there are some times where they're like, okay, what now? The first time

29:23

I did it on the radio, I don't know, 15 years ago, this guy goes, you're such a child. And I was just laughing. Well, why don't you share your thoughts on the question there?

29:32

Well, if I remember the question, actually, Anthony stole my thunder. I was writing down my notes, and he said exactly, almost word for word, universal particulars regarding the laws of logic, abstract entities, laws, et cetera.

29:46

It's the issue, which he didn't mention, but it's the same thing, is the issue of the one and the many, which has been an age -old problem in philosophy.

29:53

Is God—or excuse me, is the universe comprised of one thing or many things? And we can get into why that's an issue and stuff, but only in the

29:59

Trinity is that solved, where God is one and many. And even though another theological perspective might be able to provide a large contingent of answers for certain things, only the

30:14

Trinity, which is unique in all theological perspectives, combines one and many in equality, thereby we can then recognize the universals, particulars, abstract entities, and the one and the many issue, and combine them, and then provide an answer.

30:30

Only in Christian theology is that doable, to that level, down further. So, yeah, that's what

30:36

I was going to say, but Anthony, you got it. You mentioned a funny story with Matt earlier, and I remember years ago—I'm just thinking of a different example— of a worldview held by a person that doesn't necessarily deny immaterial realities and that sort of thing.

30:52

But a friend of mine invited me over to his house. He had a neighbor that came over, and so it was kind of understood among us that we might call the other person up to be the bad guy.

31:02

If you live in a neighborhood, you don't want your neighbors hating you, so my friend would call me in to be the bad guy.

31:07

I'd come in and tell the guy what he needed to hear. That way, he could be on good terms with his neighbor. Anyways, I went over to the guy's house, and I asked him,

31:16

I said, what's your worldview? And then I told him mine, and while I was asking him about his, he said,

31:21

I'm basically a Buddhist. I think all is one, and the problems that we have arise from making distinctions.

31:27

We make logical distinctions, moral distinctions, all sorts of distinctions, but really everything is one.

31:34

He went on with that sort of thing, and then I started talking to him about what the Christian worldview is, that God made us, we are his creatures, we're obligated to him.

31:42

He's spoken to us in the Bible. He revealed himself in his son. He died for our sins if we are among the elect and so forth.

31:50

And anyways, so as I'm saying this, he's becoming uncomfortable with the whole notion of judgment and sin and all that, and he got really upset, started saying some untoward things about me, most of which were true.

32:03

But I usually think when people say stuff, I always think, man, you've said all this terrible stuff about me, and you didn't even say the half of it.

32:11

But anyways, so he was going on about this, and I said, now wait a minute. I said, wait a minute. I said, you just spent 10 minutes before I spoke, and you got angry.

32:19

You spent 10 minutes telling me everything is one, and we shouldn't make distinctions. Now you're calling me all these horrendous names, and yet I don't understand how that comports with your worldview.

32:29

According to your worldview, all is one. So you've just spent 10 minutes attacking yourself in effect, right?

32:34

And I mean, it makes the children saying, I'm rubber, you're glue.

32:40

Whatever you say bounces off me, sticks on you. On your worldview, you're just talking to yourself.

32:46

And then anyways, he got upset, and he left the house, and I never let things just end where maybe

32:52

I should. But he's walking across the street, and I said, make sure you look both ways, right, left and right, or else you might become one with the street.

33:01

And my point is that as an atheist or as a Buddhist, he's assuming a distinction between left and right, between this side of the street and that side of the street, between my friend's house and his house.

33:12

He's assuming all these distinctions just to function. He's acting like a Christian while denying it.

33:18

So it's not the case that just because you're not an atheist, well, okay, now I've got abstract entities. I can account for things.

33:23

There's all these worldviews in one way or another destroy intelligibility. You could also ask, is your wallet my wallet?

33:35

And then you see the distinctions arise pretty quickly. That's right. Now, I very much resonate with the, you see how complicated that was?

33:44

You see how impractical that is in a normal conversation? However, I am sympathetic also in the other direction when people are trying to, like, okay,

33:54

I see what you're saying. I have an idea of what you're saying, but what does that look like? And I do think that there is sometimes a need to break it down.

34:01

But, of course, you need to be able to know when it is appropriate to do that. So the

34:06

Christian God is the only necessary precondition for intelligibility. If I can share my thoughts, when we ask, for example, why must there be one necessary transcendental precondition, it's very important to understand that transcendentals, those who are more philosophically kind of familiar with this, transcendentals are by necessity necessary preconditions.

34:26

So if there are two necessary preconditions that contradict one another, then they're going to be definitionally not necessary, right?

34:33

There would have to be some preconditions that are in the back of both of them that explain their relationship.

34:38

If there are two necessary preconditions that are one and the same, then it's just the same thing with a linguistic variation.

34:43

The reality is, if a view provides the necessary preconditions for intelligible experience, it follows that it must be the only view that does that, because you can only have one necessary precondition.

34:55

And so what the Christian needs to do is to demonstrate that Christianity is a view that provides the necessary preconditions.

35:02

And what would follow from that is that it must be the only view. That's why the transcendental argument does not require an inductive refutation of every view.

35:10

The value of talking about the other views is to illustrate the transcendental point. In other words, it demonstrates to the hearer, listen,

35:19

I'm not just making this assertion. Let's examine some of the options that are out there. But the transcendental argument itself does not require an inductive refutation.

35:26

So I was a little more on the philosophical side, but I hope it answers Reformed Disciples' question. And thank you, gentlemen, for sharing that.

35:32

Let's jump back on to some other individuals that maybe I'd like you guys to share some advice if someone were to talk to someone along these lines.

35:39

So you guys shared your thoughts on Jake, the Muslim metaphysician. Now I want to ask about someone that I know

35:46

Matt and Sai have had interactions with. I'm not sure if Anthony has. I don't believe so, but Matt Dillahunty.

35:53

Matt debated Matt Dillahunty, and Sai debated Matt Dillahunty. And I remember when

35:59

Matt called in, I think he called in the atheist experience, and he didn't like you very much. I think that's when you invented the term the

36:09

Dillahunty dodge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So based upon the sort of atheist that Matt Dillahunty is, he's sort of the guy that goes something along the lines,

36:20

I'm not convinced. And, of course, nothing will convince him. He doesn't even know what would convince him. How would you give advice to someone who was meeting up with Matt Dillahunty for lunch?

36:29

And, hey, I just want to have something in my back pocket. How can I approach someone like this who, while we think his position is foolishness, right?

36:37

We don't obviously don't agree with him. He's still knowledgeable, generally speaking, about some of the issues that go into these discussions.

36:44

How would you give advice to someone who would be sitting down and having lunch with him, Matt? First thing is read all of Karm and memorize it.

36:55

That'd be the first thing. OK. You know, one of the things here, and I guess it'd be interesting to discuss this concept with Anthony and Sai, and the idea of when you first study apologetics, it's like studying how to paint.

37:12

Rule one, rule two, rule three. And then after decades, not that we're masters, but you're so familiar with these rules that you bend them, apply them, and stretch them in different ways.

37:25

And so the way I do stuff with people now is I like to listen to them, hear what they're going to say, because every single non -Christian's worldview is refutable, period.

37:41

And in the three pillars, ontology, rationality, epistemology, well, the ontology.

37:48

But at any rate, in these things, you have to find out where they are and what their presuppositions are and just attack them.

37:54

And you do it. I do it by asking questions and say, well, are you saying this or are you saying that?

38:00

And by their answers, I know where to go. And I think it's just more it's like an art to some point.

38:07

But and then there are just some basic things, like the last time Matt Delahunty and I debated in Texas, I couldn't believe that he actually did exactly what

38:16

I hoped he would do. And that was forego our cross -examination at the end and just have a casual conversation.

38:22

And, you know, I got into this thing where I said, your brain made you say that. The necessary conclusion of materialism, because he's a materialist.

38:31

So therefore, all the chemical reactions in the brain are restricted to the laws of chemistry, physics. Therefore, everything that occurs in his brain is just chemical necessity, doesn't mean his truth values.

38:40

And no matter what he says at that point, well, your brain made you say that. There's no way out of that kind of a thing.

38:46

So if you can find their basic presuppositions, there are always those little things like that in their faulty worldviews.

38:56

You bring them up and they can't handle them. They can't address them. Yeah, that's very helpful.

39:01

I remember I was a little nervous about having Hank Hanegraaff on, if you remember. And I called you up.

39:06

I'm like, man, you know, I have the Bible Answer Man on. You know, talk about Eastern Orthodoxy. And it's like, what should

39:12

I do? You're like, well, I'm like, what if he brings something up about justification by faith alone? And I don't want to debate the

39:17

Bible Answer Man. And you were like, and this was so helpful to me. He's like, well, do you know what justification by faith alone is?

39:23

I'm like, yeah. He's like, you know where it is in scripture. I'm like, yeah. He's like, so what's the problem? Just go to scriptures.

39:31

So sometimes you just got to go out there, do it, ask questions. And the discussions often go better than many think, you know, that you, you know, that you had preconceptions about.

39:39

So, okay, Sai, what was your tactic when interacting with Matt Dillahunty? And how can you, for practical purposes, how can you encourage and give advice to someone who is meeting up with Matt Dillahunty for lunch?

39:52

One thing that I did is I watched all of his stuff to find out what he really believed. And if people want to know what he believes, you can watch the first 10 minutes of my debate with him.

40:00

And I think it exposed his worldview for folly. Now, if you look at the comments section, it's got over a million views, that debate.

40:07

And of course, they all say that Matt slaughtered me. And I normally say to the unbeliever, you know what

40:13

I'm going to do? I'm going to compare the review that Matt did of my debate with the review that he did of all the other debates he's done.

40:19

And of course, there weren't any. That atheist debates thing where he reviews his debates started with my debate.

40:24

So I think that he is aware of what happens there, what happened there. And he's one of the only ones. But and even in my debate,

40:31

I was criticized for being very simple. I say I don't do Bible studies with atheists. And of course, we can get into why that is the case.

40:37

I will be happy to explain Scripture to people, but I won't do Bible studies with them. However, people are watching us explain how we would talk to Matt Delahunty.

40:46

He's not a stupid guy. He's a bright guy. Now, are they taking notes of what Matt would say to him, what

40:52

Anthony would say to him, what Eli would say to him, what I would say to him? And let's say they have this whole notebook of what each of us would say to this brilliant atheist.

40:59

And think of them, which one would be the one that they could memorize that they could do? And compare that to if the

41:06

Apostle Peter went up to Matt Delahunty and what the Apostle Peter would say to Matt Delahunty. And I want that person watching who's intimidated by all these arguments saying, well, could

41:15

I do Eli's argument? Could I do Matt's argument or Anthony's or Si's argument? Or could I do the Apostle Peter's argument?

41:21

And I am pretty confident that the majority of the people watching this, well, I couldn't do what

41:26

Matt does. I couldn't do what Si does or what Eli or Anthony, but I could tell them what the Apostle Peter tells them.

41:32

And I say that would indicate that there, yes, there is a place for the arguments that we would present them. But I want the person watching this to know that it would be probably very different than what the

41:41

Apostle Peter would say. And I would not be surprised if I got into the preconditions of intelligibility with Matt Delahunty and the

41:48

Apostle Peter would tap me on the shoulder and say, Si, what are you talking about? You know, and that's why, and I've talked with you.

41:54

It's a funny picture, Si. I could just picture you and your hat and Peter with his ancient robe. What are you doing, bro?

42:00

I've talked with you about this as well, Eli, is that sometimes we make it far too complicated. And there is a place for it because there are arguments that I need to dumb down to my level.

42:08

But one thing that I shared with you is if you want to know how to make this argument effective with the unbeliever, talk to your wife until she says, yes, that makes sense.

42:15

And I'm not saying that the woman is stupid and that she's less logical. No, but I think that she's more relational.

42:21

She understands the truth of what Scripture says. And one of the worst things that I hear, I've shared this with you before, is that, oh,

42:27

I was talking to my unbelieving sister -in -law. I really wish Si was there. And I think, yeah, I wish I was there to listen to you talk about the

42:34

Lord that saved you. Again, there's a place for these arguments that we need to dumb down. But very, very seldom do

42:40

I find on the street that it gets into philosophy. It only gets into philosophy because we know the philosophy. The unbeliever, they often don't know the philosophy and they don't care about the philosophy.

42:49

I think we need to get the meat of the issue. Now, Matt Delahunty, I would confront him with the fact that he agreed that he's a solipsist.

42:56

He can only know that which is within his brain. And, of course, that refutes anything else that comes out of his mouth. And you might want to show that to him.

43:03

Now, if I were to ever engage him again, I would say that he admitted to be a solipsist. And everything that he said up until then contradicts the fact that he says he's a solipsist.

43:12

The fact that he's still talking to people is remarkable. And the thing is, I believe that he understands how his argument failed in our debate, in his debate with Matt.

43:22

But the thing is, when will they see it? When will they acknowledge it? Only when God saves them. Yeah. Thank you for that.

43:29

Anthony, what about you? Are you familiar with Matt Delahunty? I'm not sure if your main focus, it seems to be from looking in YouTube, and I know you have a wide range of interest.

43:38

It seems that if someone were to look up Anthony Rogers, they typically will see you in connection with defending the

43:44

Trinity, interacting with Islam. How would you interact with someone like an atheist like Matt Delahunty?

43:51

Yeah. So I'll just say this real quick leading up to that. So my focus in life, out in the world, offline, that sort of thing, has always sort of dictated what

44:04

I focus on. So if I live around Mormons, I'm looking at their material and thinking more in terms of that, and how to interact with that kind of mindset.

44:13

If I'm engaging Jehovah's Witnesses all the time, that's what I'm focused on. And I've gone through living in different places, running into people of all sorts.

44:22

So I spent a lot of time studying JWs, Mormons. When I lived in Las Vegas, which

44:27

I lived there for 20 years, I used to go down to the university and witness on campus. And there I would run into a lot of atheists, evolutionists.

44:33

And so at that time, I spent a lot of time reading atheist material. I read all the standard stuff, at least from the past, like Michael Martin, George Smith, you name it.

44:46

I mean, I read all those books. So I have had some background in that, but I honestly find atheists boring.

44:53

I don't find their worldview at all. What do you think of atheism, Anthony? I mean, it does.

44:59

It bores me to tears. So if I go online where I get to choose who I'm going to address and that sort of thing,

45:05

I just don't tend to gravitate in that direction. I think it's silly. And so,

45:12

I mean, when it comes to somebody like Matt, some of what I said before would come into play.

45:18

I would challenge him to make sense out of anything. But one thing is, and I'm just going off of what these guys have said, when he says, or I think you said it, you said he basically just says,

45:31

I'm not convinced, I'm not convinced. Well, when he says he's not convinced by something, he's saying it's not compelling.

45:36

It doesn't reach the threshold of being compelling, which means he has some criteria. And I, for the life of me, don't know how any non -Christian who's an atheist or any other sort of non -Christian has any kind of criteria at all by which to evaluate something as falling short of being compelling.

45:53

And it's not just incredulity. Again, I've looked at the different worldviews, the different ways atheists have tried to account for these things.

46:03

I know what's necessary for that sort of thing to be true. And so the very fact that he says,

46:10

I'm not convinced, to me, he's crying out, I believe in God. And here's why

46:15

I don't believe in him. That's what it sounds like to me. I don't believe in God. And here's my criteria for saying, you know, which criteria is dependent upon the

46:26

God I'm saying doesn't exist. That's it in a nutshell for me. But I don't know much about Matt Dillahunty.

46:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, well, thank you very much for that. I do appreciate it. Now, just real quick for folks who are just listening in.

46:42

We had a pretty nice group. We had almost up to 100 people watching. So people finding this interesting.

46:47

And I do appreciate those who are listening in. If you guys haven't subscribed to Revealed Apologetics, what's wrong with you? We're almost at 8000 subscribers, which is super exciting.

46:56

I remember when I first started, I'm like, who's going to listen to this? But we've had some great supporters. And so I very much appreciate it.

47:02

So if you haven't done that yet, please do so. I'm going to throw a monkey wrench in here, guys. Okay. Okay. We're talking about apologetics.

47:08

I have another person I want you guys to share your thoughts on and how one could interact with such a person.

47:16

And so we're going to jump in here. It's kind of an in -house discussion now. Okay, so we're on the verge.

47:22

This is what you do to get theologians in a barroom brawl. You talk about creation, Old Earth, Young Earth, right?

47:28

Calvinism, Arminianism, and eschatology. So considering the craziness that's going on in the world today, do y 'all think we're near the end of the age?

47:39

That is a loaded question and presupposes a whole body of eschatological presuppositions. But why don't you guys take a few seconds or a minute or two to share your thoughts.

47:49

What are your thoughts in terms of eschatology? Do you think the events that are happening over in the

47:55

Middle East right now, is that, in your opinion, in your view, kind of connected to your eschatological perspectives?

48:00

Anybody could jump on this one. What's the saying? A piggy in a,

48:06

I don't know, something with a piggy. Jump on it if you want to answer it. I'll just be very quick and then the other guys can take it where they want to go with it.

48:14

I think it's dangerous to take any biblical view from events that we see outside of Scripture. Because if we did that with anything else,

48:20

I mean, dead people don't come back to life normally. And I'm not taking my view of what I see in the world to interpret whether or not

48:27

Jesus rose from the dead. So I think that it's dangerous to take our eschatological view from what we see out in the world, that it must be derived from Scripture.

48:35

And I believe that there is one view that seems to be the most consistent with Scripture and the least mental gymnastics.

48:41

And that would be a view that I've never even admitted to holding publicly. But I think that that view would indicate that things are not about to end.

48:49

And I think it's a biblical view, it's not what we see in the world. Because there have been lots of ups and downs throughout history.

48:54

And like now, you know, Christians used to be fed to the lions, as one gentleman once said.

49:00

Now we're worried about losing our tax -exempt status. So, I mean, there have been ups and downs in the past, but I think we must get our view from Scripture.

49:07

Sure. Okay, thank you for that. Anybody else want to jump in on that one? Yeah, one thing I would say is that people should not determine from their eschatology how they're supposed to function in the world.

49:24

Scripture commands us to preach the Gospel and to disciple the nations. And so what happens in some cases is people get this eschatology that says it's, you know, we're on a sinking ship and why polish the brass on a sinking ship?

49:39

Why go out and make plans long term? Why engage in these Herculean efforts to get the

49:45

Gospel across to this other continent or whatever? But Scripture commands us to preach the Gospel to every creature and to disciple the nations.

49:52

So that's what we should be doing, irrespective of our eschatology. But to be more direct,

49:59

I don't think Scripture indicates that we're at the end of things. I have books on my shelf of the number of times in the world.

50:08

Which shelf, Anthony? Yeah, I'm surrounded by bookshelves. But I have books just filled full of occasions when the world was ending.

50:19

By which I mean, every time period, people have thought that certain things were indicators of the world ending.

50:28

We're now 2 ,000 years out from hundreds of different end of the world predictions.

50:34

And so it just hasn't panned out that way. I mean, think about this.

50:40

Here's one thing to think about. Here's what happens. And this kind of ties in with what Sai says. People see certain things happening, like a war, an earthquake, what have you.

50:51

And then they see in Scripture it mentioning war and earthquakes and that sort of thing. And they say, oh, this is referring to that.

50:59

Well, think about the early Christians in the first century. The early

51:04

Christians in the first century saw war, didn't they? Especially those that were in Israel. Those who were surrounded by armies, the

51:09

Roman armies. Those who fled Jerusalem once it was preceding the war, destroying

51:17

Jerusalem. The Roman armies surrounded it, but then they were called back because the emperor had died.

51:22

Certain things had happened. And the Christians that were there left Jerusalem. And then the Roman armies eventually returned, surrounded it, and destroyed

51:30

Jerusalem. What were they thinking when that was happening? They had just as much reason, in fact, more.

51:37

What happened to Jerusalem was devastating. The city was flooded with people because of Passover and so forth, people from all across the world.

51:48

A million Jews were slaughtered in that event. My point is that they were looking around at the same sorts of things that people are looking around to today.

51:58

And it wasn't the end of the world. I do think it was the end of the old covenant system.

52:03

It signaled the end of the ceremonial system, the temple, the priesthood, the sacrifice. So, Anthony, you'd make a distinction between the end of the world and the end of the age.

52:12

Well, I'm just saying that the world has ended for a lot of groups at different times.

52:19

And none of them have been the end of the world that brought in the return of Christ, the second coming, the final judgment, the resurrection.

52:30

And so, you know, I don't see the grounds for saying this particular set of circumstances is now somehow clearer and indicating that we're at that point than any of these other previous things were.

52:45

But beware. Yeah. Beware newspaper exegesis. Right, right.

52:51

But I think and people have to look at this fact. So Cy kind of mentioned the ups and downs in history.

52:58

Right. It's remarkable when you look at it. So back, Abraham was told that he would be the father of many nations, that God would bless the world through him.

53:08

Imagine if Abraham were to look at the way things are now. I have no idea what he's privy to up in heaven about what's happening down here.

53:16

But can you imagine two billion people plus at least profess the name of Christ, the savior that came through Abraham?

53:24

That's incredible. And here's Abraham struggling just to have a kid who can be his heir. Right. That wasn't in his immediate purview at all.

53:32

And the same thing was true at the time of Christ. He had 12 disciples. There were 120 at the time of Pentecost, and there were 3000 added that day.

53:40

And and it's just gone on since then. Who knows how much longer is left in history and how many more millions and billions are going to be added to the faith?

53:50

Yeah, that's that's exciting to think about. Thank you so much for sharing that. Matt, what are your what are your thoughts? I know you've spoken a little bit.

53:56

Well, you've spoken a lot on eschatology and you've done entire studies. And I know you have a perspective there. You tend to take a pessimistic kind of perspective, but that doesn't mean that you necessarily think we're near.

54:08

Or maybe it does. What's your thoughts on on what's going on in its relation to eschatology?

54:14

Well, I think we should all, you know, stock up, get guns and get ready, because World War Three is like on Tuesday next week.

54:26

I'm a pessimistic on millennial list. I believe that when God said in Genesis to 17 to Adam, who represented all people, the day that you eat of the fruit, you're going to die.

54:35

And you 24, 22 or 22, 24, 24, 22. Unless those days be cut short, no flesh would be left.

54:42

I hold the two age model. And so I believe things are going to get really bad. That's just my view. And I can defend it.

54:48

That doesn't mean I'm right, but I can defend it. But I don't believe the Hamas Israel thing is the end.

54:54

There's a lot more that needs to be in place before that occurs. But it's a sign of the time of the

54:59

Antichrist rising and the end of time, which has been for 2000 years. So God's mode of measuring time is different than ours.

55:08

So what we need to do as Christians is pray for Israel, pray for our own country, pray for the

55:13

Biden crime family and the apostate criminal government that's running our country in a lot of ways.

55:21

And ask God to deal with them imprecatorily, but also mercifully and do a little prep for real and just get ready and ask to be used by God.

55:31

But, you know, like I said, I'm a pessimistic on millennial list. And and, you know, we should just keep fighting and push back as much as possible and resist the evil one, because that's what our obligation is before the holy and living

55:45

God. Yeah. All right. Well, I'm not going to share my thoughts because that'll take us way off topic.

55:50

It's a deep topic. But thank you. I appreciate the question. We're going to take another question in a little bit. I want to jump right back into kind of my last person

55:58

I want to talk to and then we'll shift gears into somewhat related issues, but not so much focused on individuals, but some ideas and things like that.

56:07

OK, so Eastern Orthodoxy. OK, I want to start with Cy because I don't know how much experience you from a scale from one to 10.

56:18

Where would you say your experience in talking with Eastern Orthodox would be? Negative three. Negative three.

56:24

And I assumed that we could say I presuppose that. And I think that's a good thing in this sense.

56:32

How would you give advice to a person who is going to meet up with Jay Dyer for lunch?

56:39

Jay Dyer is a noted Eastern Orthodox theologian and apologist online.

56:44

He does debates and things like that. Very knowledgeable in church history. He's an interesting, interesting person. But but there you go.

56:51

How would you from the perspective of not having lots of experience in Eastern Orthodoxy, how would you equip your friend to say, hey,

56:57

I don't know much about Eastern Orthodoxy, but here are the important things that you need to keep in place in a discussion with someone who is informed in church history, philosophically astute and has debating experience.

57:10

How would you give advice to the Christian who's going to interact with someone like that? Well, and like I said,

57:17

I've been criticized for it before, but I say I don't do Bible studies with atheists because I don't let them be the authority over the

57:24

Word of God. But if somebody who's into Eastern Orthodoxy professes the Word of God as his ultimate authority, then it's a

57:31

Bible study. And I think that's why this apologetic drives you back to Scripture.

57:36

So that's when you have to know your Bible and to see if what this fellow is saying is consistent with Scripture and if what he is saying is not consistent with Scripture.

57:45

And so that's where I would bring it to. If his ultimate authority is Scripture, it's a Bible study. Now you're not doing apologetics anymore.

57:50

Now you're doing a Bible study. And if his authority is not Scripture, then I would challenge how he could know anything when he professes that something else is his authority.

58:00

So that's where I would go actually with anybody. If his authority is with Scripture, is it Scripture? Then it's a

58:06

Bible study. If it's not Scripture, then I might profess Scripture to them. I might preach Scripture to them.

58:12

But I would call them to repentance and I might challenge their ability to know anything because that's the one thing that we keep forgetting.

58:18

Scripture says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. And we grant that to somebody who denies the fear of the

58:25

Lord. And I'm unwilling to do that. Now if this person fears the Lord and the Word of God is his authority, then it becomes a

58:32

Bible study. All right, thank you for that. Anthony, as you know, along with Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox will deny the principle of sola scriptura.

58:43

Okay, I've heard Jay in various conversations with Protestants. You know, if you were to give the response that Cy just gave, which

58:51

I think is good, if you guys agree on Scripture, then it's a Bible study. But then, of course, as I'm sure you're familiar with,

58:58

Anthony, someone like Jay might say, well, wait a minute. How do you know you have the right books in the

59:03

Bible? You don't have a church to guide you. They'll say something along the lines of you have a fallible means to identify fallible scriptures.

59:15

Whereas I'm not sure of the Eastern Orthodox position, but they would probably, along with Catholics to some degree, claim that they have an infallible church that identifies infallible scripture.

59:26

Have I got that right based on your understanding? Yeah, so you said a bunch of things there. You might have to remind me of some of that if I don't address it.

59:35

So I haven't heard a lot of Jay, but I have heard a few things. And one of the things I always find humorous, this is one thing

59:41

I've heard. I've heard him challenge people and say, you don't know what the canon is apart from us.

59:48

And I hear that and I think, OK, you can get away with that because the person talking to you isn't that well versed when it comes to Eastern Orthodoxy.

59:56

You can get away with that because sort of like any group that has these peculiar doctrines that are undermined by what they're saying in argumentation against you.

01:00:08

They get away with that sort of thing. But I always when I hear Jay say this, I'm thinking, what are you talking about?

01:00:13

I don't accept your canon. Your canon is not my canon. I did not get my canon of scripture from you.

01:00:19

And so that one thing has to be made clear. As an example, the Eastern Orthodox Church does not officially across the board recognize the book of Revelation as canonical scripture.

01:00:30

It has no place in their liturgical calendar, their readings and so forth.

01:00:36

It's just so it's in my canon. It's not in there. So don't tell me I got my canon from you. Moreover, the

01:00:42

Old Testament scriptures were already canonical for the people of God long before there was a church in the

01:00:48

East. The Eastern Orthodox Church did not establish the Old Testament canon. Other things

01:00:54

I could observe along these lines. The other thing, here's the irony. There's a devastating incongruity here to me that according to the

01:01:02

Eastern Church, it's not just scripture, but the traditions that were handed on through the church that are authoritative.

01:01:10

Together, they form that single deposit that is known as the word of God. However, when you look at what the church fathers said, and I'm not at all suggesting that the church fathers are a final authority or that they're necessary to profit, my view.

01:01:25

But I smart from the fact that when I turn to the church fathers, they repeatedly say that scripture is self -attesting.

01:01:31

They repeatedly say this. I mean, I could give you literally, I could right now give you 50 quotations because I've cataloged them.

01:01:39

I could give you 50 quotations at my fingertips here. Why don't you give us two so people can get a sense of what the church fathers say on this issue?

01:01:48

And of course, there are any number of church fathers. It's a vast body of writing. So these are just a few, but maybe you can give something that folks can check out.

01:01:57

All right. So this is from Justin Martyr and the chapter. The chapter is called the self -evidencing power of truth.

01:02:05

Here's the quote, the truth, the word of truth is free and carries its own authority, disdaining to fall under any skillful argument or to endure the logical scrutiny of its hearers.

01:02:19

But it would be believed for its own nobility and for the confidence due to him who gave it.

01:02:26

Now, the word of truth is sent from God. Wherefore, the freedom claimed by the truth is not arrogant for being sent with authority.

01:02:33

It is it were not fit that it should be required to produce proof of what is said, since neither is there any proof beyond itself, which is

01:02:42

God. So there's that's one quote. Here's let me find somebody else.

01:02:47

I've got several others here from Justin Martyr, but. Here is a quote from Tatian, he said, while I was giving my most earnest attention to the matter,

01:02:59

I happened to meet with certain barbaric writings too old to be compared with the opinions of the Greeks and too divine to be compared with their heirs.

01:03:06

What he's saying is he was searching out different claimants on truth and he ran across these writings that outwardly appeared to be barbaric.

01:03:14

He's talking about the prophetic scriptures. And then he says, I was led to put faith in these by the unpretending ease of the language, the inartificial character of the writers, the foreknowledge display to future events.

01:03:26

The excellent quality of the precepts display to future events, the excellent quality of the precepts and the declaration of the government of the universe as centered in one being.

01:03:35

Now, here I'm just pointing out from this quote that he's not appealing to the church. He's not appealing to some quality or thing outside of scripture in order to verify.

01:03:45

He's saying these are qualities that it exudes. All right. One more, since you made me quote something, I, I get to quote one more.

01:03:52

We don't want, we don't want Matt to fall asleep. So this is Clement. He says, he who believes then the divine scriptures with sure judgment receives in the voice of God who bestowed the scripture a demonstration that cannot be impugned.

01:04:06

Faith then is not established by demonstration. He means by philosophical argument. So the scriptures carry their own evidence within themselves.

01:04:15

They're self -evidencing, self -attesting. And these are just ones I pulled up quickly. There are others that I think are even more striking, but these are fitting enough.

01:04:24

Yeah. Thank you for that, Matt. I know you've debated some Eastern Orthodox folks. I think you did one back in the day on discord, which

01:04:31

I thought was an interesting interaction. What's your frame of mind when interacting with an Eastern Orthodox? What are the sort of things that pop in your head and be like, okay, these are some important points that I need to get to.

01:04:40

Here's some pressure points that I need to press on. What's your frame of thinking when you're speaking with folks like that?

01:04:47

Well, my frame of thinking is that they are lost. They're in the grips of Satan. And they are working to, not on purpose, but they're working to deceive others and bring them into a false religious system.

01:05:00

And so what I presuppose is the power and the strength of God's words. So I'll quote scripture. Bring them to the word of God, Isaiah 5511, the word of God will not come back empty without accomplishing what he desires.

01:05:10

I'll have to focus satiriologically because Christologically, they're pretty good. Trinitarian theologies are pretty good.

01:05:15

So I'll go with satiriological. And one of the things I've developed recently is a set of questions.

01:05:22

And I'm going to share this now because I think it's powerful. I think it works. And not that we have a formula that works.

01:05:28

But Eastern Orthodoxy teaches, I'll tell you what it teaches first about satiriology and then show you a question

01:05:34

I've got. But satiriologically speaking, Eastern Orthodoxy says that God exists and he has energies or properties that come down and we participate in those energies in our souls.

01:05:46

And through the participation of those energies, we become more like God in what's called theosis and becoming more divine like him.

01:05:54

And through this process of theosis, becoming more divine like Christ without being divine by nature, we then obtain a justification through the increase of the grace and the energies that comes from God.

01:06:06

And so it's a procedure. All right. So what I'll do is and this is so simple.

01:06:12

It's like I wish I'd have thought of it years ago. And I'll say, does the Bible say we're justified by faith?

01:06:18

Romans 5 .1. Therefore, having therefore been justified by faith. And they'll say yes. And they usually say something.

01:06:23

The faith is this. The faith is that. The faith or whatever. I just wait until they're done. Okay. So the Bible does say we agree that the

01:06:29

Bible says that. Okay. If you want to go into justification, we go to Romans 4 .1 -5. We can go through it because it explains what justification is there.

01:06:37

And I've done that many times with them and Catholics. And they're forced to agree with what the text says, that justification is by faith.

01:06:44

The invitation by faith and stuff like that. Okay, good. So I say, did you know that God grants that we have faith?

01:06:51

Philippians 1 .29. I'll go through that with them. And then I'll say, did you know that the work of God is that we believe in Jesus?

01:06:58

John 6 .29. And they'll say, yeah. And I say, here's my question. Is the faith that God grants to us, that faith that's in Christ, is that faith sufficient in and of itself to justify us?

01:07:14

As simple a question as that is, they either say yes or no. If they say no, they contradict scripture and you rip them to shreds.

01:07:22

If they say yes, you say, then why do you need your church and the sacerdotal system and its authority and everything else?

01:07:29

So what I try and do is just get them to Christ. And then sometimes you've got to back up from that, talk about peripherals, then come back to it again.

01:07:36

Talk about peripherals, come back to it again. That's what I'll do. And I'll quote those verses over and over, you know, Philippians 1 .29,

01:07:42

John 6 .29. And I'll just say it because I want the listeners to hear. But I'd like to have another discussion with Jay Dyer, actually, because I've learned a lot about the

01:07:50

O since then. And I'm more convinced of its demonic anti -Christ theological perspective than ever.

01:07:59

And it's bad news. So I'm developing outlines on it. I've got quotes from it, from people on it.

01:08:06

I've got a lot of stuff on it. But East Orthodox is as dangerous and as false and anti -Christ as is the

01:08:14

Roman Catholic official, Roman Catholic theological perspective. But I can talk a lot more about EL if you guys want, of course, you know.

01:08:21

Yeah, I've always thought Eastern Orthodox is a very interesting position. And there was a time where I kind of had a couple of shows where we focused on that because it's growing on the online community, at least.

01:08:34

So I think it's an issue that folks need to be up on. So thank you for sharing that.

01:08:40

One thing I love that Matt does, and I think I shared this with him before, but when he asks him that question, is faith in Christ sufficient for forgiveness of your sins?

01:08:53

And if they say yes, Matt says, well, will you pray with me right now for forgiveness of your sin? And very often they won't, and exposed to the fact that they don't believe that at all.

01:09:02

And just another very brief point. One of the things that amazes me most is when they say that the soul of Scripture is not in the

01:09:08

Bible. And I made that meme. I said, does soul of Scripture have to be in the Bible in order for it to be a valid doctrine?

01:09:14

And if they say yes, well, then they believe in soul of Scripture. You know, it's a very odd way to protest soul of Scripture to say it's not in the

01:09:21

Bible. They want to have authority over the Word of God. And I liked what, you know, quoted is that the

01:09:27

Word of God is self -attesting. And I go to John 10, 27, 28, Jesus is my sheep, hear my voice. I say,

01:09:33

I just trust that God is capable of putting His Word together throughout history and His people who are

01:09:38

His sheep because we recognize that. That's why I believe it's what it is. What do you say? You say, it must submit to your church.

01:09:45

And then I'm going to ask them, how do you validate your church as being the right one? Then they go into Scripture, interpretive things, and then, you know, you have a little ball.

01:09:53

Okay. Thank you for that. Now, Cy, this one's for you. And, of course, everyone else can chime in.

01:10:00

One of the questions that I used to get all the time is that presuppositional apologetics can easily be applied to, like, the atheist and the agnostic.

01:10:09

But what about the cult member who has, you know, an authority, a more explicit authority structure, like extra books or something along those lines?

01:10:19

How would you use the approach that you use with atheists? And what would that look like? I know I would imagine it looks very similar because we're kind of coming from the same foundation.

01:10:26

But what would that look like when you're talking to, say, a Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon? Is it just as simple as just going to the source that we both agree, the

01:10:35

Bible? Or how does that look like to you? Well, that's what I do actually now. And I think before I would go more into the minutiae of what they believe.

01:10:42

And I might bring up one point that contradicts Scripture. But I will say to them that you are in danger of hellfire.

01:10:49

You have not only believed this, but you have come to my door to preach this. And actually, I met

01:10:55

Marcus recently in Kentucky again. And there were some Mormons that came to his door when I was visiting him in Moscow, Idaho.

01:11:00

And I rebuked them for spreading a false teaching. And I said, not only that, I'm going to follow you around this neighborhood.

01:11:07

And every door that you come to, I'm going to go and I'm going to speak to them and say that you're preaching a false gospel. And you know it.

01:11:13

And so I think it's important to do that. And I met a fellow once, and his name is Christiano, and he was a missionary in Ghana.

01:11:20

And he had found my videos while he was in Ghana. And he was so excited to use this apologetic or a biblical apologetic.

01:11:26

And the place where he buys water, there's always a bunch of Muslims hanging around. And he went up to them. He said, your

01:11:31

Quran is false, and you know it. And he said, some of them got very angry with him. Some of them laughed.

01:11:37

But he had one fellow came up to him quietly. He says, can you tell me more about Jesus, but not with these people around?

01:11:43

So again, you know, it's nice to know about their worldview. But I think that we have to speak the truth to them.

01:11:49

And the Bible says they know. And that's the problem. Because people say, what about the people that flew the planes into the buildings at 9 -11?

01:11:55

Did they know? I mean, they gave up their lives. They wouldn't have believed that. What does the Bible say?

01:12:00

The Bible says that they're without excuse for the rejection of the God of the

01:12:06

Bible, for their sin against that God. And then when we believe them that they don't know this God, I think that we're in danger of saying that the

01:12:13

Bible is not true and that God is a liar in this case. And we have to be very careful with that. So I think it's good, yes, to be able to know points of their religion that you can, you know, that you can move away the mental debris from maybe a very difficult point that they have, but then speak the truth of what the

01:12:29

Bible says about them. And if they reject it, that's not your problem. Your problem is be faithful to the word of God and then, you know, let

01:12:36

God take it from there. Our responsibility is not conversion. It's speaking the truth in love. Okay.

01:12:41

Thank you for that. I appreciate that. What about you, Anthony? What's your approach when like the Jehovah's Witness knocks on your door or have they become privy to the fact that your house is probably not the best house to knock on?

01:12:52

Once they see the beard, they start running. They're like, oh boy. I'm actually a little put out about the fact that the area

01:12:59

I now live in is just not, I don't ever have anybody knocking on my door.

01:13:05

I used to get them back in Vegas and other places. I, for the life of me,

01:13:10

I don't understand how Christians get upset when these guys come to their door in the sense that, I mean, obviously they should be in a sense upset that they hold to a false doctrine, a false

01:13:20

God and all that. And they're trying to peddle their falsehood. But it's sort of like, would you get upset if somebody had pizza delivered to your house and just showed up at your door?

01:13:32

I mean, I'd be excited. I'd grab the pizza and take it. So I think it's great. I didn't have to go out anywhere.

01:13:37

This person came to my doorstep. I'd start talking to him. And I'd just do some of what we've already talked about.

01:13:44

I'd start asking him different questions and let the conversation go from there.

01:13:50

They usually have some go -to issues. They already have an agenda. If they find out you're a

01:13:55

Christian, they're going to want to talk about the Trinity or the deity of Christ or something like that. And here, obviously,

01:14:04

I think we can simply assert what Scripture does very clearly. Christ is

01:14:09

God or other things pertaining to the Trinity. But some of how you conduct this will depend on your level of sophistication.

01:14:20

I obviously don't think that everybody ought to start trying to talk about Greek with a Jehovah's Witness who doesn't really know

01:14:26

Greek in most cases anyways. I'll do that, though, because I was trained. I went to school.

01:14:32

I learned the biblical languages. So I'm happy to expose a Jehovah's Witness as not really knowing

01:14:38

Hebrew and Greek. But I'm not by any stretch suggesting that that's what all Christians have to do. And I think there's a lot of effectiveness in just saying, hey, look, it says right here that Jesus is

01:14:48

God. You know that you're playing. Here's one thing I would say strategically that I like to do. Having read their literature, one thing

01:14:54

I noticed is that there is a lacuna with respect to the

01:15:01

Old Testament. So if a Jehovah's Witness comes to your door, most

01:15:06

Christians might want to say, look, John 1 says the word was God or John 20, 28 says my Lord and my God.

01:15:13

But they already have their canned responses to that. So they're not even really thinking at this point.

01:15:18

You're saying something. Their books have told them how to respond to that. There's not any thinking going on there. So what

01:15:23

I like to do is bring up stuff that they haven't been taught what to think about. And so, like, for example,

01:15:31

I'll bring up Genesis 19, 24, where it says the Lord reigned upon Sodom and Gomorrah, brimstone and fire from the

01:15:36

Lord out of heaven. So here you have a text where there's a clear subject object distinction. The Lord reigned from the

01:15:43

Lord. One person who's called Lord was on Earth. He just spoke to Abraham. The other is in heaven.

01:15:49

And this one reigns fire from the other. There you have a clear distinction. Their books don't really address that.

01:15:55

They might have now. It's been a while since I've talked to them. But just strategically, that's something I found helpful is just bring up with them stuff that they're, because part of the issue is they're not really thinking when you're talking to them about stuff that their group has already spoken on.

01:16:11

You can refute their arguments against John 1, 1, but again, they're not thinking at this point.

01:16:17

So I just like to bring up stuff that they've probably not thought about and get them thinking. Yeah. Thank you so much for that.

01:16:25

Now, there's no other person that makes me feel sorry for cultists than Matt Slick.

01:16:32

Once the person starts making his case and Matt suspects that the person might be a

01:16:39

Jehovah's Witness, I get that little stomach and I feel like, oh, please, no. And Matt will ask, let me ask you, are you a

01:16:46

Jehovah's Witness? Please don't say yes. And once they say yes, of course,

01:16:52

I mean, it's radio. You want to publicly refute the views. Sometimes it just makes I'm a nice guy.

01:16:58

It makes me feel uncomfortable. But I think you do a great job. So, Matt, what can you reveal to us?

01:17:06

OK, the mindset. I mean, once someone says I'm a Jehovah's Witness, I'm a

01:17:11

Mormon. What's going through your mind? What are some of like I know that's kind of like I don't know if you guys have ever seen with Robert Downey Jr.,

01:17:18

the Sherlock Holmes series. Right. Right. When he's about to, like, do something that the screen will go in slow motion and it'll pay attention to all the details and his mind is going through.

01:17:28

What's going on in your mind when you are interacting with a cultist of any flavor? What are the sorts of things you're going to go right to to have an effective conversation with them?

01:17:39

Well, what goes through my mind is when I find out they're Jehovah's Witness or Catholic or whatever different degrees of their brainwashed or enslaved, they're lost.

01:17:47

I know that right away. And then I'll also know they're within a certain range because individuals are different, but I'll know their worldview.

01:17:55

And I know where to poke at their worldview in order to undermine it. What Anthony said about Genesis 19, 24,

01:18:01

I cross referenced that verse with Amos 4, 10 and 11, where God is speaking and he says,

01:18:07

I overthrew you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. You know, there's another duality there. And so there's there are these things that the average

01:18:15

Jehovah's Witness is not prepared for. And I've got something else I use with them, which they've not been able to deal with. But, you know, the thing

01:18:21

I try and do with them is, believe it or not, I try and be nice to them and try and communicate with them and try and get down to where they're at and see what their basic assumptions are.

01:18:32

You know, a Jehovah's Witness, I recommend people go to the Kingdom Hall. I recommend you go in there because then you'll understand what you're up against.

01:18:38

You're up against brainwashing, inculcation. And to inculcate means to teach by repetition.

01:18:43

So they're they're inculcated into works righteousness, the truth of the Watchtower organization.

01:18:49

So then you've got to be wise not to attack what is most sacred to them. But you ask questions on the periphery that you can gradually chip away with to get to the core.

01:19:00

And that's my technique, you know. I'm really enjoying about Anthony and Cy and sometimes even you,

01:19:07

Eli. But what I really enjoy is how different we are and the approaches that are so different.

01:19:15

And I've learned from Cy and I've learned from Anthony and I've learned from you.

01:19:22

Why'd you say it with that inflection? I've learned even from you. Well, you are the better looking young one, so I can't give you too much kudos.

01:19:33

But you and I have had so many conversations and you've taught me things. And Anthony Roger, you taught me a verse,

01:19:39

John 6, 37, 38, in Oneness. You actually mentioned something out of that once. And I went, that's good.

01:19:45

And I've used it ever since. And I forgot what particular Cy has done because I've known him for a while. We've talked many times and those things just become part of what you are.

01:19:53

And, you know, you forget. You said that. I don't remember. That's okay. We cross -pollinate.

01:19:59

But, you know, so we'll have different approaches to the Jehovah's Witnesses. I think would be really good. Now I just had a thought to write like three of us have to write a book where here's a question.

01:20:10

You know, Cy, Anthony, Matt, you know, your different approaches. And even

01:20:16

Eli, just different approaches getting in there. And because we have different approaches.

01:20:22

But at any rate, I like to go straight to the J -Dub. I know what they're teaching.

01:20:27

I know where their weaknesses are. And I'll go in there and I'll point them out and I'll show them. And I know what to ask that they can't answer.

01:20:34

And then gently, once you've tapped into that solid piece of granite and put a crack in there, try and get a soteriology going.

01:20:42

I don't focus on the deity of Christ, but on the means of salvation. Because, let's see, 1983, page 12,

01:20:49

April 1st of the Watchtower says that you have to follow 10 commandments in order to be saved.

01:20:54

Well, I'm going to bring it up. Hey, how's that working for you? So, you know, I got a lot to say about my stuff. I'll just.

01:21:00

Yeah, Matt, we'll call the book Tag Team Apologetics. Tag Team Apologetics. There you go.

01:21:05

There you go. Trichotomous. No, we get trifecta.

01:21:12

I think it would be an interesting thing to do. Yeah, I totally would. There's actually a book about that called

01:21:18

The Mentionables. It used to be like a YouTube or a Tyler Vela used to be part of it before he, you know, lost.

01:21:25

Well, no, I walked away, but it had to follow that same format where there are three or four individuals.

01:21:33

They would answer the same question and kind of like piggyback off each other is actually very helpful. So, yeah.

01:21:38

So let's get encounters on the street where people have different approaches. And it's devastating because they get it from every angle.

01:21:46

Sure. Yeah, absolutely. OK, so we're running out of time. It's up at one hour and 20 minutes.

01:21:51

I really do appreciate it. Let's take a couple of audience questions as we wrap things up. I want to thank you just in case

01:21:56

I forget. It's always a blessing to listen to all of you guys. And I really do like each has a unique approach as to how they address things and answer questions.

01:22:07

And I very much appreciate that. And I, too, have learned from from all of you guys. So thank you.

01:22:13

So let's take this one here. I know this one's a popular question that comes up on presuppositionalism.

01:22:19

Do you think that if one is consistent, one must be a Calvinist to be a presuppositionalist? So this is this is the issue of how necessary.

01:22:27

Is the link between presuppositional methodology and reform theology, reform theology, more specifically, a

01:22:36

Calvinistic perspective. So let's go with Psy, because I don't know how often you've heard this question, but it comes up a lot.

01:22:46

And I think it's an important question. It's an issue. Really, it's an issue of consistency. And so what do you think?

01:22:52

What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think it's important. Of course, it's a reformed apologetic, but we believe salvation is of the

01:22:58

Lord. And if salvation is of the Lord plus the person, it makes perfect sense to give them evidence to try and convince them.

01:23:07

But the question that I ask them is your salvation like you drowning in the lake and the rescue boat comes out and throws out a rope and all you do is grab on.

01:23:15

And the unbeliever will say, I've heard Armenians use that exact example, that that's what their salvation is like. And I say, well, here's and I say, what makes you different from the lost?

01:23:24

What you've done or what the Lord has done? And they'll say, well, it's 100 % what the Lord has done.

01:23:30

So here's the problem with the drowning in the lake scenario. Imagine you're drowning in the lake beside your friend who's drowning in the lake.

01:23:35

And now the boat comes and throws out two ropes. You grab on and your friend doesn't. What's the difference between you and your friend, what you did or what the rescuer did?

01:23:42

And if that is the way that you view salvation, the difference between you and your friend is 100 % you did what you did and none of what the rescuer did.

01:23:52

And the reformed view is that we're dead at the bottom of the lake. And Jesus revived some so that we freely get in the boat.

01:23:58

However, if your apologetic methodology is that you need to grab onto that rope, then you need to give all kinds of evidence and arguments for reasons to grab that rope.

01:24:08

And that salvation is not 100 % of the rescuer anymore. And I saw a debate once when somebody who was not reformed and he used presuppositional apologetics and it was okay until the problem of evil came up and God was not sovereign over evil.

01:24:21

And then the wheels fell off the debate. So it has to deal with the necessary sovereignty of God that he's sovereign in all things, even in salvation.

01:24:30

And if you don't have that view, then the wheels fall off of the apologetics. All right. Thank you for that.

01:24:36

Any other thoughts there in full agreement? Have anything to add, Anthony or Matt? Well, I think

01:24:43

I think anybody could be presuppositional. I've even met atheists who try it.

01:24:49

Now, the deeper you go, the more on that side you're going to have problems. They can't justify them. But Arminians, they can be presuppositional only to a certain level.

01:24:59

And the deeper you go, I think the more it becomes evident that they'll have problems.

01:25:05

So can they be presuppositional? Of course they can. And that when someone says to me, presuppositionalism doesn't work,

01:25:10

I say, why would you presuppose that? And then we have a nice conversation. All right. Thank you for that.

01:25:16

Anthony, have any thoughts on that question? I just say that at the heart of the presuppositional critique of non -Christian worldviews is the false assumption of autonomy.

01:25:26

The natural man, assuming his own autonomy, is incapable of making anything in the world intelligible.

01:25:34

And so in as much as that's what we're pointing out is the fundamental flaw in their worldview, we are, in effect, arguing for a view that says

01:25:42

God is sovereign. But think about, for one example of, for example, if you think of Bonson and how he would sometimes argue, he would mention the problem of the uniformity of nature.

01:25:53

There's just one aspect, one tool that he had in the toolkit. The uniformity of nature is, on the

01:26:02

Christian view, it's something we can believe and rely upon by virtue of our belief in God's providence.

01:26:09

We believe that the world is upheld and governed by God. We believe that in God we live and move and have our being.

01:26:15

And that is, for us, the framework within which uniformity is intelligible. The non -Christian believes that it's all just time and chance acting on matter.

01:26:24

And so how on that basis do you make sense out of uniformity? But notice, this is a contrast between a worldview in which

01:26:32

God is sovereign over all things and another worldview where he isn't. And so while I think an

01:26:38

Armenian or some other version of Christian that denies

01:26:44

God's sovereignty might be able to bring some of this up to some degree, eventually they're going to run into a problem.

01:26:53

How consistent are they going to be with that? And as soon as that, you know, there's the old saying, who was it that said, if God is not sovereign in one point, he's not sovereign in any point.

01:27:04

Right. So once you admit in one area where God is not sovereign, then there's a chink in the armor. And if an atheist is smart, he's going to be able to exploit that.

01:27:13

I think it was Spruill that said that if there's one rogue molecule of God, it's not God. I think he, what did he call it?

01:27:19

Maverick, one maverick molecule. I miss R .C., man. He had a great way of putting things.

01:27:25

He sounded really smart until he was critiquing precept, but then I'm just kidding. You know, it's funny about that debate with Bonson is

01:27:32

I was, I started listening to that early on back in the nineties. And I thought I was understanding the precept approach.

01:27:40

And I'm listening to that discussion at one point, Spruill was going on for 15 minutes. And I thought, I must be confused because what

01:27:46

I just heard from Spruill, I actually thought was good. I thought that was precept. I was so relieved when

01:27:52

Bonson came on and he says that last five minutes just sounded like pure presuppositionalism. That's right. Spruill had a moment of brilliance there.

01:28:01

Absolutely. I just real quick, I want to let people know this book here, R .C. Spruill, A Life.

01:28:07

I highly recommend this by Stephen Nichols. If you're interested in R .C. Spruill, again, different, different apologetic.

01:28:13

Obviously, he was a classical apologist, but excellent theologian. His life is super interesting, too. So I highly recommend if you guys are into like biographies and things like that, detailed.

01:28:22

You really get to know the man behind the scenes. Definitely a blessing. You should check that out. All right.

01:28:28

Let's this is a question for you specifically, Anthony, and you can answer it very quickly. They're asking you about Dr.

01:28:37

White, which we all are familiar with. I've always wondered how did Anthony view Dr. James White's work on the

01:28:43

Trinity? Is there anything about the way Dr. White defends the Trinity that maybe you differ? There's a different emphasis or something like that.

01:28:51

Or are you guys basically on the same page? How would you address that question? You want me to do this quickly?

01:28:57

Well, maybe kind of just like a broad, like a broad brush strokes. You don't have to go into like the details. You can be like, yeah, we're kind of the same.

01:29:04

But in this little area, I tend to emphasize this, that or the other thing. So here's what

01:29:09

I would say. And it's not limited to Dr. White, but across the board. So I love

01:29:15

B .B. Warfield, Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield. He was called the Lion of Princeton. He was a giant of a theologian, a giant when it comes to defending

01:29:24

Christian doctrines all across the board. If you don't have his stuff on the Trinity, the deity of Christ, and all the other stuff he's written about, you're missing out on those topics.

01:29:33

He wrote a book called The Lord of Glory that is one of my favorites. It's up there with works like, you know, think of Ed Kamijewski and Rob Bowman, their book.

01:29:44

It's very popular today on the deity of Christ. You should have that book and Warfield's book. You'd be well -armed when it comes to defending those things.

01:29:52

However, for all my high regard for Warfield, I do very much disagree with him when he says that the

01:29:59

Trinity is not revealed until the New Testament. And really what he says is it's revealed between the

01:30:04

Testaments. It was revealed in the incarnation of the Son and the outpouring of the Spirit. Now, I would agree that those are revelatory events.

01:30:11

God reveals himself in word and deed. The incarnation, the outpouring of the Spirit are revelatory deeds, and they're explained in the

01:30:17

New Testament. However, I don't think this is the first time when this is true, this comes into view.

01:30:23

Analogous to this in the Old Testament is the angel of the Lord and the Holy Spirit, both of whom are, according to the

01:30:31

Old Testament, active in the redemption from Egypt, the experience of the patriarchs, the successive history of Israel, leading up to the incarnation of Christ and the outpouring of the

01:30:41

Spirit. And so when I look in the Old Testament, I find evidence galore for the

01:30:46

Trinity, and I've used it with great effectiveness among Jewish people, people of all sorts.

01:30:53

My wife is a converted—she was Jewish when I met her. She became Christian, and then we got married, and I had a lot of interactions with her family and others.

01:31:03

And when I hear Christians say the Trinity is not in the Old Testament, I think, what are you doing?

01:31:09

What have you been reading? If I could ask, is it

01:31:14

Dr. White's position that the Trinity is not in the Old Testament? I'm not familiar with his position. So he, at least in the past, has said that it's not there because he follows

01:31:24

Warfield. Now, understand, Warfield's a giant. I'm not trying to chop down Warfield. I'm not his equal, right?

01:31:30

And so when I say this, understand, I say it with the utmost regard for somebody like Warfield. But a lot of people followed him in this, and I just think they're wrong.

01:31:40

And there's a lot more that could be said about that. Now, that doesn't mean that's where Dr. White is currently today. But his book on the

01:31:46

Trinity, I've got it right here. I've even got his book, and then

01:31:53

I've got the updated version. So he's got really good stuff here, but it's all focused on the

01:32:00

New Testament. But when you look at his stuff on the New Testament, it's really good. There's a lot of great material there that will arm people.

01:32:07

Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I know that can be weird sometimes because we're kind of on the same team. You don't want to critique.

01:32:13

I get that. So I do appreciate that. All right, this is the last question, and it's for Matt and Sai. First, I want to put this little comment here because I think it's hilarious, and it's probably true of Matt.

01:32:24

It says here, Matt is doing this stream, debating two people in the chat, editing a video, researching for 10 articles, and prepping a

01:32:32

Bible study at the same time. That's probably true. Well, I wasn't working a

01:32:39

Bible study, but I was working on an outline while I was debating. That's awesome.

01:32:46

So my question for you and for Sai, and we'll wrap it up here. And once again, thank you so much, guys, for your time and your friendship.

01:32:52

I really appreciate you guys. Speaking of multitasking and all this, how do you study,

01:32:58

Matt, when you're studying to write articles, when you're studying to do a debate, or you're just studying for knowledge?

01:33:04

What does that process look like for you? And then I want to have the same question for Sai. I know, Sai, you're not doing as many debates these days, but what did that process look like for you?

01:33:14

I think these sorts of questions are helpful for people, so go for it. Well, what

01:33:19

I've done in the past when I debate someone is find out what they believe. And like with someone like Matt Del Honda, it's very easy because he had hundreds of videos out there.

01:33:29

And the one thing that surprised me is that I would do research, and I would prepare like crazy, expecting them to come out of some left -wing position, but it was always the same.

01:33:40

So for people who want to prepare for something like that, I think it's important to know what the person believes.

01:33:46

But again, I know I harp on it, but it's most important to know your Bible. And I have talked to pastors who

01:33:52

I've explained presuppositional apologetics to in five minutes. And I could say, now you can do this better than I can because you know your

01:33:59

Bible better than I do. So I would encourage people to know what Scripture says, and then you will be a better apologist than the person who does not know his

01:34:08

Bible as good. So that's the one thing that I would encourage. Know what the person believes, just so that you can address them on that level, but then also know what your

01:34:15

Bible says. All right. Well, how about you, Matt? What was the question?

01:34:21

How do you study? How do you prepare for debates? How do you study and prepare to write articles, those sorts of things?

01:34:29

Depends. Debates are different than writing articles. But because I've been doing it for so many decades that writing articles is pretty easy.

01:34:37

Know how to go in, and then there's particulars. I go research the particulars. But it's kind of reversed. If I'm going to prepare for a serious debate, then

01:34:45

I'll take the opponent's material, related to the topic at hand, and then study. And that's what

01:34:51

I did with Dan—what's his name? Another guy debated, the atheist guy. I forget names because I— That's all right.

01:34:59

Right, Bob? So I did that, and— Puerto Rican. I'm not

01:35:04

Bob. Bobby. I thought you were Arabic. Yallah, yallah, yallah means it's a war cry.

01:35:10

Actually, when I was in Israel, they said yallah means let's go. So in Arabic, yallah. You're actually saying, when you say that, yallah, meaning you're using the name

01:35:22

Allah. It's part of the expression, let's go. Let's go. That's right, yeah. But if I'm debating an atheist, depending on the seriousness of the debate, an impromptu discussion,

01:35:34

I just like them to go first. I gather information, what they are, write down what they're saying, and then I know how to tackle them.

01:35:40

If it's a more serious debate that's been arranged, you got to go someplace and stand up in front of a crowd. Then I'm really going to debate—I mean, prep a lot more.

01:35:47

I'm going to have so much information on them that they won't even know that they've said certain things. And then you go in and do that.

01:35:53

So it just depends. There's a variety of ways of tackling it. When I'm debating my wife, I always lose. So it's not that good, okay?

01:36:00

Approaches have got problems. Dan Barker, that's who it was. Thank you. Now, just real quick, when

01:36:09

I study, I'm an audio guy. So I have the benefit of having a 45 -minute drive into work every morning.

01:36:14

And so I will listen to debates, audiobooks, lectures, and sermons, and things like that.

01:36:20

So I love to call people who are knowledgeable and go for a walk around my block 30 times while having a discussion with someone.

01:36:29

That's helped me a lot. And these gentlemen have participated in that, whether they knew they were or not. I talk to them either driving or walking around the block.

01:36:37

I think audio is very helpful, especially when you have a very busy schedule. So there you go. I lost it, but someone did say he – oh, this is funny.

01:36:46

So studying equals audiobook at 1 .5 speed while playing video games to stay awake.

01:36:52

Augustine's Confessions will put anyone to sleep. I'm kidding. Here you go. There you go.

01:36:59

Yeah, someone had asked – they really enjoyed – people have really enjoyed this discussion. And they're asking if I would do something like this again with multiple guests and things.

01:37:07

Absolutely. One of the things that I – the reason why I wanted to have you guys and in the past where I've had kind of like even more participants is

01:37:16

I wanted to give someone kind of that feeling of like sitting around a table with other apologists.

01:37:21

Like what would conversations look like if you were a fly on the wall and be like, wow, this is really cool. I have these really good thinkers sharing their thoughts on these interesting topics, and it's beneficial for the person listening.

01:37:31

So I originally invited you guys on in the past because I don't think people expect to see you guys in one place.

01:37:40

And I think that's interesting for folks who are listening in, and you guys have such great insight on the topics that it's beneficial for those who are listening.

01:37:47

So absolutely, I do plan on doing more of these sorts of things as well. And even with people who are not as much in agreement as we are, we're in very much agreement in a lot of areas.

01:37:57

So maybe I'll get some – a more diverse group, but I think you guys did an excellent job, and I very much appreciate it.

01:38:03

You guys all have praises, humble praises. Sai, there are many people who have thanked you so much for making presuppositional apologetics simple, right?

01:38:14

And so there are a lot of – I like to emphasize I'm only a tool. It's atheist love when I say that, but it's by the grace of God.

01:38:20

So I mean it's encouraging, but all glory goes to God. Yeah, yeah, and of course people acknowledge

01:38:26

Matt and his experience over the years. You've been super helpful as well. And Anthony, people call you the beast of the

01:38:31

Trinity, not the beast of Revelation, but the beast of defending the Trinity, and I would agree. You do an excellent job in that.

01:38:38

So it is a pleasure and honor to be your friends, and it's a pleasure and honor for you guys to be on here today. Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening in.

01:38:46

If you like what you see, look up their channels as well. Matt has a channel on YouTube. Anthony has a channel on YouTube.

01:38:52

Sly, are you still – do you have a channel at all, or are you working on it? The Answer Anyone channel where How to Answer the

01:38:59

Fool is available, and also my Proof That God Exists channel, which is most of my open -air stuff. It is old, but hopefully

01:39:04

I'll be able to add to that in the not -too -distant future. Sure, absolutely, absolutely. So check those guys out.

01:39:10

Give them your prayer and support. And until next time, guys, this is all for this live stream.