Epic Apologetics Roundtable Discussion

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.

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

It went very well. It's really encouraging to see college age kind of Christians there. That was kind of the primary audience. They were very much excited about learning about apologetics and they had a bunch of questions.

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

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. 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.

They're like, who are these old guys and this one really good young looking Puerto Rican guy. How about you? Whoever's the oldest? Who's the oldest here? Age before beauty.

I guess that would be me because I'm 67 next month.

Okay, Methuselah, you can go first.

Yeah, thanks. He was a nice guy. Actually, we get along great. Yeah, Matt Slick from CARM .org, C-A-R-M .org. We're doing apologetics since 1980, Calvinist, presuppositional, and there you go.

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

I don't mind going because it's probably me. I don't look 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.

I'm up in Canada. I'm a dude with a website. And if you want to learn about presuppositional apologetics, 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 Dutch price.

Free. So you could check that out. And also I did a documentary on a debate that I did with Matt Dillahunty. It's called Debating Dillahunty. And it's also on my YouTube channel called Answer Anyone. So you could check out the work that I've done there.

Awesome. Thank you. What about your brother, Anthony?

Yeah, my name is Anthony Rogers. I have a website or YouTube page under my name. I am a pastor in South Carolina in the Presbyterian Church of America. In that capacity, I serve as the regional director for Metanoia Prison Ministry.

So my primary duties day in and day out are to prisoners, which I love. And I've been doing apologetics for 30 years, ever since I became a Christian, had an overwhelming desire to tell people about Christ.

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.

All right. Wait a second. I just noticed I am the only Reformed Baptist on this panel. Is that correct? For now. What, the rest are Presbyterian? Yeah. Cy, you're Presby, right? Anthony, you're Presbyterian, right?

OK. I think we need to talk about infant baptism tonight, all night.

You're a bunch of baby dippers. It's OK. It's all right.

Maybe sprinklers, just like Jesus was sprinkled.

OK. I'm not falling for that one, Matt. What do you mean sprinkled? Then we're off running.

But by the way, I'm glad you asked.

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

It was 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 I knew about Anthony was and maybe you can share this a little bit.

You were on an Instagram live chat with what's that that guy? He's kind of like a political commentator, Brandon Tatum, Brandon Tatum. That's right. When I first watched that video, I was like, this looks interesting.

This looks like this kind of high profile guy. And there's this guy with like a wool hat on drinking Starbucks. He looked like you were like out in the alleyway somewhere and you were completely owning him.

There you go. Can you tell us?

This is a different hat. It says Justified Sola Fide. So the backstory is I was working for Ligonier Ministries while I was going to seminary. I was in the basement of my house. It was really cold. I was sitting there with a beanie on and what I was doing was remote work.

So I would answer live theological questions through typing and so forth. 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.

Decided because things weren't going the way he liked politically, he got tired of that and was making some theological comments. But he decided that he was not a Orthodox Christian. He denied the Trinity and so forth.

And anyways, a friend of mine was trying to get me to interact with him and that wasn't working out. 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, 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. I felt like Paul in Act 17 walking around, seeing all the idols and his spirit being stirred.

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. 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. 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.

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 Greek. It was hilarious. And the comments were, were hilarious as well.

So that was the first time 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, Anthony? Brandon Tatum.

Brandon Tatum and masterclass in the defense of the Trinity right there in kind of a, an informal back and forth discussion. It was excellent. You guys should check that out. 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 like early 2000s where you had kind of the young restless and reformed.

So there were reformed Bible studies of young men across the country. And I happened to be invited to one of those. And people were super happy, excited about reformed theology and even presuppositional apologetics.

And so we watched a video of some of your interactions. And that was the first time I ever, I ever saw you. What I want to point out here, maybe you can share. And I thought this was really fun. I saw a video of you floating around on the interwebs and the video is entitled the shortest debate ever.

Can you tell us a little bit about that? And by the way, it's got to be a record. I don't know how many seconds it was. It probably under 10 seconds or like 12 seconds or something like that. 14 seconds.

How long was it? 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? 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. And I thought that was very telling. Why don't you share that with us?

Very early on in my apologetic career, I did a number of podcasts on these atheistic podcasts in England called Fundamentally Flawed with a guy named Alex Botten and a guy named Jim. I don't remember his last name right off the bat.

But I was on there, 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.

And I think I had three encounters with or two encounters with the both of them and then one with Alex on his own. And, you know, 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.

And then they had a fellow on who was a presuppositionalist, but he was very young in, I think, using the presuppositional argument. And so they were saying that presuppositional apologetics is dead, you know, that they've crushed it, they've annihilated it.

And I said, I'll go back on. And, you know, they said, fine. 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, as they're introducing me, they said, I think they said that'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. 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, but the only precondition, the necessary precondition of you coming on is not using precept.

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

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

Yeah, that's right. We want we're committed to Christ and that's where we're going to stand. So I really appreciated that. Now, out of all of the quote unquote high profile apologists that I've ever interacted with, the first what 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.

The first person that I spoke with was Matt Slick. I remember reading your website in between classes when I was supposed to do my homework in college. I'm like, OK, we're going to hang out. I just finished a class on, you know, secondary education and I'm going to the library.

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

He was like, hello. And I was like, oh, my goodness, this is Matt Slick. So Matt and I go way, way back. So I've I've learned so much from you and I'm very much appreciative, not just of your content, but your friendship as well.

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

And I've said this before. And once I start telling the story, Matt will know Matt is debating a gentleman on baptism, baptism necessary for salvation. OK. And of course, Matt is kind of like, you know, machine gunning the scriptures that he thinks contradicts the position of his opponent.

And so he leaves his opponent with a particular passage. I don't remember which one it was. And then you're like, 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 and you see this gentleman looking at the scriptures and you could hear him sub vocal. And you hear Matt from the bathroom. Read the next verse. I'm like, Matt is literally debating this guy from the bathroom because it matched so well with it, with the gentleman's confusion.

He was really grappling with the passage. Why don't you share with us some funny moments? 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, you know, out of your pocket?

Well, I really don't remember. I mean that I think I know who that was. I was at Living Waters. I think that's what the house and I didn't know I was going to be on camera and they impromptu. Hey, you want to do a debate?

Oh, sure. But they had lots of debates and I don't remember too much about them. But, you know, 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.

You and I have a lot of good and really appreciate that. But I can't remember any.

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. I appreciate you guys.

Well, let's jump right into some specifics. I wanted to talk a little bit about some people. How how would you suggest one would interact with the people I want to mention here? And one of them you've had interactions with, maybe maybe even interactions with all of these just three people 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. And, you know, if you're not I don't know how much experience you have with Islam, whether if you do great.

If you don't, I still want to hear your thoughts coming from, you know, I think you're more explicitly presuppositional than all of us. I think we're we're all presuppositional. But there is a very explicit and intentional way that you do it.

And that's kind of different the way maybe myself or Matt or Anthony, in my opinion. So I do want to hear what you have to say. But how about Anthony first? Jake, the Muslim metaphysician. OK, this guy is a popular guy.

Matt, you've debated him. What would be your advice to someone who says, hey, you know, I'm going to meet up with Jake at a coffee shop and we're going to talk about Christianity and Islam? What are some pieces of advice you would give someone in speaking with a philosophically informed Muslim?

Because that's not that's not typical of proponents of Islam. They don't typically they're not typically familiar with the philosophy and and things that go into discussions on the Trinity and things like that.

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

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.

As a Muslim, he's obligated to believe in the previous scriptures. That's a fundamental presupposition of his worldview. His worldview endorses the Koran as the literal speech of Allah. According to the Koran, repeatedly, the Bible is the word of God.

And you knew that already quite apart from the Koran. You didn't need the Koran to tell you that. So the point I'm making, though, is that he's obligated to do that by his own scripture. So he might want to wrangle philosophically with a person, but you have no obligation to do that.

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

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. 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.

Yeah, I mean, because here's one thing. As Christians, we've said from ancient times that faith precedes understanding. 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 God God has to recognize the propriety of that. If God is God, then we begin with what he says, and then we try and reason from that, not to that.

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.

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

Okay. Yeah, that's very helpful.

Thank you for that. Sai, so if someone were to watch a video of you back in the day, your repeated phrase, you know, how do you get truth without God? Would you take that approach with someone that's more philosophically astute?

Like, I don't know if you're familiar with Jake, the Muslim metaphysician, but someone who can actually engage in some of those more nuanced discussions. Using your explicitly presuppositional approach, how would you give advice to someone who would interact with someone like that?

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.

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.

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

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

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

And, you know, the thing is, it's a Reformed apologetic. Jesus said, his sheep will hear his voice. So I think when we talk to the unbelieving Muslim, we give them the voice of Christ, because his sheep will hear that voice.

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. 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. We're at the end of my debate with Matt Dillahunty. Somebody asked me a question about Islam. And the video is called Refutation of Islam in 56 Seconds.

You can look it up on YouTube. It has almost 10 million views. And it's just a few months old. So it really blew up. That's a philosophical takedown of Islam. And it is possible. We can do that. It's called the Islamic dilemma.

However, the more that I do this, the less inclined 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. 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 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 want to don't want to confess it, you believe it. I can't help that.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. I think that's important to have a balance between kind of the apologetic side. I know they're related. Right. And evangelism. We can't be so eager to jump into the apologetic argument that we forget.

Like, actually, we should be presenting the gospel. And as I think it was Dr. Walter Martin said that apologetics is the handmaiden of evangelism. 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. People who are watching. 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.

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. So thank you so much for that.

That's a really good reminder. Now, Matt, you debated Jake, the Muslim metaphysician. And I believe you debated him on the topic of the Trinity. And I watched that debate. 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?

I think he makes some pretty big mistakes, obviously. But what was your mindset and going that was your strategy there?

Well, when I debate people, I used to find out who and what they are. 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.

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

What I noticed is that what he likes, he's 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 and a lot of big words and fast talk.

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. 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.

So other than that, you know, that's it. He likes philosophy and, you know, we do a debate. It'll be 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.

And don't let him snow you with philosophy because he's good at mixing terms and causing confusion. So how he words things. And so, for example, he'll say is is the Trinity is that is of identity or Jesus is God is that is of identity or is a predication.

And I when I asked him, I said, is the the statement God is a Trinity? Is that it is of identity or predication or both? And, you know, he shuts down. He has to go to 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. And so you've got to watch out for that with him.

OK, very good. That's it's important, too, when you're having just informal discussion, not get distracted with a lot of the philosophical terminology. 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. 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.

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

I'm very grateful for that. So here's a question. Very presuppositional related question. How is the Christian God the only necessary precondition for intelligibility? 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. Is the presuppositional claim of which the transcendental argument is really the heart of the presuppositional argumentation?

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

Well, I think it's an assertion that can be argued for. I mean, that's the whole difference between the Ventile and the Clarkian approach. Like the Ventile approach will say that the existence of God is a necessary precondition to intelligibility.

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

And the thing is, if you reject that statement, your world is absurd. And I might take them how that is the case. That rejecting the statement that God is a necessary precondition for intelligibility.

That God exists and you know He exists. And rejecting that claim, your world is absurd. And I might take them through that in the hope that the Holy Spirit uses that to open their eyes. And, you know, God can strike a straight blow with a bent stick.

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. 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. 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.

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

How do you account for laws, concept, principles, and so forth? And, of course, the atheistic materialist, the empiricist can't do so. He can't account for norms, criteria, identity over time. He can't account for any of those things.

But that doesn't appear to a person to show how the triune God and the Christian worldview that is part and parcel of that is the only precondition for intelligibility. 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 I just described is we're just pointing out some particular flaws within his worldview, given his denial of the triune 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. 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 it's knocked out.

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.

And it takes some time if you want to see what that looks like, sort of going through some of these different issues. But you could take the Platonist who believes in immaterial realities and show that he has a problem accounting for things as well.

How do you relate universal abstract entities to the particulars of our experience, the changing world in which we live? 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 God who is both one and many.

See, I mentioned all that. And I actually am sympathetic to all that Sai is saying, because I'm not going to go to the vast majority of people I'm talking to and say that sort of stuff. Sure. It's not what I'm going to say.

It's something I have available to me to say. But for the most part, 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. 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.

So 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 season four.

Yep, ad hominems are not always fallacies, yeah. Only when Matt uses them. I'm just kidding. Matt, what are your thoughts there, bud? Actually, I was going to say—. One second. I'm going to interrupt you, Matt.

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

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

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

The first time I did it on the radio, I don't know, 15 years ago, this guy goes, you're such a child. I was just laughing.

Well, why don't you share your thoughts on the question there?

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, etc.

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. 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 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 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.

Only in Christian theology is that doable, to that level, down further. So yeah, that's what I was going to say, but Anthony, you got it.

You know, 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.

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. 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.

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, I said, what's your worldview? And then I told him mine, and while I was asking him about his, he said, you know, I'm basically a Buddhist.

I think all is one, and the problems that we have arise from making distinctions. We make logical distinctions, moral distinctions, all sorts of distinctions, but really everything is one. And 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. 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. 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.