Do Atheists Steal from God?

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In this interview, Eli Ayala interviews christian apologist Frank Turek on the topic of “Stealing from God.”

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Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Eli Ayala, and today
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I have a very, very special guest. Now, those of you who are used to listening to my channel, you know that we focused very heavily upon presuppositional apologetics, but my sinful deep dark pleasure is reading
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Frank Turek books when no one's looking. I really have appreciated Dr. Turek's work, his ministry, his debates.
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And as you guys know, I do like to encourage, especially people from the reformed perspective, the presuppositional perspective, to help you guys understand that there is a great many things that we could learn from our brothers and sisters who are doing work from their differing perspectives.
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And so I'm very happy to have Dr. Turek here to give us some insights. We're gonna be talking about a book that he wrote,
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Stealing from God, and I purposely picked that book so that I could imagine in my mind,
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Dr. Turek as a presuppositional, this is just as presuppositional as we'll get him, but we'll definitely be able to find a lot of common ground and a lot of common use with the sort of arguments that he uses in that book.
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So without further ado, Dr. Turek, why don't you introduce yourself to the folks listening in? Well, thanks,
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Eli. Yeah, great being with you. I guess we're predestined to be here together. That's right, amen. Yeah, we have a ministry called crossexamine .org
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that's cross examined with a D on the end of it. And we have, we do a lot of college events.
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We go to colleges and present evidence that Christianity is true, churches, high schools as well.
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And if people really wanna get an idea of what we do, they go to crossexamine .org and also go to our crossexamine .org
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YouTube channel because there's about 800 Q &A videos there.
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Most of them are short Q &A videos, anywhere from two to say seven minutes, questions that are asked at a college campus.
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So that'll give you an idea of what we do. What I really appreciate about those videos is you cross examine as a ministry.
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I've always looked at as a well -oiled apologetics machine. You guys know how to get yourselves out there on social media and you guys make great use of the content that you have.
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So for example, you'll have a debate with Q &A and then you kind of share. I've seen all over YouTube, you share these kind of two minute, three minute, five minute videos of issues that you've addressed.
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And I think that's a very helpful way to get a lot of mileage out of what you're doing. So that's definitely been helpful and very useful,
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I'm sure. Yeah, because of this, people don't have a very long attention span. That's right. So it's gotta be short.
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So that's what we try and keep, you know, we take, we'll go to college campus and speak for three hours with Q &A, but then we'll break up the
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Q &A so people can take it in short digestible chunks. Yeah, yeah. And then now, did you, are you the founder of Cross -Examine?
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Did you start that ministry yourself with? Yeah, yeah. And you know, we have a board that helped me start it, but yeah, we started it back in the 06,
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I think. And we started going to colleges in 07, even though I had done some of that beforehand. And so our real mission is to go to colleges and high schools more than anything else.
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Because 75 % of kids who are brought up in the church walk away from the church once they leave the home. And one of the major reasons they do this is intellectually they don't know why
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Christianity is true because we've never told them why it's true. You know, we just say, go believe. And then they get to college and, you know, the atheist professors don't just say, believe.
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They try and give evidence for their worldview. So that's what we're trying to do, give them evidence. All right, very good. Well, my first question is going to be a practical one for those we're gonna presuppose, we're gonna presuppose that people who are listening are already involved in apologetics.
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And so I want you to quickly address the importance of having a balance between studying apologetics and having a healthy devotional life.
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Why don't you speak to that before we kind of get into some of the more intellectual arguments and points that you bring up in your book, dealing from God.
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Why don't we talk about the balance of studying, but also at the same time, upkeeping your relationship with God.
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Why don't you speak to that a little bit? Sure, yeah, God is not just an equation that you figure out. You know, he's not just an argument.
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I mean, an argument points to God. You want to know God personally, so you need both. But sometimes in order to quell any doubts you have, you need arguments to help you understand the objections that you have are not valid and to keep you away from God.
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It's been said before that a mind can't rejoice in what, or the heart can't rejoice in what the mind doubts.
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So if you have a lot of doubts, you need answers for those doubts. And also you ought to be able to show other people why
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Christianity is true. And that's why Peter says, always ready to give an answer. That's why Jesus says, love the
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Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. And Paul says, we destroy arguments and take every thought captive to Christ. In fact,
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Jesus actually gives the representative of John the Baptist an answer when the representative says, hey,
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John's in prison. He wants to know, are you really the guy or not? Jesus doesn't say, well, just go believe. Jesus says, look at the signs.
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Look at the evidence. In other words, that I'm the Messiah. So Jesus actually gives evidence that he's the
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Messiah to quell John's doubts about him being the Messiah. So we have to have both.
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We have to know that Jesus is the savior, but we also then have to trust in him.
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We just can't know it intellectually because even the demons know that God exists, but they don't trust in him.
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So there's a difference between belief that and belief in. Everybody knows that there's a creator, but not everybody trusts in Jesus for their salvation.
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Now, speaking to that then, obviously we want to make a distinction between knowing Jesus within the context of relationship and knowing
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Jesus within the context of apologetic content, intellectual content, argumentation, and things like that.
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What does your private devotional life look like? How does an apologist who is a national speaker, you go to college campuses all over the country, engaging in these very rigorous intellectual debates, which things like cosmology comes up and astrophysics, things like that.
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How do you balance all of that heavy lifting that requires background study and reading and things like that with your keeping up with your relationship with God?
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What does that look like for you? Yeah, well, I actually think even when I'm just keeping up my relationship with God, first of all,
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I think it's all keeping up a relationship with God. It's not like you're bifurcated. When you're just doing devotional, that's when you're close to God and when you're studying, you're not.
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No, I think they're both one in the same. Even devotional time, like right now I'm going through the gospel of Luke, even devotional time requires some study, right?
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You don't just read a passage sometimes and go, all right, I got that. You might, but sometimes you gotta go, really,
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I wonder what that really means. Let me do a little bit more digging, right? So I'm normally going through a book of the
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Bible and sometimes I'll have a devotional, like I've gone through like Tim Keller's devotional on Proverbs, which was very good.
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There's others, but I just really like reading, going through books at a time.
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That's what it means for me, but I'm not just reading.
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Sometimes I'm stopping, I'm meditating, I'm thinking, what does this mean? Sometimes I gotta cross -reference it or look at a note or that kind of thing.
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You read the Bible with a notebook, read the Bible with a computer next to you. What does your note -taking look like? Yeah, well, right now
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I'm using the apologetic study Bible to read the passage and then also look at the notes. But sometimes, my favorite software is
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Logos Bible Software. I don't know if you have that, Eli, but it's really good. You can cross -check everything there and it's so convenient.
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You come across something you want more information on, you right -click the thing and hit search or something and you can get a lot of information.
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So I use Logos Bible Software a lot and it's on all my devices, on my computer, on my iPad, on my phone, so.
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Very good. But I like sometimes having the paper in front of me though, because I can write in the Bible and circle stuff and write a note, so I like that too.
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And when I study, I have the really nice iPad. I use the iPad, but you know what?
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I mean, even with the pen and the notepad and everything, there's sometimes just nothing beats just having a piece of paper and a pencil.
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That's right. The only thing I don't like about the paper and pencil is if you want to cross -reference, I'm just so lazy, right?
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I just want to hit the button and go right to that verse. No, I got to look it up. Are you kidding me? That's right. Sometimes you touch the paper and that's when you do a link.
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What's up with that? That's right. All right, very good, very good. So again, I wanted to purposely ask that question before we get into some of the more detailed arguments and things like that, because I think it's very important for a
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Christian apologist to understand that when we're defending the Christian faith, we're doing so holistically.
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We're not just engaging in argumentation for the sake of argumentation, isolated, independent of everything else in our
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Christian life. We want to also look at the task of apologetics as an aspect of our relationship with God.
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It's not always sure, but there needs to be a balance. And so before we get into some of those details of the word balance, hopefully that will strike a chord with people listening.
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It's very, very important to be holistic in our Christianity and very balanced in how we engage in these issues.
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So thank you very much for that. Now, I just want to make a quick little point here for those of you who want to send in questions,
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Dr. Kirk is going to be taking some live questions a little bit towards the tail end of this interview. And so if you have any questions about something that perhaps you've read in Dr.
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Kirk's book or something you've listened to or heard in the debate, feel free to post them in the chat and I will share them with Dr.
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Kirk on the screen towards the end. Also by way of quick announcement, on July 29th,
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I'll be having Greg Cocolon to talk about apologetic discussion strategies, how to talk -
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What do you mean by that? Well - What do you mean you're having Greg Cocolon? You know - How did you come to that conclusion?
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What led you to that conclusion? So we'll be having Cocolon to talk about those things.
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And of course, if you listen to Frank Turek's debates and his lectures, there seems to be a lot of cross -pollination there.
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And I think it's excellent. You use those tactics, if I can use the title of the book, very, very well, I think.
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And so there's much to be learned there. Looking very much forward to having that discussion. But let's jump right into the nitty gritty, all right?
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Dr. Turek, here's what I think about your books. Now, I have to say this because, you know, everyone knows me as the presuppositional guy, okay?
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All right? And so apparently - You're presupposing a lot that everybody knows you. I am presupposing a lot, but when someone mentions the name
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Frank Turek or evidence around some presuppositionalists, they start breaking out in hives.
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Not that we're against evidence, so you guys should really consider how presuppositionalists use evidence.
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But Frank Turek, coming from a more evidential, more classical approach, still very, very helpful and useful that I think presuppositionalists can really take an important cue from.
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So that being said, I have to say, and this is kind of a recommendation for Dr.
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Turek's work. I do not own a book, a copy, of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an
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Atheist because every copy that I purchased, I've actually given to someone else who needed it.
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So I own it on Kindle. And I wish I had, I'm probably gonna order another physical copy, but as a presuppositionalist,
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I have still been able to understand the importance of digging into some of those specifics and have been really urged to give it to people who really wanna dig deeper.
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So I very much appreciate the value of what you have to offer, even despite our methodological differences.
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So I highly recommend I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist and Stealing from God, which is where Dr. Turek is somewhat of a presuppositionalist if I can poke a little fun there.
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I think he does an excellent job in that book. So let's jump right in there. So in your book, you list six things that you argue atheists steal from God in order to make their case.
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Why don't you just quickly kind of list those six points in your book that you use?
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If you remember, I have the list here, but perhaps you can share. Well, yeah, it's an acronym crime. So it's easy to remember crimes, causality, reason, information, morality, evil, and science.
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These are all things that atheists say point to atheism, or some of them, they say point to atheism.
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When my point is none of these things would exist unless God existed. And let me just give you one example just to, we can't cover them all, but evil, for example, that's the
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E in crimes. People will say, well, there can't be any God because there's too much evil in the world. And as soon as you ask them the question, let's say
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Greg Coco would ask, what do you mean by evil? Give me an example of what you mean by evil.
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They might say, well, murder is evil, rape is evil. No, no, timeout, timeout. I don't want examples of evil. I want a definition of evil.
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What is the definition of evil? And they will have a very hard time coming up with a definition of evil without reference to good because evil does not exist on its own.
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It only exists as a privation or a lack in a good thing. For example, evil is like cancer. If you take all the cancer out of a good body, you got a better body.
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But if you take all the body out of the cancer, what do you got? Nobody, right? Doesn't exist unless it can exist in a good host.
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Well, that's what evil is like. Evil cannot exist unless good exists, but good can't exist in an objective way unless God exists because what all men mean by God is the greatest possible being, the
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God of goodness, of justice, of righteousness. Whoever that being is, that being is the standard of goodness, righteousness, and justice.
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And so if evil exists, good exists, but if good exists, God exists.
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So atheists are actually stealing from God when they claim there's too much evil in the world.
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They're admitting God exists implicitly by even making that claim. What I appreciate about that tactic, like what do you mean by evil?
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I think even I tend to think very much within the context of worldview.
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And so what I like about that question is not giving me examples of what you think are evil, but tell me what evil is from your worldview.
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And I think that's a very powerful way to bring out that, well, wait a minute, given my worldview, how do
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I determine what's evil? So I do like that kind of an indirect internal critique where you force them to kind of define it within their own context and then pull the rug right out from them.
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I think that's a good - And as you know, many of the atheists today, most of them, and the book is really written to the majority of atheists who are materialists.
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You know, there is no immaterial realm. If we're just moist robots, if we're just molecular machines because there is no immaterial realm, we're just driven completely by the laws of physics, then how can there be such a thing as good or evil?
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Good and evil are moral terms about an immaterial reality. They're not terms about physical reality.
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They're not, you know, goodness isn't made of so much carbon and so much oxygen or, you know, justice isn't a molecule, right?
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I mean, these are immaterial realities that are grounded in an immaterial being that we would call
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God. All right, very good. Real quick, kind of a tech issue. Someone is messaging me here.
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There's a lot of reverb when I'm speaking because I think you're not wearing headphones. I don't know if that affects...
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I don't know if you have headphones. Actually, I do a lot of live streams on this and I never wear headphones and don't have reverb.
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Let me just turn the volume down. Go ahead, try it now. Say something. All right. Hello, welcome. Yeah, I can hear you just fine.
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Okay, all right. Well, I'll just try my best not to talk over you or whatever, I think it'll be fine. All right, so you started with evil.
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I think that's a really good place to start, but really you can start with any of these points, right?
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Why don't we begin with causality? What is it about causality that you think atheists are borrowing that concept but it doesn't make sense within their perspective?
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How doesn't causality make sense within an atheistic perspective? How is the atheist stealing from God by assuming causality?
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Well, you've probably heard atheists say this, there's no evidence for God. Well, of course, yeah.
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Yeah, when they say that, of course you could say something like, well, what do you mean by evidence or what evidence would convince you?
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You could go down that route, but what I prefer sometimes now to say, Eli, is this. Why is there evidence for anything?
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Forget God for a second. Let's just talk about evidence for anything. Why is there evidence that if you put two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen together, you always get water?
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Well, because there are natural laws out there and there's natural cause and effect, that every effect has a cause.
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And our minds can ascertain truths about the real world through our senses. Now, what best explains that?
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No intelligence or intelligence? Why is the universe so orderly?
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Because there's an orderer behind it. That seems the best explanation and explanation presupposes cause and effect, right?
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So when atheists are talking about evidence, they're presupposing they're living in a world where evidence should exist.
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They're presupposing they're living in a world where reliable cause and effect exists and where natural laws are repetitive and consistent.
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And they're living in a world where three pound brains through senses can actually know things about things external to their skulls.
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And they're living in a world whereby these things are consistent. And the sun came up today in the
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East and it's gonna come up tomorrow in the East. These seem to me to be better explained by a mind, by intelligence.
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In fact, let's take reason for example. I can't say anything better than C .S.
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Lewis. I don't know if you can, but I can't, right? I wanna read something that C .S. Lewis said about reason that I think is just so brilliant.
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And this is similar to the argument I'm making in the Stealing from God book when it comes to reason.
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Here's what he said, check this out. He said, suppose there were no intelligence behind the universe. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking.
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Thought is merely the by -product of some atoms within my skull. But if so, how can
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I trust my own thinking to be true? But if I can't trust my own thinking to be true, of course
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I can't trust the arguments leading to atheism and therefore have no reason to be an atheist or anything else.
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Unless I believe in God, I can't believe in thought. So I can never use thought to disbelieve in God, unquote.
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Now - That's good. I wanna do that, very good. He is pointing out that if our brains aren't created by intelligence, why should we believe anything we think?
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Especially if materialism is true and we're completely controlled by the laws of physics, we can't follow the evidence where it leads.
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We're not free will creatures. We're just moist robots. We're just molecular machines.
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And that reason shouldn't exist in a world like that.
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Well, we're not in a world like that. We're in a world that was created and sustained by an orderer. So basically with regards to causality, for example, you're really asking in essence, what are the preconditions for the intelligibility of causality?
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What are the preconditions for something like objective moral values and truths? What are the preconditions for, you know, what you just mentioned there, which
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I think you alluded to, which is intentionality, right? Yeah, that's it. Yeah, it all flows from causality.
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In fact, let me say this, regardless of whether you're a classical priest, whatever you are, if the law of causality doesn't hold, we can't know anything for sure.
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That's right, yeah. Right? If effects don't have causes, then how do
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I know that there's a God? I don't. How do we know God exists? We know God exists by his effects.
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There's a creation. That's the effect. We reason back to a cause of creator. There's design in the universe.
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That's the effect. We reason back to a cause of designer. We have a moral law pressing on us. We reason back to a moral law giver.
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So we reason from effect to cause, and that's what scientists do. They find an effect, and they try and figure out what caused it.
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You can't do science without cause and effect, quite obviously. So all these things make better sense on theism than they do on atheism.
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Okay, very good. Now, we have causality, reason, information, and intentionality, morality, evil, and science.
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Why don't you talk a little bit about science? Now, I think that's going to touch on the issue of causality, but why don't we dig a little deeper?
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What is it about the scientific method that when an atheist engages in the scientific method to do a science, he is in essence borrowing from God?
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Is there a little more than just the appeal to causality? Although that's huge, of course. How would you speak to that?
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Well, let's take the transcendental argument, for example, that there are these objective logical laws out there.
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The laws of logic, you can even say the laws of mathematics. Why do they exist?
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And how can our minds ascertain the truth about these or use these laws to ascertain truths outside of our skulls?
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There are so many presuppositions that scientists need to do science.
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The laws of logic are one, laws of mathematics are another, cause and effect are another. Realism, the fact that there's a real world out there and my mind can ascertain truths about the real world through our senses.
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Uniformity, the idea that causes in the past were like those in the present. Like how do you get at the past unless you can assume that causes in the past were like those in the present?
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You couldn't, you're not observing it directly, you're looking at clues that are left behind. The laws of nature themselves, where do they come from and why are they so consistent and precise?
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All of these philosophical principles, you need to rely on to do science. You can't prove them by science.
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You can't run some kind of scientific experiment to prove the laws of logic. You need the laws of logic to run the scientific experiment to begin with.
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But Dr. Turek, just asking the question, where did these things come from? Doesn't prove you're
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God, right? Well, it might not prove a particular God, but it certainly disproves atheism, right?
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It disproves the idea that there is no immaterial realm because the very claim there is no immaterial realm is an immaterial claim, right?
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It's not made of molecules. When I say there is no immaterial realm, there's not this essence out there made of carbon and oxygen.
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It's a thought is immaterial. Right. And so you're using immaterial things to try and prove everything's material.
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It's self -defeating. Yeah, I think another useful point in that topic,
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I was listening to a lecture by J .P. Moreland when he was arguing for the existence of the soul and he appealed to Leibniz's law of the indiscernibility of identicals, where he talks about what's true of X.
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If what's true of X is true of Y, then X and Y are identical. Now, if there's something true of X that's not true of Y, then they're not identical.
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And he kind of goes into this issue of brain states versus mental states, that there's something true of our thoughts that aren't true of our brain.
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And it kind of goes to show that there's that immaterial aspect we can point to, which fits very well with what you just said with regards to immaterial laws of logic, things like the possibility of intentionality.
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I think these are very powerful tools that the apologist can use within the context of discussion when trying to demonstrate the reality of immateriality.
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I think that's very useful. Mm -hmm. All right, so we have causality, reason, information, intentionality, morality, evil, and science.
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In your opinion, Dr. Turek, which is the most powerful of those six that you find is very, very effective when you're engaging with atheists one -on -one?
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So which comes up the most that you think, you know what, we should understand all of these points, but if science is too complicated, if intentionality is too complicated, maybe this one point, you know, the average person listening could hold onto this, kind of understand it the best they can and give them some bullets in their gun to -
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Yeah, I think, you know, all the arguments for the existence of God, probably the most relevant to people today is morality, the moral argument, because, you know, they can ignore the beginning.
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They might not even understand, know there's a beginning, design, you know, they may ignore that. It's really hard to ignore morality because you deal with it every day, right?
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And everything going on in our country right now is somehow morally infused, right? Racism, what, is that immoral?
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Who said, you know, I mean, you said, what if Hitler comes along and says it isn't wrong, or the KKK comes along and says, no, this is just fine.
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Who's gonna adjudicate between you and the KKK? A standard beyond both of them, God's nature.
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So without God, everything's just a matter of human opinion. Well, are you just gonna say that racism is just a matter of human opinion?
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That rape is just a matter of human opinion? That torturing babies for fun is just a matter of human opinion?
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No, because there's a standard beyond us and that's God's nature. It's funny, it's interesting where we have a lot of this, these important social issues going on today.
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For example, oh, I think I lost you, Dr. Turek. I've never lost a guest before.
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We'll see if he can sign back on. What I was going to say, and hopefully he can reconnect, otherwise this will be super awkward.
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But what I was going to say is, say when we're addressing, boom, there we go.
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I thought you got raptured for a second. I don't know what happened, man. That might've been it. You're still here? I'm actually coming from heaven right now,
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Eli. I gotta tell you, you better get busy. I totally thought you got raptured. I'm like, I know I can't be left behind, man.
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I believe in the Lord. What I was saying, it was super funny because when you left,
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I was kind of like, this is awkward. But what I was saying is that with a lot of these social issues going on,
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I think it's very important to ask the question of which world you can make sense out of our particular stances on various social issues.
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I read someone say something to the effect with regards to the Black Lives Matter movement.
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If God doesn't exist, no lives matter. And I think it's important because people will take certain stances on these social issues, not recognizing the broader worldview implications as to whether or not their world view can make sense out of some of these social issues that they're speaking out against.
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So I think that's very important, especially with the point you just touched on with regards to morality. You know, there's one worldview that definitely won't work and that is
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Darwinism. You know, the title of The Origin of Species, which Richard Dawkins couldn't remember when he was put on the spot once, but it talks about the favored races because Darwin believed in racism, basically.
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Now, to his credit, he was against slavery, but he thought races had different intelligent levels and that the supreme race was the
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Caucasian race. And that's why Hitler took Darwinism, took survival of the fittest, and he applied it to his political ideology.
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And he said, look, if the weaker races don't wanna fight, they have no right to survive.
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He tried to create the super race by suggesting there were inferior races. Now, we all know that due to the scriptures and due to the truth of reality, that we're all made in the likeness and image of God and there is no distinction.
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There's only one race, the human race, but you won't get that from Darwinism. You won't get that from atheism.
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You won't get that from Islam. You won't get that from Hinduism either. Am I frozen now?
27:58
No, you're good. You're good. Okay, the only worldview you're gonna get that from is the Judeo -Christian worldview, made in the image of God.
28:04
Yeah, very good. So basically, stealing from God highlights these very aspects that are stolen from a theistic perspective, but used without giving glory to the
28:15
God who is the foundation of them. So I highly recommend, guys, to pick up that book if you haven't read it already.
28:24
It's actually quite, what I've appreciated about your books is that you cover very difficult topics, but your books are very, very readable.
28:33
I would have no problem when someone's just getting into apologetics, what book should I buy? I would have no problem suggesting your books because they're intellectually deep, but they're explanatorily simple, if that makes sense.
28:45
They're written that way so I can understand it, Eli. Yeah, by the way, you are my backup.
28:53
When I listen to Dr. Craig and I'm like, at the end of, I'm like, what's he said? I'll have to go and pick up somewhere where you've addressed it much more simpler.
29:01
And I'm like, oh, okay. I'm standing on Dr. Craig's shoulders. You know, if it wasn't for him, I couldn't do what
29:07
I do. You know, there's so many people that come before us. The worst thing, Dr. Norman Geisser, the guy
29:12
I wrote a couple of books with, you know, I wouldn't know half of what I know if it wasn't for him. Robbie Zacharias, John Lennox.
29:22
I'm having him on my podcast this weekend. You know, there are just guys out there who are way smarter than me.
29:28
And I just learned from them and try and explain what they've already said.
29:35
I think the awesome thing as well is that God has blessed the church with brilliant minds where we can learn, even in the midst of disagreements.
29:45
I think it's very annoying to me that people who are so married to a particular methodology or a theology that they can't see any value in people who've gone before them that believe differently on certain aspects.
29:57
Those differences are important, but for God to come out loud, we need to be able to learn from one another and be able to communicate.
30:02
So I think that's very important. All right, well, at the end of your book, Stealing from God, you cover four points or a four point case for Christianity.
30:13
Why don't you walk through that with us here? What are the four points? And let's unpack some of those points that I think are very useful for people to -
30:20
Sure, yeah. Well, when we go to college campus, you got limited time and the book, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an
30:26
Atheist as you know, goes through 12 points. Nobody has time for that. And nobody's gonna remember all 12.
30:31
So they're boiled down to four. Does truth exist? Does God exist? Are miracles possible?
30:37
And is the New Testament reliable enough to tell us that Jesus rose from the dead? Because if truth exists,
30:43
God exists, miracles are possible and Jesus rose from the dead. Game over, Christianity is true.
30:48
Everything falls like dominoes after that. So the truth question is a response to post -modernism.
30:54
People will say there's no truth. And the easy thing you need to say back to them is, is that true? That there's no truth.
31:00
It's quite obviously self -defeating. And Eli, if I only had one skill to teach people, it would be to recognize self -defeating statements and arguments.
31:08
In fact, we do a teaching down in Dallas every August called
31:13
CIA Cross -Examiner Instructor Academy. Our mutual friends from New York Apologetics have been there,
31:19
Anthony and Nick and others. And I do a whole session on the most important thinking skill. The most important thinking skill is identifying self -defeating statements because they're everywhere.
31:28
There is no truth. Is that true? All truth is relative. Is that a relative truth? There are no absolutes.
31:33
Are you absolutely sure? You ought not judge. Are you judging me for judging? You know, I mean, you can just go on and on. These are self, or all truth comes from science.
31:41
Is that a scientific truth? Can you prove that in the laboratory? No, that's a philosophical claim, right? You can't get off the ground in science without philosophy.
31:51
In fact, the title of the chapter in this book, Stealing from God on Science, is science doesn't say anything, scientists do, right?
31:59
Because all data needs to be gathered. All data needs to be interpreted. And who does that? Scientists, they do it up here.
32:05
It's philosophy. So we deal with the question of truth first. And if truth exists, then it's possible that Christianity is true.
32:12
If truth doesn't exist, it's not even possible that atheism is true, right? Tariq, I've heard some
32:19
Christian apologists, I won't mention any names, but I did read someone post, he's a
32:25
Christian apologist, he says, certainty is overrated. And I think he was trying to suggest that we really can't be certain.
32:32
There are certain things ultimately we can't be certain about. And I was thinking, like, that sounds, I mean, your voice in your podcast is the opening line, you know, is that true?
32:43
I was like, are you certain of that in my mind? Are you certain of that? Yeah. Well, I mean, it is true that there are certain,
32:50
I'm using the wrong word here. There are particular things that we can know with more certainty than other things.
32:56
Okay. Obviously. But yeah, you have to exist to know you exist, right?
33:01
I'm certain I exist, right? Otherwise, I couldn't know anything else, right?
33:07
I mean, there are some things that you're more certain of than others. Am I certain the laws of logic exist? Yeah, I'm using it.
33:13
If I deny them, you know, I'm using them to deny them, right? If I say the laws of logic don't exist,
33:19
I'm actually using the laws of logic to say that. They're transcendentally true. They're true by the impossibility of the contrary.
33:25
Right. Yeah, you're using the laws of logic to even say that. That's right. Right? So yeah.
33:31
But I think maybe what that guy was getting at was the fact that atheists demand certainty. Well, hold on, dude.
33:38
You don't know atheism's true for certain, right? You're making a probability argument.
33:45
That's right. Okay. And so that's just the nature of being a finite being.
33:53
Of course. Even appeals to probability presuppose certain certainties. They do.
33:58
In fact, I had a debate with Jeffrey Lauder, probably the best atheist ever debated because he actually read my book and he gave arguments for naturalism.
34:05
And he was using probability theory to try and disprove Christianity. And I said, well, wait a minute. Probability theory presupposes order, presupposes mathematics.
34:13
Where do those things come from? Right. Right? Right. All right, very good. So does truth exist?
34:21
Okay. Obviously it does. To deny it is to affirm it. So that's a great section in your book that highlights those self -defeating elements for denying truth.
34:33
All right. Does God exist? So you go through various arguments, but if you have more time, you usually go through the traditional proofs, you know, the cosmological -
34:42
Yeah, I go through three arguments, you know, cosmological, teleological and moral arguments. And if you add those arguments up, you get a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, moral, personal, intelligent creator who created all things and sustains all things to this very moment.
35:00
Now, this doesn't necessarily prove the Christian God from those three arguments. It could be the Christian God.
35:06
We have to know who Jesus is to know who, whether say the creator of the universe is Jesus.
35:12
It's not Allah or some other theistic God. But I think when we look at the evidence for Jesus, when we get to point four, question four, we realize it's the same being that walked out of the tomb 1 ,987 years ago is the same being in whose divine nature created the universe out of nothing.
35:29
So the arguments get you a theistic God. They don't necessarily give you a Christian God, but when you add
35:36
Jesus into the mix, you realize that the being that created and designed the universe and is the ground of all morality is the
35:44
Christian God. Okay. So what are the three main arguments that you would use?
35:51
Cosmological, teleological and moral? Right. Okay. Those are the three main ones.
35:56
You know, I think they're actually between you and me and all the people watching Eli, there is actually better arguments for God than those three.
36:04
The problem is you need to have a lot of background information in philosophy to even understand them.
36:10
And to a general audience, you're not gonna be able to communicate that in the time you have. Like for example,
36:16
Ed Faser, he's a Catholic theologian and philosopher, has a book called
36:21
Five Proofs of the Existence of God, where he goes into the philosophical metaphysical arguments for God.
36:28
Here's a short one that you can explain briefly. Everything we know on earth here is composed.
36:37
We're composed, we're made of parts, right? But something that's composed is put together by something outside of itself.
36:45
But you can't go on an infinite regress of composers. Eventually you got to get back to an uncomposed composer that composed all the composed things.
36:55
That uncomposed composer is simple, has no parts itself, right? So that's one way you can get back to a simple being.
37:05
That's sort of like a cosmological argument. Yes, you're importing the cosmological argument when you're saying something exists.
37:11
Well, what something exists? Well, composed things. Okay, well, can I go on an infinite regress of composers?
37:16
No, I'm gonna get back to an uncomposed composer. You can use arguments like that too. And sometimes I augment those three with it, but there's even more sophisticated arguments like the difference between act and potency, form and matter, these kinds of arguments that were begun by Aristotle, were baptized by Aquinas.
37:36
In fact, the intentionality argument that I make in this book in the chapter on I, information and intentionality, is really
37:46
Aristotle's argument for final causality. And it turned out to be
37:52
Aquinas' fifth argument for God. He said, if everything's going in a direction, like for example, an acorn, why does an acorn always become an oak tree if it's properly nourished?
38:02
You say, well, it's programmed to become an oak tree. Yeah, well, who programmed it? I mean, is an acorn conscious in the ground going, all right, what do
38:09
I have to do to become an oak tree? Why does it become an oak tree and not a birch tree or an elm tree or a seahorse?
38:16
Just the way it is, Frank. Just the way it is, because there's a direction to it, right?
38:23
And now an oak tree does not have a mind of its own or an acorn doesn't have a mind of its own. But if properly nourished, an acorn will always go in the direction of becoming an oak tree.
38:35
If it doesn't have a mind of its own, yet it consistently goes in a direction, there must be an external mind directing it toward that end.
38:44
That is what Aristotle called the unmoved mover. That's what Thomas Aquinas said, is my fifth way to argue for God.
38:51
Now notice, this is not a big bang argument or a beginning argument like the cosmological argument.
38:57
This is an argument for a being right now, sustaining every single second the universe.
39:05
That's a sustaining cause, not a historical cause, but a cause right now, every single second.
39:12
So arguments like that actually have some intuitive appeal, but others of them are so complicated, you couldn't present them to a general audience in the short period of time you have.
39:24
All right, well, let's move on to miracles, okay? So you have, does truth exist?
39:29
That should be a simple one, a nice, you'd be surprised how many times I've had people fall into that trap.
39:34
And sometimes they'll just say it and you'll recognize it and bring it out, but sometimes, depending on who you're talking to, you might wanna pull out this little, it's not a trick, but it is a trick, but it's not a trick.
39:46
So well, non -contradiction is what it is, yeah. That's right, but sometimes we set people,
39:52
I'm like my friend, Matt Slick over there at karm .org, folks will know who he is. When he's talking to atheists, he says,
39:58
I'm going to set you up. But he does that so that they can see the point of what he's saying.
40:05
I think it's important to understand how to identify, as you said, those self -contradictory statements.
40:10
So we have the existence of truth, does God exist? And even as presuppositionalist, you can use every argument that he used if you think they're logically valid, and you can use that within the context if that's your thing.
40:21
If that's not your thing, these arguments are still useful in conversation. I've written out the Kalam cosmological argument on a napkin for someone, along with some presuppositional arguments and things like that.
40:33
So these things are very useful depending on who you're speaking with. We have arguments for God's existence. What about miracles?
40:39
Yeah, well, let me just say that one of the arguments for God's existence, of course, is the cosmological argument we just mentioned.
40:47
Everything that has a beginning has a cause. Universe had a cause, therefore the universe had a beginning. Even atheists are admitting that space, time, and matter had a beginning out of nothing.
40:55
Well, space, time, and matter had a beginning out of nothing. Whatever created space, time, and matter can't be made of space, time, and matter.
41:00
In other words, the cause must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful to create the universe out of nothing, personal in order to choose to create, because impersonal forces can't choose anything.
41:13
So to choose to create, you gotta be a person or have personal qualities. Also, the being must be intelligent in order to make a choice, to have a mind to make a choice.
41:23
So I always ask audiences, I say, when you think about a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, personal, intelligent cause, who do you think of?
41:33
And they say, God. And they say, how do you know it's the Christian God? I say, we don't yet. When we get to Jesus, we'll figure it out as the
41:39
Christian God, but we at least have a deistic God at the very least, probably a theistic
41:45
God. And so when people say miracles are not possible, I ask them, well, what miracles aren't possible?
41:52
Oh, Jonah or Noah or a resurrection, they never occur. I ask them, are those the greatest miracles in the
41:59
Bible? The answer's no. The greatest miracle in the Bible is the first verse, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, because if that verse is true, every other verse is at least possible.
42:09
Well, you even have atheists admitting the data for the first miracle, that space, time and matter had a beginning out of nothing.
42:16
Well, look, if God can create the universe out of nothing, can he raise Jesus from the dead?
42:23
That's easy, right? Can he make ax heads float in water or walk on water or do the
42:28
Jonah miracle or the Noah miracle? These are easy for God to create the universe out of nothing. So that's what we say.
42:34
Look, if the first verse is true, every other verse is at least possible. So, okay, so if someone were to say miracles are impossible, how would you respond to something like that?
42:44
Would you just say, well, if God exists, it is possible. So you'd give an argument. I would use
42:49
Greg's tactics and say, first of all, what do you mean by a miracle? Okay. Because it depends on how they define it.
42:55
So stop right there. So what do you think of miracles? And then I hear this all the time. A miracle is when
43:01
God breaks the laws of nature. How would you respond to someone's understanding of miracle? How would you define miracle?
43:07
And then kind of respond to how someone might understand miracle from that. Well, I would ask, why do you think that's the right definition of a miracle?
43:15
I would say a miracle is when God overpowers a law of nature.
43:21
And by the way, I'm overpowering a law of nature right now. Right, gravity.
43:28
If I were to drop this thing, it would go to the floor. But I can overpower the laws of nature.
43:35
If I can overpower a law of nature, can the God who created and sustains the law of nature overpower them? Of course he can.
43:42
And in the book we go into, and the book, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. We go through six different kinds of unusual events.
43:50
We probably don't have time to go into them right now, but a lot of people call something a miracle that isn't a miracle. Like what, you know, they'll say something like, it was a miracle
44:00
I met my wife. No, it wasn't a miracle unless you met your wife.
44:05
Unless she like walked across the lake on the top of the lake to meet you. You know, that would have been a miracle. It may have been divine providence that God prearranged events, but didn't overpower any natural laws to have you meet your wife.
44:18
That's not a miracle, okay? It's divine providence. But in any event, I would say it's a philosophical presupposition to say miracles are violations of the laws of nature.
44:30
No, they're somewhat overpowering the laws of nature, which can be done by the creator, especially if we can do it, right?
44:37
We can overpower laws of nature. Why can't God? Now, would you agree with the understanding of miracle that a miracle, or for example, natural laws that we observe are just the normative ways of God's providential control and miracles are just his less normative.
44:57
I can't say this. It's the way God governs, but in a less normative way.
45:02
So he can do these things, not necessarily breaking a law. Both are an expression of God's governance, but one is more regulatory and the other one is more acceptable.
45:11
And the only way you could ever notice a miracle is if it's against the backdrop of regular natural laws, right?
45:21
Because if miracles occurred all the time, you'd go, this is no big deal. This kind of stuff just happens all the time, right?
45:28
One of the reasons miracles exist is to get our attention that God is doing something special and we ought to obey the miracle that was done or we ought to obey the person through whom the miracle was done.
45:39
Why should we listen to Moses? Because Moses can do miracles. Why should we listen to Jesus and the apostles? Because they can do miracles.
45:45
And here's one of the mistakes David Hume makes who tries to, you know, 300 years ago, tried to talk people out of miracles.
45:51
He tries to say a miracle is a rare event and the evidence for the regular is always greater than that for the rare.
45:56
Well, that's just, first of all, a miracle is a rare event, but the evidence for the regular isn't always greater for that for the rare.
46:02
Rare events happen all the time and you believe they happen. Like your birth, it only happened once. It's rare, but you're here, you believe it, right?
46:09
But not only that, miracles have to be rare if they're gonna get our attention. I mean, imagine if say resurrections occurred all the time, what would the resurrection of Christ mean to us?
46:21
You go, hey, it's no big deal, right? I mean, you go to somebody, you go, Jesus roasted the dead for your sins. And the guy goes, so what?
46:27
Uncle George just roasted the dead two weeks ago. Now I gotta give the inheritance back. So it's gotta be a rare event if it's gonna get our attention.
46:36
It can't be a regular event. And that's why miracles are rare. Hmm, that was a good one.
46:42
Just real quick, if you have any questions, please type them in. I will be sharing them with Dr. Turek in just a few moments here before we finish up my line of questions.
46:51
So if you have them, please send them in and we'll get them up on the screen. Now, one more point on miracles.
46:56
I think what's interesting, when someone says miracles are impossible, I think another helpful thing to ask is what must be true in order for one to know that miracles are impossible?
47:06
You have to be pretty much all -knowing. That's right, and who's the only one that's all -knowing?
47:13
You know? So, that's right, that's right.
47:19
Those kinds of things can be turned on their head in various ways of which are laid out in Dr.
47:26
Turek's books too. Just applying good old logic to some of these statements are very helpful. All right, last point here.
47:32
Is the New Testament historically reliable? Dr. Turek, you're on an airplane. We just heard the announcement over the loudspeaker.
47:39
It's called the loudspeaker. I'm thinking in terms of school, the loudspeaker, whatever that's called when they're up in the air.
47:46
And we're about to land. You got five minutes before landing and the guy looks over you.
47:51
He sees you reading a Bible and says, ah, I can't believe you believe that thing. There's no evidence to believe that the
47:58
Bible is even reliable. What is a quick case that you can make given a limited amount of time that perhaps our listeners can glean from and use?
48:07
Well, first of all, I wouldn't wanna make a case. I would try and I'd wanna ask him why he thinks it's not true and then deal with those objections.
48:14
But if I had to make a short case and he was open to a case and I only had a couple of minutes,
48:21
I would say something like the New Testament writers are all known to be
48:26
Jewish believers in Yahweh with the exception of Luke. Everybody thinks they're part of God's chosen people.
48:33
I would ask them, why would they invent a resurrected Jesus to get themselves beaten, tortured and killed?
48:40
For what reason? Why would they invent this? In fact, I would say that,
48:45
I know it's gonna sound heretical almost, but I think it's true. Christianity, I was gonna say.
48:52
I think I might know what you're gonna say, but that's okay, go for it. You're my guest, you can share your thoughts. Christianity did not originate with a book.
49:01
Christianity originated with an event, the resurrection. And I ask people, I say, do you realize there were thousands of Christians before a line of the
49:09
New Testament was ever written? Yeah, why? Because they witnessed the resurrected
49:14
Jesus, that's why. I mean, Paul wrote the book of Romans, why?
49:19
Because he witnessed the resurrected Jesus, not because he read some book somewhere. Why did
49:25
Matthew write the gospel of Matthew? Because he witnessed the resurrected Jesus. In other words, the
49:31
New Testament writers did not create the resurrection. The resurrection created the New Testament writers.
49:37
You wouldn't even have a New Testament written by Jews in Jerusalem in the first century, unless they at least thought that Jesus had resurrected from the dead, right?
49:50
There's no reason to invent this. And they wouldn't have put all those embarrassing things in there, like they ran away when the crucifixion occurred and Jesus called their leader
50:01
Satan. And Peter said, Lord, I'll never deny you. And then he denies him three times.
50:06
And the women are the brave ones, why the sissy pants men run away. This is not an invented story, right?
50:12
So if I only had a couple of minutes, that's what I would say. And I would point out there's a lot more evidence than this, but it takes more faith to believe that this is an invented story than to just believe, given the fact that God does exist, that he can do a miracle by resurrecting
50:29
Jesus from the dead. And that's what these people believed, that he did rise from the dead. All right, thank you so much for that.
50:36
Again, guys, you can check out in more detail, stealing from God. And of course, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist.
50:43
That concludes my line of questions. And so we're gonna go through some questions. The question will pop up on the screen,
50:48
Dr. Turek. And please, I don't mean to be rude when I'm looking down. It's only because -
50:53
No, go ahead, go ahead. All right, I'm not trying to - The answer to the first question is false. Let's go to the second question.
50:59
No, the answer is Jesus. Come on, man, you should go to Sunday school. We learned that in Sunday school. I'll allow you one or two heresies on the show.
51:06
Other than that, we're gonna boot you. Hey, by the way, before I forget, I just talked to my friend, Richard Howe, because I know you had a little video responding to one of his arguments.
51:13
Sure. And you should have him on to discuss that further because both of you guys are smart in this field.
51:20
And I think he'd probably appreciate coming on, Dr. Richard Howe. So reach out.
51:26
If you don't have his email address, I'll get it to you. I think I was invited by a Ratio Christie to give a presentation on presuppositionalism.
51:33
And the person who was the head of that group said that they would reach out. I'd love to have him on. I'd even love to have him to dialogue with another scholar.
51:40
I think that might be an interesting kind of - Yeah, yeah. Let's arrange that. Just drop me an email and I'll get you his email.
51:46
Sure, sounds good. All right, so these questions are random. They could be about any number of things. And so you can skip.
51:53
I know you won't skip because you're going to want to, you know, you're okay, good, you're fine.
51:59
All right, so here's a question. How would Dr. Turk answer the multiverse argument against the cosmological argument?
52:05
I would, and this is all in the book. I don't have enough faith to be an atheist and in stealing from God as well. I would ask the question, why do you think the multiverse is true?
52:13
What evidence do you have for it? Turns out there's no evidence for a multiverse. There's no way to observe these universes external to us.
52:21
Secondly, as even many atheists have admitted, including Paul Davies of an astronomer from Arizona State, he says the multiverse is a dodge.
52:32
It's trying to avoid the obvious implication that the universe is extremely fine tuned, designed for life, that there's a designer out there.
52:40
Nobody would be positing multiple universes if the universe didn't appear to be so designed.
52:47
And what the multiple universe theory is trying to do is it's trying to multiply the chances that this universe just got this way by chance, whatever that means, that there's no intelligence behind it.
52:58
That if you have enough universes, one of them is going to be fine tuned like ours. And William Lane Craig has a little video on this.
53:04
If they go to reasonablefaith .org, they will see some other problems with it, including the fact that who's generating these universes.
53:11
It almost seems like you'd need some sort of some fine tune creator or a creator who can fine tune these universes into existence themselves.
53:19
So you don't really get, you don't get rid of the need for a creator. In fact, one of the proponents of the multiverse is a guy by the name of, oh man, why is his name escaping me all of a sudden?
53:32
Alexander of Lincoln, who says, and he has a book on it, Many Worlds in One.
53:38
He says, look, even if there are other universes out there, the whole show, all the universes together need a beginning.
53:45
Now he doesn't think the beginning points to God, but I would say the best evidence is that if there are other universes or just this universe, you still need a
53:52
God, you still need a creator, a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, personal, intelligent being to create it all. Very good.
53:59
Next question, are there any quantum cosmological models that creationists can affirm? Well, William Lane Craig is much more an expert on this than me.
54:07
And he says there's at least 10 different models of, if I'm understanding the question correctly, of the quantum realm.
54:16
And he said, nobody knows what the right one is, okay? Some of them are deterministic, others are not.
54:24
So, and I'm reminded of what the great physicist, atheist physicist,
54:29
Richard Feynman said, he said, if anyone tells you that they really know what's going on at the quantum level, they're lying.
54:36
So, I don't know what's going on at the quantum level, but according to the experts, there's at least 10 different interpretations of the quantum level, and some are deterministic and some are not.
54:46
So, who really knows? Are, here's a question, just, I'm asking, wondering. Now, quantum cosmological models, are they conceptual models or are they like models that are empirically equivalent?
54:58
So, are they things that people can observe or are they kind of just conceptual schemes to use? As I understand it, many of them are just conceptual schemes and, but as I say,
55:08
I'm not an expert in that. And Craig has some writings on it on his website, reasonablefaith .org.
55:14
So, if you wanna go further, I'd recommend going there. All right, not a question, but a couple of statements that I think would be cool and encouraging based on something you had done with Dr.
55:22
Michael Brown. Someone says here, a few days ago, I watched a debate between Dr. Frank Turek and Michael Brown against two people advocating for Christian homosexuality.
55:31
I was amazed at Dr. Turek's question to the opposing team. If God said that homosexuality is a sin, would you agree with him?
55:38
Something like that. You should have seen them trying to evade the question. It was an excellent question that went to the heart of the matter.
55:45
It was clear that the debate was of emotion and feeling versus God's word.
55:50
And I think that's a very helpful encouragement. That's always a good thing to point out that we're sticking with God's definition of those categories and asking.
56:00
I think this is the beauty of your interaction with people. You know how to ask the right questions at the right time and press those questions for them to account for them.
56:08
But let me say one other thing about that, Eli, if I can. The derivative of the question that I ask atheists a lot or non -believers a lot is, if Christianity were true, would you become a
56:17
Christian? And many times their honest answer is no, because the problem isn't in their head. The problem's in their heart.
56:22
They don't want it to be true. They don't want there to be a God because they wanna be God of their own lives. They're not on a truth quest or on a happiness quest.
56:29
And they think happiness is best achieved by avoiding God and doing what I wanna do.
56:35
So I see so many of the issues related to people not being
56:40
Christians as being volitional rather than intellectual. And I'm an apologist. I think giving people reasons is important, but so many times they don't care about reasons.
56:49
They wanna suppress the truth, as Paul says in Romans 1, because they wanna go their own way. And by the way, sometimes we wanna do this too, right?
56:57
It's inconvenient being a Christian. It'd be a lot easier making it all about me all the time.
57:03
So it doesn't just affect non -believers, it affects us as well. So always ask questions like that.
57:09
If Christianity were true, would you become a Christian? If God really defined, because it comes from his nature, if he really defined for us saying that only sex between a man and a woman inside of marriage is moral, every other kind of sex isn't, would you agree with him?
57:24
No, okay, well, no sense me trying to talk you into believing in God then, because it doesn't matter.
57:29
You're not gonna obey him anyway, anyhow. So far, this is my favorite question revealed.
57:37
I wanna be a better apologist. Is it necessary that I get semi -rimless glasses like you and Frank? Absolutely, you should presuppose the semi -rimless glasses if you wanna be an apologist.
57:48
You should look more intelligent with glasses, right? Let's see, you know, come on. No, you gotta have glasses on.
57:54
Shows you've been studying. I was asking my wife, I was, because my glasses were feeling a little uncomfortable. I was like, should I do my contacts when
58:00
I do, when I go on with Dr. Turek? She's like, no, just leave the glasses on. So you need to know - No, no, no, you always look smarter with glasses.
58:06
You could be a complete doofus, but you got glasses on? Hey, this guy's a studier. Forget about it, all right.
58:13
How would Dr. Turek answer the question of original sin from a non -Calvinist, I presume, he's presuming you're not a
58:18
Calvinist, viewpoint? Well, it depends on what you mean by original sin. If you mean, did
58:24
Adam sin, and Adam and Eve sinned and infected the entire human race, and his federal headship is the reason that the race has fallen, yeah,
58:34
I agree with that. My co -author, Dr. Norman Geisler, wrote a book called Chosen But Free, responding to the
58:42
Calvinism issue. And it depends on how you define, as you know, all of the acronym in Calvinism, TULIP.
58:51
How do you define, let's see, total depravity, the first one,
58:58
T. And Geisler would say that total depravity means that your image of God is effaced, it's not erased.
59:06
You still have the image of God. You can still know truth, although you have the noetic effects of sin, and that can create a problem for you.
59:14
If you couldn't know truth, then you couldn't be held accountable for not knowing truth. So we're all fallen, and regardless of original sin, every one of us can admit we've sinned.
59:25
So regardless of what your theory on original sin is, it doesn't get you out of any problem if you go, well,
59:30
I don't believe in original sin. Well, you've sinned yourself, so you still have a problem.
59:36
All right, thank you for that. Is the principle of embarrassment a good argument for the validity of any historical documents?
59:43
That's the principle where you say they're probably not making it up if they make themselves look bad, or like the disciples running away at the crucifixion, or some of them even doubting.
59:55
The amazing thing, if you look at Matthew 28, when Jesus is given the great commission, in verse 17, he's got all his disciples there.
01:00:02
He's given them the great commission, and it says, some believe, but some doubt it. Jesus is standing resurrected in front of them, and some of them are doubting.
01:00:09
You think they made that up? No. If you were trying to pass this lie off as the truth, you would say, we all believed from the beginning.
01:00:15
None of us wavered at all. No. I think it is a good argument for the validity of,
01:00:20
I would say, most historical documents. I can't speak for all, because it depends on what you're talking about, but it certainly seems to be the case for Christianity, for the
01:00:28
New Testament documents, because to say things like some doubt it just doesn't seem to advance your case.
01:00:35
To say that the women were the first witnesses in a culture that did not believe that women were reliable witnesses, at least not on par with men, would hurt your case, not help your case.
01:00:45
So why would you say it were true if it really wasn't? Okay. All right. I'm gonna do one more question since we are just at the hour mark, and that's the time we agreed to do this.
01:00:57
Let's see here. I'm gonna pick one that I think - Pick two more. Let's do two more. All right. All right. Thank you very much.
01:01:03
All right. So here's a question. Many people are drawn to secret sensitive churches where the gospel is rarely preached, and most of what is taught is emotional and watered down theology.
01:01:11
How do you recommend approaching the topic without offending the person you're talking to? Approaching the topic of secret sensitive churches?
01:01:20
That's what it seems like they're asking. Well, I might ask them if they know of Bill Hybels because Bill Hybels was kind of the father of the secret sensitive church.
01:01:33
And he admitted a few years back, probably 10 years back, that the secret church has not made disciples.
01:01:40
And that's the role of the church to make disciples. And so you could just go on his testimony that the secret church doesn't make disciples.
01:01:48
Now, maybe there are churches out there that have a seeker model on Sunday morning, but they have other programs that bring people further into the discipleship mode.
01:01:56
Okay. Take that on a case -by -case basis. But what we don't wanna do is water down the theology so much that we're trying to attract people to a
01:02:03
Christianity that isn't true, right? Christianity isn't at all about getting the life with the way you want it.
01:02:09
It's not all about your best life now. You could get persecuted and killed for being a Christian. Just like I'm getting persecuted by this graphic.
01:02:16
You can't even see me. But in any event. I was gonna take it down, but I wanted to give you the opportunity to revisit the question if you forgot the line of thought there.
01:02:28
Oh, really good. Funny guy. All right. Last question. Can a metaphysical story be borrowed from that assumes it's true?
01:02:36
How is one metaphysical story more true than another metaphysical story? I don't know if you understand the question.
01:02:43
No, I'm not tracking with the question, Sodi. If you know what it is, clarify it. Okay, so a metaphysical story,
01:02:49
I would imagine is your theory of reality. If someone has a theory of reality and another person has a theory of reality, can some theory of reality be borrowed from that assumes it kind of one metaphysical theory borrowed from another metaphysical theory and still be true?
01:03:07
Well, if it's true, it's true. I mean, if you learn from somebody else with a different metaphysical view and what that other person believes is true and you adopt that belief, sure, that's true.
01:03:20
You could have two people who only have a partial view of the truth.
01:03:26
In fact, I would say that's true of all of us, right? There are some things that you and I don't even know about Christianity. We are wrong about it even.
01:03:32
We could have wrong beliefs. The truth is here and our beliefs are here and we might not grasp, we certainly don't grasp
01:03:41
God completely. We don't know everything about God quite. He's an infinite being. He's the only perpetual novelty is the great
01:03:46
Robbie Zacharias used to say. So because I have certain false beliefs about God or about Christianity, doesn't change the truth of Christianity.
01:03:59
I need to align my false beliefs with the truth and that's a process of learning, right? So I don't know if that answers the question.
01:04:06
Go to another question because that question, we're ending on a metaphysical dud in my view because I don't know.
01:04:12
I may have just totally answered a question that she didn't ask. I'm sorry. All right, that's okay.
01:04:17
That's okay. Does Dr. Turek believe that Catholics are brothers in Christ or damned heretics?
01:04:24
There's a fun one. Yeah, I think we're about out of time as a matter of fact. Start another
01:04:29
Protestant Reformation. Oh my goodness. You know, I mostly speak at Protestant churches every once in a while, the
01:04:35
Catholic church, but from Protestant audiences, I normally get the question.
01:04:40
Do you think Catholics can be saved? And I always say, I even think some Baptists can be saved.
01:04:47
Because it's not where you go to church that gets you salvation. It's whether you've accepted the free gift of Jesus.
01:04:57
Have you accepted that? Now I know Protestants who haven't and Catholics who have accepted that.
01:05:04
So now do I have problems with the Catholic church? Of course I do. I was brought up Catholic and there are many things I don't agree with.
01:05:10
But let me kind of point out that conservative Protestants have more in common with conservative
01:05:18
Catholics than they do with liberal Protestants. Liberal Protestants, as my coauthor,
01:05:24
Dr. Norman Geisler used to say, these liberal denominations are nothing but hymn singing rotary clubs, right?
01:05:30
They hardly even believe in God. They don't believe the Bible. They don't believe any of this stuff. Conservative Catholics believe in all that.
01:05:37
Now they may add some books in the Old Testament, as you know. They may have a view of justification that's confused in my view.
01:05:43
They combine justification and sanctification. They have these other issues with Mary and purgatory and all this, right?
01:05:50
So they've added a lot of superstructure in my view around the Christian faith that I think is wrong.
01:05:57
But that person can be saved just like a conservative person who believes in, as a
01:06:03
Protestant can be saved. So I'm gonna team up with people of any denomination if they're conservatives and if they accept the message of grace.
01:06:14
I may debate them vigorously over some topics, but I'm not gonna say they're heretics.
01:06:20
Heretics are people in the Protestant church and in the Catholic church who disbelieve the essentials of the faith.
01:06:27
Conservative Catholics, conservative Protestants all agree on the essentials of the faith. All right,
01:06:33
I hope you don't mind, Dr. Turk. I'm gonna sneak one more question in by our local atheist skeptic. He comes on with some questions.
01:06:38
I think they're good things to, he does bring up some great points that I think would be cool to address.
01:06:44
Here he has, can Frank tell us the most amazing miracle that he has personally experienced and how long ago did it happen?
01:06:50
I've never experienced a miracle. I've experienced divine providence, but not a miracle. But modern day miracles are not necessary for Christianity to be true.
01:06:59
There could be no miracle since Jesus and the apostles in Christianity would still be true. Now I think miracles do occur today.
01:07:06
In fact, Craig Keener, the famous scholar from, I don't know how famous he is, but he's brilliant. The guy from Asbury Seminary has written a hernie inducing two volume set that I have on my, right behind me called miracles right there.
01:07:19
I know it's blurry, but hernie inducing 1 ,100 pages on modern day miracles. If just one of those miracles is true, miracles occur today, right?
01:07:28
And here's the problem with the atheistic viewpoint in my view. For materialistic atheism to be true, every single spiritual experience and miracle claim in the history of the world has to be false.
01:07:48
Is that possible? Yeah, it's possible. Is it reasonable? No, I don't think so.
01:07:54
Every single one from every worldview has to be false? No, I don't think so.
01:08:00
I think there's evidence that miracles have occurred. Certainly the creation of the universe is one,
01:08:06
Jesus resurrecting is another. And if God wants to do miracles today, he can, but it's not necessary.
01:08:13
Miracles today aren't necessary to prove Christianity. Yeah, and I think that's a great point. I'll also just real quick, if I can just add a little bit.
01:08:20
I think a lot of people also look at miracles as a way of validating God. In one sense it does, but another sense our relationship with God as Christians does not depend on whether or not
01:08:32
God performs miracles in my life, right? Our knowing that God exists, I would agree with Dr.
01:08:38
Craig and others, it's the witness of the Holy Spirit. And so I don't ask
01:08:44
God to jump through various hoops so that I would believe in him. I have a relationship with him and miracles if he does perform them are just a side benefit of his expressing his love for me.
01:08:54
If it's more personal or just helping us acknowledge that he's still at work in the world today, they're not the basis of our faith.
01:09:01
And I think that's a very important thing to keep in mind because we're not putting God to the test and say, well, show me a miracle or else, you know?
01:09:07
I think that's - Well, I think it is true that the miracle of the resurrection has to have occurred, otherwise
01:09:13
Christianity is false. Yes, of course. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15. And that's why I say everything flows from that because if Jesus rose from the dead, then he is
01:09:21
God and whatever God teaches is true, including the Old Testament, including the promised New Testament.
01:09:27
Because I just have a personal policy. If somebody rises from the dead, I just trust whatever the guy says, okay? So, and I think your point, what
01:09:34
Craig will say, there's a difference between knowing Christianity is true and showing
01:09:39
Christianity is true. Any witness of the Holy Spirit, if all that's true, I can't show that to you, right?
01:09:47
But arguments are arguments that you can use that anyone can see and you can show that to others, like the beginning of the universe, the design of the universe, the moral argument, the evidence for the resurrection, these kinds of things are ways you can show that Christianity is true, not just know it.
01:10:04
Well, thank you so much, Dr. Turek. I know you're a super busy guy and you have just graciously given me an hour and 11 minutes.
01:10:13
So I'll assume that it's gonna take a couple of seconds to end the broadcast here, but thank you so much.
01:10:19
This is very helpful, guys. Please, if you haven't, get your hands on stealing from God. I don't have enough faith to be an atheist and check out the
01:10:25
Dr. Turek's YouTube channel where there's awesome five minute, three minute clips where you can kind of learn how you might respond to some of the average objections you hear out there on the internet and in your interpersonal relationships.
01:10:38
Let me say one other thing, if I can. Tonight at 9 p .m. on our YouTube channel, we're gonna have Titus Kennedy on.
01:10:45
So anybody watching now in about four hours, he is the guy that just wrote this brand new book called Unearthing the
01:10:51
Bible. And he's an archeologist, a PhD, and we're gonna go through the top 10 archeological discoveries regarding the
01:10:58
Bible. And we're gonna show you them actually on the live stream. And then we're gonna take your questions.
01:11:04
So if anyone wants to join us over at crossexamine .org, the website, the Facebook page, or the
01:11:10
YouTube channel at 9 p .m., we'll see you there. Awesome, very good. And if you have not already, subscribe to the
01:11:19
Revealed Apologetics YouTube channel and click the notification button to be aware of some upcoming discussions.
01:11:25
I'm very happy to hear there was a great, positive response from our last episode where we had Dr. Jason Lyle and Hugh Ross duke it out over the commonly argued debate over the age of the earth.
01:11:35
It was very fun, respectful, very informative. So just keep up the notifications and we're looking forward to a lot of great episodes coming up in the near future.
01:11:45
all for today. Thank you so much for listening in and take care and God bless, bye -bye. And.