TPW 63 Worldview Apologetics Part 3 of 4

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Welcome to the

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Protestant Witness, this is Pastor Patrick Hines here at Pyrdwall Heights Presbyterian Church, and today

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I'm posting part three of the series on worldview apologetics and being faithful to Christ in all of our apologetic endeavors and encounters, and I hope that you find this to be beneficial and edifying.

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Part three of our series on presuppositional apologetics. I want to preface this section by pointing out that I'm standing on the shoulders of men who are much bigger than me,

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Greg Bonson, Cornelius Van Til, Jason Lyle, Gordon Clark, and others in our time,

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Saiten Brigham Kate, James White, and others who have addressed themselves to the critical issues related to apologetic and evangelistic methodology.

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I've learned a lot from these men. And I don't have a whole lot of original material to contribute, but I'm awfully thankful for good teachers and good instructors and good writers who have helped me tremendously to understand what

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Scripture teaches about evangelism and about apologetics. So let's review real quickly what we've talked about already.

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First of all, what is a worldview? A worldview is a network of presuppositions untested by natural science and in light of which all of experience is interpreted.

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And the point I emphasized on that definition is that a person's worldview cannot be tested.

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It cannot be subjected to scientific analysis. It cannot be subjected to proof or confirmation by facts because your worldview is the lens through which you look at and interpret facts.

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Because of that, a person's worldview is granted the highest immunity to revision.

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It is extremely hard to change someone's worldview because it resists being falsified with such ferocity.

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People hold their worldviews very tenaciously. These are not just willy -nilly ideas. These are things that are held very deeply and very personally by people.

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Notice, a person's worldview cannot be tested scientifically, and that's one of the main things to remember, because their worldview is that by which they interpret science.

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And therefore, this is absolutely critical for us to understand, the validity of a person's worldview cannot be tested scientifically, and therefore it has to be tested in some other way.

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As an example, the Christian looks, for example, at his eyeball. Christians, human beings in general, have marveled at eyes, not just human eyes, but the eyes of animals and just what an amazing thing the human eye and eyes in general are.

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We marvel at what God created. But the unbeliever looks at the same thing and marvels at what random chance produced accidentally.

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And yet we're both looking at the same thing, we're both looking at the eye, and we have radically different conclusions.

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Well, it has nothing to do with what we're looking at. The conclusions are determined by a person's starting points, by their worldview, by those personal commitments.

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And remember, when it comes to a person's worldview, while you will have people, non -believers, who will try their best to convince you that they're really just neutral, that I just believe what science says,

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I just go where the facts tell me, they are not neutral, and you shouldn't be. The unbeliever thinks he's neutral, and he really, really, really wants you to think that he is, but we have a whistleblower,

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God, who tells us in Romans 1, 21, that because although they knew

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God, they did not glorify him as God nor were thankful, but became futile when their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened, and so on and so forth.

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So if that's the case, how do we ever get anywhere? How do we get anywhere with non -believers if their worldview, no matter what evidence, no matter what facts they're shown, that's just more grist for their mill to misinterpret?

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As long as their worldview's in place, and you can't change worldviews with facts, because facts are always reinterpreted by a worldview, well, how do you get anywhere?

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Well, you can't settle it with evidence. You can't settle it with evidence, and you can't meet on neutral ground either, since there is no neutral ground.

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So how do we engage the world of unbelief, then? How do we engage with a non -Christian? The solution to this is simple.

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Biblical presuppositions alone can lead us to knowledge, and here's the basic premise of all your discussions, and when you talk to people, you just need to understand this.

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If they are not a believer, what they affirm to be true about reality, about metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, about what exists, what's real, about knowledge, whether it's even possible or justifiable, and ethics, what they say they believe about those things, if it were true in principle, would destroy the concept of knowledge, and would destroy everything that all of us take for granted, namely reason, science, logic, morality, human dignity, and things like that.

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The fear of Jehovah, of Yahweh, is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

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If you reject God, you will be reduced to foolishness in your reasoning and beliefs. Now, I've mentioned before, this is very important.

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You will hear the non -Christian say, well, I don't believe in God, and I know all sorts of things, but that's really not what

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Proverbs 1, verse 7 means, when it says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. What it means is the beginning of the justification of knowledge.

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You can only say that you know something if you have justified true belief.

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It's very interesting in the debates that have taken place since presuppositional apologetics has become more well -known, when

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Saiten Bruggenke debated Matt Dillahunty, Dillahunty said, well, I'm not telling you things that I know for sure.

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I could be a brain in a vat. I could just be a brain hooked into a machine, or the Matrix, or something like that, and I would have no way of confirming or verifying it.

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I have no way out of the idea that I'm the only mind that really exists, and everything is an illusion, and so on and so forth.

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The thing is, though, as soon as he said that, the debate's over. You don't debate with people who don't have knowledge.

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You don't do debates with people if they give up the very concept of the justification of knowledge.

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And the fact is, atheists of previous generations would not have done that. I don't think that Bertrand Russell would have been okay with that, even though in his more candid moments, he does admit that most of what passes for knowledge is open to reasonable doubt.

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But without getting too bogged down in all that, we're not saying that people have to affirm the existence of God and know things, or that they have to affirm the existence of God to understand morality.

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We're not saying that. But we are saying that you have to have the concept of the Christian God in order to justify those things.

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Can you use them without affirming God's existence? Yeah. Just like I can breathe and talk without mentally affirming the existence of air.

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See? I'm talking, I'm talking. I don't believe in air. I don't need to believe in air, and I can breathe and talk just fine.

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Now, you might say, okay, we're not saying you have to affirm a belief in air to talk, but we are saying that you do need air to talk.

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You can deny the existence of God, but you do need God in order to live and function in the world and to engage in everything that we take for granted in order to live in this world.

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And so, in principle, reject God and you are reduced to foolishness in your reasoning. And it's our job to do that, to show people that if what they say they believe that's not biblical

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Christianity, if what they actually say they believe about the world, knowledge, and ethics were actually true, it would destroy the universe.

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It would destroy everything. It would destroy everything we take for granted for society to function. And people will say, well, again, but unbelievers do know things.

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Yes, they do. But only because they know God. Although they work very hard to suppress that knowledge. Okay, non -believers know their creator and they do rely upon the biblical worldview secretly when it suits them.

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Okay, so it's very important to remember that. The non -believer does in his heart of hearts know

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God, but he has convinced himself that he doesn't believe in God. But in his heart, he does. So it's not that he's lying.

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When they tell you I'm an agnostic, I believe them. When they tell me I'm an atheist, I do believe them. I do believe them.

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But I know that they're wrong about what they believe. They're telling you the truth. They're telling you the truth.

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It's just that they've convinced themselves that they don't believe in the God that actually, by their lives and the way they live, they betray the fact that they do believe in him.

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So what I would expect to see is this. If the Bible is true, which it is, if it really is the word of God, which it is, what

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I would expect to see is this. A lot of atheists, a lot of people who say very loudly,

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I'm an agnostic, you know, I'm not sure if there's a God or not, and I'm certainly open to the possibility.

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I would expect people to say things like that. There's no God. I believe in evolution. I'm an agnostic. I'm a Muslim. I'm a

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Mormon. Whatever. Whatever form non -Christianity would take. And yet, they live their lives as if Christianity's true.

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They'll live their lives as if God does exist, all the while saying he doesn't.

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Colossians 2 verse 3 says that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Colossians 2 verse 8, beware lest anyone rob you or cheat you through philosophy.

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Cheat you of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of man, according to the basic principles, that's the word stoicheia, worldview of the world and not according to Christ.

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That is a command. Never to abandon your commitment to Christ and his word, the Bible. As soon as you do that, you've been robbed.

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If someone says, well, you can't just sit here and quote the Bible at me. If you allow them to get away with that and you stop quoting the

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Bible and you put the Bible aside, they won. You've been robbed of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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You've been cheated through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the stoicheia of the world instead of that which is according to Christ.

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Do not let the unbeliever rob you of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I will never, ever lay aside the

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Bible in my discussions with anyone, any more than they would lay aside their commitment to evolution or their commitment to Mormonism or their commitment to Islam or their commitment to agnosticism or their commitment to I'm a hedonist and I just go for the gusto and I don't really care about all these weird philosophical questions anyway, whatever it might be, they're not going to set that aside just as you should not set the

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Bible aside. I'd like to give you an illustration. I did a YouTube video a while back called

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Bertrand Russell Taking Atheism Like a Man and Russell admits in his little book called

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The Problems of Philosophy on page 44, and this is a quotation from Bertrand Russell. It has been argued that we have reason to know that the future will resemble the past because what was the future has constantly become the past and has always been found to resemble the past so that we really have experience of the future, namely of times which were formerly future, which we may call past futures.

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But such an argument really begs the very question at issue. We have experience of past futures, but not of future futures.

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And the question is, will future futures resemble past futures? This question is not to be answered by an argument which starts from past futures alone.

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We have therefore still to seek for some principle which shall enable us to know that the future will follow the same laws as the past.

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That's a devastating analysis and he's exactly right. So when you hear anybody say, well,

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I mean, chemistry and physics and gravity and grammar and all logic, all these laws have always worked in the past.

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It stands to reason that they'll keep working into the future. Russell says, no, it doesn't stand to reason. All you're doing is begging the question.

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That means assuming what you're supposed to be proving, which is a logical fallacy. You can't start by reasoning from the past into the future.

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That is begging the question. That is assuming what your argument is supposed to prove. And Russell says, we don't know.

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We have still to seek for some principle which shall enable us to know the future will resemble the past.

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Now an atheist responded to that YouTube video and said this, and therefore God did it?

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You ask why we do science if we can't expect everything to remain the same? We do it so you can make your videos.

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Do you understand? Continuing to do something as long as it works makes sense. See, but that's the point.

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Russell just said, it doesn't make sense unless you have a basis upon which to expect the future to be like the past.

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This guy is begging the question just as surely as what Russell just said. He is begging the question, well, if you're continuing to do something as long as it works makes sense.

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The point is you don't know if it's going to work in the future. And Bertrand Russell, the agnostic or atheist, said, we have no reason to believe the future will be like the past.

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And listen to what this guy says. He says, when it no longer works, then we'll figure out why and figure out how to make it work again.

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And I just think that itself assumes the uniformity of nature. That assumes the very thing that you're supposed to be proving.

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Question begging, question begging, question begging. Just the irrationality of this guy just blew me away. And then he says this, listen, here's how he's trying to rob me of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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Listen very carefully to what he says next. Could you show me one way that God reveals himself? Please do not use the

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Bible. I responded to him. Thank you kindly for responding. The reason we are able to do science is

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God upholds the universe's law -like character by his power and providence. God promised this to us in Genesis 8, 22.

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While the earth remains, see time and harvest. Cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease. Every fact you know is proof that God exists because you couldn't know it without him.

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Once again, Russell admitted that in the final analysis, knowledge is not possible. Proverbs 1 -7, the fear of the

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Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. The beginning of the justification of knowledge is the fear of the

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Lord. You forbid me from using the Bible? You won't relinquish your worldview to discuss something with me, so why should

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I relinquish my worldview to discuss anything with you? Without the biblical worldview and the existence of the

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Christian God, science cannot be justified, reason cannot be justified, laws of logic are reduced to mere human conventions, human dignity is meaningless, and right and wrong are utterly arbitrary.

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That's what your worldview gets you. Notice, I did what the Bible tells me to do in Colossians 2 -8.

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I refused to allow this guy to take the Bible from me. He walked right up to me and tried to cheat me of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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He said, show me how God reveals himself, don't quote the Bible. And I'm like, no. I'm not going to lay the Bible aside to talk to you any more than you'll lay your worldview aside to talk to me.

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Isn't that amazing? People are so deceived. They actually think that they're neutral and they demand that you become neutral.

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And yet we have to point out to them, you are every bit as committed to your perspective as I am to mine.

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The only difference between us is your perspective makes everything we take for granted irrational and crazy.

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My worldview allows for a foundation, gives us the foundation for everything. Reason, science, logic, morality, the uniformity of nature, the validity of inductive reasoning, science, everything else.

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Without the Bible, we have nothing. We've conceded defeat before we even begin to talk. He explicitly said, don't use the

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Bible. I can't do that. I'm a Christian. I'm sanctified by the word of God. The very thing that sets me apart,

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I don't set it aside. The very thing that is definitional to my perspective, I don't set it aside in order to argue about my perspective.

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It doesn't make any sense. He wouldn't do that and I shouldn't either. So remember, when it comes to neutrality, they aren't and you shouldn't be.

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I stayed committed to Christ in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge and then tried to force him to be consistent with his own atheistic worldview.

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I pointed out the consequences of his own presuppositions. That's why I said logic is a mere human convention. Morality is totally arbitrary and relativistic.

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That is the key to apologetic engagement. When people want to attack the faith, we know at the outset of our conversations with them that they cannot justify any knowledge claims and yet they will stand there and make those knowledge claims over and over again.

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All we need to do is stay committed to the Bible and then point out that their own worldview destroys the very foundation of the claims they're making.

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Greg Bonson put it this way, the proof of Christianity is that without it, you can't prove anything.

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For human beings to know anything, there must be certain things which are true that have to be absolutely true.

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These are the preconditions of intelligibility. What I mean by that is this, for our experience as human beings through time to be understandable and meaningful so that we can function and move about in this world, there are certain things which must be true and which must be taken for granted as true.

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And even that atheist that bid on my video and posted that response, he assumed every one of these things, even though his worldview destroys the very possibility of them.

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Those three things are laws of logic, the uniformity of nature, and absolute morality.

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He assumed all three of those things and yet his worldview destroys all three, destroys all three of them.

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Let me give you an example, think about the innumerable things which must be true in order for every person to leave the building that they're in right now, to get in their car, to start the car, to drive home, to brush their teeth, to in my case, read the

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Bible to my children, pray, teach my family the doctrines of scripture, and then go to bed. There has to be uniformity to nature and natural laws.

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There has to be laws of logic and there has to be absolute morality. There has to be laws of logic, the correct way of thinking in order to make sense out of the universe.

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If there weren't laws of logic, then you wouldn't be sitting there watching this video evaluating what

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I'm saying. Laws of grammar as well. I've always loved my favorite Nietzsche quote of all time.

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My favorite Friedrich Nietzsche quote of all time is the quotation where he said, I fear that we are not yet rid of God because we still have faith in grammar.

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Think about that. Here you have Nietzsche, the Madeline Murray O 'Hare of his day, back in the late 19th century, writing through Nash teeth and then realizes he's trusting in universal, invariant, non -material entities called laws of grammar in order to write everything he's writing.

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But he knows he hates God and he doesn't want God to exist and he's trying to be consistent with that and he's, man,

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I guess we're not yet rid of God because we still believe in grammar, he says. I like that.

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He was an atheist who took atheism like a man, unlike his modern counterparts who think they have a right to use grammar without having a foundation for such laws.

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So, laws of logic are essential. The uniformity of nature is another one. The consistent law -like fashion in which the world around us behaves.

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Laws of nature do not arbitrarily change. Of course, people will say, well, you believe in miracles, yeah. What makes them miracles is that it's nature going out of its normal course.

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People will say, well, I don't believe that Jesus could rise from the dead because men don't rise from the dead and that would mean that that's a miracle and miracles can't happen.

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It's kind of like, well, yeah, that's why it was pretty amazing thing when it happened. It was a miracle.

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It was nature going out of its course by the finger of God. So the uniformity of nature is something we have to assume in general in order to function and live in the world.

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Thirdly, absolute morality. There are things that are always right and always wrong in all places for everyone.

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Every atheist that has ever bit on a video I've posted and has commented the way that that guy did obviously has an absolute universal moral standard.

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He thinks it's wrong for me to post things like that because they're not true. For some reason, even though he has no reason to think this way, for some reason he thinks that it's immoral or bad or wrong or evil or something like that for me to do that.

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And so he does believe in absolute morality. Unbelievers believe in all three of those things at all times.

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If you didn't, no one would be able to communicate. Laws of logic, the uniformity of nature, and absolute morality. Even though all three of those things make no sense given all forms of non -Christianity in the world.

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Dr. Jason Lyle used a very helpful illustration. He described the biblical worldview and the secular worldview like two very nice looking sports cars.

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On the outside, they both look awesome. They both got fiery detail into them, spoilers, chrome tires, the whole nine yards.

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But you open up the hood to see the engine of the biblical worldview and there's a perfectly tuned 12 -cylinder engine just purring away ready to peel rubber.

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You open the hood on the secular worldview and it's filled with rotten banana peels, candy wrappers, chewing gum, and cobwebs.

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What does the illustration show? That those who reject the biblical God and his revelation in scripture can never really get anywhere.

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So to get somewhere, they have to get out of their car and into ours. They have to presume on things that only make sense and are only rational within our worldview, not theirs.

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So they have to borrow our presuppositions in order to fight with us. They have to borrow our worldview and abandon their own in order to argue.

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When I sat at the orthodontist's office with that young man and we were talking about women's rights and he was talking about how we all need to be nice to each other, and I just kept saying after he affirmed he believed in evolution,

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I'm like, why? Why think everyone ought to respect each other? Why? If we're just rearranged pond slime, what difference does it make what we do to one another?

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And he had nothing. He had no answer to that. Absolutely nothing. When Gordon Stein asked

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Greg Bonson about the problem of evil in their debate, Bonson's response was short and to the point. He said, my answer to the problem of evil,

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Dr. Stein, is that in your worldview, there is no problem of evil because there's no standard that exists by which to call anything evil.

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At the end of the debate, in his closing statement, Dr. Bonson said, if there are no laws that are absolute, then I can just pull out a gun and say, okay,

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Dr. Stein, make my day. Is there a God or not? And if he says, oh no, no, no, you can't murder me because there are laws, well, then he's made my day because he's shown the atheist worldview is not correct.

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But if he says, oh, well, morality is all by convention and personal stipulation, then I'll just pull the trigger. It's all over and I win the debate anyway.

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You would not expect me to win the debate in that fashion, would you? Absolutely not. You came here expecting rational interchange.

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I don't think we've heard much from Dr. Stein, end quote. Unbelievers in the final analysis have nothing.

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They're coming to battle with an empty squirt gun against people who have an AK -47. They've got nothing.

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They have to borrow from our worldview, get into our sports car to even get an argument against the existence of our sports car off the ground.

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As Van Til said, anti -theism presupposes theism. Sometimes people are relativists.

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Have you ever heard the statement, that's your truth, but not my truth? Or that's true for you, but not for me? Such claims can easily be shut down by simply asking, are you absolutely sure of that?

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There is no absolute truth. That statement is an absolute truth statement. So is it true or not?

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If the statement is true, it's false. If it's false, then it is false. Therefore, it is false. Anything that's self -refuting by definition is false.

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Here's an illustration. Years ago when I was a computer programmer, before I went into the ministry, we were working on a big computer programming project, and myself and my co -workers would meet in my boss's office, and we would all sit down and we would talk to a whole bunch of people that were testing the system we were working on.

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We were writing down all the different little bugs and things that were wrong with our system. Right before we got on this conference call, we had been arguing and talking at lunch about absolute truth in the religious realm, in the spiritual realm, and I kept saying, well, that's true.

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That's true. That's your truth. That's true for you, but not for me. One woman actually said that exact phrase, that's true for you, but not for me.

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And I said, truth doesn't work like that. What's true for me or what's true for you, if it's actually true, is true for everybody.

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So we're on this conference call, and we're just on there writing down so many bugs, so many things wrong with the system, and then we finally got off the conference call, and I looked at everybody and I said, you know what

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I should have told all those business unit owners? I should have said, hey, the system works fine, and that's true for me, but not for you.

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And everyone laughed. Everyone just laughed hysterically. And I said to them, you guys are smarter than that.

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Don't you see how silly a statement like that is? And I told them, if I had said that, then all those business unit owners would have said, yeah, and you working here is true for you, but not for us.

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Truth doesn't work that way. Why do people think they can do that with the truths that are the most important about ultimate reality?

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Another perspective people will often take is empiricism, the idea that all truth is known via the senses.

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People will say, I only believe in science, I only believe in what science can tell me. And the problem with that is that statement itself cannot be proved scientifically.

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And therefore the statement is self -refuting. If it's true, it's false, and if it's false, it's false.

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And so that which is self -refuting is by definition false. So the statement, I only believe in science, that statement itself cannot be proven scientifically.

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Empiricism, the idea that all truth is known through the senses. Philosophers have pointed out for centuries that this also is self -refuting.

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The statement, all truth claims are proven by observation, cannot be proven by observation.

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That statement itself is not observable. It's not something that can be sensed, and therefore it's self -refuting.

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In the same way the person who says, I only believe in science, same thing. And thus it is, it too is self -refuting.

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This is what unbelievers are great at, creating worlds that no one can live consistently in, and consistently sawing off the proverbial tree branch that they're sitting on.

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Secular worldviews always blow themselves up. The biblical worldview is the only worldview that doesn't do that.

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It is self -consistent within itself, it does not destroy itself, and all forms of unbelief destroy themselves.

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Are all non -Christian worldviews irrational at their foundation? Is that what I'm saying? Everything outside of Christianity is fundamentally irrational at its foundation?

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Yes. Ultimately, all forms of non -Christianity cannot justify knowledge, and here's another key point.

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Because the unbeliever has no foundation to stand on to support himself trying to live in his world of unbelief.

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He will borrow from Christian presuppositions when it suits him, and this happens constantly. And Christians, you can't let non -believers do that.

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If I'm ever talking to a non -Christian, as soon as they make it known they're not a believer, and they don't believe the

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Bible, as soon as they use the word should, or ought, or good, or evil, or bad,

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I stop them immediately. Those words make sense in my worldview, but they don't make any sense in yours.

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Because you're assuming that there's some kind of a standard that would be a standard by which everything else around you is judged. Not just you personally, but is there a standard outside of you?

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Why are they saying that? Because they're made in the image of God. But their worldview, if true, would render such words meaningless.

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Cornelius Van Til pointed out that atheists count, they can count, like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, but they can't account for counting.

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Atheists use and live by laws of logic, yes, but their worldview destroys their validity. Atheists use absolute laws of morality, but their worldview destroys their validity.

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Atheists proceed on the expectation that the future will resemble the past, and that nature is generally uniform and consistent, but their worldview cannot explain why.

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Greg Bonson said that a debate over the existence of God will be as absurd as a debate over the existence of air.

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Just imagine it. Profound and articulate reasoning, cross -examination on the part of the debater, denying the existence of air.

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And yet to make his argument against the existence of air, air must exist. And so his argument against air's existence can only be right if he's wrong.

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For the debate itself to even take place, both participants must be huffing and puffing air in and out of their lungs.

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And thus for the opponent of air's existence, his arguments can only be valid if they're wrong, and therefore they are wrong.

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And when secularists tell us, I don't need the Bible or the Christian God in order to justify or to use laws of logic to believe in the uniformity of nature or to have morals, that is identical to a man breathing air in and out of his lungs saying,

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I don't even believe in air and I can breathe just fine. See? See the problem? The non -Christian will say,

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I don't need the Bible or the Christian God in order to justify or in order to use logic, to use the uniformity of nature, to have morals.

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I don't need to believe the Bible in order to have those things. That's just like the man saying,

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I don't believe in air and I can breathe just fine. So we all take those things for granted. We all take absolute morality for granted.

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God makes the rules of what is right and wrong. If we are nothing but evolved pond sludge, we can make our own rules.

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Ask the secularists, how do you decide right from wrong? How do you decide right from wrong? Here are some potential responses.

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Morality is what brings the most happiness to the most people. But in an evolutionary worldview, why do we have an obligation to promote happiness will be my question.

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Why isn't that which is good, that which brings the most pain? How is happiness even quantifiable?

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Do we have like, you know, happiness thermometers on our foreheads that tell us how many units of happiness we have? The problem with this standard is this is completely arbitrary.

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Anyone can stand up and say, I believe happiness is whatever brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people. Of course, in that perspective, that would mean that gang rape is okay, wouldn't it?

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Greatest happiness to the greatest number. It's completely arbitrary. It would lead to us having to condone the moral correctness of anything perpetrated by larger numbers of people against fewer, as long as more people are made happy by it.

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Another response people will have is morality is just electrical impulses in the brain. It's just electrical impulses in the brain.

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Why should anyone follow them then, would be my question. If all it is is electrical impulses, it doesn't correspond to anything that transcends us, then why should we follow them?

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We all have different electrical chemical impulses in our brains too, anyway, don't we? My favorite, the one that Dan Barker uses, what is evil?

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That which is evil is pain. Anything that hurts is pain or is evil.

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And it's totally arbitrary. It's totally arbitrary. We evolve to avoid pain. So that which causes pain is that, is evil.

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That again, is completely arbitrary. There are some people who think that it's good to inflict pain.

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How would you argue with them? Well, you couldn't. Laws of morality are conventions adopted for the benefit of society.

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People will say, hey, but without laws, we'd have disorder. And without these laws, we all might act like animals.

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But that's what your worldview says we are anyway, doesn't it? Evolved animals. People will say, here's an illustration.

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Consider a secularist who expresses outrage at a violent crime he sees a story about on the news and says, I can't believe someone would do that to a little child.

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That person should be put in jail. You could easily just point out to them, what are you complaining about in your worldview?

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That's just natural selection. The strong kill the weak, and that's how the strong survive. Survival of the fittest.

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Why are you acting with moral outrage against natural selection happening?

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Another application of this illustration about murder. Why aren't people outraged when a hawk kills a mouse? Or a snake kills a chipmunk?

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Or a bear catches some kind of an animal and eats it? But they do get outraged when a big man kills a little child.

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Isn't that inconsistent? If humans are just animals, then murder is just animals killing animals. I mean, some animals eat other animals.

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Do we put bears in jail? Do we put snakes in jail? Do we put hawks in jail for catching little squirrels and mice?

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If we ought to jail people for doing that, why not throw hawks and snakes and bears in jail? It's just animals killing animals, right?

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One last point. Why did the secularist react with outrage over the murder of a little child? Why would that make him react with outrage?

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Because he's creating the image of God, and he knows that murder of a little child is absolutely wrong. And yet his worldview, when taken consistently, cannot explain why.

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And so our task as an apologist, as a Christian in defending the faith, is simply to get non -believers to be consistent with their perspective and not to allow them to get away with borrowing from our worldview.

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If you force them to be consistent with their own perspective, doing evangelism and taking apart their worldview is actually quite easy to do.

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And so you can get back to talking to them about Jesus and about the need to repent and come to faith in Him. So that's our point for today.

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Thanks for watching. This is

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Pastor Patrick Hines of Brittle Heights Presbyterian Church, located at 108 Brittle Heights Road in Kingsport, Tennessee.

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And you've been listening to the Protestant Witness Podcast. Please feel free to join us for worship any

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Sunday morning at 11 a .m. sharp, where we open the Word of God together, sing His praises, and rejoice in the gospel of our risen

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Lord. You can find us on the web at www .brittleheightspca .org.

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And may the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.