Will You Help Me Write My New Book on Presupp Apologetics?

Technical Difficulties and Channel Announcement

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. This is Eli Ayala. And today I just wanna make a quick announcement. If you see my eyes kind of glazing over or I seem somewhat blind, there are multiple things going on here.

If you noticed in older interviews, I wore glasses, okay? And so now I have availed myself of the wonderful gift of contact lenses. But I've had my contacts on for the entire day. So now my eyes feel super dry.

And if you know anything about YouTube videos and how things work, you kind of see me in front of the camera here. There are these blistering lights shining right in my face. So just before I went live, I was kind of looking directly in it.

So I'm kind of really blind right now. So I do apologize beforehand if I'm looking off to the side. I don't even know where the camera is. Well, at any rate, if you guys are just tuning in, I just wanna remind you guys, if you have not already, please subscribe to Revealed Apologetics on YouTube and on iTunes.

As I've said in previous episodes, all of the audio that I have from these videos here, the interviews that I've conducted with various theologians and apologists, I kind of utilize that audio and put it over onto the iTunes podcast, okay?

So that is Revealed Apologetics, all right? Also, if you want to support Revealed Apologetics, you can do so by sending in a super chat or you could also email me and I can show you how you might be able to support in any way, shape or form.

I have been increasingly blessed by folks who have found what I have been doing here very helpful. And so they've been very generous with their financial blessing. And so I very much appreciate that. Well, in this video, this video has the potential, this episode has a potential to be somewhat long or very short, okay?

Writing a Presuppositional Apologetics Answer Book

I initially wanted to kind of announce that due to increasing demand, okay? A lot of people have asked me over and over again, Eli, are you ever gonna write a book? And of course my response is no, I just don't have the time, okay?

For those of you who don't know what I do when I'm not on YouTube, I am a full-time teacher. And so as those of you who are in the education field, you know how busy things can get. And of course I have three wonderful kids who are, you know, my eldest is five.

I have a three-year-old and a one-year-old. And so things don't get moving along until everyone is sleeping in a way. And so it can be difficult to find the time. However, because I've been receiving a lot of, well, one second, I have some, let me see here.

Let me do loading right for me. There we go, all right. Just making sure if there is, everything's okay on the technical. And if anyone has a problem seeing, you know, if there's anything wrong with the visuals or the audios, if you can message me on the comments, that would be super helpful.

But at any rate, I have been asked over and over again, you know, why don't you write something? And so I figured maybe I can find something to write that would be manageable for me and useful for people who find, you know, what we are doing here helpful.

I was thinking about writing a presuppositional apologetics answer book. And so something small in which each section has an answer to the presuppositional apologetic objections, things that people who are criticizing the method and just giving these short answers that folks who are online, if you are a presuppositional apologist or you wanna learn about presuppositional apologetics, you can kind of thumb through some of the sections here and find the relevant question and maybe use it maybe in a chat or when you're witnessing and evangelizing and engaging in apologetics in your own interpersonal relationship.

So I figured doing something like that might be more manageable, but I want to be able to provide information that is useful to you, the listener. And so I'm asking for help in this regard. Now, every time you ask for help in ministry, people automatically think you're gonna ask for money, okay?

I'm not asking for money. That's not the way in which I'm asking you to help. Although I wouldn't say no if you were going to help financially, that's always a blessing as well. But here's what I need with regards to help.

If I wanna do this presuppositional apologetics answer book, and I'm trying to mess around with some titles and things like that, but what I need is for folks who follow my channel and are engaging in apologetics from a presuppositional perspective, if you have questions that you often hear from people or you have questions that you have about the presuppositional method, email me, okay?

If you email me, that would be super duper helpful because you email me these questions, I can actually use that as kind of a framework as to which kinds of questions I can focus on. So I do wanna cover things like, are presuppositionalist allergic to evidence?

How would we answer, say, for example, the accusation that presuppositionalist confuse ontology with epistemology? It'd be very helpful to have a book with very brief portions where we can just briefly summarize a response there that can provide some usefulness to people who are engaging in others.

So kind of just like a kind of an answer book sort of thing. And so if you have any questions and things you'd like me to cover in that book, you can email me at revealedapologeticsatgmail .com. That's revealedapologeticsatgmail .com.

So that's the way that you guys could help me. If you want me to put out a book, I'm gonna be coming up with questions that I receive from a lot of people, but if you guys can bombard my email, so to speak, with some questions, a list of questions, and that would be super, super helpful for me.

I do want to, in the book, cover different levels of difficulty. So I do want this to be something that's useful to the average person. So I'm not intending to write some great apologetic tome, where we answer every single question imaginable.

I mean, it's gonna be the presupp answer book. And so I want to keep the answers very brief, however, sustained and useful for when you're engaging in apologetics or when you want to learn a little bit more, have a little bit more sustained answers to some of those pressing questions that often come up within the context of a presuppositional apologetical interaction, okay?

So I really, really hope that you guys take me up on that offer to email me at revealedapologeticsatgmail .com with any of the questions you'd like me to cover. Now, if you send me questions, it helps me write the book quicker.

Although I will be thinking of questions myself, but perhaps I will miss something. Some of the questions that people ask me might not be the same questions that you're being asked. And so I want to be a service to you.

I want this book to help folks have an answer from what I think is a biblically consistent apologetic methodology, okay? And of course, if you're a classical apologist or an evidential apologist, and you're hearing what I'm saying here, rolling your eyes, oh, Grant, the biblical.

I do think it's biblical. Matter of fact, one question that I want to cover in this book is, is presuppositional apologetics the biblical apologetic, okay? I think it's very important, and I've said this in past videos, that our apologetic methodology must flow from a consistent theological framework which finds its roots in scripture itself, okay?

And when these sorts of things come up, there's often an intertwining, an intermingling of some theological and biblical foundations and some philosophical categories that enter the picture. But however we do apologetics, my encouragement to folks is making sure that they do it in a way that does not compromise their theological and biblical convictions.

And so I want to address things like that, okay? With various degrees of ease or difficulty, I'm gonna get into the issues of what is autonomy? What is neutrality? In what way do presuppositionalists think the classical and evidential approaches commit neutrality fallacies and appeal to autonomous reason and things like that?

So I definitely want to address those issues where the person who's just being introduced to the methodology finds it useful, but at the same time, throw a bone to those folks who have been in the game for a little, you know, for a while and want to address some of the more philosophically relevant questions like that whole ontology and epistemology issue, okay?

So again, I want to also draw from many of the great interviews I've already had. And so I'm gonna be listening back on a lot of my old interviews and taking notes and hopefully incorporating some quotes from some fine scholars that I've had the pleasure of interviewing in the past and including them in the book as well.

And who knows, maybe I can get, maybe I can get a scholar or two to write an answer to one of the questions, we'll see. But that's what I wanted to let everyone know. It's kind of a big deal because I've never written a book before and I don't know how the publishing process goes.

So if any of you out there really know how that stuff works, email me, revealedapologetics at gmail .com. I'm more than open to listening to what you have to say because this is my first time doing something like this.

But it has always been a dream of mine to write a book. And so hopefully this is something that, if I'm putting it out there in the public, it keeps me accountable too. I can keep you updated and every now and then I can share a section with you guys so that you know with regards to how the thing, how the project is progressing, all right?

Hank Hanegraaff, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Christian Dividing Lines

Well, also I want to address something else. Those of you might have noticed that I posted a couple of days ago that I will be interviewing Hank Hanegraaff, who is the, he's over there as the president at CRI, the Christian Research Ministry.

And he is the host of the Bible Answer Man program. And again, I have gotten some interesting messages from folks, some exciting responses, but at the same time, some issues of concern. Of course, those of you who are familiar with Hank Hanegraaff and the ministry of CRI, it was quite controversial when Hank Hanegraaff converted to Eastern Orthodoxy.

And so I just want to address that really briefly here. So if anyone's watching, they can kind of see from what perspective I'm coming at this interview at, because I do definitely want to make sure that people understand where I'm coming from and that there are important dividing line issues theologically that I want to lay out and I will do so also when I actually nail down the specific date for that specific interview.

So that being said, there is, I guess I'm saying, yep, Hank is a bit controversial. Yes, he is. Yes, he is. Okay, let's lay out, let's be open here. I'm a reformed Christian. I'm a Calvinist, okay? There are, for me, two categories of doctrine that I think is important for Christians to recognize, okay?

And I think this is very, very important. And I want you to keep this in mind. Whenever I nail down that date and we are talking about this and I still am going to be speaking with Hank at some point this week to kind of talk about the specifics of how I want the interview to go.

And of course, I want to be flexible with him. I'm just super appreciative that he was willing to take the time to even be open to coming on. Because from what I hear, Hank doesn't take a lot of interviews.

But yeah, Nate, if you want to send me emails right now, if you guys have questions that you want to send me through email now, you can do that as well. And of course, you can send me questions now if you have a question that you'd like me to address now after I kind of go through my spiel.

I'll take a few questions here and that will dictate how long we go, okay? This can be ending in a couple of minutes. It can be a half hour. If you guys have a bunch of questions, you know, I've had my, well, I didn't have my later coffee.

I had earlier coffee, but the caffeine is still working. So I, you know, I have not, I'm still able to function without falling asleep. So if you have any questions, you want to continue here and have a good discussion, I'm open to that.

Essential and Non-Essential Doctrine

But at any rate, yeah, so I think there are two important issues with regards to Christian doctrine that we really need to keep in mind and we need to be very careful in keeping these categories distinct.

And that is the distinction between what we call essential doctrine and non-essential doctrine. Now, this is always important when we're speaking of the question with regards to say Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodoxy or some other, you know, branch or group, okay?

When we ask is a group such as fill in the blank, a Christian group, we want to make a distinction between doctrines that are essential and doctrines that are non-essential, okay? Now, what do I mean here?

Doctrines that are non-essential are important doctrines, but they are not definitional of the Christian faith in the sense that if you deny them or affirm something, it doesn't place you outside the camp of Christ, okay?

And I think that's a very, very important concept to keep in mind, okay? And again, I see the questions coming in. That's great. Let me just finish up here and then I'll take a look at those and maybe I could expand on some of the things.

So thank you so much. I see Michael sending in a question there. So I'll get to that in just a few moments, okay? But when we talk about these non-essentials, these non-essentials can be, they can range from a whole wide range of issues.

As you know, that theology is a very vast topic. But when we talk about non-essential, I'll give you a kind of an example. Speaking in tongues, okay? You have the whole controversy with the charismatic gifts and things like that.

Now, those are very important topics. And so when I say non-essential, I do not intend to convey the picture that these things are just not important. They are. Anything doctrinal, anything that is something that is revealed in scripture that we need to come to grips with and understand, we need to address those in a very serious and sober manner, but we need to be very careful before we start flinging the word heresy, okay?

So just keeping that in mind, okay? So essential doctrine could be something like speaking in tongues. You might be a cessationist. You might believe that speaking in tongues is not something for the church today, okay?

And then of course you have charismatic folks and people from the Pentecostal kind of persuasion believe that speaking in tongues is something that is normative for the church. And so that is a very, very important issue.

And to have error with regards to that specific issue can have ramifications because very important thing to understand with regards to theology is that everything you believe in theology is in some way, shape, or form connected to some other area of doctrine.

And so while we might be debating over here some non-essential thing, right? And perhaps you come to a conclusion that is an error, it can affect other important areas of doctrine. So we don't wanna minimize this issue of non-essential, okay?

But what about an essential doctrine? I would define essential doctrine as a doctrine, a teaching, a belief within the Christian faith that is definitional to the gospel such that if you were to affirm this specific thing or deny the specific thing, it would define you in or out of the Christian faith, okay?

And there are a clear essential doctrine is the deity of Christ, okay? If you do not believe that Jesus Christ is God in flesh, you're not a Christian, it's just plain and simple, okay? Now I know there are people who disagree with that and they have different views of who Jesus is and they think that they still fit within the realm of Christian orthodoxy, but in reality, you don't.

If you deny that Jesus is God in flesh, that is a heresy of the definitional sort, okay? Very, very important, okay? Now, how do you know the difference between an essential doctrine and a non-essential doctrine, okay?

This is so important, all right? If you know what I'm talking about and you're jiving with me, awesome. But if you're just listening in and you're kind of, well, where is he going with this? This is so important, okay?

Because when we speak of the distinction between essential doctrine and non-essential doctrine, then the question inevitably comes, well, how do you know the difference and how do you know what's essential and what's not?

Well, you have to understand something, that scripture itself defines for us essential doctrine. Now, of course, the Bible is not a systematic theological textbook, and so the way it lays it out, you're not gonna have kind of a list of these are the essential doctrines and these are the non-essential doctrines.

But typically, essential doctrines are found in scripture that is accompanied with qualifiers, okay? They are doctrines in scripture that are accompanied with qualifiers. In other words, if you deny this, this results, okay?

You know, you have the idea of, you know, Jesus says, unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins, okay? And we can make a very strong argument that the I am sayings actually refers back to Jesus attributing the name of God to himself.

And so the idea that Jesus is God in flesh is very much wrapped up in the definitional nature of the Christian faith, such that if you deny it, you will die in your sins if you have the wrong Jesus. That's why Mormons are not Christian, they have the wrong Jesus.

That's why Jehovah's Witness are not Christian, they have the wrong Jesus. And then you have some people who have quote, the right Jesus in the sense that their doctrine of Christ with regards to his nature, being both human and divine is accurate, but they have a heretical view of the work of Christ that can sometimes impinge upon an essential feature of the doctrine of doctrine.

And one such doctrine, I believe, would include the doctrine of justification by faith alone, okay? I believe that justification by faith alone is an essential definitional doctrine. Now, of course, those are people who, there are people out there that don't think that's an essential doctrine.

I think it is. I think biblically we can demonstrate that justification by faith alone is in fact a definitional doctrine of the Christian faith. Okay? So again, when you take a look at Roman Catholicism, for example, Roman Catholicism denies justification by faith alone.

And so that is a big problem. Eastern Orthodoxy is a topic that I'm just currently beginning to study, okay? And I would imagine, I would imagine after having my discussion with Hank Hanegraaff, this will thrust me into a new project of studying Eastern Orthodoxy.

Here's what I find. Every time I ask a question about Eastern Orthodoxy, I get the same answer from a lot of people, okay? And I've asked scholars and apologists and theologians, you know, what does Eastern Orthodoxy believe about A, B, and C?

You know, I don't know, you know, and I don't, I don't, don't be fooled by the way, by the books in the background. I've read a little bit of all of these. I haven't read them all, but in reality, I don't have time to read all these books.

I wish, you know, I just purchased a book and I'm hoping to get to it at some point. So there are some things that I like to speak with people about so I can learn through the context of conversation because I don't always have the time to kind of dive in the books, which hopefully my schedule will open up for me to be able to do that.

But when I speak to folks about Eastern Orthodoxy, I get the same answer. Well, I'm not sure. I've never looked into Eastern Orthodoxy before. That's a good question. I think they believe this. I think they believe that.

And again, that's interesting to me. And so this is something that has brought interest to me to study Eastern Orthodoxy and to have conversations with Eastern Orthodox folks. Now, that being said, that by no means, I'm going to say this again, and I'm going to make my mouth very, you know, by no means means that I am compromising my own reformed faith, okay?

I'm a Protestant through and through. I do not need to know the ins and outs of every perspective to know what the Bible teaches with regards to a specific position. I believe clearly that the Bible teaches justification by faith alone.

Even though I may not be able to explain to you, for example, the Orthodox position with regards to justification by faith alone. And hopefully I can get there when I take some time to study these issues, okay?

But again, a lot of people don't know about Eastern Orthodoxy. And so hopefully within my discussion with Hank, I want to talk about a few things, but I also want to talk a little bit about his position there.

And so I wanted to lay out in the open that this in no way is me suggesting that the differences between Protestant Christianity, evangelical Christianity and Orthodox Christianity is not important. Those are important differences.

But I think there needs to be opportunity to have discussion, to be educated with regards to what other people believe and doing that within the context of a respectful interaction, right? Because I have no intention to debate Hank.

I don't want to debate Hank, you know? He's the Bible answer, man. I'm just kidding. I don't want to debate him. I want to learn. And that is not the same as saying I agree with him. I know before we start, I disagree, but I want to be able to understand.

And hopefully we can do that within the context of a respectful and just an open discussion, okay? So I just wanted to give a heads up for folks, because I know I've received a lot of messages from people about interviewing Hank Hanegraaff from CRI.

So, I mean, I've reached out to a lot of theologians and apologists that I trust to kind of ask for counsel with regards to whether I should do an interview like this. And I've gotten some really good and thoughtful responses there.

And so unless anything changes from now until, you know, the interview, we're going to do it and I'm looking forward to it. But of course, I will definitely want to follow up that interview with some comments, my thoughts after the discussion.

So I think it's going to be very, very good. And also I'd like to ask Hank about some other stuff that I think might be helpful for people as well. So that's kind of what's going on. Want to write a book, having an interview coming up.

With regards to the book, I appreciate your help. You know, send me your questions through email and hopefully I can have some kind of a context to take the time to address the questions that you guys are asking and perhaps scratch where you guys are itching as the weird saying goes, okay?

Questions from Viewers on Presuppositional Apologetics

So with that said, let's take a look. I do have a lot of comments and questions here. So let me sift through them here. Back to Genesis says, do it, do it. Sign me a copy when you're done. Well, okay, okay.

I have to be honest. I am super excited at the prospect of writing a book. I've always wanted to do it, but it can be difficult. So I'm looking forward to doing this and offering something that perhaps will be helpful to you guys.

So thank you for the support there. Let's see here. Okay, moving through some of the comments. A lot of hellos. Let's see here. And where are you first? Oh, here we go. Okay, so here's a question by Mawson Hollowell.

I hope I said that right. Mawson Hollowell. Mawson is like Bonson with no N, so Bawson. That's why I was able to pronounce it. Hopefully I'm pronouncing that correct, okay? Hollowell, when were you first exposed to the pre-sub methodology?

Well, as the legend goes, right? I was exposed to pre-subpositional apologetics in the same way that most people who were not alive during the life of Van Til and Greg Bonson. Well, I was alive when they were alive, but I was too little, okay?

But most people come through, they're exposed to pre-subpositional methodology through Greg Bonson and his famous debate with Gordon Stein. That's really where I first heard of this methodology. And I was really amazed that I had exposed myself to many other debates within an apologetic context.

I listened to a lot of William Lane Craig. I listened to a J .P. Moreland debate. I was very into the classical approach and I still am. As a pre-suppositionalist, I very much appreciate some fine defenders of the traditional arguments.

And as you know, pre-suppositional apologetic methodology does not necessarily mean that one finds the traditional proofs, the theistic proofs, useless, okay? Even Van Til himself said that he agreed with the traditional proofs, but he didn't like how, when it was often presented, there were these things, these issues of autonomy and neutrality snuck into the whole process.

So there are pre-suppositionalists that don't like the theistic proofs, but their not liking the theistic proofs is not an essential feature to pre-suppositionalism if that makes sense, okay? So I was first exposed to pre-suppositional methodology through that debate between Gordon Stein and Greg Bonson.

And of course that opened up a whole new world of apologetic methodology because I was able to see someone who was A, a fine debater, and B, was thoroughly biblical. And that was what drew me, okay? I don't wanna stand from a pious high horse, but it is attractive to me apologetically and theologically when someone defends the faith without minimizing the role and significance of the Bible and the Christian worldview, okay?

That's why when I hear a classicalist focus so much on theistic proofs and never get to scripture, I know there's usefulness in approaching things in that way, but there's just something about it. I asked myself, would the apostles argue this way if they had this vast array of information that kind of later developed after the apostles established church and you have this refinement of theology and philosophy and things like that, would they have argued that way?

And I don't know, man, as a pre-suppositionalist, I feel that the pre-suppositional method captures the essence of defending the faith without compromising one's conviction and not giving over too much to the opponent such that in doing so, we're acting inconsistently with our biblical principles, okay?

Now, if you're a classical apologist and you don't think you do that and you don't do that and you try to be conscious of that, great. I mean, that's awesome. And I think for the pre-suppositionalist and the classicalist at that point, even in their disagreements, can have a fruitful relationship because we are maybe disagreeing with methodology, but we're sharpening and refining each other, right?

I just spoke with an apologist friend of mine. Maybe you guys have heard of him. His name is Eric Hernandez, and he is an apologist, a classical apologist, and he's even debated, another friend of mine, Saiten Bruggencape, over apologetic methodology.

And we talk all the time. And he says, well, what's this deal with neutrality and autonomy? I never engaged the unbeliever thinking that we're neutral, okay? And when he told me that, I was like, well, that sounds very pre-suppositional of you.

Great, you know? And if you could approach apologetics in that regard where you are epistemologically self-conscious of your own foundations and you argue in ways and use various arguments in ways that are consistent with those foundations, then all the power to you, right?

Even someone like Saiten Bruggencape says, if you can give evidence in a way that doesn't compromise your Christian convictions of avoiding neutrality and autonomy, go nuts, you know? So, you know, there are classicalists that are very pre-suppositional-ish, even though they are under the label of classicalists, okay?

So I hope that answered the question. I kind of went off to the side there, but hopefully, hopefully that was helpful. All right, Revealed Apologetics, you know Reformed people do not write books, they write tomes.

Yes, that's true, but you know, I was not raised in the Reformed tradition. I was raised in a Pentecostal tradition and I am one of those people who were raised in the microwave mentality, right? I want, put it in the microwave, just a couple of seconds and I'm done, all right?

I don't have time to write tomes. I wish I did, but I unfortunately would not be able to write a tome anytime soon. However, writing a pre-supp answer book is super exciting because I love pre-suppositional apologetics.

You guys know this. This is why I have the certain guests that I have, right? This is why I had Michael Kruger to talk about, Dr. Michael Kruger from Reformed Theological Seminary to talk about pre-suppositional methodology applied to canonical studies.

I love apologetics because I see its vast application into areas that we just need to tap into more so that we can have a more robust and fully or apologetic presentation that is powerful, is not compromising in its approach, and we get to see the different ways in which we can use it.

And so if you guys, by the way, I was looking on my channel, I was scrolling through some of the videos and I saw just a couple of hundred views with my discussion with Dr. Michael Kruger. And I'm like, how is this possible?

That was one of the best interviews that I had, okay? There are a bunch of them that were super good. That one was particularly good. My interview with Dr. Michael Kruger, after that interview, someone personally emailed me who was a classical apologist who after watching that discussion said, I am now a pre-suppositionalist.

My biggest fear as a classicalist examining pre-suppositionalism was that if I were to become a pre-suppositionalist, I wouldn't be able to appeal to evidence. You see, there was that mentality, that pre-suppositionalist, you can't use evidence.

And so I'm gonna stay on the classical end because we could appeal to evidence and these sorts of arguments. When he listened to that discussion, he converted, so to speak, his apologetic methodology.

Now, again, that was very encouraging to me because it was an example of someone seeing the mystifying, mysterious nature of the pre-suppositional approach as we see it on the internet, right? It's kind of like, what are they talking about?

That's crazy. But when you get to some of these deeper issues, you're able to speak about these issues with clarity, there is more to it than just the by what standard refrain, right? There's so much more to it.

So again, if you haven't taken a look at my interview with Dr. Michael Kruger, it was an excellent discussion. I highly recommend that. And of course, I can dedicate an entire episode just talking about all of the excellent discussions that we had.

But the purpose of having the certain guests that I've had was to address some area of pre-suppositional apologetical application that I think is underdeveloped within the popular realm, okay? And so that's why we talked about a lot of the things that we talked about in past interviews, all right?

All right, all right, moving along. All right, I see a couple of students, you know, my students checking out with a check. I'm sorry, I think I'll say hi. I don't know if I can interact with you, that'd be weird.

I hear my students, I don't know if I could do that. Okay, there we go. Question, let's see here, I hope I can answer it. Is there a way to reconcile the Vantillian approach with the Thomistic approach?

Vantillian in a way that we don't let the unbeliever borrow from our worldview and put the Lordship, what? Wow, that is a very interesting question. Let's see here, of Christ Thomistic in a way we engage in deep philosophical concepts and arguments like the Kalam cosmological argument, ontological argument, et cetera.

All right, is there a way to reconcile Vantillian approach with a Thomistic approach? I don't think so. It depends what you mean by Thomistic approach. There are aspects of Thomism that a pre-suppositionalist may not have a problem with.

And there are aspects of Thomism which a pre-suppositionalist would have a problem with. So for example, if you, with regards to the knowledge of God that all men have, if you deny, for instance, that man has an immediate knowledge of God and that the knowledge of God is mediate, that is to say that the knowledge of God is mediated through the created order.

And so I have to acquire knowledge of God from out based upon what he's made and then come to the conclusion that he exists. If you are saying that knowledge of God is only that to the exclusion of the fact that there is a knowledge of God that is immediately known by the very fact of our own human constitution made in the image of God, if you deny innate knowledge of God, then I think there would be an inconsistency there, okay?

But again, these philosophical distinctions are very deep and wide and I am not a Thomistic scholar. So I don't know what the Thomist is allowed to believe and still be a Thomist, if that makes sense.

But I think the innate knowledge issue I think is very important. Of course, a Vantillian approach, because I think it's the correct apologetic methodology and because I think it's biblical, I do think that it is based upon principles in scripture.

Whereas when you take a look at something like Thomism, it's very heavily reliant upon Aristotelian thought categories, which I don't think is something reflective of the biblical principles that I mentioned before, okay?

So hopefully that makes sense. I'm not an expert in that specific field, but those are my thoughts there. I think that's a great question, okay? Here's another question from karaokeandvlogwithmax. Okay, what do you think about the LGBTQ plus?

I like the plus because there's so many letters. I lost track of the letters, my goodness. What do you think about the LGBTQ plus and how to help them learn about God when they go to church, okay? So simply to see if I can understand the question, what do I think about the LGBTQ community and how to help them learn about God when they go to church?

Well, when anyone who is a lesbian, a homosexual, whether they're male, female, bisexual, transsexual, whatever the case may be, all of these folks, and I think this is very important, must be welcomed in the church just as anyone else is welcomed in the church.

But when they're welcomed in the church, just like anyone else, you better be preaching a biblical uncompromising gospel. Okay? And so when we wanna help folks understand and learn about God, we need to be able to do that without giving so much regard of people's responses.

Because a lot of things that the Bible contains, the truth in God's word, it can be offensive to the natural man's sensibilities. Okay? Even going through the biblical view of homosexuality with a homosexual, it can be very difficult for them to grasp and they're easily offended.

Okay? But at the same time, when we are welcoming people within the church, we are not preaching so that people feel comfortable necessarily. We want to be loving and open in that sense, but we don't want to compromise the gospel.

Okay? So how do we help folks learn about God when they go to church? The same way we help anyone learn about God, preach from the scriptures faithfully and uncompromisingly. Very, very important. And also, this is very important.