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

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Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. This is Eli Ayala. And today,

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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.

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If you noticed in older interviews, I wore glasses, okay?

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And so now I have availed myself of the wonderful gift of contact lenses.

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But I've had my contacts on for the entire day. So now my eyes feel super dry.

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And if you know anything about YouTube videos and how things work, you kind of see me in front of the camera here.

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There are these blistering lights shining right in my face. So just before I went live,

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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.

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I don't even know where the camera is. Well, at any rate, if you guys are just tuning in,

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I just wanna remind you guys, if you have not already, please subscribe to Revealed Apologetics on YouTube and on iTunes.

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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,

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I kind of utilize that audio and put it over onto the iTunes podcast, okay?

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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.

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I have been increasingly blessed by folks who have found what I have been doing here very helpful.

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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 the potential to be somewhat long or very short, okay?

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I initially wanted to kind of announce that due to increasing demand, okay?

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A lot of people have asked me over and over again, Eli, are you ever gonna write a book?

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And of course my response is no. I just don't have the time, okay?

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For those of you who don't know what I do when I'm not on YouTube, I am a full -time teacher.

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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.

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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.

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And so it can be difficult to find the time. However, because I've been receiving a lot of, well, one second,

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I have some, let me see here. Let me do a little bit right for me. There we go, all right.

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Just making sure if everything's okay on the technical end. 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.

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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

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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.

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I was thinking about writing a presuppositional apologetics answer book.

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And so something small in which each section has an answer to 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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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?

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If you email me, that would be super duper helpful because you email me these questions,

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I can actually use that as kind of a framework as to which kinds of questions I can focus on.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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That's revealedapologeticsatgmail .com. So that's the way that you guys could help me.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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So I'm not intending to write some great apologetic tome where we answer every single question imaginable.

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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.

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So I really, really hope that you guys take me up on that offer to email me at revealedapologeticsatgmail .com

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with any of the questions you'd like me to cover. Now, if you send me questions, it helps me write the book quicker.

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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.

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And so I want to be a service to you. I want this book to help folks have an answer from what

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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

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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?

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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?

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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.

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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.

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And so I want to address things like that, okay? With various degrees of ease or difficulty,

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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.

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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 while, you know, for a while and want to address some of the more philosophically relevant questions like that whole ontology and epistemology issue, okay?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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I'm more than open to listening to what you have to say because this is my first time doing something like this.

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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.

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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?

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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

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Hank Hanegraaff who is the, he's over there as the president at CRI, the

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Christian Research Ministry. And he is the host of the Bible Answer Man Program. And again,

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I have gotten some interesting messages from folks, some exciting responses, but at the same time, some issues of concern.

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Of course, those of you who are familiar with Hank Hanegraaff and the ministry of CRI, it was quite controversial when

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Hank Hanegraaff converted to Eastern Orthodoxy. And so I just want to address that really briefly here.

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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

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I actually nail down the specific date for that specific interview. So that being said, there is,

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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.

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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.

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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,

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I'm going to be speaking with Hank at some point this week to kind of talk about the specifics of how

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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

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I hear, Hank doesn't take a lot of interviews. But yeah,

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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So if you have any questions you want to continue here and have a good discussion, I'm open to that. 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.

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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.

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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?

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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?

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Now, what do I mean here? Doctrines that are non -essential are important doctrines, but they are not definitional of the

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Christian faith in the sense that if you deny them or affirm something, it doesn't place you outside the camp of Christ, okay?

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And I think that's a very, very important concept to keep in mind, okay?

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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

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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?

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But when we talk about these non -essentials, these non -essentials can be, they can range from a whole wide range of issues.

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

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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.

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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?

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So just keeping that in mind, okay? So essential doctrine could be something like speaking in tongues. You might be a cessationist.

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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

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Pentecostal kind of persuasion believe that speaking in tongues is something that is normative for the church.

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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.

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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.

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So we don't wanna minimize this issue of non -essential, okay? But what about an essential doctrine?

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I would define essential doctrine as a doctrine, a teaching, a belief within the

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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

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Christian faith, okay? And there are a clear essential doctrine is the deity of Christ, okay?

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If you do not believe that Jesus Christ is God in flesh, you're not a Christian. It's just plain and simple, okay?

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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.

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If you deny that Jesus is God in flesh, that is a heresy of the definitional sort, okay?

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Very, very important, okay? Now, how do you know the difference between an essential doctrine and a non -essential doctrine, okay?

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This is so important, all right? If you know what I'm talking about and you're jiving with me, awesome.

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But if you're just listening in and you're kind of, well, where is he going with this? This is so important, okay?

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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?

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Well, you have to understand something that scripture itself defines for us essential doctrine.

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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.

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But typically, essential doctrines are found in scripture that is accompanied with qualifiers, okay?

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They are doctrines in scripture that are accompanied with qualifiers.

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In other words, if you deny this, this results, okay? You know, you have the idea of, you know,

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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

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I am sayings actually refers back to Jesus attributing the name of God to himself.

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And so the idea that Jesus is God in flesh is very much wrapped up in the definitional nature of the

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Christian faith, such that if you deny it, you will die in your sins if you have the wrong Jesus. That's why

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Mormons are not Christian. They have the wrong Jesus. That's why Jehovah's Witness are not

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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.

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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.

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Now, of course, there are people out there that don't think that's an essential doctrine. I think it is.

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I think biblically we can demonstrate that justification by faith alone is in fact a definitional doctrine of the

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Christian faith, okay? So again, when you take a look at Roman Catholicism, for example,

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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?

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And I would imagine, I would imagine after having my discussion with Hank Hanegraaff, this will thrust me into a new project of studying

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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?

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And I've asked scholars and apologists and theologians, what does Eastern Orthodoxy believe about A, B, and C?

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I don't know. And I don't, don't be fooled, by the way, by the books in the background.

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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.

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I wish. 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.

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But when I speak to folks about Eastern Orthodoxy, I get the same answer. Well, I'm not sure.

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I've never looked into Eastern Orthodoxy before. That's a good question. I think they believe this.

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I think they believe that. And again, that's interesting to me.

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And so this is something that has brought interest to me to study Eastern Orthodoxy and to have conversations with Eastern Orthodox folks.

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Now, that being said, that by no means, I'm going to say this again, and I'm going to make my mouth very, by no means means that I'm compromising my own reformed faith, okay?

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I'm a Protestant through and through. I do not need to know the ins and outs of every perspective to know what the

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Bible teaches with regards to a specific position. I believe clearly that the Bible teaches justification by faith alone.

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Even though I may not be able to explain to you, for example, the Orthodox position with regards to justification by faith alone.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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Because I have no intention to debate Hank. I don't want to debate Hank. You know, he's the

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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

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I agree with him. I know before we start, I disagree, but I want to be able to understand.

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And hopefully we can do that within the context of a respectful and just an open discussion, okay?

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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

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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.

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And I've gotten some really good and thoughtful responses there. And so unless anything changes from now until the interview, we're going to do it and I'm looking forward to it.

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But of course, I will definitely want to follow up that interview with some comments, my thoughts after the discussion.

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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.

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So that's kind of what's going on. Want to write a book, having an interview coming up.

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With regards to the book, I appreciate your help. Send me your questions through email and hopefully

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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?

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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.

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They're back to Genesis says, do it, do it. Sign me a copy when you're done. Well, okay.

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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.

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So I'm looking forward to doing this and offering something that perhaps will be helpful to you guys.

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So thank you for the support there. Let's see here. Okay, moving through some of the comments.

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A lot of hellos. Let's see here. And where are you first?

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Oh, here we go. Okay, so here's a question by Mawson Hollowell.

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I hope I said that right. Mawson Hollowell. Mawson is like Bonson with no

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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 presub methodology?

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Well, as the legend goes, right? I was exposed to presuppositional apologetics in the same way that most people who were not alive during the life of Van Til and Greg Bonson.

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Well, I was alive when they were alive, but I was too little, okay? But most people come through, they're exposed to presuppositional methodology through Greg Bonson and his famous debate with Gordon Stein.

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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.

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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.

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As a presuppositionalist, I very much appreciate some fine defenders of the traditional arguments.

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And as you know, presuppositional apologetic methodology does not necessarily mean that one finds the traditional proofs, the theistic proofs, useless, okay?

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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.

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So there are presuppositionalists that don't like the theistic proofs, but they're not liking the theistic proofs is not an essential feature to presuppositionalism if that makes sense, okay?

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So I was first exposed to presuppositional methodology through that debate between Gordon Stein and Greg Bonson.

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And of course that opened up a whole new world of apologetic methodology because I was able to see someone who was

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A, a fine debater, and B, was thoroughly biblical. And that was what drew me, okay?

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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

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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,

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I know there's usefulness in approaching things in that way, but there's just something about it.

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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?

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And I don't know, man, as a presuppositionalist, I feel that the presuppositional 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?

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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.

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And I think for the presuppositionalist 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?

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I just spoke with an apologist friend of mine. Maybe you guys have heard of him.

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His name is Eric Hernandez. And he is an apologist, a classical apologist, and he's even debated another friend of mine,

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Saiten Bruggencape, over apologetic methodology. And we talk all the time. And he says, well, what's this deal with neutrality and autonomy?

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I never engaged the unbeliever thinking that we're neutral. Okay, and when he told me that,

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I was like, well, that sounds very presuppositional 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?

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Even someone like Saiten Bruggencape says, if you can give evidence in a way that doesn't compromise your

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Christian convictions of avoiding neutrality and autonomy, go nuts, you know? So, you know, there are classicalists that are very presuppositional -ish, even though they are under the label of classicalists, okay?

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So I hope that answered the question. I kind of went off to the side there, but hopefully that was helpful.

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All right, reveals apologetics, you know, reformed people do not write books, they write tomes. Yes, that's true.

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But you know, I was not raised in the reformed tradition. I was raised in a

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Pentecostal tradition and I am one of those people who were raised in the microwave mentality, right?

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I want, put in the microwave, just a couple of seconds and I'm done, all right? I don't have time to write tomes.

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I wish I did, but I unfortunately would not be able to write a tome anytime soon.

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However, writing a presupp answer book is super exciting because I love presuppositional apologetics.

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You guys know this. This is why I have the certain guests that I have, right? This is why I had

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Michael Kruger to talk about, Dr. Michael Kruger from Reformed Theological Seminary to talk about presuppositional methodology applied to canonical studies.

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I love apologetics because I see it's 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.

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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,

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I was scrolling through some of the videos and I saw just a couple of hundred views with my discussion with Dr.

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Michael Kruger. And I'm like, how is this possible? That was one of the best interviews that I had, okay?

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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,

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I am now a presuppositionalist. My biggest fear as a classicalist examining presuppositionalism was that if I were to become a presuppositionalist,

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I wouldn't be able to appeal to evidence. You see, there was that mentality, that presuppositionalist, you can't use evidence.

30:33

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.

30:43

Now, again, that was very encouraging to me because it was an example of someone seeing the mystifying, mysterious nature of the presuppositional approach as we see it on the internet, right?

30:59

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?

31:11

There's so much more to it. So again, if you haven't taken a look at my interview with Dr.

31:18

Michael Kruger, it was an excellent discussion. I highly recommend that. And of course,

31:24

I can dedicate entire episode just talking about all of the excellent discussions that we had.

31:30

But the purpose of having the certain guests that I've had was to address some area of presuppositional apologetical application that I think is underdeveloped within the popular realm, okay?

31:41

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.

31:47

All right, I see a couple of students, you know, my students checking out with a check. I'm sorry,

31:54

I think I'll say hi. I don't know if I can interact with you, that'd be weird. Are you my students? I don't know if I could do that.

32:00

Okay, there we go. Question, let's see here. I hope I can answer it. Is there a way to reconcile the

32:05

Vantillian approach with the Thomistic approach? Vantillian in a way that we don't let the unbeliever borrow from our worldview and put the

32:13

Lordship, what? Wow, that is a very interesting question.

32:19

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.

32:27

All right, is there a way to reconcile Vantillian approach with a Thomistic approach?

32:34

I don't think so. It depends what you mean by Thomistic approach.

32:40

There are aspects of Thomism that a presuppositionalist may not have a problem with.

32:45

And there are aspects of Thomism which a presuppositionalist 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.

33:09

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.

33:16

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.

33:26

If you deny innate knowledge of God, then I think there would be an inconsistency there.

33:32

But again, these philosophical distinctions are very deep and wide and I am not a

33:37

Thomistic scholar. So I don't know what the Thomist is allowed to believe and still be a

33:42

Thomist, if that makes sense. But I think the innate knowledge issue I think is very important.

33:48

Of course, a Vantillian approach, because I think it's the correct apologetic methodology and because I think it's biblical,

33:54

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

34:04

I don't think is something reflective of the biblical principles that I mentioned before. So hopefully that makes sense.

34:10

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.

34:19

Okay, what do you think about the LGBTQ plus? I like the plus because there's so many letters.

34:24

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?

34:33

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?

34:44

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,

34:53

I think this is very important, must be welcomed in the church just as anyone else is welcomed in the church.

35:02

But when they're welcomed in the church, just like anyone else, you better be preaching a biblical, uncompromising gospel, okay?

35:11

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

35:24

Bible contains, the truth in God's word, it can be offensive to the natural man's sensibilities, okay?

35:31

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?

35:41

But at the same time, when we are welcoming people within the church, we are not preaching so that people feel comfortable necessarily.

35:50

We want to be loving and open in that sense, but we don't want to compromise the gospel, okay?

35:56

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.

36:07

Very, very important. And also, this is very important. When we're dealing with the LGBTQ community and anyone for that matter, we have to understand it's very easy to jump out and focus on those specific issues because they loom very large in the society today.

36:25

But when we are proclaiming the truth of the gospel uncompromisingly, it is possible that we do so in a way that is not glorifying to God.

36:34

Namely, we are proclaiming truth, not in the manner that the source of our truth tells us to.

36:42

Remember 1 Peter 3, verse 15, set apart Christ as Lord in your heart, always being ready to give a reason for the hope that's in you, yet doing so with gentleness and respect.

36:50

We need to learn to be able to point out truth in God's word, proclaim it faithfully with gentleness and respect, even if that means people are gonna walk away.

37:00

Okay, does that make sense? So how can we help the LGBTQ community, help them learn about God? The same way we would help anyone learn about God, just speak honestly what the

37:10

Bible says. Speak it in love, speak the truth in love. But speaking in love does not mean compromising.

37:17

And so there has to be that very careful balance when we are sharing the faith with anybody, much less anyone from the

37:24

LGBTQ community, okay? So it's just the simplicity of speaking the truth uncompromisingly, but doing so with love, okay?

37:31

And with the context of a relationship, right? And I understand that there are people, you know, they'll say, well, you know, well,

37:38

Jesus knocked over the tables and he came out strong sometimes. He called the people a brood of vipers. I get, there is a time and place to be much more stronger in our words.

37:48

But I think a lot of people in their over, their overpowered zeal often go for the strong, the strong words first, without actually having a level -headed conversation with someone, seeing where they're at, and really just speaking to their situation and being able to do that and navigate those sorts of conversations with gentleness and love, but without compromise, right?

38:12

So I think that's important. I hope that's helpful. You can give me a thumbs up if that was helpful. I hope it was, so, okay.

38:19

All right, let's see here. Let's see, okay.

38:25

Oh, there's someone said, as someone new to PreSupp, I have lots of questions, so I'll send them to you. Thank you, perfect, that's good.

38:30

See, those are the people, I'm looking for the people that say, I have a hundred questions on presuppositional apologetics.

38:37

I'll email you tonight, you know? Those are the kinds of people I want. So I wanna hear your questions, right? That'll be super helpful to me, okay?

38:44

All right, let's see here. I'm not sure if this is a question. I kind of just clicked on it. One thing I'd love to love is how to more effectively explain to the unbeliever why you have to do an internal critique.

38:56

Once they understand that, many of their objections fall flat. Yes, I think that's true.

39:02

I think this was brought out very clearly in my debate with Eric Murphy. If you haven't seen my debate with Eric Murphy, he is an atheist.

39:10

He was involved with a podcast that was kind of a sister podcast to the Atheist Experience, which is a podcast there that most people know, which is associated with Matt Tillihunty, which is a very well -known atheist.

39:25

I had a excellent discussion with Eric Murphy in which at a particular point in the debate,

39:31

I explained to him the importance of internal critique. Anytime you try to critique my worldview, okay, from an external perspective, everything you say is irrelevant, right?

39:44

Because basically by externally critiquing me, you're just faulting my view for not being your view, okay?

39:52

Of course you're going to throw those objections because you don't hold to my perspective, okay? That's why people get annoyed at the fact that presuppositionalists often talk a lot about worldviews.

40:04

You know, when I do a debate, you can see debates. I had a debate with a gentleman by the name of Negation of P, very nice discussion on modern day debates.

40:13

If you guys are familiar with that YouTube channel, and we had a great discussion, but if you look at my debate on modern day debates with Negation of P, if you look at my debate with Eric Murphy, which is entitled

40:23

A Respectful Dialogue with an Atheist, and if you look at my debate on the gospel truth with Searest the

40:29

Skeptic, you will see that my opening statements are very much the same, very similar. And that is

40:34

I seek to lay out the worldview issue. I think it's very important when we're doing apologetics to set the table, so to speak.

40:42

You need to clearly define the Christian worldview. You need to clearly define what is the opposition, and then clearly define the parameters of the discussion so that in order to adequately respond to the presuppositional argument, the only way that it can possibly be done is through internal critique.

41:02

And then we welcome the unbeliever to do that internal critique, okay? And from there, then we provide the apologetic response.

41:09

In my discussion with Eric Murphy, once he got it, there was kind of a moment where it clicked. He says, okay, internal critique.

41:15

So let me see if I can point out a contradiction within your worldview, and that's a form of internal critique. And I said, there you go, you're on the right track.

41:21

And at that moment, he tried to show that there was a logical inconsistency with the doctrine of the Trinity, okay?

41:27

Now, of course, he flubs on the doctrine of the Trinity, right, and I say this respectfully. I told him, even if I wasn't a

41:35

Christian, I would not agree with your understanding of the Trinity. I'm not just saying this because now

41:40

I'm doing apologetics with you and you're trying to attack my position. You just don't understand what the Trinity is. And so the good thing is knowing your own theology allows you to survive the internal critique of the unbeliever.

41:53

Because once the unbeliever recognizes the importance and necessity of engaging in the internal critique, then that requires you, okay, to do more than say by what standard.

42:06

It requires you to actually know the ins and outs of your own position so that when the internal critique is attempted, you are able to point out where the errors are.

42:18

And that's part of the defense. You're deflecting these objections that are attempted internal critiques of your worldview perspective.

42:25

That's very, very important. So I think it's important to point that out. How do you more effectively explain to the unbeliever?

42:32

Well, in my experience, it's just laying out the nature of the discussion, laying out your worldview, laying out that we all have ultimate foundations, laying out that we all take our foundations for granted and that we don't appeal to something more foundational than they in order to justify them.

42:49

And once you set that groundwork and the unbeliever kind of jives with you and says, okay, I have an ultimate foundation too.

42:55

And I kind of take it on its own authority. Now you have, now you're functioning on all cylinders and hopefully both of you is within the context of a respectful dialogue, you're on the same page.

43:05

And then you begin to say, well, if it's an internal critique well, let me assume the truth of your perspective and see where it leads.

43:11

And we assume the truth of the unbeliever's perspective to show internally where it leads, okay? But here's a word of advice, okay?

43:18

This is very important. This is super important. I just watched a debate. I won't mention the names of the people but it was an atheist and a

43:24

Christian and the, well, I mean, I'm not sure if this person is a Christian because he holds to some theological beliefs that I might take issue with but he used a presuppositional method but he had an attitude, kept interrupting the guy, okay?

43:39

And the other guy got defensive. And so there was just this back and forth of bickering.

43:44

It was like two teenagers just arguing and getting nowhere. Now I agreed with the form of argumentation that the presuppositional was using but his attitude and rudeness prevented him from making his points clear so as to make the opponent get on the same page, understand where you're coming from and meaningfully interact.

44:05

That's why it's so important. Presuppositional apologetic methodology is a powerful apologetic method but it must be tethered with a gentleness and respect when it is presented.

44:18

Once you lose the respect of the other person, there's no communication, okay? That's why

44:24

Calvinists, presuppositionalists online get a bad rap because although I believe the

44:31

Calvinist has the correct doctrine and although I believe the presuppositionalist has the right methodology, they often express those things and they come off as jerks, right?

44:40

It's just, you know, they don't know how to communicate in a way where you have a meaningful conversation.

44:46

It's always, I need to find a way to get the other person and that just doesn't cater to open discussion, okay?

44:52

So again, especially when you're debating online, you want people to learn. It's not just you trying to refute the other person, you're teaching those who are listening.

45:01

And so you wanna be able to engage in the method in a way that is meaningful with your opponent but at the same time, instructive for those who are listening and who knows, there might be someone who's on the fence and grappling with these issues and needs to hear a clear presentation of the

45:17

Christian position, all right? All right, let's move on here. Praise Jesus says,

45:25

Hank is a bit controversial. Yes, just a little bit, right? He is controversial, yeah. Okay, let's see here.

45:32

We have a comment here. Each apologetics approach is biblical. Precept principles are most central.

45:38

Three biggest categories, classical is focused on metaphysics, evidential are focused on epistemology, precept is focused on ethics.

45:46

Uh, yeah, I'm not sure I would agree with that. I guess I see what you're trying to say.

45:54

If a pre -suppositional apologetics is the biblical position, then it would follow that the evidential methodology is not necessarily following biblical principles.

46:06

There might be elements of it, but it's not consistent with what I think are the principles of scripture with regards to how we should engage.

46:14

Now, that being said, I love my evidentialist brothers and I learn from my evidentialist brothers.

46:19

That's why I purposely have apologists who don't share my methodology on the show. I've had Dr. Gary Habermas on, who is an evidentialist, right?

46:27

And I learned from him. By the way, I learned an interesting story that he actually knew, he had an acquaintance with Greg Bonson and he presented his minimal facts to Greg Bonson, so that was kind of fun.

46:38

But I learned from an evidentialist. I've had Frank Turek on. I've learned from classicalists, okay?

46:43

But I wouldn't say that each approach is equally biblical because we need to be careful.

46:49

I think I had Dr. Hugh Ross on from Reasons to Believe. And I had him on twice. I had him interact with Jason Lyle on the

46:57

Young Earth, Old Earth controversy. And then I had him to kind of explain, I had him back to explain a little more in detail his own position.

47:04

And he said something that I didn't agree with. With regards to apologetic methodology, he said that sometimes

47:10

I use presuppositional apologetics and he explains the context in which he uses that. And then in other times, he'll use an evidential approach.

47:17

And there's this, almost this assumption that you can dip in and out of these apologetic methodologies. And that's,

47:23

I don't think that's possible. We need to be very careful not to confuse the notion that because we appeal to presuppositions with our discussions, with our apologetic interaction, that we are therefore engaging in presuppositionalism.

47:36

That's not the case. And when a presuppositionalist is utilizing evidences, that does not mean he's utilizing evidentialism as a methodology.

47:46

There's a difference there. So you don't jump in between methods just because you're focusing on a presupposition here, focusing on an evident or argument here, okay?

47:55

There are different methodologies and they're not something that you could necessarily mix and match, okay?

48:01

That's my perspective on it. There may be people who disagree, but I disagree with them on that topic. So I hope that makes sense.

48:07

All right, thank you so much for that. Let's see here. Melissa says, looking forward to your book.

48:13

So am I. Hopefully I can get it done. Really hoping that things work out and I'm able to get it out sooner rather than later.

48:21

Michael Miano says, what is the source for essential doctrines? That's a very good question.

48:27

Well, all of this, the main source of essential doctrine is the scriptures themselves, okay?

48:34

All right, so it's the scripture that defines doctrine and it is the scriptures that differentiates that which is essential and that which is adiaphora, right?

48:46

Those that are, you know, they're up for debate and it's okay that Christians disagree on those areas and we can lovingly within the community of faith just talk about them.

48:54

But I believe that the source of essential doctrine is the scriptures itself, as I mentioned in the beginning.

49:00

Again though, the Bible is not a systematic theology. So you need to kind of grapple with the text and see this is what it's teaching, here are the qualifiers and things like that.

49:08

Now, essential doctrine comes from scripture. However, the philosophical and theological language that we utilize to speak about these things are not necessarily taken from scripture, okay?

49:21

So for example, you know, the communicatio idiomatum or the hypostatic union, definitely concepts that are taught in scripture, but of course the scripture is not necessarily using that theological language.

49:34

I would think that some of the more refined theological and philosophical language that we use when talking about theological concepts derived throughout history, often within the context of responding to heresy and there being a need for us to be more specific with regards to what we're saying as it relates to a particular doctrine, okay?

49:53

So I wanna keep that in mind as well. Patrick asks, is justification by faith alone and essential?

50:00

Yes, I believe it is. I believe it is. And again, time escapes me to kind of go through the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone in detail right now, but perhaps that would be a topic for another video that is,

50:10

I think, a very important doctrine, a very definitional doctrine of the Christian faith in my estimation, okay?

50:16

All right, good questions here. Tom asks the question, is presuppositional apologetics a tool in the toolbox?

50:24

For example, when addressing someone who objects to the resurrection, can we use presupp and evidence, evidences?

50:30

Okay, now there is a confuddling of categories in the question, okay,

50:37

Tom? It's a great question, and this is often something that comes up because of that dichotomizing in our mind, that presuppositionalists deal with presuppositions, evidentialists use evidence, and sometimes the presuppositionalists can kind of creep over to the evidential side and talk about evidence, and sometimes the evidentialists can creep over to the presuppositional side and use presuppositionalism, okay?

50:57

When you say, for example, when addressing someone who objects to the resurrection, can we use presupp and evidences?

51:05

Yes, you don't use presuppositionalism with evidentialism, but you can use presuppositionalism with evidences because there is a difference between evidences and evidentialism.

51:21

I'm gonna say that again, very important. There is a difference between evidences and evidentialism, okay?

51:29

The presuppositionalist is allowed to appeal to evidence. In the words of Dr. Scott Oliphant of Westminster Theological Seminary and a

51:35

Vantillian presuppositionalist, I might add, okay? He says that as presuppositionalists, we are eminently evidentialist in that we believe that literally everything is evidence for God.

51:48

But of course, if everything is evidence for God, then I could appeal to anything as evidence for God, and I do so in a way that is consistent with my presuppositional convictions, okay?

51:57

As long as we're using evidences within a presuppositional framework and we're using it in a way that is consistent with that framework, then

52:05

I think we can appeal to evidences. We can appeal to specific things, aesthetics, beauty, morality, science, right?

52:13

This is typified in two very important debates that I think standard presuppositional debates, both of them

52:19

Greg Bonson debates. If you notice the Greg Bonson debate with Gordon Stein, Greg Bonson focused on logic with the utilization of his transcendental argument, right?

52:28

And then when you look at Dr. Bonson's debate with Edward Tabash, he didn't so much focus on logic, he focused on induction and scientific thought, right?

52:40

So he was arguing that the Christian worldview provides the necessary preconditions for induction. And so to do science in any consistent fashion, you need to be operating within a

52:49

Christian framework. But you see, in both those debates, he focused on two things, showing that we don't always have to use the transcendental argument and appeal to logic, we can also apply transcendental categories to literally anything, since we believe that the

53:03

Christian worldview framework gives meaning to everything, right? So I would say the presuppositionalist is more evidential in many cases than many evidentialists.

53:12

Because I don't just think that miracles are evidence for God, I also think mundane things are evidence for God.

53:20

I think that the fact that toothpaste always comes out of the toothpaste tube when we squeeze it is evidence for God.

53:26

And if you're interested in why I said that, Greg Bonson was famous for his argument for God's existence called the toothpaste proof, the toothpaste proof for God's existence.

53:38

And of course, that was just kind of a fun way that he would show that even when squeezing toothpaste out of a toothpaste tube, we have to appeal to concepts of induction and things like that, of which he argued that the

53:50

Christian worldview is the only perspective that provides the foundation for something like that, okay? So I hope that makes sense.

53:56

I hope that helps and answers your question, all right? All right, let's move on.

54:02

Did I skip? I think I skipped, let me see. All right, let's see.

54:07

These are great questions. I hope, if you guys can give me maybe a thumbs up or a happy face or something, if you're finding this stuff helpful, that definitely would let me know that I could keep on going if you're enjoying and finding this helpful.

54:21

So let's see here. We're gonna click that here. Okay, good. We're enjoying, keep going.

54:28

All right, I'll keep going for a little bit. Let's see here. Nate says, I've never really understood why someone like a

54:34

Muslim cannot use precept for their Unitarian God. Excuse me, verse the Christian for the

54:40

Trinity. Maybe you could answer holistically and specifically. Okay, this is a great question. And this is often a criticism.

54:47

I wanna include this in the book. I wanna provide kind of a thought out answer to this question. Can other religions utilize a transcendental argument, right?

54:56

Because the assertion that the Muslim can use the presuppositional approach completely misunderstands the nature of the presuppositional argument, okay?

55:09

We want the Muslim to argue presuppositionally. I want the atheist to argue presuppositionally.

55:18

I want the Mormon to argue presuppositionally. I want the fill in the blank to argue presuppositionally.

55:26

Why? That's the whole purpose of me setting up at the beginning, setting the table of speaking about worldviews.

55:32

I have a worldview, I have a system, I have an authority. You have a worldview, you have a system, you have an authority.

55:39

And now you have the battle of the systems. And we ask which system provides the necessary preconditions for intelligible experience or knowledge or whatever you're arguing at that point, okay?

55:53

And we want them to argue in a presuppositionally consistent way so that when we engage in the internal critiques, we are able to effectively make our point that given the truth of their perspective, it doesn't work.

56:06

And that given the truth of our perspective, it does. And here's why, you see? So they can use it, but they don't have the capital to actually ground the specific things that we're trying to ground, namely providing the preconditions for intelligible experience.

56:22

Now, again, now I can say that, of course, that's gonna actually have to be worked out within the discussion. It's like me saying to the atheist, the

56:28

Christian God provides the necessary preconditions for intelligible experience. And then the atheist goes, okay, well, my atheistic perspective provides the necessary preconditions for intelligible experience.

56:37

Come at me, bro. And so the assumption is that these claims are just reversible, but they're not because the argument doesn't end with just the statement of my worldview provides the preconditions of intelligible experience.

56:49

You now have to show that your worldview perspective provides the capital, can in essence pay the rent on that claim, you see, right?

56:58

And so if you were to say on atheism, I can provide the preconditions for logic. Well, okay, now on atheism, on purely naturalistic assumptions, give me the foundations of immaterial immutable laws.

57:11

You see the problem? So you're saying it doesn't mean you can do it, okay? But saying it at least brings the challenge forth and then you're engaging in that internal critique, okay?

57:21

A lot of unbelievers think that this is just kind of a tricky move. You know, presuppositionalists are just sneaky, sly people. And unfortunately there are people who just use these form of arguments to avoid answering tough questions.

57:31

But in reality, it's not a word game. It's not a tactic to avoid answering things.

57:37

It really is just getting down to the foundations of our perspective and asking which framework makes sense out of this, right?

57:44

And a lot of people don't think in those categories because they think very much in neutral and autonomous categories.

57:50

We need to independently and unbiasedly look at the evidence and follow where it leads, not understanding that we actually interpret the evidence in light of our broader presuppositions, okay?

58:00

So that's why we talk about these issues the way that we do, okay? So a Muslim can use it,

58:05

I welcome him. But I'll tell you one thing, a Unitarian God will not be able to provide the necessary preconditions for the one and the many, which is another topic which

58:14

I wanna spend some time doing a video on as well as include in my book, the

58:19

Presupp Answer Book. We'll talk a little bit about what's the big deal with the one and the many problem, okay? All right, that is a great question.

58:27

All right, Nico Fanon. Nico Fanon, I hope I said that right. Could you go over why atheists can't account for uniformity of nature and how we explain that to unbelievers?

58:36

Very good, okay. Well, what is the uniformity of nature, okay? The uniformity of nature is the notion that nature is uniform, right?

58:43

It works in accordance with what seems to be certain laws, okay? Now the problem with having a worldview that is not grounded in the revelation of an omniscient

58:53

God, you can never know with any degree of certainty that tomorrow must be like the past, you see?

59:00

So if I were to drop my mouse here, I let it go, what happens? Well, everyone says it falls to the ground.

59:06

And if I pick it up again and I let it go, it falls to the ground. And if I pick it up a million times and let it go a million times, we conclude based on the regularity of our past experience that it will always fall.

59:18

But the fact that it has always fallen in the past does not mean that it must fall in the future unless you assume that it must fall in the future because nature must act in this uniform fashion.

59:30

But on an atheistic perspective in which things are random, you could never know that. Now, atheists will say, well, we don't believe in complete randomness because we know that certain items in the universe have specific nature about them that they act in certain ways when they interact with other things.

59:44

But listen, that all assumes the uniformity of nature. On a worldview that has no revelation from an omniscient

59:51

God, how do you know that rocks must act a certain way just because you've observed that it act that way in the past?

59:57

You see, at least it makes sense within a Christian perspective in which an all -knowing God who created all things and created the laws that govern our world has revealed to us that nature works and functions in such a fashion.

01:00:09

You see, this is why modern science was developed in the Christian West because it was developed within the context of a worldview where something like the uniformity of nature makes sense.

01:00:19

You see? So, the uniformity of nature is very, very important concept to science and basically showing how the

01:00:27

Christian worldview grounds something or justifies something like this is important because it shows that the

01:00:33

Christian worldview provides a foundation for science, okay? Whereas the atheistic worldview doesn't.

01:00:38

Now, there are atheists who are brilliant scientists, but that's not the issue. The issue is, do they have a worldview framework that actually makes sense out of the brilliant science they're doing?

01:00:46

That's an important question that we need to ask, okay? Now, how do you explain that to an unbeliever? Well, first, you're gonna have to understand what the uniformity of nature is.

01:00:54

You're going to have to understand it as a philosophical problem. It's not just something that presuppositionalists bring up.

01:01:00

The problem of uniformity of nature and the problem of induction, as it's also called, has been brought up by unbelieving scholars.

01:01:07

Bertrand Russell spoke about this. David Hume spoke about this. This is not an issue particular to presuppositionalists.

01:01:12

We only bring it up because it is very important and a lot of people try to poo -poo it because they don't like to think about justifying those things.

01:01:20

They just wanna do the science and kind of keep the presuppositions that are necessary to do that without having to account for them.

01:01:26

But the presuppositionalist is gonna wanna ask the person to account for the things that they do.

01:01:31

Just as Van Til said, many believers can count and often they can count better than Christians.

01:01:37

The issue is not that unbelievers can't count. The issue is that unbelievers cannot account for their counting.

01:01:44

And so it's at that presuppositional fundamental level that we need to press the unbeliever, okay? Hope that makes sense.

01:01:50

All right, let's continue on. There's a lot of highs. Greetings from the Philippines.

01:01:56

Awesome, thank you so much for watching. Let's see here. Slam RN.

01:02:03

Am I saying that right? Is it just Slam RN? Should I be saying in some cool way? I apologize.

01:02:08

All right. I used to be Reformed for a long time. I loved Greg Bonson, Van Til, and Plantinga.

01:02:14

I still like their high view of scripture. I even watched James White, every dividing. No, okay.

01:02:21

Well, notice here, look at this. Here, read this here. I used to be Reformed for a long time.

01:02:27

I loved, past tense, Greg Bonson, Van Til, and Plantinga.

01:02:32

I hope you still love them. I hope you can still appreciate them even though you might differ with them on the

01:02:37

Reformed position. I still like their high view of scripture. Cool, me too. And look at this. His deep, dark, dirty secret, okay.

01:02:45

I even watched James White. Okay. Well, all joking aside, yes,

01:02:51

I find James White very, very helpful. Although I, you know, James White is another controversial guy and some people think he's rough around the edges, but me personally, he has helped me tremendously in understanding the

01:03:03

Reformed faith, church history, and various other apologetic issues. So I do find the work of Dr.

01:03:09

White immensely useful. And of course, I know, you know, not everyone agrees, but I definitely think he is an excellent

01:03:16

Christian apologist, all right. Here's greetings from Andy. Greetings, look forward to the signed copy of the book.

01:03:24

Well, you're a good friend of mine. So if I ever get to finish this book, you definitely will. So thanks for watching,

01:03:29

Andy. We got to connect soon, man. All right, miss you. All right, let's move on here. Let's see here.

01:03:37

I'm trying to, I didn't have it on my cell. Let's see.

01:03:45

Okay, here's a question from Mark Jackson. How do you use precept apologetics to an atheist when they don't believe in the

01:03:54

Christian worldview? Well, I mean, we'll think about that. Of course, the atheist doesn't believe in the

01:04:00

Christian worldview, right? So we would use a presuppositional, we use the presuppositional approach or we use apologetics in general against people who don't believe in the

01:04:09

Christian worldview. So your question is basically asking, how do we do apologetics to people who don't believe the

01:04:14

Christian worldview, right? And again, so an atheist is not gonna believe the Christian worldview, but that doesn't mean that because the

01:04:22

Christian has his worldview over here and the atheist has his worldview over here and that he's only gonna interpret the evidence we give him in light of his system, okay?

01:04:30

That doesn't mean that it's impossible to talk to the person, right? This is where the internal critique is going to happen, okay?

01:04:37

We know he is denying it with his mouth, okay? The Christian God. But if we're gonna function in a way that is consistent with the

01:04:44

Christian worldview, the Bible actually gives you a heads up as to the nature of the unbeliever, okay? The Bible says that all men know that God exists such that they are without excuse.

01:04:52

And so while the unbeliever professes with their mouth unbelief in God, disbelief in God, we want to draw out the reliance upon God even in their denial.

01:05:02

And that's where the internal critique is. Not only does your system not provide the necessary preconditions for intelligible experience, knowledge, science, and anything like that, but all the while in your denial, you have to assume or presuppose

01:05:15

God even while denying him. And of course, you're gonna have to work that out within the apologetic context. But of course, we're doing apologetics with people who are professing a denial of our position, okay?

01:05:25

And so you're gonna have to be able to navigate that. Now, what does that look like? Look at scripture, look at scripture.

01:05:30

Look how the apostles engaged people that didn't believe that Jesus was raised from the dead. Read apologetic books, presuppositional books where they show you how to kind of use this method to the different perspectives.

01:05:42

In the book that I will be writing, one of the answers will be, how do you use presuppositional apologetics against competing religions?

01:05:48

How do you use presuppositional apologetics against an atheist? We'll cover that as well. But for now, what

01:05:54

I've laid out so far is kind of how you do it, right? The unbeliever is not gonna believe your position. You're gonna have to draw out the knowledge of God that he has from his position by engaging in internal critique and showing that he actually has to rely on the facts of your worldview even to deny them, okay?

01:06:10

Now, again, that sounds very simple the way I said it. There's a lot more to it. But just to keep it short, that's kind of the approach that we would have to use, okay?

01:06:17

All right, good question. Let's see here. Okay, do you agree, okay, all right.

01:06:26

Aaron says, do I agree with James White, what James White said about presupp being evidential?

01:06:35

Well, what I know about Dr. White is that he is a presuppositionalist, okay?

01:06:40

And he's defended presuppositionalism and he's done so evidentially, okay? And what

01:06:46

I mean by that is not that he's dipped in and out of the presuppositional methodology into an evidential methodology, but I think

01:06:51

Dr. White has beautifully done in his debates is that he's been able to argue as a consistent presuppositionalist while also highlighting the specific evidences and challenging the presuppositional framework with which the unbeliever approaches those evidences, okay?

01:07:07

So in a sense, if I'm understanding you correctly, I would agree that presupp is evidential.

01:07:13

If by evidential we mean that we use evidences in a way that is consistent with a presuppositional framework, okay?

01:07:19

So if that's what he means, I agree with him. I don't think he means evidential in the sense of presuppositionalism and evidentialism being put together, right?

01:07:31

I think what he means is presuppositionalism and a presuppositionalist application of evidences, right?

01:07:37

If that's what he means, I would agree with that, okay? All right. Let's see here.

01:07:44

Okay. Oops. I really apologize. Would be cool if you had a section on logic, for example, where scripture uses modus ponens, law of excluded middle, also traditional versus modern logic.

01:07:57

See, you see, that's the kind of stuff that I need to hear. You see, so you email me something like that and we can go through that.

01:08:03

As a matter of fact, there are good examples of the different forms of logic being utilized, different, you know, logical structures here used within scripture within the work of Gordon Clark.

01:08:12

And I think he highlights some of those things as well. So that's a really good portion to include in something like the

01:08:19

Presupp Answer book. So thank you for that. Yeah, definitely a topic that I'd like to cover here.

01:08:25

All right. Let's see here. Moving along, moving along. I don't respond to the forum.

01:08:33

Let's see. Na, na, na, na. A lot of stuff. Hopefully the last thing I get is...

01:08:39

Sorry, now I mumble, you see? I would be terrible on radio, right? Let's see here.

01:08:47

Melissa asks, can you recommend some good resources in regards to black Hebrew Israelites? Yes and no.

01:08:54

No, I can't recommend good resources in the sense that I have not studied that specific issue in any depth.

01:09:00

Yes, in the sense that I know that Vocab Malone, who is also an apologist and has his

01:09:06

YouTube channel. I think it's called Street Apologist. I've actually appeared on his show before to talk about Presupp. He is a solid reformed guy, but he also has a great focus upon reaching out to the black

01:09:17

Hebrew Israelites. I think he wrote a book. Let me see if I can search for that book right here, okay?

01:09:24

In my mega information desk, AKA my iPad Kindle library.

01:09:30

Okay, here we are. Let's see if I can find the name of that book for you that is directed to that specific topic here.

01:09:38

So let's see if I can get that here. Yes, here we go. So Vocab Malone wrote a book, Barack Obama versus the

01:09:45

Black Hebrew Israelites, Introduction to the History and Beliefs of the First West Hebrew Israelism, okay?

01:09:52

So you wanna definitely check out Vocab Malone, the Vocab Malone, V -O -C -A -B

01:09:58

Malone, M -A -L -O -N -E. Check out his YouTube channel. He actually has recorded interactions with black

01:10:05

Hebrew Israelites. So his channel will be a priceless help in that regard.

01:10:10

And of course his book, you can pick up on Amazon. I feel like I'm a commercial and you can pick up his book on Amazon and bookstores everywhere.

01:10:15

All right, so you might wanna check that out. Okay, very good. All right, so David asks, how long have you been studying precept and how has it influenced your walk with the

01:10:26

Lord? You see, now this is another great question. I think this is a really good question. How long, to be perfectly honest,

01:10:33

I haven't counted, right? There wasn't this time where, okay, now I'm counting. I'm gonna study precept, boom, starting now.

01:10:39

And then a timer goes off so that I have no idea how long. All I know is the way that I studied is

01:10:45

I listened to a lot of audio, okay? Going down to Virginia with my live in New York, going down to Virginia with my wife, we kind of had a rule when going on road trips that whoever drives controls the audio, okay?

01:10:57

And of course, when we go on road trips, our van, yes, our van, I don't drive a cool car.

01:11:04

I drive a white family van. Actually, it's pretty awesome. But our van becomes a seminary on wheels, okay?

01:11:12

My poor kids, you know, they used to have to listen every now and then to what I had on, but now they have their tablets.

01:11:17

They got their headphones on. My wife is listening to something and the van is all mine. And for a long time,

01:11:24

I listened to audios of Greg Bonson, countless debates, you know, teachings like from James White, Scott Oliphant, John Frame.

01:11:33

And I absorbed the content. And of course, that made me aware of books that I bought and devoured.

01:11:40

I wanted to learn the methodology. And so I have been studying it a long time. Now, the second part of your question,

01:11:45

I think is very important. And a lot of people don't ask this question because apologetics is often seen as kind of the intellectual exercise.

01:11:53

And it's, we tip a hat, so to speak, to the spiritual formation side, right? Doing apologetics also strengthens your walk with the

01:12:00

Lord. But we don't really spend too much time on that because that's not really the fun stuff. Let's talk about apologetics.

01:12:06

And unfortunately, that is a problem. You see, this is why I think our apologetic methodology should be so tethered to scripture.

01:12:14

Because if our apologetic method is not engaged with scripture and operating on a biblical perspective, then we could drown in the intellectual studies of philosophy, of science and history and all these different things that we can actually starve ourselves of the spiritual health that comes from a steady diet of scripture.

01:12:34

And so these things need to be married together so as to not create an imbalance in our studies, where we find often that many apologists, young apologists are reading more books about apologetics than they are the

01:12:49

Bible. They're reading more books about how to defend the Bible than actually reading the Bible themselves. And this is a great danger.

01:12:56

This is a great danger. And so we wanna be very careful to keep that balance. Now, presuppositional apologetics, because I think it is a biblical approach, the books that I've read include lots of scripture.

01:13:06

And so not only am I learning how to defend my faith, I'm also reading scripture. And that has strengthened my perspective.

01:13:12

In other words, instead of saying, how do I become a better apologist? I need to learn some philosophical concept, reading a lot of the presuppositional literature.

01:13:20

And of course, there's some more philosophical that don't focus a lot on the text of scripture. But the books that I've read have always drawn me back to, if I want to be a good apologist,

01:13:28

I need to know my system. And where is my system found? Well, it's the very word of God. So it has encouraged my walk.

01:13:36

It has encouraged my walk with the Lord in that regard. Okay, excellent question. All right, so let's see.

01:13:45

Knowing your own theology allows you to survive. There we go. There we go. Jess has got it. She's got it. Knowing your own theology allows you to survive.

01:13:53

That's good, that's right. Knowing your own theology allows you to survive the internal critique of others.

01:14:01

Yes, that is why we know our theology, right? Because we want the unbeliever to internal critique because we are welcoming it, right?

01:14:11

We want to internally critique their perspective. We want him to jump into our perspectives to see how well it works out.

01:14:16

We welcome that, right? But if you don't know your own theology and the critiques are coming, you don't know whether a critique is a valid internal critique or the unbeliever has snuck in an external critique.

01:14:28

Like my interaction with Eric Murphy when he was trying to internally critique by showing the contradictions within the

01:14:34

Trinity. If I didn't know what the doctrine of the Trinity was, then I would have been stymied with his objection, but not knowing his objection was actually not an internal critique, but an external one, you see?

01:14:46

So very, very important. Thank you so much for highlighting that. I think I said that a few, well, we've been going for an hour and 14 minutes.

01:14:52

I probably said it a long time ago, but at any rate. Okay, let's see here. We go here.

01:15:01

Good answer, I ask because some people accuse that precept cannot engage in deep theological conversations because we just talk about the laws of logic, morality, and uniformity.

01:15:09

Wait a second, timeout. Good answer, I ask because some people accuse that precept cannot engage in deep philosophical conversations.

01:15:18

We just talk about those shallow things like the laws of logic, morality, and uniformity.

01:15:24

Those are deep philosophical conversations. The laws of logic are immensely deep. They're some of the most difficult conversations that we could have, all right?

01:15:32

Especially when you're dealing with different forms of logic and things like that. It gets very complicated, okay? Talking about universals and particulars, that's a very, this comment is funny because the things that you list that are kind of the things we're accused of, well, you guys just talk about that, not the deep stuff.

01:15:48

Those are deep stuff, okay? But if my answer helped you and kind of gave you a better perspective, then awesome.

01:15:53

I just wanted to point that out, okay. Jess, again, on fire, picking up those comments here that I said before.

01:16:01

Presuppositionalism is a powerful method but must be used with gentleness and respect. That's right, that's right. Remember what

01:16:07

I said before, you can do apologetics unbiblically, right? Don't be so caught up with the always be ready to give a reason, but then forget the gentleness and respect that needs to be tethered together because even if you speak the truth to someone, if you speak the truth like a jerk, then you're not going to be an effective communicator and hence you're gonna break lines of communication and it really defeats the whole purpose, right?

01:16:30

We want to speak with people, we want to engage people and want to kind of speak to them where they are, okay?

01:16:36

Very important, all right. Let's see here, I'm gonna have to skip. Okay, yeah, it's deeply rooted.

01:16:44

Okay, we are almost done, okay? I told you, I had coffee earlier but the caffeine is still going, so I'm still awake.

01:16:51

All right, so how do you use pre -self apologetics against a Roman Catholic? Yeah, it's the same thing, okay?

01:16:58

The Roman Catholic, the thing about the Roman Catholic is that because they accept the scriptures, there is a common ground between you and the

01:17:05

Roman Catholic. Now notice what I said, there is a common ground. That is not to say that there is neutral ground, right?

01:17:12

There is no neutrality, all right? Greg Bonson often spoke of the myth of neutrality.

01:17:17

However, there is common ground in the sense that you both affirm scripture. And yes, the

01:17:22

Roman Catholics affirm the Apocrypha and of course that might have to come into the issue. But I would say that a good way of presuppositionally addressing the

01:17:30

Roman Catholic is internally critiquing their own perspective and also appealing to scripture.

01:17:36

And so on an exegetical basis, you can demonstrate various tenets of Roman Catholic tradition being in conflict with the teaching of scripture, okay?

01:17:44

This is what I appreciate about Dr. James White. Dr. James White has debated for years, decades,

01:17:51

Roman Catholic apologists. And what does he do? Is he talking about, well, by what standard? Is he saying, unless you believe

01:17:57

Protestant Christianity, you can't know anything? No, he is appealing to scripture and history and various resources to show that given their own assumptions, their position doesn't work out.

01:18:08

So you still are using the same method, but it's gonna look a little different depending on who you're speaking with, okay?

01:18:16

Again, you might be seeing a dying battery. I bought a charger.

01:18:22

It plugs into the wall. It's not working. I don't know what's going on. So if my camera dies, it's gonna switch to my regular laptop cam. I'm sure you don't mind as I finish up these last questions here, okay?

01:18:31

Let's see here. Let's see here. Mike Burnett says,

01:18:38

I just heard your interview with my friend, Cindy Martin. Morgan, great info about her book. Yes, I agree.

01:18:43

If you guys are interested in Dr. Walter Martin, who was the original Bible Answer Man just the last episode before here,

01:18:50

I interviewed Dr. Walter Martin's daughter. And she wrote a book called the Bible Answer Man where she talks about her father, really great behind the scene kind of stories, which was awesome.

01:19:02

I couldn't put the book down. And of course she speaks a little bit about Hank Hanegraaff and his conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy and the relationship between Hank and her father.

01:19:10

It was an excellent book and I highly recommend it. You can purchase it on Amazon and I hope you guys do. Excellent, excellent book.

01:19:16

All right. So let's see here. The last question. The last question is, this is the last question, okay.

01:19:25

We went a lot, to be perfectly honest, I thought we were only gonna go like a half hour, but I'm so happy that you guys had questions.

01:19:30

Greatly appreciate it, okay? How do you deal with the Christianity objection, okay?

01:19:35

How do you deal with the Christianity objection? Again, I apologize in the middle of my answer, if my camera goes off, it's gonna switch and I'm not gonna look as nice and clear and HD -ish as I do now.

01:19:46

So I do apologize. But all you need is the audio, that's fine, okay? We're a little ghetto here, it's all good. All right, well, people who don't know anything about presuppositional apologetics and things like that, the transcendental argument, they're gonna say,

01:19:57

Christianity, what the heck? Well, the Christian worldview, we would argue as presuppositionalists, provide the necessary preconditions for intelligible experience, knowledge, science, whatever, fill in the blank.

01:20:08

Christian worldview provides the necessary preconditions for that. And the worldview of Christianity provides an answer to the very profound philosophical problem, excuse me, known as the one and the many, okay?

01:20:21

And of course, how do we answer that philosophical problem without going into the details? I assume the questioner knows a little bit about that.

01:20:27

We show that God in his very being, his very nature, is both one and many, being a triune

01:20:33

God, right? Remember the doctrine of the Trinity, we believe that there is one God, right? Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad.

01:20:41

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one. Trinitarian Christians are monotheistic, yet there are three persons called

01:20:47

God. The Father is called God, the Son is called God, and the Holy Spirit is called God. So in the person and nature of God, we have with equal ultimacy, the oneness and multiplicity of God, okay?

01:21:01

And so unity and diversity are held equally within the nature of God, okay? Now, okay,

01:21:06

Christianity is a hypothetical worldview that is the same as Christianity, complete with a one and many deity.

01:21:15

And it is posited as a hypothetical option to combat the assertion that the

01:21:21

Christian worldview is the only perspective that can ground these foundational issues, okay? Now, the problem with that is, is that when we posit a

01:21:31

Christianity worldview that is the same as Christianity in every way, except for example, instead of God being a

01:21:37

Trinity, he's a quadrinity, okay? He's one being who exists as four persons. The problem is, does the person who is putting forth this hypothetical believe that that worldview provides the necessary preconditions for intelligible experience?

01:21:52

See, unless he believes it, then how can he argue from his own unbelieving foundation that can't ground the rationality of his own question, but he does not believe this hypothetical possibility that may ground everything, and he's not affirming

01:22:07

Christianity. The question must be asked from a completely worldview independent perspective. Unless this person thinks his own worldview provides the preconditions, he's gonna have to admit, well, maybe my worldview doesn't, but maybe this worldview does.

01:22:20

Okay, do you hold to that worldview? Well, no. So then how do you even have the foundation to ground the very rationality and cogency of the question you're asking, you see?

01:22:30

Well, then the person's like, well, then I do hold to Christianity, but then we know Christianity is not true because you literally just made it up, you see?

01:22:36

So if you're gonna give a hypothetical that's a necessary precondition, you either hold to it or you reject it and admit that the worldview out of which your question emerges does not ground it, okay?

01:22:47

So there are different ways that you can go about it. Now, the Christianity objection has been dealt with in an article by Michael Butler, who goes into great detail with regards to the transcendental argument and various objections against it.

01:23:00

Again, I do wanna deal with the Christianity objection in the book, the precept answer book, and I will hopefully, we'll be able to address that in a short, sustained fashion in a way that's helpful for someone who may need an answer to that objection very quickly.

01:23:13

Again, I'm not looking to write this huge, massive tome, but I want question, couple of paragraphs that captures the essence, the gem that captures how we answer these questions from a presuppositional perspective, okay?

01:23:25

And yes, Slammon is correct with regards to the Christianity objection. He says, yeah, that reminds me of the flying spaghetti monster objection.

01:23:33

That's exactly right. Well, maybe the flying spaghetti monster provides the preconditions of intelligible experience.

01:23:38

Doesn't work. And perhaps I will include that in my upcoming book. All right, well, guys, we have gone one hour and 23 minutes, okay?

01:23:47

I would like to thank everyone who has given me encouragement to write this book. I definitely want to make sure that I'm held accountable by my wonderful YouTube community.

01:23:57

And hopefully I can get this out as soon as I'm able to, and you guys can purchase it and benefit greatly from it.

01:24:04

And I am very appreciative of your questions. Guys, keep your feet firmly granted in scripture and let everything you do reflect the truth upon which you stand.

01:24:14

Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for your questions. Take care and God bless. That's it for this episode, bye -bye.