Theology, Apologetics, Other Stuff

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala, and today we're going to kind of keep things general.

I am going to be having Matt Slick of Karm .org joining me to talk about apologetics, theology, and other stuff, and so we're going to be covering possibly a wide range of topics.

I do want to encourage folks who will be listening in, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to throw your question there in the comment section and preface your question with the letter

Q or the word question. So I highly recommend that you do that if you want Matt and I to cover some of your questions.

Now Matt is not here right now, so we're hoping he's gonna connect in just a few moments, otherwise

I'll just be, you know, flying solo here, but hopefully he'll sign in just a few moments.

So before we jump in, just a quick reminder, on January 21st we will be having our epic online

Calvinism conference, okay? I will be speaking alongside Dr.

James White, Dr. Guillaume Bignon, Scott Christensen, and Saiten Bruggenkade, and we're gonna be covering various aspects of Calvinism.

One second here. All right, yeah,

I just got a message from Matt. He'll be joining in just a few moments, but yeah, so you guys definitely don't want to miss this epic online

Calvinism conference. If you are interested in presuppositional apologetics, the presentations on the epic online presub conference is available for a reduced price on the website revealedapologetics .com,

and you can purchase those. It's a good way to support Revealed Apologetics financially, and of course, reserving a spot for this

Calvinism conference is another way of doing that, and if you're unable to support Revealed Apologetics financially, then you can definitely support us through your prayers and by writing a positive review on iTunes if you follow the podcast there, as well as liking this video and sharing it.

So all of the generic YouTube, you know, social media type things, those actually help a lot, so I would appreciate the likes and the shares, all right?

Well, a couple of things also. I want to, perhaps you guys can share in the comments, if there is anyone you'd like me to interview, a topic you'd like me to cover,

I have been super blessed to be able to interview really every single scholar that I have read and have been interested in, who

I've had the benefit of actually having on the show, for the most part. There may be some other ones that I still wish

I could interview, but I've had some great guests. I've had Doug Wilson on, James White, I've had

Scott Oliphant, again, with a great emphasis on like the presuppositional stuff.

I've had Frank Turek on, and many, many others, and of course, I've had Matt Slick on before as well, but I'm looking towards the new year and thinking, well, who should

I interview this time around? And so, I would definitely appreciate suggestions and things like that, so let me know in the comments.

That will be very helpful to me, and it'll kind of give me something to shoot for in the new year, all right?

Okay, so let me just, let me see, Facebook Messenger, here we go.

That's Matt trying to connect, and he'll be joining us in just a moment.

This is the fun thing about doing interviews. I usually connect with my guests 10 minutes before to do kind of like a quick audio -visual, make sure everything's in line, and if they don't connect early,

I get nervous because, you know, sometimes people forget emergencies happen, and so I'm about to do a show with a guest, and they don't show up, so that has happened before, so, you know, that's how it goes, but again,

I don't have time to edit my video, so everything I do is live, and so if it's awkward, and I have to kind of, you know, wing it, that's the way to go, all right?

So, as we are waiting for Matt Slick, I just want to give kind of another update.

I've created a lot of outlines on presuppositional apologetics that I've used, whether in presentations or teachings and things like that, and I'm thinking about releasing them on the website as part of, like, a blog article, so kind of just, instead of writing an article, just sharing some of my outlines.

Maybe folks will find that helpful and useful in some way, so,

I mean, I have an outline here I'm looking at called A List of Objections to Presuppositional Apologetics, and I cover a wide range of objections.

For one, I cover the ontology and epistemology objection, so presuppositionalism confuses ontology with epistemology.

I've got information there that is super helpful. Presuppositionalism is fideistic, right?

It's just making an authority claim. You just have to believe by faith, and there's really no way to defend it. Presuppositionalism is just making kind of a bare authority claim.

I have some notes that kind of interact with those sorts of things, so that will be, hopefully

I'll release that sometime early in the new year. I'm gonna organize some of my notes and things like that, so hopefully that will, you know, that will be useful to you.

There is an interesting thing. If you guys check out the YouTube channel, The Wise Disciple, The Wise Disciple, excellent

YouTube channel. I highly recommend you go over there and subscribe. The host there is Nate Sala. I've had him on my show, and I've been on his show before, and I had like almost a two -hour discussion with him on, as we were commenting, on the debate between Greg Bonson and R .C.

Sproul, and so, you know, we ended up talking for like two hours, and so he released those videos, that big discussion, in two parts, and so you can check that out over at The Wise Disciple, but I also have the raw video, and I'll be sharing it on the channel as well, so if that's something that is interesting to you, then that should be released real soon.

All right, well, Matt Slick is in the room now, and so I'm gonna invite him on the screen with me, and again, just real quick, the

Epic Online Calvinism Conference, January 21st. It'll be from 1030 in the morning to 430 in the afternoon.

You don't want to miss it. You could sign up for that at RevealedApologetics .com. Click on the PresubU drop -down menu, and you can

RSVP your spot there. You will not want to miss that. All right, well, without further ado, I'd like to introduce my guest,

Matt Slick. How's it going, man? It's going. How are you doing? I'm doing all right, man.

You're super busy, so I appreciate you coming on. I kind of asked Matt last second earlier today. Yeah, a little wife time.

We had a little talk, and, you know, because she's suffering. She's in pain, so we just spent a little time with her.

That's all. So I got in here a little bit late, and that's it. No big deal. All right, well, I was asking my listeners who should

I interview next in the new year, someone who I haven't interviewed, so I got a couple of suggestions here.

The Reformed Rookie says John MacArthur. That'd be nice. I'd love to interview him before he dies.

I know that sounds terrible, but he's super old. Do you know how old John MacArthur is right now? I don't know.

I hope he's not as old as I think. Yeah, that would be nice. Someone here suggesting David Wood on the problem of evil.

That'd be fun. Alyssa Scott, did you convert Nate to presuppositionalism?

We're working on him. He's this close, okay, this close, but he's definitely have tickled his interest, and he's reading up on some

Van Til and Vonson to try to, you know, get a firmer grasp on the method, and he will hopefully come to conclusions on that.

That'd be pretty cool, but definitely working on that. So, at any rate, let's jump right in.

Charlie Spine. Charlie Spine, isn't that a friend of yours, Matt? Yeah, he's the guy who read me the quote from Joseph Smith that got me started studying apologetics.

There we go. Let's give it up for Charlie Spine. Matt Slick would not be here right now if it hadn't been for Charlie Spine.

That's pretty cool. You can blame him. Yeah, no, that's right. Well, I'm sure atheists will blame him.

Like, look what you've done to us, right? That's right. So, yeah, so we've been friends for a long time,

Matt, and we often refer to the fact that our phone calls have been very, very interesting.

Unfortunately, many of them have not been recorded, so I figured, you know what, let's talk about theology, apologetics, and other stuff, and we can kind of blab about a bunch of things that I think folks will find useful.

So is there anything currently now that you are studying, that you're researching, anything of theological or apologetical interest that will be interesting to talk about tonight?

Well, I guess if I'm studying, I don't know if it's going to be interesting, but I've got a thought on something.

I was actually going to run this by you, so now is a good time as any, just to hear what you think. All right, so I don't know, just hear what you think, and others can talk about this, too.

You'll see where I'm kind of stretching things a little bit here and there, but so we know that God's a necessary precondition for intelligibility.

All right, so I was reading something, and it was one of those light bulb moments, you know. In Romans 120, the divine nature of God is clearly seen.

Well, what is that? His divine nature, Trinitarian. All right, well, I started thinking about this in other areas, so I get the impression that existence, apart from God, there's three realms, that there's the realm of the material, the realm of the spiritual, and the realm of the conceptual.

Okay. So I think that's fair, because there's spiritual, the angels, the demonic forces,

God himself is in that. There's the material realm, which is what we dwell in, but the conceptual realm also, with universals and things like this, transcendentals and, you know, thinking.

Well, it occurred to me that that's a trinity of realms, and God's a trinity.

So I'm thinking about, I'm just thinking out loud, okay. I'm not saying that all this is all right, but okay, what about this?

All right, so in the material realm, we have time, space, matter. That's three.

And time is past, present, future. Well, that's three. Space is height, width, depth.

That's three. And matter, solid, liquid, gas. That's matter. Okay, so that's pretty easy, and so I think it works in the material realm.

But then I started thinking about the spiritual realm. How is God's nature necessary, or the precondition for the spiritual realm?

Is it Trinitarian? So I started thinking. There's three, it seems to me, there's three areas or categories in the spiritual realm.

God, man, angels. Okay. And I can't think of a fourth category, because God is separate than the other two, but man's a different creature than the angelic realm is.

Now there's the animals, but that's not a spiritual category. Well, could it, would you say that everything that is not man or God is angel?

Would you make a distinction between angels and spiritual beings, like living creatures in heaven? Would you equate them with being angels?

Could they be a category, a different category of spiritual entity? You mean like djinn?

No, the Bible speaks of the living creatures. I don't know if...

Powers, principalities, things like that. It's angelic. That's angelic. Okay.

So the angelic realm is... Some people make that distinction, that there's angels and then there's this category of, you know, these living creatures, just a spiritual...

Living creatures. Djinn? No, not the djinn. What's up with you and the djinn? Because I don't know of anything in the

Bible that says anything other than there's an angelic realm, there's God and there's us, we're all spiritual. So I don't know of anything that would be other...

Just in Islam, the djinn, whatever those things are, made of fire, stuff like that, you know. So, and I started thinking, so God is, within the spiritual realm,

God, man, angels, God is Trinitarian, and I lean towards, in humanity,

I lead towards dichotomy, not dichotomy, I said a trichotomy, but trichotomy fits nicely, that we are, as people, body, soul, and spirit.

Okay. And in the angelic realm, this is where I got to do some study, cherubim, seraphim, and all the other categories of angels.

Okay. I don't know if that's legit, but I'm writing this stuff down, thinking about it. Now, here's where we're gonna get more interesting, okay?

Well, you said seraphim, cherubim, and the archangel. Archangels, yeah. Okay. That's right, thank you.

How'd you miss that? How'd you miss that one? I'm just going through stuff, and I knew there was a third.

And all the other ones. No, I knew there was another. I couldn't think of it. Archangel, how could I think of that? Well, then how are the demonic forces?

They would be just regular angels. Go home, Matt, you're drunk. How about that? Okay, maybe

I will. All right. I can go home. She's joking around. Go ahead.

I'm sorry. Yeah, that bothered me. What was that?

That really bothered me, just to imply that I was drunk. She's just messing around.

She's just light hearted. I think she's a Christian. She loves when you come on, and things like that. I don't think she meant it in any serious way.

Go home, Matt, you're drunk. Yeah, I don't know. It just didn't strike me well. I take that very seriously about drinking, about cognizance.

I'm sorry about that. I'm sure she didn't mean it. And I'm not just saying that. She's usually very polite, and I think she's a believer.

She looks forward to learning, and asks good questions. I don't think she means that in any insulting way.

Okay. So then, in the conceptual realm, we have knowledge, reason, and ethics.

Those seem to be the three main categories. Let's say those three again? Knowledge, reason, and ethics.

Okay. Well, we get into, are there three areas of knowledge?

Material, spiritual, universal was conceptual. Sure. And in reason, deductive, inductive, abductive.

I don't think it's all that simple. And in ethics, normative, metaethics, and applied ethics.

So, you know, I need to talk to some people who are far more knowledgeable in these categories, to see if there are three main categories or not.

What I'm doing is searching to see if there is such a thing as a trinity being the necessary aspect of all existence, in all forms, shapes, everything.

For logic, for thought, for existence, in every single realm, and every single subcategory of the realm, that the trinity is necessary.

This is what I've been thinking about. Matt, I think you're touching on something that has been a focus of the work of John Frame, his tri -perspectivalism.

As I have here, he talks about the normative perspective. I can show you this. He breaks these issues into,

I don't know if you could see that, it's really hard because of the light, but he's got triangles here, and he breaks this down, each category, into these three elements.

So, when you talk about knowledge, he talks about normative, situational perspective, existential perspective.

He breaks these elements up into threes, specifically,

I think, along the lines of what you're trying to say. That's what he's known for. Tri -perspectivalism is something that John Frame has really written a lot about.

Maybe you're touching on that without knowing that you're touching on that. Well, he taught us that in seminary.

I remember tri -perspectivalism, but none of that is in my mind.

I did come up with the name or the word tri -perspectivalism when I was going through this, thinking,

I wonder what John, I call him John, what he means by that. It's been so far gone.

I graduated in 91. I don't even remember it. I thought, I wonder if he's got something on that, but that was just passing.

And so, the reason I was talking, I was thinking about this, is there's another reason.

You see, if the realms that we exist in, material, spiritual, conceptual, and the necessary precondition for all of them, and all that matters within them, is

God himself, then the unregenerate, the ungodly, those who deny their trinity, are going to have to explain those realms from a non -trinitarian perspective.

Now, within this, we're going to get into the issue of the one in the many, and which I think is very important, and I think trinitarianism solves the problem.

So, this is what I was thinking about, because the unregenerate seek to imitate God, or replace

God with man -centered ideas or false theologies. They want to expand their own knowledge.

They want to create their own ethics. They want to create their own life. Now, this issue of AI, I've been talking to some people about it, and I talked to a

PhD candidate in AI security, and they run a think tank in Berkeley.

I said, hey, invite me out sometime. I won't come there to preach and teach. I just want to be a fly on the wall. And we had a long conversation, a couple hours over the phone, took a lot of notes, and he was explaining to me what

AI is, and basically think of complex algorithms that are arranged in a programming situation that has the ability to be manipulated by programmers who then tweak the results to get better results from what they want to be.

So, algorithms are capable of seeing patterns inside of large quantities of data. So, anyway, we get into all that.

But AI is a form of man's attempt to create life. And what's interesting is that they want to create life, but man also wants to destroy it, because in the womb, women are becoming killers.

And they will say that, no, it's my body, my life, my, me, me, me, me, not other.

And what they're doing is justifying killing. And the unregenerate join in in that philosophy of death and of killing.

So, they kill the innocent, and yet they want to create life.

And I'm seeing this pattern as the imitation of God, and the realms that belong to God, the unbelievers are trying to take over.

So, this is the whole thing, I'm trying to think, is this what's going on? Because also, think about this, truth is what corresponds to the mind of God.

What does an unbeliever do? He defines his own truth. So, gender confusion, marriage confusion, the very nature of absolutes is up for grabs.

You see on the news media, truth is a commodity. Truth is just something that is to be sold, misrepresented, whatever it is, because that's what they do.

And so, they don't have the ultimate being God's nature. So, they have to do it themselves. And so, that's what they're seeking to do in an imitation of God.

And the goals of it is their own knowledge, their own ethics, their own sovereignty.

Okay. So, you're identifying these three things, these elements of three, as a reflection of verse 20 in Romans chapter one, verse 20, for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, divine nature encapsulating his triunity, and that you see that there are these kind of groupings of three in creation that reflects his triunity.

And these things can be applied to the various things that you've discussed there, there are elements of three in, and that the unbeliever tries to account for them independent of the triune

God who grounds them. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. And one of the things I'm wondering about is whether or not

I'm pushing it too far. What I'm doing is just thinking out loud and wondering and putting things out on paper and outline and wondering through them and run them by people like you and others who have some experience and knowledge and categories and thinking and patterns and philosophy and logic and scripture.

And so, God is a

Trinitarian being who's the creator of life and the revealer of truth. And Satan works through his servants and tries to get them to be the creator of life and the dispensers of truth.

We know that what mankind is doing is trying to replace God, but it struck me that the categorizations of the actuality of how they're doing this is far more profound than I really was thinking of before and trying to get my hands on it to see if there's something else in it.

Because what I'll sometimes do is get an idea, and I don't know if there's something at the end of the road, but I'll go down the road for a while.

And about 50 % of the time, I discover something new for me, new. Or I see something in a different light.

And the other half of the time, it's just a dead end. It didn't really go anywhere. Sure. And because you and I have talked about stuff like that.

Well, I think what you're doing is just trying different applications of human experience that have some kind of reflection in kind of these like oneness and manyness aspects.

Right. I mean, I don't know if you have Rush Dooney's book,

The One and the Many. Are you familiar with Rush Dooney's book? I mean, he has a book about the problem. Yeah. So he talks about ways in which unbelieving philosophies try to account for, say, the relationship between an individual and the state.

So you have the one individual and the state, this kind of corporate body. And so you have this category of government, categories of justice.

And he's trying to find these applications in, say, like human society. And I think what you're touching on is simply just various applications of that tension between oneness categories, manyness categories.

Right. And asking, hey, is there something to this? And I think that's 100 percent right. The very fact that you utter sentences about justice, about height, length, width and past, present, future, everything you're doing, the entire human experience is going to reflect oneness and manyness categories, which is just a feature of reflecting the triune

God who grounds it all. So I think you're and what I think what you're doing is something that requires further development by Christians is how can we, we know that the triune

God grounds oneness and manyness, but what are the different ways in which we can kind of make real world application showing the connection of how the triune

God grounds this feature of human experience, that future of human experience, this future of human experience? So I think you're touching on something that's very important.

Yeah. And part of it is the issue of as Christians, we can provide the Trinitarian basis for the justification of material, spiritual, conceptual.

We can make sense of it if we presuppose the Trinitarian essence and the unbelievers can't.

And so I'm thinking in the former very well, then I can understand how to undermine the latter very well.

The latter being their ungodly attempt to imitate him and replace him and to show that ultimately they have no bearing or foundation in all those categories.

That's what I'm trying to, to, to work on, but I don't know if I'm intellectually capable of it.

Well, I think you're simply touching on the point that we as presuppositionalists and those who argue transcendentally are always trying to make.

And that, that is without the triune God, who's the metaphysical foundation, who reveals that's the epistemological foundation, the unbeliever cannot account for intelligible experience.

And you're basically getting at that when the unbeliever tries to, he needs to then bring the many of human experience and the oneness of human experience together in a unified fashion.

And he's unable to, because he lacks the epistemological and metaphysical tools to make sense out of the creation, which he finds himself.

He can, but he's also, as Romans chapter one says, he's suppressing the truth and unrighteousness. So he must function in oneness in many categories, but deny the ontological and epistemological foundation for those.

So you're, you're doing a certain application of what the broader presuppositional and transcendental project is trying to do in the first place.

So yeah, I think. So, I mean, if I could share my screen, I could show you, you can see the, how about that?

I just thought of that. And then, like I said, I'm just thinking out loud, you and I've done this on just phone calls for two hours at a time where it's like,

Hey, what about this thing about this? And let's see, let's try this.

And while you're trying to get that up there, the problem of the one of the many seems very abstract and difficult for people to follow.

But the reason why I tried, I started talking about it on my channel is that it was a very underdeveloped and not very much spoken of aspect of presuppositionalism and how it relates to the transcendental argument.

So I'm glad you and others have been trying to talk about it much more because I think there is a goldmine of information and lots of apologetic application if we can get a grasp on it and learn how to contextualize it in meaningful ways in discussions and debates and things like that.

So are you trying to share the screen? Yeah, we'll check here. Along those lines, I think I've got a good paragraph on doing the one in the many.

Okay. So maybe we could work over that as well. Okay. So yeah,

I have something on the one, two here.

Yeah. I just let you guys know, Alyssa, it's okay. Uh, life's been very, very, very, very difficult lately.

A lot of things are going on, so just a lot of stress. Yeah. Did you catch Matt what she thought you were saying?

And that's why she said, did you read that? Or she said that because you were talking about gin and she was thinking gin.

Oh man, that's a good joke. Alyssa.

It is a good Alyssa. That's a good joke. I wish I would've gotten that. That was nice.

And she says, I was joking because he was talking about gin, which is, I didn't get that. I didn't see that.

Okay. The gin that he's talking about Alyssa is J I N N. And it is a category of being within Islam that is neither human nor angelic as this being made of a fire, whether that can be either,

I think they're either good or bad or something along those lines. So that's what she was thinking. So it was a good joke, but I, I mean,

I didn't want you to, you know, I'm sorry that you took it that way and that's no worries. But there's been, let's just say there's been a great deal of stress and strain.

There's some major changes happening at CARM and there's some financial issues. My wife's health, her, her brother's wife is deteriorating quickly.

Uh, we've got issues. My daughters, our daughters, it's just, you know, it's whatever it is.

And, uh, and so I just got to learn to deal with it better. Um, so there it is. You can see the screen.

Okay. Let me, let me share that. Um, and folks, while I'm getting this up on the screen here before he jumps in, uh, again, if you're thinking here, that's okay.

If you're thinking of supporting apologetics ministries, I mean, I know I've asked for support, but if it was a choice between supporting revealed apologetics and supporting

CARM, listen, I'm nothing in terms of what I learned. I would know more than less than half of what

I know if it hadn't been for CARM's ministry. So if you really want to be look for a ministry to bless in the new year, um,

I would highly recommend you go over there to CARM .org and give support. Um, you know,

Matt is, he's getting up there. Although you, although I have to say you look good for your age. I'm not,

I'm not, you sound young and apart from the white hair, you actually don't look that old, man.

People just, just for fun. I know people know how old I am. Let me go to the big, let's do the big screen.

Hold up. Let's see. So I want people to type in how old, how old do I look? And then I'll tell you how old I am.

And if you know how old I am, don't say anything. I wanted people to get the full screen

Matt Slick experience. You don't look that bad, bro. You look fine. Oh, someone already, someone already said it.

Yeah. I just turned 66. Listen, Matt, if there were apologists trading -

Very old, takes a lot of gospel truth. If there were apologetics trading cards,

I would, I would pay lots of money. I would pay lots of money for Matt Slick with a beard instead of Matt Slick without a beard.

There's a reason for that. There's a reason for that. Someone challenged me. At least my husband can grow one.

Then everyone in the room went, ooh, so I had to grow one. And that's what that was about. Listen, Matt Slick with a beard is a much more valuable trading card than Matt Slick without a beard.

And James White with hair is not as worth, is not worth as much as James White without hair.

So there's different values here. Maybe that's something we should, I don't know, apologize. That would be fun. Apologetics trading cards.

And you have to send them to each person. They have to sign them. That's right. Then you collect them. That'd be kind of fun. You got

William Lane Craig with beard, without beard. You got, who else? You can make it happen.

But anyway, go ahead. Let me show you. You just saw me this summer at like 58. Thanks. All right.

So you can see on the screen, this is just what I was working on. I do this in Microsoft OneNote because I can do it with my phone.

Sometimes I go to bed and I'll work on it in bed just to think. I do all kinds of stuff. As you can see, I have all kinds of categories and things.

I'm always working on it. The three? Well, just, you know, material, you know, the material world right there, the spiritual world, the conceptual realm that is.

And so anyway, I was thinking because the unbelievers, and this is just early thoughts, what they seek to do and their goals and their methods.

And then some questions. I haven't even looked at this as I was thinking about it. What I like to do is go through something and then think about, then not think about it, go back to it two weeks later when

I'm told to do something else and then go, oh, that's bad or, oh, that's good. And so the methods are science and not realizing its philosophical foundations.

They use rationality apart from God. Therefore, they cannot account for the universal laws of logic. So they cannot ground their reasoning, you know, just thoughts.

Questions. Can they link all facts and experience backward to the causal chain of events to an ultimate cause?

If they say they can, then what's the ultimate cause? Personal, impersonal, you get into stuff, you know. So there's just some of the thinking because if I can find out, for example,

I was thinking an atheist says blah, blah, blah about something.

Maybe it fits under this category. And if it does fit under that category, then I want to be able to put questions and analysis under here so I can go to it quickly.

And a lot of people don't know. You see me do outlines. And so I do outlines. I would convert this to an outline on Word and then work with it as well so that I can have something to work with.

Anyway, this is what I'm thinking. I don't know if it makes sense or not. No, it makes perfect sense.

And I think it's one of those things that require more work in finding those different applications there.

Now, I could conceive of someone making another category. So if you have like a third, you know, one, two, three, someone might say, well, have you considered this other category?

And then there goes your three category model. However, what doesn't go is oneness and manyness category.

So no matter how many categories you have, whether it's three or five, you still need to make sense out of unity and plurality.

And you're going to need an ontological grounding for that. So yes. Absolutely. So let me open up something since we're talking about the one and the many.

I'll open up my file on. Okay, let's see.

I got so many windows open. There we go. So this is my file on apologetics. Biblical apologetics is 87 pages.

So let's see the one and the many. And so what do you think of this? What is the ultimate nature of reality?

Here we go. If the ultimate nature of reality is one thing, monism, then there are no distinctions between objects like chairs and trees because they would all be one thing.

This leads to incoherence and undermines truth values as they relate to particulars.

Right. And that needs to be expanded. But I can it's like that's exactly correct because everything is one.

How do you have distinctions by which you can draw a contrast, which makes true statements? Yes. So on the other hand, if plurality is ultimate, which is called atomism, then we've lost unity and coherence between particulars and reality becomes a set of unrelated items.

And this also undermines coherence and truth values. Right. So I think that's a good, easy way to deal with the one and the many.

And then I want to get into illustrating it a little bit differently with people. And so you can see

I'm working into areas here, physical reality comprised of and logic and marriage is comprised of single unit to individuals.

One of the many politics is single government with many particular subsections, families, a single unit with multiple members, churches, single unit, multiple members, you know, just society.

So we see the one and the many everywhere. And so I was thinking about this as well, because the one in the many is everywhere.

One society, particular individuals, everything is reflecting the one in the many, everything.

And it's ultimately justified in the very nature of God. Yeah. If folks are interested in this,

I actually have an interview with Dr. Vern Poythress called How the Trinity Explains Everything.

So you're right. It touches on everything. If creation reflects its maker, then obviously its maker is going to be required to have a proper understanding of creation itself.

So I'm going to listen to that because he's good. Yeah. And Brant Bosterman, I have multiple discussions with him.

I mean, when I had Brant Bosterman on, it was the first time he had been on YouTube in years.

And I thought I was just going to have him for like a couple, you know, maybe like 45 minutes. We had a two hour discussion.

And it is one of the best interviews that I had in terms of explaining and expanding on this very issue, especially as it relates to like giving a transcendental argument for the existence of God and the role of the one and the many and how that plays within a transcendental argument.

So I highly recommend folks look up my discussion with Brant Bosterman and Vern Poythress.

So we have covered that topic here. And with Anthony Rogers, we talked about the problem of the one and the many. So he's really good on the

Trinity stuff too. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I've been thinking about that. Here's another question.

See this right here? I'm going to ask you a question. Okay. Is two plus two equal four a moral issue?

Yes. How so? Okay. So every worldview is comprised of at least three major foundations, metaphysical foundation, epistemological foundation, and ethical foundation.

So because metaphysics deals with, there's another three right there. There are other categories, but they can actually be subsumed in a metaphysical aspect or ethical aspect.

But because you have a metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, the ontological situation, that is to say the nature of reality is what it is, impacts our theory of knowledge, how we know what we know.

And that impacts how we should live and think in light of the metaphysical and epistemological situation.

And therefore, because reality is the way that it is, we come to know the way that we do and we stand in relation to our maker.

And we are morally obligated as image bearers of God to think in ways that reflect our maker.

And so when we deny mathematical truths, logical truths, or any truth about the nature of reality and human experience, we are not thinking correctly.

We're not thinking our thoughts after God. And in that case, I would say that's a moral issue.

Bonson, Van Til, Frame would also confirm the idea that knowledge is ethical.

It's not simply an intellectual thing we think about. We are morally obligated to think God's thoughts after him and give him thanks for the fact that we can do that very process.

Yep. What I've been articulating is to say that truth is a reflection of God's character, of his mind.

Two plus two equals four is a universal truth, but it just has its origination in the mind of God. And all that God does is holy.

That's right. All of his thoughts are holy. Therefore, two plus two equals four has a holy value, a truth value, and is therefore morally equated.

And so we are obligated to believe two plus two equals four.

So I had this discussion with some atheists a couple of nights ago at another venue, and I said, ought we believe that two plus two is four?

I didn't say what kind of ought. I just said ought. There's a logical ought.

There's a such thing as a habitual ought. There's an ethical ought. There's different kinds.

And so I said two plus two equals four. And we had an interesting discussion because I said, well, they said, no, it doesn't really matter either way.

And I said, if it doesn't matter either way, then two plus two equals five is equal value of truth as two plus two equals four.

And ought we believe one over the other? And if you say when we ought to believe one or the other, you're requiring a logical ought.

But it's not simply a logical ought. There's another reason. Because the logic and the actuality of these numbers relate in the real world.

So two plus two equals four, you balance your checkbook. If you want to say two plus two is five, you're going to have financial problems later on.

And you certainly don't want doctors to adjust it in machines for surgery. Well, I think two plus two is seven today.

You know, you don't want that. You want precision and accuracy in reality and regularity.

What the unbelievers are doing is undermining the very foundation of regularity absolutes with their subjectivism.

So they don't realize they're slitting their own throats. And so this is why, you know,

I'm putting all this in my head. You know, the nature of God, that's the absolute. His nature is the absolute necessity for all realms of existence and sub realms, ultimately, because everything that exists has its ultimate beginning in the causal chain that cannot go back infinitely, but rest in the infinite mind and presence of God.

And so if I can understand all that better, then I can understand where people's errors fit into them and then address those errors better.

And hopefully that makes sense. Yes. Yeah. You're trying to categorize these things in a more sustained way to use in kind of like meaningful conversation with someone or to evaluate worldview issues or things like that.

You're sharpening your tools of worldview by thinking about this, because everything boils down to the

Trinity, because everything boils down to unity and plurality. That's why you need a grounding for that, because the bringing together of unity and plurality is actually one of the preconditions for intelligible experience.

You cannot account for intelligibility if you have no way of unifying particulars. So in the text,

Redefined Living says, quote, but Matt, that's just your truth. I have my other truth over here. Close quote.

So when atheists give me that, I say, well, my truth is that your truth is wrong. So which is true? And so it's like the brain in the vat issue.

They've been raising this up. So I said, if I'm just a brain in a vat, then that means you are a figment of my imagination.

So prove to me that you're real. Right. And which I had in that article, too.

I remember I posted something years ago. How does one gain salvation?

I didn't explain the context. I just put it out there. And I had people respond from all different perspectives. And my favorite response was just one word response.

And it was actually from a girl I went to high school with. She said, yoga, just yoga, like that.

I was like, yoga, what do you mean? And she kind of explained her view that yoga helps us kind of concentrate and focus and reach a certain point of enlightenment or whatever she was saying.

And then she says, but in reality, all these religious perspectives actually lead us to the same truth.

So they're all paths to the truth. And you've heard stuff like this. And so I said, so you're telling me that all religious perspectives are kind of, they're basically all true?

And she was like, yes. And so I typed and she didn't respond after this. What about the religions that say you're wrong?

Are they right? And there you go. End of the discussion. And that's what happens when you relativize these issues.

Yeah, relativism. By the way, I don't know if I've ever told this to people publicly, but I used to take yoga when

I was like 17. Did you wear a spandex? So I understood what she was saying.

And I know why. I used to do chakra balancing and energy work before I became a Christian.

Oh, yeah, I was into all that stuff. Wait a second. So wait a second. I was looking for a picture to make the thumbnail for the

YouTube channel. And so I was stalking your Facebook pictures. And I noticed something. I noticed something.

And I'm like, because she reminded me with chakra. I am a huge fan of,

I don't watch anime a lot, but I'm a huge fan of the show Naruto. I don't know if you're familiar with this, because I noticed you were holding up a sign.

I think it was, is Jehovah's Witness Christian? And you were wearing a pair of Naruto sweatpants.

It was? Oh, my daughter's got me that. I didn't know what it was.

My daughter's got it to me. That can't be that cool. I mean, Naruto is super cool. So it's your daughter.

Okay. I was wondering, I was like, does Matt watch, look at this.

Laura Anderson says, I can't unsee that now. Matt wearing Naruto sweatpants.

I do. I still have them. I have, I can show them to you. I use them now only for yard work, because they're all beat up. And I have another pair replaced that says

Dunder Mifflin on the leg. All right. That's awesome. So anyway, there's that.

It was just, I don't know if I can continue to show the screen or not. Or I can explain what I do with outlines, or you can look at this, but whatever.

So I've been thinking through this. And really going to town and just, you know, just thinking.

Now I use your outline method all the time. If you guys see there on the left panel there,

I never knew this existed. I mean, I was a Microsoft Word virgin. I was very untrained in the ways of Microsoft.

And what you see on the left panel there is kind of like a table of content. So if you see agnosticism defined, it's kind of stands out as kind of a heading.

And then it pops up on the left and you could actually navigate large word files. You click on the particular, you know, thing in the panel there, and it takes you all the way into your notes to where, you know, that section is.

And now I use that for everything. And it's been super helpful. So not only have I learned theology from Matt and apologetics,

I've learned how to take notes and outline stuff. And I find it super helpful. So. And when you're ready,

I can show you how to add a table of contents and an index, and then you can actually paginate them and make a book out of them.

That's what I do with my outlines on Calvinism, which is what I have here.

I'll show you something. I would love to know. I have no idea how to do that. That sounds awesome. Oh, it's easy. See, look, here's some of the things

I outlines I'm working on. Here's abortion, annihilationism, baptism, biblical apologetics, black people, religious rights.

So here's Calvinism. I just click on it and it'll open up the Calvinism file. And it'll take a sec.

I have four 27 inch monitors. So and I have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 programs open.

Hey, I'm catching up. I have three monitors. I have a television, which

I'm figuring out what to do with it other than play games on it. I have to somehow make it into another monitor.

I got my little three screen setup here. So all I need is something hovering on the top somewhere.

Then I'll have the CARM command center thing going on.

There you go. I could launch a space shuttle from this thing. Not to mention how good the computer is. But anyway, yeah.

So I'm actually thinking about doing a video of how to do outlining and also how to do macros instead of macros.

Because here, I'll show you a trick. Watch this. I've been showing you this shit. This is way off topic. We're just, this is boring.

Don't worry. I think people like this kind of stuff too. I've always thought about the process of like, how do you get everything down the way that you do?

It's nice and organized and stuff. So I think the theology of Microsoft, look at that.

Okay. So here we go. Oops. I'll do it this way. Aye, aye, aye.

So you have information. All right. And watch this. This is why I do outlines. People go, okay.

So they come up here to this thing. They click it and they do that. And then they have information.

They hit tab and they do that. Okay. Hit tab back in there. Get that. They do that and they hit tab.

So they have these different levels. Sure. And then you can hit this and you can come back to, oops.

You can come back to this and you can do one there and you can go to here.

Well, so what I don't like is this line right here.

The A should be over here. Why? Because I'm anal retentive and I got some mental problem.

And I don't like it that it takes so much space and it doesn't look clean to me.

So I developed a macro. I just highlight, hit my macro, look what it does.

There you go. See, look, I don't know anything about those little tricks. Super helpful. It's easy. I should teach this stuff for a living.

So there's that. And then you can also do like Times New Roman. Little macros are little things that are very easy.

There's a Verdana. And what is this? This is to remove a space in between paragraphs.

So it's not going to apply to anything here. And there's all kinds of things that I can show people to do.

What is the standard CARM font for all your articles? Every time

I read stuff and then I read your site, it's just easy on the eyes and it has a certain style about it.

What's the what's Matt Slick's? What's the Slick font? No, I'm not so sure. It's what used to be

Verdana, Verdana 12. And I think now it might be

Arial. But we want what's called a Sans Serif. You guys know what that is? Yeah, yeah.

So this is a Sans Serif. Here, I'll show you. That's a

Sans Serif. And this is a Serif. And what that is,

Sans means out without. That's that little thing right there. That little down little entity.

That down and at the bottom, a little left and right thing. Those are Serifs. This is Sans Serif.

This is a Serif. I just learned something. It's like Gematria. Microsoft Gematria.

I never knew that. I never knew that's what a Serif was. Yeah, so there's Sans Serifs. What I'm doing is holding control while I scroll my mouse.

And so you can highlight everything. And people don't know this. Control A, Control C, Control X, Control V.

You can do all kinds of stuff and you can just make things work. Control Z. I could do all kinds of stuff and have to go back and go back to where I was.

That's awesome. And so I don't like that. I don't like that. I'm going to do this. It's a great way to study too.

If you're not using this, if folks are listening like, well, you know, how is this going to be useful to me? If you're not using it, outlines to do apologetics and stuff, it's a great way to just take notes on what you're studying and just have it as your own reference, outlining stuff.

It's super, super helpful. Now, I have a question for you, Matt. And before I ask the question, I want to encourage folks, if you have any questions, please send them in.

I know there are a lot of comments here and there are some questions as well, but yeah, well, I'd love to take some of your questions.

It could be pretty much about anything, theology, philosophy, apologetics, but I just want to encourage you guys.

You could send those in, preface your question with a question, and we can get to them towards the back end of this episode.

But Matt, do you mind if I remove that from the screen? Sure, I don't care. It's your show. All right, when you study theology, and I know that you've studied systematic theology, ranging from the doctrine of God, all the way to eschatology and everything in between.

In your opinion, what has been the most difficult element of theology to grapple with and to have a firm understanding in?

In other words, when you study biblical anthropology, it's like, okay, man is made in the image of God, he's comprised of physical and spiritual aspect, and we can talk about all those things.

When you get to this part of theology, you're like, okay, this is really challenging. I really need to dig deep. What is that?

Anthropology? I'm sorry? In anthropology? Well, in systematic theology. I just used anthropology as an example.

Most difficult thing I think is to understand is the hypostatic union, for me, and the

Trinity. Those are two pretty much equal, because the Trinity, how does one God exist in three persons? I don't know.

How does one person have two natures? I don't know. Those are the things that I find are difficult conceptually to master to the point where I say, yeah,

I get it. To justification, yeah, I get it. I get it. I can explain it backwards, left, right. Okay, someone says to me, explain the hypostatic union.

Here's what history and the smart people have said. I agree with it because I've compared it with scripture.

I think they're on to something. There we go. If someone were like on my radio show, they'll say, well, how do you know?

Yeah, I'm open to other interviews, Adam. If someone says, how do you know? How is it possible that Jesus could be both

God and man? I just say, I don't know. I don't know how it works. Like, how is it that math relates to reality?

That's a big question. I don't have an answer for that. It's not just a simple answer either. It's a difficult question to answer.

How does a Trinity exist eternally? You've got me. How does it work that God who knows all things from eternity in the

Trinitarian communion, ordained whatsoever shall come to pass and we're free within that ordination?

I'm not exactly sure. A relationship between God's sovereignty and human freedom and moral responsibility.

I think what was helpful for me... And that was not too hard, but yeah. Yeah, I hear some people say that in order to be praiseworthy or blameworthy, you need to have the ability to do other than what you in fact do.

And I think while I can't... I don't know if that's true. I'm sorry? I don't know if that's true. I don't think it's true either.

How do you know it's true? You're making a universal truth statement. How do you know the universal truth statement is true?

Well, if you have at least one counterexample, then it falsifies it. I mean, God is unable to do other than what he does in terms of sin.

He can't sin. But he's praiseworthy. Ask me about this. He's praiseworthy. Okay, here's a question.

Could God have made a world where no one sinned? I think it's possible, but there would be other factors, which

I don't know all the connections there. I guess it would... I mean, yes, I don't think it's impossible for him to do that.

Well, okay, I agree. In a sense of ability, he has the ability because he has the ability.

It's in his nature. He's omnipotent. All right. However, I remember this conversation we had in seminary.

We weren't able to solve it. It makes sense we can't solve it. So I'll see if I can be a bull at a china shop trying to get my way through it.

But if God knows all things and has all wisdom of all knowledge, and the ultimate glory is for himself, then does it restrict him to only do things the most logical, best way?

So... You asked that again. It was a strangely foreign question. Yes. Like I said, bull in a china shop and a bull just go through it.

So if God is free, and I believe he is, of course, he can do whatever he desires.

But here's a thought. He always does what's best. I'm not going to describe what best is.

That's already a hard one. It's already a hard one. But he does what's best according to his nature. Okay. He always does what's the best.

Well, if he always does what's best, he can't do what's second best. So, for example, could he have made the atonement without being crucified?

How about just run through with a sword? Well, let's just use that as an example.

If God has all knowledge at all times, and works completely and totally according to his ultimate wisdom, then the question

I have is, was the cross the only option left that meets all those requirements?

Even though either one would have worked. I think there's something important about the nature of his death, though.

If he was run through with a sword, that doesn't sound very sacrificial.

It seems like the cross kind of displays the self -giving nature of his death.

He wasn't killed immediately. We know, given everything he's done beforehand, he could have come down from that cross if he wanted to.

But there is almost kind of this sacrificial picture that comes across more strongly in, say, the cross, than, say, being run through with a sword.

And so, technically, either one could have worked, depending on a few variables.

But I think what your line of thought is correct, is that it seems of those two options, crucifixion is necessary because of what you said.

So, my thinking is, is God bound by the best? And the best is whatever he thinks.

And he has to do what's best, but yet he's still free. So, I wonder about those things. See, I wouldn't say bound by the best, because I think that language gives the impression that there's something external to him that restrains him.

I think the best is just relative to his purposes. Yeah. So, I would just say, well, relative to God's purpose.

Like people say, you know, death before the fall. You know, they'll say, you know, well, what, you know, if God created everything good, then how could there be death before the fall?

Well, for those who think that there was some kind of death before the fall, I've heard this before, by the way, you could simply say that it was good relative to his purposes.

If God had purposes that he wanted to accomplish, then allowing death prior to the fall in whatever form it came, would have been the best relative to what

God is wanting to accomplish. So, I don't think there's an issue there. But there is a weird kind of way of defining what does the best mean.

Best has to be what's God. So, it becomes theologist. That's right. That's right, yeah.

So, just things, you know, what are you thinking? Well, actually, and I explain it to her. I'll say, did you get that?

And she, I could see the expression of regret for asking me what I'm thinking. Normally, what are you thinking about?

The sports team, you know? No, I'm thinking about the nature of God's knowledge and his infinite knowledge that requires certain thoughts and actions on his part consistent with his holiness.

Right. And his ultimate purpose. She goes, you know, do you ever turn off? I go, nope. I'm watching aliens, maybe, you know?

It's about it. Well, even that, I'm sure you're looking into the theology upon aliens. Redefined Living says,

I would just say that God can do anything that is logically possible. That's true. But not everything that's logically possible is necessarily the best.

Right. The best is gonna have to be relative to what God is intending. What does he want to accomplish?

And in that sense, I think God always does the best relative to his purposes. And that's what I'm saying. His ultimate purpose.

So like even evil, creating a world in which evil was inevitable is the best possible world relative to the purposes that God is wanting to accomplish with redemption and bringing glory to his name through his self -giving and things, these sorts of things.

So they might not be the best in terms of how we, from a man's perspective, might think God should have done it.

But relative to his purposes, I think that this would be, quote unquote, the best possible world relative to his purposes and what he wants to accomplish.

That's right. Amen. So it's just some of the things I think about in wonder. Yeah. So, okay.

So here's another question. So you've debated a lot of people, so many people you don't remember because you debate people with a name, you debate people like unknown people on the internet in the underbelly of the internet, which is kind of like the, you know, you have like New York city and then there's like the underground, like when people are sleeping, there's like the nightlife and you travel to the underbelly of the internet, a magical place called discord and clubhouse, which is very interesting.

So here's my question for you, okay? I want you to expose some vulnerability here.

Have you ever engaged in a debate, either formal or informal, that you honestly think you lost?

The only one really is with, what's his name?

The Catholic guy. St. Janice? St. Janice. We had three discussions on the radio and they weren't really debates, they were just interview discussions.

And I told people, I says, I really think he did better than I did our first discussion. That's my honest opinion.

Yeah. And then the second time we went about even, that's my honest opinion.

And the third time he was up against the ropes. So I would say that was one.

But people have different degrees of how they would judge success and failure. Because one thing, it can look like someone succeeds when they're really failing.

And a lot of people don't know that. So it works both ways because someone could ask me a question they think is a gotcha and I answer it.

But they come back with something that isn't really relevant to what it is and it sounds like they're right, but they haven't got it.

And so some people will say, oh, Matt lost or Matt won or that guy lost or that guy won. So a lot of it's for perception.

But I honestly believe that the first time I met St. Janice, that he got the best of me on our first discussion.

Those are the ones I remember. And then I studied and then it was at the table.

Well, he called in your show, right? Yeah, it was arranged. It was arranged, yeah. It was prearranged. Were you aware of him prior to him calling?

No. See, so in your defense, OK, you talk to just about anybody and you can't know how much prep is required to talk because there's prep that's required to talk to certain individuals.

Certain individuals, you could take a phone call and answer general questions. You know, like if I was an atheist and I was just answering questions from random

Christians and then like a William Lane Craig or James White happened to call. I mean, as an atheist, I'd be like, oh, crap, like I need to prepare a little bit.

I don't want to look like an idiot. So in your defense, you didn't know that you you didn't know much about him. So you had no knowledge of the fact that he had a very deep knowledge in church history and all these issues.

So, you know, that can catch you off guard. And that's just the the nature of what you do. I mean, yeah, it's it's random.

And that's what makes it exciting. But at the same time, you're putting yourself out there and there's going to be risks and failures.

I can't win every argument and always look good every time. Yeah, you just can't do it.

I've had my favorite. I should have like a plaque with screenshots and frames and my favorite

Matt Slick moments. I've listened to you since I was in high school. I graduated 2001 and I have my favorites, my favorite.

I've said it before and you've heard me say this. My favorite, you know, kind of thug thug life moment for Matt Slick is when you were debating this guy.

And by the way, the guy that I'm referring to, I don't know his name, but he actually commented on one of my videos saying he wanted to debate me.

And I don't know if he could ever recover from what you did to him. You gave him a scripture to grapple with over the issue of baptism.

And as he was reading it, you can hear him sub vocalizing and you walked to the bathroom.

And you still had your headphones on and you were talking to him. Keep reading, keep reading.

You're trying to make like some point. And I'm like, Matt Slick is debating someone from the bathroom. It doesn't get better than that.

And this guy, of course, he was he had no way of responding to. It really got him. I thought that was that was my favorite.

And I also love when you do kind of like these open calls and like someone will call and they haven't identified the perspective they're coming from.

And so they'll be like, well, I know I would actually challenge something you said here, so on and so forth. And you would say, well, are you an atheist?

And then you just you can hear the person. Well, good.

I'm like, dude, once you say yes, it's over, bro. Everyone hesitates.

Are you Jehovah's Witness? And then there's this awkward silence. And I'm like, oh, please don't say yes. Yes. OK, here it goes.

And then you just go in on them. Those are fun moments. You know, obviously, it's not about the gotcha moments, but they're they're stinking fun when

I'm driving up to. You like that kind of stuff. People like different things. When I most people refer to is the time

I had that discussion with the baptism guy, Church of Christ guy. Yeah. And I'm in a casual shirt.

Yes. And I was at I was down visiting Ray Comfort's ministry.

Yes. And in L .A. area and in Blaine Park. I mean, yeah, that's right.

And it was I used to live in Bellflower, which is I could walk from where I used to live to their headquarters for real.

When I was a kid, it was. And so anyway, I'm talking to them and I said, hey, by the way, you know, would you be willing to do a debate with somebody?

On what? You know, baptism. OK, when? In two hours. OK, you want to talk?

Sure. And I'm dressed like in one of these shirts, you know, and and he goes,

OK. And I think he'll be over at the house. We'll have a talk. Fine, let's go talk. There's cameras there and everything.

I had my students watch that for our logic class, and it was hilarious. They loved it, by the way.

They thought you did excellent. They kept laughing when the person said something.

Tim said something that was borderline heretical. And you would take off your glasses. You take off your glasses on and off.

And they started laughing. Oh, he's about to go in on it. He's like, you're a flaming heretic. Just bursts of laughter and poor

Tim. He's got this big round face. He's like the kids kept calling him the red faced guy.

Which one is not slick? Is that the red face guy or the other guy who keeps taking his glasses off?

It was awesome. Yeah, yeah, you know, he did. He wasn't. He wasn't a very good opponent.

I'm not being derogatory. It was a nice guy, but he's a nice guy. And and, you know, we talked and he wasn't well, well versed in it.

There are better representatives of that position, but I'm not disrespecting him. In fact, afterwards, we had a conversation and I remember talking and I went straight to him and I said, look,

I said, you have to understand. I said, you're teaching a false gospel. I said, I'm not angry at you, but you're adding a work to salvation.

And so your salvation is best based on you and the ceremony that you perform in order to be justified.

But before God, I said, that's that's that's not the gospel. And, you know, so I was pleading with them in a polite way.

But that was one of the that's one of the better ones. And then atheists claim that they beat me all the time.

I just disregard that. And Muslims, I did this once. I had two computers and I was in on a different name and I was having a debate impromptu debate discussion with somebody and it was kind of set up.

So it was kind of official and unofficial debate. I forgot who it was. Aaron Ra, that's a good one.

And so I had myself on this computer and I'm in as another name insulting me in the chat while I'm debating.

And I would go back and forth and I would talk to the imagined idiot. And I'm writing it right. And so I was having fun and the

Muslims were, yeah, that's right. He is. And so I'm having fun with that. And then so I was answering this guy's questions left and right.

And not that I answered every single one. There's only so much you can only answer so many things. You got a time period. And he couldn't answer,

I think, maybe but one of my questions. I remember that was that was the case. Not my biased view.

It was the case. He didn't understand. And then when, OK, thank you very much. And OK, bye. See you, bye.

And I went back over the computer and I listened and I watched. And all the Muslims said, you destroyed

Matt. He had no answers. And I remember that so clearly that they would say the bias is so clear.

So from then on, I started looking what makes a debate successful or not successful?

Not the appearance. Not that he appeared right or wrong. Always go with the content.

And that's what I from there on. I really look right here. This this I I wish

I wish we can do this. Like guys, if you have a favorite Matt Slick moment, put it in the chat. I would love to share it on the screen and see if I could remember.

I didn't remember a Matt Slick debated Aaron Ra and you were like, I'm going to I'm going to test you. He said, is

God transcended? And then Aaron Ross says, what is he transcending? And you just bursted out in laughter because he had no clue.

I mean, he claimed to be someone who knew these things and didn't. That was a fun one. And then your

Dan Barker one was good as well. Let's see here. That was that was a good debate.

In fact, here's something this is we're talking about it. I debated Eddie Tabash here at Boise State University.

And so I use the cosmological argument on him, but I'm known also for the tag argument.

So people call me up on the radio and said, what argument are you going to use? And I said, I could tell you, but I will say this.

I'm going to use a lot of logic. I assumed that what they assumed would be

I'd be using tag. But I was going to use logic, only the cosmological argument.

So I assumed that this person is going to get back. And so we had this debate. I use a cosmological argument.

He couldn't answer it. An atheist came up to me afterwards. Two interesting things happened. The atheist came to me and said, look,

I believe you won the debate. I don't believe he's able to answer you. He said, but I disagree with you. And I said, OK, let's talk. And then a guy came up to me later afterwards and said he overheard

Tabash say, I thought he was going to use a tag argument. And so the the setup worked.

Anyway, yeah, it's good stuff, man. Jacob Glass says, why would you do this live at the same time?

Andrew Rappaport and James White are debating an atheist. You're killing me. I don't know what to watch. Well, you're here, so I'm glad you chose this one.

I was listening to it partially, so I probably will go back and listen to that.

Let's go see what they were going to have on tonight. I was going to join him, but I didn't know he was going to have James White on. So yeah, let's see if we can get a couple of questions here.

So Alyssa Scott. Smalling was good. That was good. Good, good. You're right. Yes, that's right. That's right. And I like your Matt Dillahunty, the early ones when you called in the show where he.

Sorry, saw something made me laugh. Sean. What does

Sean say? I can't see it. Honestly, I've never seen Matt Slick use logic or do good against anyone.

Against anyone? Come on. That's just as honest. I mean, you could hate you could hate

Matt Slick all you want to say that he's never done good against anyone is just ridiculous. Come on.

Oh, look at this. What's Eric Alharb? What's Slick talking about? It is that it passes bedtime.

No, I go to bed usually in another six hours. All right. So Alyssa Scott is asking the question.

She says flesh out. She says flush out, but I'm sure she said she means flesh out. How God is the necessary precondition for beauty and history.

The history one's easy. The beauty one, not so easy history because it's a series of events and all events go back to the initial cause, the causal chain.

So history is just nothing more than a series of events that are then recorded and interpreted. And all causal events have to go back to the initiating event, the first cause that we got.

Beauty, however, because without, see beauty is both subjective and objective.

It's subjective. I think what's beautiful is aliens chasing someone down a dark hallway. I think it's beauty.

And I can see that. And my wife's beautiful. Okay. And so.

Not in the same way though. Not in the same way. Things are bailing me out. Oh boy. That could have gone real bad.

You just saved me. When I look into your eyes, I just think of running down a long hallway. Well, I do.

I say something stupid to her. You know, I got to get away. But, you know, she's a good looking woman.

And so, you know, great. But that's beauty. But, you know, then people become beautiful by listening to them, by spending time with them.

Okay. So these are all subjective kind of things. What is beauty? Well, I think that the true beauty rests in what

God is and that the ultimate standard of beauty is God himself. Because beauty, if it's subjective, if all beauty is subjective, then nothing is beautiful objectively.

So if you're going to deny objective beauty, then there is no issue. You're just, you know, subjective.

And if you're going to say something's objectively beautiful, we can just say by what standard? Right. By what standard?

That's right. Objectively, whose standard? That's right. Reform Rookie. This is also a friend of mine,

Anthony Vennio, who I had on the show a couple of times. Great guy, good friend of mine. He says, does

Matt hold true to Jesus' impeccability? Why don't you define impeccability and then give us a quick and slick answer like you just did.

Non -corruptibility. Yes. He's, he cannot be corrupted in any way, shape or form. And the reason is because two doctrines, hypostatic union, communicati vidi matem.

Hypostatic union at Jesus has two distinct natures, divine nature and a human nature into one person. And the attributes of both natures are ascribed to the single person.

That's the communication of the properties. Also in Latin known as the communicatio idiomatum. It's a very important doctrine.

So the attributes of holiness are imputed to the person of Christ, though therefore he cannot send, he cannot do that.

That's right. Very good. I agree, though. Those are good. Yes, you passed the test. All right.

Let's see here. Humble Clay says, if interview is more beautiful than outer beauty, in that case,

I'm incredibly handsome. That's right. OK, let's see here.

Do I look 66? Incidentally, I want to see people see what they say.

I'm 66. People think I look 66. How old are you? How old am I? How old do you think you look?

To me, you look 35. Yes. So I'm 40. But everyone thinks

I'm in my late 20s or mid 30s. And I'll run with that. I'm Puerto Rican. So we age very well.

Like fine wine. I don't even have to go to the beach for this tan. I got this caramel, you know, complexion.

So, you know, you said no. Yeah. So I assume abuelo ahorita.

You're not a grandfather yet. Are you speaking in tongues or what? What was that? You're Puerto Rican. A little Spanish there. Hey, I'm I'm New Yurican.

It's different. OK, Nudurican. Nudurican? I'm New Yurican. Oh, New Yurican.

OK. I'm Hispanic, but I don't know Spanish very well, which is pretty bad. All right. Davinsky Macalester.

That's a fun name. I love that. Mr. Slick, how do you back all that up?

Obviously, without causing security concerns. Now, if you're wondering how they back it up, he's talking about all that information you have on your laptop or computer.

I have it all memorized. There we go. All the spaces, punctuations. No, I use two online services,

Dropbox and Carbonite. So I use two of them.

And then occasionally I'll take my hard drive and I'll put it in a hard drive thing over there. And I'll just take my one folder and put everything in there.

And I could tell people I used to be computer tech for five years. OK, and I do all this tech stuff all the time.

And so what I would say is that put everything. I could show it to you guys right now if you want. Put everything in one folder and have everything in subfolders inside the one folder, everything.

Don't put stuff in your desktop. Oh, save it. Don't do it. I have my desktop is completely filled.

You would think I'm such a loser, but you're a loser because you lose it. OK, I'll show you something.

Remember, this is a tech guy talking. OK, this right here is a two terabyte flash drive.

All right, terabytes, two. I can put entire contents of my single folder, which

I used, I call it Dropbox, and everything's inside of that. I can put everything in here. If I have everything right here, just in this one place,

I'm going to lose it. Going to lose it. And I move it across the computer screen, which is electromagnetic screen.

Maybe I screwed up just now. I don't know. Probably not. Well, I got backups.

And so I just tell people if you have it on one of these or a hard drive, you're just going to lose it.

Not if. You're going to. Guaranteed. Absolutely. This is why you need to have it on multiple sources, at least three different ones.

I prefer two online sources and at least one or two additional hard sources.

I could go into that right back there, that door. I can get a box of hard drives and set them down here and show hard drives.

And so I'm a tech guy and I've lost information over the years. So I'm paranoid about losing anything. Use Dropbox, pay for it.

Let me tell you something. I tell people this. I say, look, you have a laptop and you've got 10 years of work on it.

10 years. And your laptop costs $1 ,000. And you got 10 years of work on this thing.

And it's perfect. You got so much stuff. And someone steals your laptop. 10 years of work is gone.

But if I said to you, I've got all of your information on this for $2 ,000,

I'll give it back to you. Would you pay it? 10 years of work? You'd say, you'd buy something.

You'd go, yeah, I have to. I'd throw in some chocolates and some flowers. Yes, whatever you want. That's right.

That's what they do with the bad guys. They'll hold your data hostage. The computer is a hostage.

So that's why I say do that. So I've had my hard drives crash. Just turn the computer on and all the files on it are gone.

Technically, yes. Technically, no. Anyway, it depends on some things, some variables. So I just get a new hard drive.

That's what I used to do. Put it in or an M .2. Now put it in, blah, blah, blah. Go into Dropbox. Go online, install the thing.

Put it right here. Look at it. Download. Takes a couple, three, four hours. It's all done.

I'm back in business. Yeah. Dropbox Carbonite. And Carm had experienced some years ago, had experienced a crash where I remember you were like my entire website.

I remember trying to look something up. It was like a little dude saying, Carm no longer exists. No, I didn't say that.

But it was something along those lines. A weird screen popped up. I was like, yeah, yeah. I remember. We were at 97 ,000 page views a day.

Yeah. And we dropped down to 16. Yeah. Over years. Hard to recover after that.

Yeah. And now we're about mid 30s. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Now this is a good one. Dennis McCollin says,

Serif is pronounced Sheriff. Former graphic designer here. I did not know that. Let's see.

I'm going to go check it out right now. I gotta check it out because I've never heard that, but I'm hoping to be corrected.

Define S -E -R -I -F. And it goes Serif. S -E -R -E -F.

Oh, so it's not Sheriff. No, it's just what it says. And I could share the screen, but whatever.

But it's S, then an E, then an R, then a backwards E, then an F. Okay. The pronunciation.

Okay. Look at that. That's pretty interesting there. David Farris says, Please explain Jesus had to be fully man for his death and resurrection to...

And he doesn't finish his question. He's going to finish the questions. And he says, Sorry, I didn't finish the question.

Did you finish the question later? Oh, here we go. Here it is. I'm sorry. Why did Jesus need to be both man and God for his death and resurrection to be viable when it comes to man's salvation?

Okay. Let me start with an illustration and a principle. And then we can build on the principle of this illustration.

And it's a really simple one. If I offend you, Eli, I need to go to you and ask forgiveness.

I don't go to my wife and say, I insulted Eli. Could you please forgive me? She'd look at me and say, what?

Because she's not involved in the offense. The one who's offended is the one who forgives. That's a basic principle.

Okay. And that'll work because it's a basic principle. All right. When we sin, who do we sin against?

God. Who's going to forgive us? God. All right. That's one thing we get. We get it. God's going to forgive. But here's another concept.

And I'll use this with, I use it with Muslims. There's a man who's very evil, murdered million people, raped many people, pedophile, thief, extortionist.

This guy's one of the worst guys around. He's caught. There's film and 200 witnesses.

Right. And at the trial, he's found guilty. I mean, the jury says, we're not even going to go deliberate.

We're just going to tell you right now. He's guilty. Okay. That's how bad this guy was. Right. And the judge says to him, you've been found guilty.

You deserve death. The law requires it. Eh, go free. Now the question then becomes, is that a good judge?

And I've asked Muslims this. They say, no, it's a bad judge. Why is this important?

Why is he a bad judge? Because he's ignoring the law and the requirement of the righteousness of the law.

With God, the law is a reflection of his character. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, Matthew 12, 34.

So God has said, thou shalt not lie. So if we lie, we've offended God.

Now, if I were to slap you upside the head, you might take a step back, take a swing at me. You might say, what was that for?

But if I slap this guy who's occupying the house or seat of the president, and he's involved with a crime family.

So if this, if I were to slap that individual upside the head, then

I would go to jail as a federal offense. The exact same action gets a different result depending on who it's against.

When we slap God in the face, it's an infinite occurrence because it's an infinite offense because of the one who's offended.

All right, the law requires that it be met because if God does not satisfy the requirement of his own law, then he's unrighteous.

So if he says, don't lie, what is a slogan? There must be a punishment associated with breaking that law.

And God says, the day they eat of the fruit, you're gonna die. Genesis 2, 17. So the nature of the law is it has a punishment with it.

If God ignores his own law, then he's unrighteous. Okay, now these are principles.

So when we sin, we sin against God, but we're not capable of undoing the offense against God.

Only he can. No one's left. He has to do it because we need an infinite satisfaction because of the infinite offense.

We're not capable automatically of doing that. God knows that. So he has to step in since he's the one who's offended.

He's also the one who forgives. But the payment was what we see, the payment of death on the cross is the satisfaction of the requirement of the law.

Way to the sin is death. Romans 6, 23. The soul that sins shall die. Ezekiel 18, 4.

And so even though Jesus' soul never sinned. Okay, that's a whole nother thing.

So putting all this together, I hope this is making sense. So he had to be

God in order to offer a sacrifice sufficient on an infinite level on God's behalf.

And he had to be made under the law, Galatians 4, 4 in order to satisfy the requirements of the law, which are a reflection of God's character.

Because if the law is ignored and God is unrighteous, the law requires punishment. So he became under the law and took the punishment.

And sin's a legal debt. Legal debts can be transferred. So our debts were transferred to him. He is now the offended and the one who takes the law punishment upon himself.

So he's now the forgiver and the justifier. He can forgive because he has that ability.

He's the one, but he can't ignore his own law. The law requires judgment. So he fell under that judgment.

And so now the law is satisfied. The righteousness of God is satisfied. Therefore, he could be merciful, which is not getting what we deserve.

And he could be gracious, which is getting what we don't deserve. While the law is met. And so we get forgiveness.

He had to be man in order to die for men and God in order to appease

God. And in the union, and here's something else a lot of people don't realize. In the union of the two natures in the one person, we see as Jesus walks on water, we see legs walk on water and a man with his hair blowing in the wind.

We see the divine manifested through the human. When he says peace, be still to the storm.

We see the divine manifested through the human. So the human was on the cross.

The divinity is manifested in his personhood. The person died on the cross. And so therefore, the sacrifice of divine value without Jesus being both divine and human.

We don't have a sacrifice for that's sufficient to appease the infinite God. And without him being human, we don't have a sacrifice on behalf of humans on people.

So therefore he has to be both. And that's why he has to be the one to do it. I hope that makes sense. And that, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

And this is a really important distinction between, say, the God of Christianity and the God of Islam, who can just forgive.

And people think this is a greater quality that Allah can simply forgive. And none of these things are required. Actually, it's not.

As Matt said, the reason why death is required is because God cares about his character and he acts consistently with it so that justice is fulfilled, even in the midst of, you know, forgiveness and these sorts of things.

So, yeah, I always love that explanation that you gave and that always puts things into perspective, shows how holy

God is and how consistent he is. So, yeah, excellent. Randall had a question. What if I've sinned against someone and they don't know it?

Then what do you do? What, like if a person sins against another person and they don't know it?

Say you or me have sinned against somebody, but that somebody doesn't know it. What do we do? Well, it should be simple.

Yeah, well, we should go to that person, right? Leave your gift at the altar, go and find the person you've sinned against and make amends.

Where's that? It's in Matthew somewhere. Matthew 5. So, yes.

And if we have sinned against... That's good. So we need to, you know, make things right with people, because if we have anger in our hearts, we need to deal with it.

And we need to rectify it before God, because ultimately our sin is against God.

You know, when David murdered Uriah, he said against you, talking to God against you.

And you only have I sinned. It's his law we're breaking. What he was saying, he didn't say he wasn't sinning against.

Well, he says only. It's another exaggeration. But he's really pointing to the law giver. And this is why it's necessary for God to be the one who does it.

I have actually have an article on Karm on this. Why must God be the one who dies for our sins and for forgiveness? And I go through logical steps, but I don't know, 10, 15 of them.

Wrote it a long time ago. All right, awesome. Let's see here. I'm just going to move down quickly here.

We're almost done here. Eli is 50. Wow, Vinny. Thank you very much. Eli is 50.

Not even close. 50 what? Yeah, 50 what? Yeah. Years old or IQ points.

See, now he now he's, you know, and Alyssa Alyssa adding insult to injury. She says you look 48.

Well, that's younger, I guess. That's well, it's a light on me in this angle. I look 48 in the mirror in the morning.

I look about 108. All right. Let's see here. You look 62.

Oh man. Okay. Let's see here. How old did you say you were? I'm 66.

I just turned 66 a week and a half ago. You're a baby. You're a baby. I think that's the last question.

I didn't miss anything. Well, this was fun, man. I appreciate you coming on and hanging out with me.

And I always learn something. So I appreciate it. There was something I said once to you.

I forget what it was. You went, oh, that's all. That's great. It's so simple. Oh, I remember what it was.

I can't remember this. Just over the phone or when you were on a mission? We're talking about multiverses.

Okay. I'm trying to remember now. And you said we got tied up multiverses, you know, or there's an infinite number of universes.

Okay. That's a case. I'm talking to an atheist. He says, well, you know, there's an infinite number of universes. I said, well, that means you're a

Christian. Because he has to be a believer in one of the possible worlds or something like that.

Yeah. And in one of those worlds right now, you are snotting on yourself here for not being a true

Christian. In fact, he's insulting you right now. So I want to know which one of you is right. Okay. So you just made me think of something.

I had a conversation with a student of mine who loves science fiction and was talking about time travel.

There's my novel right there. There's my science fiction novel right there. Yes. The wooden cross is just leaning against it.

But that's Time Trap, my novel. All right. Yeah. Check it out. Amazon, right? You can get it on Amazon. And The Influence.

I've actually given that book to someone as a gift. Excellent book. I'm rewriting it. I want to run my...

I'm rewriting it. Yeah. I'm just polishing it up. Sure, sure, sure. I'm halfway through it. I'm going to re -release it. And then

I'm working on this idea for a second novel, which I think I got a really good idea. Oh, yeah. All right.

Cool. Well, my question for you is the issue of time travel. Now, I thought...

Now, time travel in kind of like the science fiction sense, like going back and seeing younger versions of yourself.

And a student was saying, well, how do you know that's not possible? It seems like it's something that could be possible.

And I said, well, and you can let me know what you think. I said that time travel of that sort would actually make you run into the issue of the problem of personal identity.

Because from a Christian perspective, if who we are is not simply our physical body, but the spiritual aspect of who we are that's made in the image of God, who are you really if your present version of yourself visits a past version of yourself?

Now you have two physical beings occupying two different places in space.

Are you sharing between two separate bodies the same spirit? Or is there a different spirit occupying the younger version of yourself?

From a Christian perspective, that actually would contradict personal identity through time. And so I said from a Christian perspective, that idea of time travel would actually have unbiblical implications.

Am I on the right track on that? Or am I way off? Oh, I wasn't listening. You started talking. I drifted off.

Actually, that's an interesting personal identity. I didn't really thought of it that way. But I would wonder if like time folding a piece of paper and the identity on a timeline, you are the same person.

But when you fold it, the one line meets, you're still the same person, just in a different time.

So I wonder if there's a way to get around that from that. But that's an interesting concept, personal identity. Because if you were to meet, like Spock did in one of the

Star Trek movies, where he met his older self, that would require then that the younger

Spock, when he became the older Spock, would have the memory of talking to himself. Yes.

And people say it's paradoxical. I don't think it's paradoxical. I think it's contradictory. But I think that if I'm looking at the...

If I'm occupying, if I travel to the past, it will then be my present.

As I'm talking to the past version of myself, the I talking to my past self,

I'm actually experiencing the present. It's your present. And it's his present too. So you have two presents. That's right.

But I'm in a different part of the timeline and we're occupying different areas of space. So there has to be a distinction.

We can't share the same spirit like that. That would be, that doesn't make any sense. So then you would have multiple yous, which doesn't make sense.

Personal identity is thrown out the window, it seems. Well, I think that would be a challenge if property dualism was true.

Oh, okay. That's another thing we could talk about. Yeah, that's true. And it depends on which version of the anthropology do you hold to, right?

Yeah, I'm a property dualist. Or substantive dualist, sorry. Substantive dualist. Look what Randall, I got to ask.

Hey, Randall, you said you read all three of my novels, Time Trap, The Influence, The Atheistica. Which one did you like the most?

I just like to hear what people say. Yeah, yeah. Well, we'll let him type that in. We have just a few more questions, maybe like two of them left.

You want to tackle some of them? Sure, no problem. Okay. So The Sire, or Vinny, I think you know who he is.

Maybe you do. Do you know who Vinny is? No. The Sire, he goes by the fake Greg Bonson on Facebook.

Oh, okay, yeah, okay. He says, what is your biggest takeaways from this year? The one that pops in mind is my wife's health and her suffering, and how

I've changed through the year to become a better servant to her.

Not that I'm good, but the biggest thing I've had to deal with this year is myself, and my failures, and my selfishness, and my irritability, and so many other things that pop up periodically as I get more and more stressed.

But to my utter surprise, I don't mind serving my wife. And if you know my heart, filthy, vile, sinner, piece of crap that I am,

I'm surprised that I have the desire to serve her and just help her.

So that's the big takeaway. And that's just a glory to God. That's all I can say. Yeah, praise

God. That's great. All right, so Randall says, it's difficult. The Influence and Time Trap were my favorites, though, for different reasons.

So I mean, I guess he has two tied for first there. The Influence would make a great movie, too.

I think Time Trap would also. But who would star in it? Who would star in it? Who'd star in it?

Which one? Well, any of them. I don't know if you know this, but I actually wanted to be an actor before I went to seminary.

Before I met my wife, I actually was on my way to... I was scheduled at the Paramount Building in Times Square to get an agent.

I was going to get into movies. I love acting. And you could play Mark in The Influence.

Okay. Or Jake in Time Trap. Because Mark's both of my main characters.

And I know just the people who can play the demons. I got some ugly friends around here that'll be willing to... Hey, I would be glad to play some heinous loser in something.

Because that's what I'm worthy of. That's awesome. All right, well, one last question, then we'll wrap things up here.

Here's another one from the Sire. He says, is heaven a physical place? If not, then where did Enoch and Elijah go?

That's a fun question. It's a good one. There's three heavens in cosmology, Jewish cosmology.

The first one is where the wind is and the birds and the clouds. And the second is the stars, moon, sun.

And then the third is the dwelling place of God. And so when it says he went to heaven, we don't know exactly what that means.

Does it mean someplace in the second heaven? It's logically possible, but I don't really think that's what it means.

I think he went to be with the presence of God. And since we are localized and have physical bodies, then

I would think that where we are is going to be localized and a physical location.

And I can't help but wonder if God is going to create for us an aspect of heaven that is localized.

Wait, okay, so, okay, so I'm confused. So when we die, we will exist in a disembodied state until resurrection.

So if we are existing in a disembodied state in the presence of the Lord, are we in heaven when we die?

And if so, are we in a physical place as disembodied souls?

Is that what you're saying? You can read my novel, Time Trap, and see what happened to Jake when something like that happened to him, but he didn't go to heaven.

That was an interesting thing about the creature. Okay. Yeah, Randall knows what I'm talking about. That was a hard and yet fun chapter to write.

So yeah, I thought about that too. We don't, you know, physicality. Is heaven physical?

Well, I don't like to say that I relate to time the same way God does, because I just don't know what God's nature is.

But we do know that Jesus in a physical form went up into heaven.

That's right. He's still in. He's a man right now. That's right. So there has to be a localized sense, a physical sense of existence that we can call the third heaven, which is that place of knowing the place of God, I think is logically necessary.

And I think that what God has done and probably has done, or maybe, I got another theory about this, which is off, just off the wall theory.

But I think it might be a place of a Shekinah presence. And that's heaven.

And it's an actual physical place, because we got to be in a physical place, because that's our nature. Even disembodied, we have to be in a physical place because we're centralized.

We're not everywhere. So we have a localized thing. And we think one thought after another. That's time. I can't help but wonder if all the trillions, quadrillions of galaxies out there,

I wonder if God's going to say, hey, Matt, see that one over there? That's yours. Go. And you get to go and see billions of stars and the planets and the stuff.

You know, and let's say that there's millions of us. I got a thought

I want to talk to you about, too, about the time of the Gentiles. But I don't know what heaven's going to be like.

But it's going to be better than what we can imagine. Now, something as mundane as going to visit a galaxy, because I like that kind of stuff.

In Genesis chapter 1, where it says in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, the phrase heavens and the earth referred to the universe.

Because in Hebrew, there is no word for universe. Heavens and the earth kind of constitute the universe. So if you take that idea and think in terms of God creating a new heavens and earth, we can understand that of creating a new universe.

And that would constitute a physical reality because we are going to be raised in physical bodies.

So it may be the case that there is a recreated universe in which we will have eternity to travel and enjoy.

Something that we, you know, obviously don't enjoy at the very moment. This is a fun one here.

Someone said, who met Abel on the entrance to heaven in their 80s or whatever. It's like when you're the first person to die, you're like, yeah, this is very anti -climatic.

The angels would have been there. And look what Laura says. She goes, as long as you don't get your own planet. You know, my scenario kind of lends itself to getting a planet.

Maybe just something to the desk. Don't let the morning do that because then you forget about it. Okay, here's a thought.

All right, excuse me. Would you, this is subjective.

Do you think the Protestant church as a whole is going apostate?

There's a lot of good churches out there as a whole. Do you think it's getting worse? I think that sets an ambiguous question.

Protestant church as a whole. I mean, the whole is comprised of parts.

Are you asking the majority of Protestants going apostate? Yeah. I don't,

I would be impossible for me to say because I'd only be able to give you representative examples of say, certain churches, certain people.

Even people sitting under false teaching doesn't mean that the people sitting under false teaching are necessarily accepting it, but they're kind of just there for whatever reasons.

So I don't know if I could answer that question. I think it'd be too ambiguous. And I think that's a fair response.

So I was talking to a friend of mine named Trevor Rubinstein today. He got me thinking about something. And Trevor would be a great guy for you to have on your show just to talk to.

He's a Jewish guy who's a hardcore Christian, loves the Lord Jesus. And he's involved with a ministry that reaches out to Jews.

Okay. He's a godly man. He's a good man. In fact, when I go to Israel in a couple of months, he happens to be there with his wife.

And we're going to see if we can get him to come into the tour. I'm going to see if he can. We talked to the guy who's running it and see if we could get him to teach a little because he's so good at all this.

I'd love to go back to Israel, man. That's a great trip. Oh, it is. It is. So he made a comment, which

I never put together. That's interesting. He said, so -and -so, he gave a guy's name, did some research and found that when there's a revival of the

Jews, when they start becoming Christians, they soon after get killed. And he told me there was an instance

I didn't know about in the 1800s when Jews were becoming Christians and then a certain war upon them occurred and millions were killed or something like that.

Then he said in the 1920s, I think it was 20s, he said, teens and 20s, that there was a revival among the

Jewish people where they were becoming Christians, completed Jews. The Holocaust occurred.

And I went, OK, that's interesting. And I hadn't thought of that. And I was wondering.

We got talking about it, if that's true. He was quoting somebody else that seems to have done the research, did a

PhD thesis on this, apparently, and he's researching this. So there's some merit to it. All right. And he said, hey, he goes, he asked me, he goes, do you think the time of the

Gentiles might be coming to a close? And I'm like, hmm, because, you know,

Luke, I mean, Romans 11, 24, 25, 26. And because he says, he's saying this, he's saying more and more

Jews are becoming Christians right now than ever before. All across the board, he goes, hundreds of thousands are becoming

Christians. And I didn't even I'd never heard of this, but he knows. And he says he wonders if a persecution is going to come upon them.

And now antisemitism is on the rise. And but then he says, and each time this is what's interesting.

He said that this guy's research, I think it was from him. And if you ever interviewed Trevor, he'll correct me on this because I probably got something wrong.

Sure. That remember the thought? Oh, yeah. That the reason the

Jews are becoming Christians was because the Christians were evangelizing the

Jews. And so therefore, there was a movement of the Jews into Christianity. He said, but now that's not happening.

There's not a movement of the Christians witnessing to the Jews. I mean, there's a few here and there.

But it's not like it was in any time in history that they're aware of. And yet now more than ever,

Jews are coming into the faith. And that's what prompted him to say, could it be that the time of the

Gentiles is coming to a close? Now, okay, that's interesting.

So now this has bearing on people's eschatological views, too. Yeah. Like the time of the

Gentiles, what paradigm are we interpreting that under? Yeah. That's why if you're post -millennial, you're just stupid, whacked and don't know how to, you know, it's just ridiculous.

I mean, well, I don't know. Bonson was stupid and whacked. I think he's pretty. Oh, I gotta eat those words now.

Bonson was a hardcore post -millennialist. Yeah, he was. You are, too. You're post -millennial.

I'm on mill. I'm a pessimistic on millennialist. But it's an interesting question, though.

You know? Yeah, it is. It is. Here's something else. Yeah, go ahead. No, no, go ahead. I'm just going to say it's interesting to see.

I was actually thinking about this today. Just thinking about the end, so to speak, and how surprised many of us will be in terms of how it will actually turn out.

And probably in many ways, it won't fit in these theological paradigms that we've created and categorized.

We're going to be like, all right, we know something of biblical proportions is happening right now, but totally not the way

I thought. Tell you what, let's make a pact that you and I, when we get to heaven, we have a meeting where we discuss the things we found out we were wrong about.

Yes, that would be great. We could do a live stream. And by the way, I was also wrong about, you know.

We can do an eternal live stream. We could just be, we could just be like, you know, with our iPhones in heaven, you know, taking selfies in front of angels and stuff like that.

That'd be pretty cool. Yeah. I've thought about this. I've thought about this. Like, it's amazing.

Like, this life, this veil of tears is just a hiccup when compared to eternity.

And it's amazing to think that we have an eternal hope that people who don't place their faith in Christ, they just don't have that.

We have, we're blessed with spiritual blessings in the here and the now, but we're also blessed with this comfort of a future hope and a future existence that is tangible.

We'll see Jesus face to face and talk theology and live life and even maybe work in some way.

I know work wasn't part of the curse. Work was in the garden prior to sin.

Adam was to work the garden. Perhaps we'll have fulfilling work that we would do unto the glory of God and enjoy what we're doing with community and things like that.

It's a pretty awesome. It is. Awesome thought. But what were you going to say? I want to add one little thought.

I'm all male. And if you guys aren't all male, that's okay. But from this perspective, I started thinking, because in Matthew 12, 22 to 32,

Jesus says that Satan was bound. In Revelation 20, he says he's bound so that he can't deceive the nations anymore.

All right. So could it be that as one Amillennialist told me, they suspect that Satan's been released because we're in the millennial reign.

It's all millennialism. It's a long period of time. A thousand isn't necessarily literal. One thousand. So anyway, and the same with post -mill.

So the thing is, could it be that Satan's been let loose? The nations are being deceived.

World War I, World War II. Look what's happening now. And all this idiocy and stupidity that's going on. Okay. That would fit in with the idea of the time of the

Gentiles coming to an end. And the issue of 2

Thessalonians 2, when it talks about the apostasy must come first before the man of lawless, he will be revealed before Christ comes back.

Now, I'm not putting these together and say, hey, this is all true. I'm just going, I wonder, you know, I just wonder.

I could see how they're coming together, but maybe I'm not. I have my views, but there are some passages that I don't know what to do with.

Not because there's no answer to them. I just haven't taken the time to study. Eschatology is what got me into apologetics.

Actually, I actually studied eschatology before I even got into apologetics. It kind of introduced me to Gary DeMar's work.

Gary DeMar was a friend of Greg Bonson. When I went on American Vision, he had Greg Bonson's work there.

That kind of opened up a whole new world for me. But I used to study this stuff a lot. And what really gets me are those time texts.

The, you know, Revelation 1, 3 and Matthew 24, 34. The idea of the ends of the ages are upon us, these sorts of things.

And so a lot of things that people see that they think are to take place in the future, I just see are governed by time texts that make it really difficult for me to think in terms of those passages as not yet fulfilled.

So that's the issue for me. Like Matthew 24, Luke 21, Mark 13. I think they're referring to the events leading up to and including the destruction of Jerusalem.

I think Revelation. I would agree with Dr. Kenneth Gentry. And I have to be very careful with Gary DeMar.

I don't know if you're familiar with what's going on with Gary DeMar. He is, to all appearances, he is flirting.

If not taking the full dive to full preterism. Well, that's not a good thing because full preterism can be refuted very clearly and easily with scripture.

Well, I agree, but it's a very bad error. And Gary DeMar, really,

I mean, even Kenneth Gentry, where there's like a whole thing on Facebook, Kenneth Gentry asked simple questions.

Like people are asking, can you answer these questions to help clarify where your position is? And he just won't do it. And even Kenneth, he's like, come on, man.

Dude, you're causing confusion. And then I think he's speaking at full preterist conferences.

And this is what I've been hearing. So I hope it's not true, but yeah, that's crazy.

Well, we could talk about that too. It's in Acts 1, 8 through 11, or 9 to 11, as far as I'm concerned, that refutes full preterism because it tells you how

Jesus is going to come back. And I remember having a discussion. For those who don't know, full preterism says that everything, even

Jesus' return was fulfilled in roughly 70, 72 AD with the destruction of Jerusalem.

And so in Acts 1, I'll read it because we brought it up. So people understand.

In Acts 1, 9, it says, and after he, Jesus had said these things, and this is how

I talk about it on the radio. He was lifted up while they were looking on and a cloud received them out of their sight.

So where are the clouds? In the sky, as they went up. And as he was gazing intently into the sky or into the heavens, while he was going on, behold, two men in white stood beside them and said, men of Galilee, why are you looking into the sky or literally into heaven?

This man, Jesus - Read the next part slowly so that it sinks in for people because I know where you're going. This man,

Jesus, who could make them believe it. This man, Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven will come in just the same way as you have watched him go into heaven.

None of them making into metaphor clouds. I know clouds is a metaphor for judgment, but this reference here is clearly referencing the specific way he left is the specific way he's going to come.

That's it. That refutes full preterism. And so partial preterism is acceptable.

It's workable. I hold a partial preterism. I don't know if you do or not. I do. I do. Okay. So it's okay.

If that could be interesting for you and I have a discussion on our views. Yeah. You're post -mill. I'm all mill.

And we just go back and forth and say, well, that's a good point. I don't know how to answer it from an all mill perspective.

Well, I need to look into that two age thing. I read your article, but it's been a while. I, yes,

I need to look into the two age thing and studied a little bit more, but it's, it's a eschatology is a fascinating.

It's a fascinating topic. We can talk about it for hours. So, so I just started reading a book. I know you got to go here. My wife's going to be one, two, where's my cursor?

There it is. One more question, Matt. And then we talked about eschatology. So that one more question. I'm reading a book.

Oh, come on. Where's the, here we go. It's a Hebrew insights from revelation, the book of revelation.

And so I'm just going through it and it's giving me Hebrew culture, old

Testament insights on things and several of things like, I never thought of that. That's true.

And one of his conclusions I didn't agree with, but Hey, you know, and so I'm going through that.

I'm on page 61. And that's awesome. A lot of people don't know this, but two thirds of the book of revelation are references to the old

Testament. And this is one of the reasons why most, I mean, I'm not claiming that I've got revelation all figured out or that any particular scholar has revelation figured out.

But I think the majority reason why people misunderstand and misinterpret and create heretical teachings that are derived from misinterpretations of revelation is based upon ignorance of the old

Testament context. In which a lot of these images are coming out of. So I think that's a big deal.

If you don't know the old Testament, then revelation is a closed book to you. It really is. Because it presupposes knowledge of that backdrop.

And that's why John uses a lot of the words and figures and metaphors that he does. Right. So there's just so much to learn.

You know, I have a regret, a real regret, and it's being 66. Because I want another hundred years and I want another hundred years to study and to be able to say more and do more for my

Lord. It's frustrating that, you know, I've learned so stinking much. I don't have all the answers, but man,

I've learned a lot. And there's so much more to learn. And now I'm starting to see how things come together in so many different ways.

I'm seeing how this relates to that and this relates to this and how things are all connected. And I'm seeing that more and more.

And I want that to continue. And, you know, I'm starting to forget things because I'm 66. And it's just, it's frustrating.

Which is why I do outlines. Well, Matt, it's not going to end. You're not going to be omniscient when you get to heaven.

And I would imagine that there are books in heaven as well. Why not? But I'm talking about here because one of my main goals...

It's going to be so much more fascinating. You're going to learn so much more. Oh, yeah. But that's not the goal.

It's to glorify God by equipping his people. I want to equip the people of the Lord. I want to teach

Christians the truth. I want to teach them about Christ. I want unbelievers to see it and hear it and come to faith.

That's what I want to be able to do as long as possible for them. Let me ask you a question though. If we are not going to be omniscient in heaven, that means our knowledge will be limited.

Our knowledge will not be equal to those who have more knowledge than us. And so as we interact with other people, the process of learning will still continue.

And the extra benefit is that we all... I got that. I got that. I got that. I'm with you. In heaven. You're talking about like it's the end game.

No, no, no. In other words, the more we teach each other and we learn from the master himself, that will also equip us to better perform the tasks that we're going to be doing while in heaven, in new heavens and new earth.

Yeah, but I want people to... I want Christians to know him more now and I want the world to be converted to Jesus.

And see, I believe like an all -millennialist. I behave like a post -millennialist, okay? That's right.

Look at that. You're a closet post -millennialist. Come out of the closet. No, I just fight against evil. And I believe that we're going to...

It's going to get bad. But I believe that my eschatological position can be summed up basically like this.

That's my eschatological position. So yours is in a hammock.

Can I just relax? So I... Come on. It's not.

I'm kidding you. We're leaving. I know. But I just want more people to know who

Christ is. And it's frustrating to see the... See, I see the valley of the shadow of death.

I'm at that hill. I see it. And the shadow that's moving towards me, you know, in the little things, in the little ways, you know, that you recognize when you get over 50.

Well, maybe God will bless you to live to 100 and you'll be there debating the nurse that's taking care of you at the old people's home.

That's what I want. I want to build... Even my death, I hope, brings glory to God somehow, someway.

The air machine. What's the communicative... Heretic. That's going to be your last words.

Heretic. Or I hope it'll be my Lord into your hands.

I commit my spirit or something like that. That's right. Well, Matt, thank you so much, man. I appreciate your friendship.

I appreciate your wisdom and your sense of humor. And I just appreciate you overall, man.

I know a lot of folks have a lot of love for you. I want to give kind of just a heads up for folks. If you're looking to support a ministry,

I can't think of any other ministry that deserves it more. Matt has been there since the internet was invented.

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. I was doing internet stuff before there was internet. That's right.

So if you were that old and you were back in the day using the internet and you were looking for resources to share the gospel and to learn how to defend the faith and you found

CARM a long time ago and it helped and equipped you, do CARM a solid and find ways to support.

I'll ask for money on your behalf because I know you don't ask for money. On the radio, I have been lately.

You have been lately, but I've listened to you long enough. It is just a recent thing. You've never really made a big deal out of it.

So I really do encourage people, support apologetics ministry because a lot of churches are not supporting these sorts of things.

We're kind of left to our own devices. That's not true across the board, but it is an issue.

And so I just encourage you guys. By the way, we're having a matching funds drive this year.

Anybody who donates whatever they donate automatically doubled. So that's just how it is. But did you hear that Luke Wayne is leaving?

Yes. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. We couldn't pay him enough. And he's not like he's money hungry.

No way. No disrespect to him at all. Your family, you know, it's. Yeah, we hired him. He didn't have, he only had his wife and then they have four kids now.

So, you know. Yeah. So is there an open spot at CARM? Oh, I would love to have you on.

I would love it if you were on full time. Oh, that would be so good. Yeah.

That's people like, what's the dream? You know, what are your goals? My goal is to one day get full support and be able to do this full time.

It's my passion and I know it's your passion as well. But support is needed, man.

As God wills, we work with what he gives us. Yeah, you don't need much. What, $20 ,000 a year maybe, you know, on a good day?

Yeah, I'd work for free if I could. Yeah, I know how that is. Yeah, I know. But Luke had to take care of his family and I'm supportive of that.

And he has, he's going to move to Prescott. I even told him, I said, look, you need someone to help you unpack. I'll fly down, help you unpack.

You know, you got my blessing because he's a good man. But that's how it is. And a lot of ministries are suffering because of the economy and the

Biden crime family. Oh, and by the way, someone said to me, the smallest particle in the universe is the quark.

I found out it's not true. Okay. It's Nancy Pelosi's brain.

It could be between AOC and Biden and her. I don't know. It was very misleading.

I thought there was some profound thing you were about to say. It is profound. It is profound. You can tell

I have no respect for them. I can tell you about politics, I can tell you about none. I can tell, I can tell you about none.

All right. Look at this here. Let's, let's leave you with this. Okay. Randall says,

Kenneth Copeland says that God has promised him 120 years. If you pray really hard, maybe give money to Kenneth Copeland's ministry, you'll be blessed with 120 years.

That's another can of worms. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening in to this live stream. Thank you so much,

Matt Slick of karm .org. Please check out the website and support him in any way that you can.

And of course, supporting Revealed Apologetics is greatly appreciated. Sign up for that conference, January 21st.

That's not that far away. So if you want to RSVP your spot there, that's a way to support Revealed Apologetics.

And of course, learn from some pretty cool teachers. So that's all for tonight, guys. Take care.