Dr. Jason Lisle speaks on Logic and Worldview

To ask for a blessing over our technology tonight.

We ask for a blessing over Dr. Lyle's presentation.

And most importantly, we ask that who's ever watching along with us live or in the in the

years to come until you should take us home, that they'll be able to

just see this video and and learn about you from it, be touched, be

touched by it and be just drawn to learning more about you and to be

able to think more like you as Dr. Lyle encourages encourages us to do.

We ask these things in your name.

Amen.

Okay, so now I'm going to hit go live.

And we're going to have just a little awkward pause for a minute.

And I'm just going to make sure that that bar gets all the way across, even though these words are probably going to be in the

camera in the video also.

But we don't want to leave anybody out.

So here we go.

Okay, so I'm Terri Kammerzell and I'm here with Creation Fellowship Santee.

We're a group of friends bound by our common agreement that the creation account as told in Genesis is

a true depiction of how God created the universe and all life from nothing in just six

days a few thousand years ago.

We've been meeting most Thursday nights here on Zoom since June of 2020.

We've been blessed with presentations by pastors, teachers, doctors, cartoonists,

scientists, apologists and all around smarty pants people who love the Lord and have a message to share.

You can find most of our past videos by searching Creation Fellowship Santee, that's S -A

-N -T -E -E, on YouTube.

Follow us on our Creation Fellowship Santee Facebook page and sign up for our email list

by emailing creationfellowshipsantee at gmail .com so you don't miss any upcoming speakers.

Tonight we are excited to welcome back our good ministry friend, Dr. Jason Lyle.

Dr. Lyle is a Christian astrophysicist and the founder of the Biblical Science Institute.

You can find his last visit with us on our YouTube channel as the video seen more than any of our others.

We enjoyed his talk with us that night on the topic of astronomy and how the heavens declare

the glory of God, but tonight we've asked Dr. Lyle to talk to us about another topic he's become

something of an expert on, which is logic.

Early in his career, Dr. Lyle became very familiar with the teaching of Dr. Greg

Bonson, and Dr. Lyle has incorporated his presuppositional approach into creation

apologetics.

After all, all of us, Christians and non -Christians alike, live on the same planet and have access to the

same evidence, so how a person interprets that evidence is totally up to the

prompting of the Holy Spirit and also on his or her own pre -established worldview.

Dr. Lyle explained this concept very well in his book, The Ultimate Proof of Creation, and has

since written two books further teaching the fundamentals of informal logic and reasoning,

Discerning Truth and Introduction to Logic, his newer one, which is designed to be a homeschool

curriculum but is really a great learning tool for anyone who wants to know the topic better, including

adults.

Dr. Lyle also wrote a book, Applying the Tools of Logic, to a list of 420 supposed

Bible contradictions he had found on the internet.

That book, Keeping Faith in an Age of Reasoning, and all his others can

be found on his website, biblicalscienceinstitute .com.

And with that, I'm happy to turn it over to you, Dr. Lyle.

All right, thank you very much.

I do have some PowerPoint.

I'm trying a screen share.

I don't.

Know if that's coming through or not.

I can see it.

Okay.

Everybody can see it?

Yeah.

But Terry, Facebook Live's not going.

It's not on.

After all of that?

Yeah, it's not on.

That's right, keep going.

We'll just keep going and we'll fix it.

We'll work on it.

Okay.

Okay.

Here we go.

All right.

So I'm going to talk on logic and the Christian worldview.

And this is something that's near and dear to my heart, because it's something that I've

come to learn is so important in, not just in our lives, but in the lives of others, as we see

the direction that society is going.

A lot of it could be alleviated if people were more logical, if they were rational.

And of course, ultimately the problem of sin, I understand that, but thinking rightly would go a long

way toward helping people move toward a Christian worldview.

So this is an important issue.

And I want to begin by asking you to consider how would you respond to

the following claims?

You come across a critic of Christianity and he says, we know evolution's a fact because bacteria have

evolved resistance to antibiotics.

Hmm.

How would you answer that?

Or somebody comes along and says, well, you're just a Christian because you were raised in a Christian home.

If you were raised by Muslims, you'd probably be Muslim.

Yeah.

I've heard critics make that claim and that a lot of Christians don't really know how to respond to that because there's, there's some truth

to it.

How do you answer that?

Or how about this one?

The Bible teaches that God causes lightning and rain.

There's the verses, but we now understand that these things are due to natural forces.

You silly Christians who think God does everything.

We understand laws of nature cause lightning and we understand the physics of it now.

And so isn't that silly to continue to believe in the Christian worldview?

How would you respond to these claims?

These claims all have something in common.

They're all examples of fallacies.

Now, a fallacy is a common error in reasoning where your way of thinking is

erroneous.

It's, you've made a mistake in the way in which you think, and the study of logic can prevent, can

prevent you from committing errors in reasoning and they can expose errors in reasoning that other people make or that you

make yourself.

And then you can correct that.

And that is indispensable in apologetics.

I know a lot of you in this organization are very interested in apologetics and that's a very noble thing.

And I've found that logic is just very helpful in the defense of the Christian faith.

So what is logic?

Well, it's a proper or reasonable way of thinking about or understanding something.

That's the dictionary definition.

Follow -up definition is the science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity

of inference and demonstration, the science of formal principles of reasoning.

So whether these involve reasoning, understanding, thinking, so proper thinking or

the science that studies proper thinking, either of those would be defined as logic.

So to think logically is to think correctly.

And to think rationally, to think logically is to think in a way that's consistent with God's thoughts.

Well, wait a minute, Lyle, you just told us that logic is the correct way of thinking.

Now you're telling us it's thinking in a way that's consistent with God's thoughts?

Yes.

Same thing.

Because God always thinks correctly.

His mind is not like our mind.

I mean, in some ways it is, but his mind doesn't discover truth.

His mind determines truth.

So God necessarily thinks correctly because to define correct thinking, we have to look

to a standard and that standard is God.

What he thinks, what he thinks in an affirming way happens because his mind is sovereign over the

entire universe.

And so for us to think correctly, we need to think in a way that is consistent with God.

We need to think his thoughts after him, as Kepler put it.

So rational thinking really is biblical thinking.

You say, but even non -believers sometimes think rationally.

Yes, they do.

And that's because in their heart of hearts, they do know God, they're made in his image, and they have the capacity to think in a limited way,

in a way that's consistent with his character.

Even unbelievers do that.

They just don't do it consistently.

To be rational is to have good self -consistent reasons for our beliefs.

And that's the purpose of education, or at least it used to be.

You see, children are not very rational.

They don't have good reasons for their beliefs.

Children tend to believe that there's a monster in the closet.

They don't have a good reason to believe that.

They think that pulling the sheets up over their head will protect them from the monster in the closet.

They don't have a good reason to believe that, but they wake up the next morning and they survive.

So apparently they think their reasoning was proper.

It wasn't.

Children think irrationally, and we expect that because they come into the world with very little knowledge and not a

lot of ability, but as you get older, you're supposed to become rational.

Education is supposed to help people to become rational, to learn to have good reasons for their

beliefs, and to relinquish beliefs that do not have good reasons.

And so if you're an adult and you still believe in monsters in the closet, that's a problem.

There are two enemies of rationality based on the definition that we just looked at, and they are arbitrariness

and inconsistency.

Arbitrariness and inconsistency are the things you must avoid to be rational, to be logical.

To be arbitrary means to not based on evidence or reason.

And to have arbitrary beliefs is by definition irrational, isn't it?

Because if rational is based on facts or reason, and you don't have reason or facts, then you're

not rational.

That just goes without saying.

A rational person by definition has good reasons for his or her beliefs.

Beliefs with no good reasons behind them are necessarily irrational.

And as I pointed out, children tend to be that way.

But you're not supposed to be that way.

You're supposed to grow up in your thinking and become rational.

Why avoid arbitrariness in our thinking?

If a belief is arbitrary, then there's literally no good reason to believe it.

That's really the whole purpose of a debate.

The point of rational argumentation, rational debate, is to show that there are good reasons to believe the conclusion.

And thus to be arbitrary is irrational.

We do have a moral obligation to be rational.

So when somebody makes a claim, they say, you know, I believe that there's life in outer space.

The natural question for me to ask is, why do you believe that?

And if they say, well, I don't know.

I don't really have a reason.

Well, then there's no reason for me to believe that.

There's no reason for them to believe that either.

By definition, they don't have a reason.

And it's just as likely that the opposite is true.

If you think about it, just mathematically, there are more false beliefs than true beliefs.

Consider a simple mathematical truth, like 1 plus 2 equals 3.

Now, I have good reasons to believe that.

But somebody who's arbitrary picks a different solution, 1 plus 3 equals 7, or negative pi, or the square root of 500.

They're going to be wrong.

But if you think about it, there's only one right answer to that.

And there's an infinite number of wrong answers.

And so my point is, if you pick beliefs at random, and you don't have good reasons behind them, you are very likely going to be wrong

about almost everything you believe.

Now, you might occasionally land on a true belief just by accident.

That can happen.

But if you're irrational, if you don't have good reasons for what you believe, you're going to have a lot of false beliefs.

Inconsistency is the other thing we must avoid.

To be inconsistent is containing incompatible elements, having parts that disagree with each other.

And that is a problem, because inconsistent beliefs are necessarily false.

One of them is necessarily false by the law of non -contradiction.

So if I believe two things that are incompatible, one of them is wrong.

The law of non -contradiction says that A and not A at the same time, in the same sentence, is always

false.

Either A is true or not A is true, but not both.

You can't have both at the same time.

And that stems from the character of God.

Because again, to be logical is to think like God.

God doesn't deny himself.

The Bible tells us that in 2 Timothy 2 .13.

And the Bible tells us that all knowledge, all truth, is in God, in Christ in particular, Colossians 2 .3.

And therefore, truth will not contradict truth.

Because truth is, all truth is in the mind of God, and God doesn't deny himself.

So we know that the law of non -contradiction is always applicable.

You can't have two contrary beliefs that are both true.

So why avoid inconsistency in our thinking?

Well, when you have two inconsistent beliefs, at least one of them is false.

If they're merely contrary, they could both be false.

But they can't both be true.

So you're going to have false beliefs if you have inconsistencies in your thinking.

And of course, inconsistent thinking is contrary to the nature of God.

God doesn't deny himself.

Therefore, we shouldn't think in a contradictory way, because God

doesn't.

Inconsistency is explicitly unbiblical.

And I have some verses there.

Some of these we'll look at in a bit.

But just as one example, Paul says, but as God is faithful, our word to you is not yes and

no.

Paul's saying we're not coming along with this inconsistent language where we're contradicting ourselves.

And he gives the reason, because God is faithful.

You see, we want to, as ambassadors for God to this world, we want to reflect God's

consistency.

We don't want to contradict ourselves because God doesn't.

And so we have a consistent and faithful message.

And that's really what faithfulness is.

If you think about it, it's consistency, isn't it?

It's consistency.

Elijah pointed out the inconsistency of the people when he said, how long will you hesitate between two opinions?

These are contrary opinions.

If the Lord is God, follow him.

But if all follow him, right?

People, they were wanting to serve both, but those are contrary to each other.

You can't have two ultimate authorities.

You can have two ultimate gods.

It's either God or something else.

There's another word for inconsistency that you'll find in the Bible, and that's hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy is a type of inconsistency where your behavior does not match your words.

And of course, Jesus was not happy with hypocrites.

He tended to have the most rebuking statements against hypocrites.

In Matthew 15, you hypocrites, he's referring to the religious leaders who

honored God with their lips.

They said they love God, but their hearts far from them.

They demonstrated by their behavior that they don't really love God.

Their words did not match their actions.

That's hypocrisy.

Jesus condemned it.

It says, in vain do they worship me, teaching his doctrines, the precepts of men.

So they, you God, but what they really appeal to is men.

They teach the doctrines of men.

So that's all by way of introduction.

That's just a sort of an introduction to logic and a brief

motivation for why we should be logical.

But I want to argue that every Christian should strive to be rational for three reasons, and they are

the following.

First of all, we do have a moral obligation to be rational.

I've touched on that, but I want to continue that theme a little bit more and look through the scriptures, and we're going to

find that rational thinking is not optional for the Christian.

We're supposed to be rational.

Actually, it's not optional for the non -Christian either.

Non -Christian is supposed to become a Christian and be rational, but in any case.

Secondly, rationality has many practical benefits, and you're going to find that your theology

improves.

You're going to find that it's applicable to different areas of your life.

I mean, if you think about it, rationality is learning to use your mind properly, and that's going to benefit you

in any aspect of your life where you use your mind, which is pretty much everything,

right?

Unless you're a politician.

So rationality is essential in apologetics, and that's something that I've found to be very, very

helpful, and that's what we'll come to last.

So let's zoom in on that first one here.

We have a moral obligation to be rational, right?

And because God is rational, God is truthful in everything that he says.

He's not, he's self -consistent.

He doesn't contradict himself, and we're made in his image and are commanded to emulate his character.

Ephesians 5 .1, we're to be imitators of God.

Genesis 1 .27, we're made in God's image, and therefore our purpose is to

reflect on a creaturely level God's character.

We can't be exactly like God.

That's not the point.

We're supposed to emulate his character in terms of his faithfulness, his consistency.

Colossians 2 .8, we're not to be taken captive by philosophies

that are according to the presuppositions of the world.

We're supposed to have our thinking matched to Christ.

2 Corinthians 10 .5, we cast down arguments in every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, taking

captive every thought into obedience to Christ.

Our thoughts need to line up with Christ's thoughts.

The Bible tells us in Isaiah 1 .18, come now and let us reason together, says the Lord, that your sins are as scarlet, they will be

white as snow, though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool.

So reasoning is something that God commands us to do.

And he repudiates people who are not thinking rationally.

In Jeremiah 4 .22, the Lord says, for my people are foolish.

They know me not.

They are stupid children and have no understanding.

They are shrewd to do evil, but to do good, they do not know.

And so again, God is condemning these people.

He's rebuking them for their stupidity, because they're not using their brain properly.

They lack understanding.

And they're like stupid children.

Now, God is not anti -children, quite the opposite.

He's very pro -children.

But the point is, if you're an adult and you're thinking like a child, and if your mind is healthy, that's a

problem.

God obviously doesn't expect you to do more than you can.

I mean, God doesn't expect a baby to be rational, or somebody who has an extreme mental disorder.

We understand that.

But if you grow up and you have a healthy mind, and you haven't learned to become an adult, you haven't matured in your thinking, that's

a problem.

That's something that God is not pleased with.

One of my favorite chapters in Scripture, Isaiah chapter 55, in verse 7, it says,.

So God here is encouraging the sinner, the wicked man, to turn away from his thinking, his thoughts, and his ways,

and turn to God.

Why?

Because, you see, the problem is, God says, my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

And it's interesting, God here is actually stating the solution to the problem first, and then

giving an explanation of the problem.

And in logic, you can do that.

The order doesn't matter.

But what's the problem?

Verse 8, God says, his thoughts are not like our thoughts, his ways are not like our things.

That's a problem.

And in fact, that's wickedness, because we're supposed to emulate God's character.

We're supposed to think his thoughts after him.

When we fail to do that, that is unrighteousness, it is wickedness.

So what's the solution?

Verse 7 is the solution.

Let the wicked man, the person who's not thinking God's thoughts after him, let him forsake his way, and the unrighteous man, his thoughts, let him

turn away from those thoughts and return to the Lord.

And of course, the great blessing of that is, if we do that, if we relinquish unbiblical thinking, irrational thinking, and

turn to God, he will have compassion on us.

He'll forgive us of that sin, and it is a sin.

And of course, human beings in our hubris, the sinner likes to think, well, yes, yes, there is a

difference between God's thoughts and my thoughts, and that's a problem.

But maybe God should change his thinking to line up with me.

And so God gives us an additional verse here in verse 9, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than

your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

So if there's any doubt about which of us is thinking improperly, God's pointing out his thinking is so

superior to ours, it's like the universe compared to the earth, the height of the universe, the height of the stars

compared to the earth.

And as an astrophysicist, I can assure you that is a very, very large difference.

So, and this might seem a little contradictory, because on the one hand, God's telling us to think like him, think in a way,

to turn away from unbiblical thinking, to turn to God.

On the other hand, he's just told us that his thinking is infinitely beyond ours.

It's like the heavens above the earth.

So how can we do that then?

Well, God's not expecting us to think exactly like he thinks.

He can think infinitely, and we can't.

But he expects us to think in a way that's consistent with his thinking, and his revealed word, of course.

The way I like to think about this, you can think about God's knowledge as this light beam that's coming down from a

distant quasar that's billions of light years away, and this light beam is shining down.

Now, we can't ever reach that quasar.

We can't ever get there.

But we can come and stand in the light, and then we can see.

You see, it's in God's light that we have light.

And so we need to think, the problem with the unbeliever, the unbeliever's just, he's not even in the light beam.

He's far away.

He's groping about in darkness.

That's the problem with the unbeliever.

He needs to come and bring his thinking in line with God's.

Bible tells us in Proverbs 32 .9, do not be as the horse or as the mule, which have no understanding, whose

trappings include bit and bridle, to hold them in check, otherwise they will not come near to you.

Now, again, God, these are, you know, horse and mule, these are animals that God created.

They're wonderful animals.

They have a purpose.

We're not supposed to, but their purpose is not the same as ours.

We're supposed to be thinking creatures.

A horse, if you want it to go where you want it to go, you just put a bit in its mouth, you turn its head, and that's the way it'll go.

God says, you're not supposed to be like that.

Somebody comes and tries to turn your head and says, go that way.

And you just say, okay, I'll go that way.

Or they turn your head that way.

Okay, I'll go that way.

Tossed about by every wind of doctrine.

We're not supposed to be like that.

We're supposed to think about things.

And we're supposed to compare the information we've been presented with, with God's word, obviously.

We're supposed to be thinking creatures.

Second, Corinthians 10 .5, we're destroying speculations, arguments, and every high and lofty thing

raised up against the knowledge of God.

And that's the section of the verse a lot of apologists like to quote.

I like the second part.

And we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

And in fact, the second part of that verse is the key to the first part.

If you want to be able to destroy arguments that are raised against the biblical God, if you want to be able to do apologetics

well, line up your thinking with God's character.

Take captive every thought to obedience to Christ.

And I think that's a powerful image.

Because if you think about that, our thoughts tend to sort of run away.

They tend to go different directions.

Paths that are not fruitful, dead ends.

There's a way that seems right into a man.

The end thereof is the way of death, according to scripture.

So there's all these paths that lead to death.

We need to take those thoughts captive to the obedience to Christ, because that's the way that leads to life.

And so just think about that.

Everything we think should be something that's consistent with God's character, something that is pleasing to him,

something that he approves of.

That's a tall order for sinful creatures like us.

But how many thoughts have you had today?

How many of them have been lined up with God's character?

Do you have some runaway thoughts?

Thoughts that are not taken captive to obedience to Christ?

Of course, the irony there is you take your thoughts captive to Christ, you have genuine freedom.

You're freed from sin.

If you are on the other hand, if you're not, if your thoughts are not obedient to Christ, they're obedient to sin.

And so you're going to be captive one way or another.

It's just a question of which master you're going to serve.

So since we're commanded to pattern our thoughts after God, we have all these scriptures indicating that we're to emulate

his character, we're to turn away from thoughts that are not like his, to fail to be rational, to fail to

think in a way that's consistent with God's character really is a sin.

And so it's something that we need to take seriously.

It's not just a good idea to be rational.

It's a commandment.

It's something we need to do.

So we do have a moral obligation to be rational.

And of course, you can't...

Some rationality is built into us.

There's no doubt about that.

Babies are born knowing certain things about logic, believe it or not.

I can actually demonstrate that.

Not that they can articulate it, but they know how to reason a little bit.

But we can become better at it.

That's the point.

Sin can inhibit our reasoning and draw us down a wrong path.

We're supposed to learn to be, we're supposed to learn to think better.

And just by studying God's word, you'll learn to think better.

That's one way of doing that, but there are other ways as well.

So rationality has many practical benefits.

It really does in every aspect of your life.

And I thought I would just list some of these.

Thinking rationally makes us more likely to believe things that are true.

True beliefs affect better decisions.

If you're thinking rightly, you're going to tend to have more correct beliefs than if you're not thinking logically.

And of course, correct beliefs tend to lead to actions that are more profitable than incorrect

beliefs.

So you say, I don't believe in gravity.

That's not going to work out well for you.

That's not a good belief to have, to say that gravity doesn't exist.

That's not going to go well for you in the future.

Thinking rationally reduces our susceptibility to sophisms and other errors.

People in this world are going to want you to do things that benefit them, that may not benefit you, and may in

fact harm you.

And they will manipulate you.

They'll try to manipulate you with rhetoric, with sophisms, these things that

sound reasonable.

And if you're not trained in logic, you will tend to be fooled by thinking rhetorical

sophisms and things of that nature.

I just, I think of all the think of all the different reactions that people have had to

COVID -19 and the government's, the way the government's responded and so on.

Not all of those ways have been rational.

And if people knew something about logic and they were able to think through and analyze evidence and so on, it would really help

them to be able to deal with situations a lot better and not be fooled by some of the rhetoric that we hear.

Because let's face it, there's a lot of, there's a lot of information in the world and some of it's good information and some of it's false.

And knowing logic will help you to be able to distinguish truth from error.

Very, very helpful.

Thinking rationally helps us in matters of science to judge between competing models.

That's obviously something that's very important to me, but it should be important to you too, because you, you will hear competing

models.

You'll hear people who claim that catastrophic global warming is going to kick in shortly and they have their

data and you have other people that say no.

That, that, that affects you because it affects the policies that are enacted and so on.

So thinking logically will help to judge between competing science models.

And usually when it comes to science, it's not a definite answer.

Science tends to be probabilistic, which model is most likely to be accurate, but knowing something about logic will help

you to assess the evidence better.

Thinking rationally will also help you to distinguish between genuine science and pseudoscience.

And let me tell you, there's a lot of pseudoscience in the world today.

Evolution is a pseudoscience because it's something that's claimed to be scientific, but when you investigate it,

have they done any successful experiments where evolution has made a prediction that's contrary

to the predictions of creation and was vindicated?

I can't think of any.

It's, and so it really is a pseudoscience.

And there are, unfortunately, there are creationists who engage in pseudoscience.

And I've, I've, I've written articles against some of the things that they've proposed, where they make all these lofty claims, but

there's no evidence for what they're claiming.

There's no experiments they've done, but they use rhetoric to make it sound scientific.

That's a problem.

And it misleads people.

And if they repeat that information to somebody who's knowledgeable, that person's going to

write off Christianity and say, well, that if, you know, creationists, they don't know what they're talking about.

Thinking rationally will bring increased knowledge, wisdom, happiness, and blessings.

Really it's there.

Proverbs, you want to increase your knowledge.

Wisdom comes with that.

Happiness comes with that.

Blessings come with that.

Some other places in the Bible, you'll find that sorrow comes with that as well.

And that's, that's kind of the downside.

But really that's just because rational thinking makes you more aware of the

true nature of the universe.

And the true nature of the universe has got some good things in it, and it's got some bad things in it.

And you're more aware of both.

So it kind of increases the extremes of your experience because you're more aware of the way the universe really is.

But of course, if you're a consistent Christian, you realize that the universe is under God's control and he's perfectly good.

And he has a good ending for human history.

And so that's pretty awesome.

Thinking rationally will greatly aid our evangelism and our call to make disciples of all nations.

If you can explain something clearly to a non -believer, explain the gospel to them clearly.

And when they raise objections to that, you can answer those objections because those objections are not logical.

And if you know something about logic, you can answer those objections.

It will make you a lot better at evangelism.

And of course, you know, it's not our job to convert people, but it is our job to make a case, to give an answer

when they ask a reason of the hope that's in us, to do so with gentleness and respect.

And then finally, thinking rationally is crucial to a proper understanding of scripture and can help us

avoid heresy.

Again, there's this misconception that, you know, reasoning is somehow contrary to scripture.

Not at all.

God expects you to use your brain and properly interpret the scriptures.

We don't use our brain to override the scriptures.

That's the problem that a lot of intellectuals have.

But God does expect us to reason.

We've seen the scriptures where God expects us to reason.

We're supposed to recognize the Bible as absolute truth from God.

We read it that way.

And then we interpret it and apply it by using our mind and the truth that God has given to us in our word.

We use our brain to properly apply the infallible information that God supplied in his

word.

And that can help you avoid heresy.

One of the sort of bonuses that I wasn't really expecting when I really delved in, it was

about a decade ago, I really delved into logic and started studying it, a little more than a decade now, and

applying it to apologetics, I found that my theology improved.

Because as I'm reading scriptures, I'm thinking more logically and I'm thinking, you know, I can't hold this belief anymore because that's

inconsistent with this verse over here.

And so, you know, you start recognizing problems in your theology and it improves your

theology.

That's good.

That's a wonderful thing.

I want to give you an example of how logic can help you avoid heresy.

Take a look at John chapter 5, verses 28 -29.

Jesus is speaking here.

He's talking about the resurrection.

He says, do not marvel at this.

For an hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come forth.

Those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.

So Jesus is very clear that the resurrection, those people who did the good deeds, they're resurrected to a resurrection of

life, that's heaven, eternity with the Lord, and those who committed the evil deeds, a resurrection of

judgment and condemnation.

Now, some people look at this verse and they say, oh, this is teaching works salvation, right?

Because Jesus here is telling those who did the good works, they go to heaven.

Those who did the evil deeds, they get condemned, they get judged.

And if you've heard somebody make that claim, that is a logical fallacy.

It's an error in reasoning called the kumhock ergo propterhock fallacy.

That's the Latin term meaning with this therefore because of this.

It's the error of assuming that just because two things are correlated, say A and B are correlated, that A must have

caused B, when in fact they might be correlated for other reasons.

And so we notice in John 8 that, pardon me, I think I got that

verse wrong, didn't I?

Oh yeah, John 5, that's right, John 5.

John 5, we notice that Jesus is very clear that good deeds correspond with eternal life

and evil deeds correspond with eternal condemnation.

But do good deeds cause or lead to salvation?

The answer is no.

And we know that from the other scriptures.

Salvation is by grace through faith and not works.

We know that from Ephesians 2, 8 through 9.

It's very clear.

We're saved by God's grace received through faith, not by works.

So why is there a connection between salvation and good deeds?

It's not the good deeds that cause salvation, it's the salvation that causes the good deeds.

You see those people that are resurrected to life are those who are saved.

And if you're saved, you do good deeds, not because you have to, to earn salvation, but out of

gratitude, because God already saved you.

And the Bible is very clear that those who are saved will have a desire to practice righteousness.

We don't do it perfectly, of course, we understand that.

There's grace to cover that.

Those who are not saved, they do evil.

Now you say, but you know, my neighbor does some good things.

Yes, but never with the right motive or the right goal, because the right motive and the right goal for everything ought to be to please God.

And if you're not saved, that's not your motive and that's not your goal, even if you end up doing something that's nice or for a neighbor or whatever.

But you see here that this heresy of a salvation by works could be avoided if you just knew

this particular error in reasoning, a Gumac -Ergo -Propterhock fallacy.

Just because two things go together doesn't mean that one caused the other.

It could be the other that caused the first, or it could be a third that causes both.

So every Christian should strive to be rational.

We have that moral obligation.

Rationality has many practical benefits.

And then finally, rationality is essential in apologetics.

It really is.

It's helpful to know some science if you're going to do apologetics, especially on origins.

But I would rather, if you had the option of going up against your critic

and you had the option of either A, knowing lots and lots of facts, or B, knowing how to think, pick B.

I mean, ideally both would be great.

It's nice to have lots of knowledge of the facts and to know how to think.

But if you've got to choose, knowing how to think is key.

And there's two sort of sub -reasons why rationality in apologetics is so beneficial.

First of all, arguments against the Bible are always inherently fallacious.

Anybody who claims that the Bible can't be trusted or any portion of it, they say, well, we know Genesis is false.

We know evolution is true.

Their argument is fallacious.

It's either the chain of reasoning is wrong, or it has a false premise in the argument.

And you would arrive at the false premise by another incoherent or fallacious argument.

And then finally, rationality presupposes the Christian worldview.

That's powerful.

And when you really get your mind around part B there, it

will embolden your apologetic, because you realize that no one can talk back to God.

No one wins an argument with God.

Now, we don't always, in our attempts, in our fallible attempts, we don't always represent,

we're not always good representatives of God on earth.

There's no doubt about that.

We fall short.

But nonetheless, you recognize that Christianity is the only rational possibility.

That has a profound effect on your apologetics.

But let's go back to A here.

There are these arguments that critics make that are fallacious.

They say, why are you creationists against science?

I've heard people claim that.

I've seen articles that have been written on that topic, maybe phrased a different way.

Why is it that creationists hate science?

This, of course, is the fallacy of the complex question.

This is the error in reasoning of phrasing a question such that it assumes an unwarranted conclusion.

In this case, the hypothesis that creationists are against science.

We're not.

When I hear people ask that, why are you creationists against science?

I'm thinking, did I get a PhD in something that I hate?

Because that was a lot of work to do for something that I apparently am against.

No.

It's called a complex question because it should be divided into two questions.

First of all, are creationists against science?

And secondly, if so, then why?

But you see, by cramming them together, you've already assumed an answer to the first question that is false.

So that is an error in reasoning.

Somebody comes along and says, well, you believe the Bible, either you believe the Bible, or you accept the scientific method.

They say, I like the scientific method, so I could never believe in the Bible.

That is a bifurcation fallacy.

That's an error in reasoning of falsely assuming that there are only two options that are exclusive.

I believe in the Bible and the scientific method.

In fact, I believe in the scientific method because of the Bible, because God upholds the universe in a consistent way that we can

probe using science.

Science is secondary.

But I hold to both.

There's no reason why I can't hold to both.

There's a third option, Bible and science, that has been ignored.

We opened up with this one.

The Bible teaches that God causes lightning and rain, and it does.

But we now understand that these things are due to natural forces.

We can explain lightning now, and we can explain how rain happens.

It's what happens when the temperature drops below the dew point, and we can explain the physics of it.

But you believe God causes that.

That is a bifurcation fallacy, either God or natural forces.

Now, wait a minute.

Natural forces are just the name we give to the way that God upholds his creation.

Natural forces are not an alternative to God's power.

They're an example of God's power.

And so when people say, but rain happens when the temperature drops below the dew point, yes, that's right, because that's the way God

has chosen to uphold his creation.

And apart from that, you couldn't explain anything in nature.

You couldn't explain its orderliness and so on.

So that is a bifurcation fallacy.

Somebody says, we know evolution is a fact, because bacteria have evolved resistance to antibiotics.

And they have.

Certain strains of bacteria are now resistant to antibiotics.

Does that prove evolution?

That's an equivocation fallacy.

Equivocation is the fallacy of shifting the meaning of a word in the middle of an argument.

So this person is trying to establish evolution in the Darwinian sense.

That's a legitimate definition, right?

The idea that evolution is bacteria or microbes like bacteria eventually becoming people.

That's what Darwin believed, really.

And then there's evolution in the sense of just change within a kind, which is something we all accept, something that we can observe.

Dogs changing into different breeds of dogs, that's not a problem.

That's within the creation model.

One type of evolution does not prove the other.

And so to use the same word for both is really misleading.

It is a fallacy.

Sometimes you'll hear critics say, well, you know, creationists don't believe that animals change.

They believe that God created all the animals as they are today, in some versions in their current locations.

Well, that's absurd.

That is a strawman fallacy.

That's the fallacy of misrepresenting the opposing position and then showing how easy it is to knock

down that silly position.

And it's effective.

I mean, it works.

People are fooled by this fallacy often.

They say, oh, really?

Creationists believe that?

Well, that is silly.

But you see, that's not true to what we really believe.

It's easy to defeat a strawman, right?

You put words in their mouth.

Well, they don't believe in science.

They don't believe in change.

And then you show how easy it is to knock down that strawman position.

But that's not what we actually teach.

So it's irrational and it's immoral because you're lying about what it is that we believe.

Somebody says, you're just a Christian because you were raised in a Christian home.

So maybe I'm talking with a critic and I'm giving all these lines of evidence of Christianity,

making a transcendental argument for God, whatever.

And he comes up with it.

Well, you're just a Christian because you were raised in a Christian home.

A lot of Christians have difficulty answering that because there's some truth to it.

So, you know, if you were raised by Muslims, you'd probably be Muslim.

That could be.

But the thing is, that's irrelevant, right?

That's irrelevant.

This is a circumstantial ad hominem fallacy.

It's dodging the argument by pointing to the person's circumstances or motivations.

OK.

And so, yeah, maybe, you know, I'm sure that that my upbringing as a Christian,

I'm very blessed.

I have gratitude that I was raised in a Christian home that did help me to become a Christian.

But that's irrelevant to the truth of Christianity.

Right.

I'm Christian worldview is still true.

The Islam worldview, false.

It doesn't matter how you were raised.

The motivations or circumstances of the person are irrelevant to the argument he's making.

Well, you're just Christian because you were raised in a Christian home is like saying, well, you just believe in the multiplication table because

you were taught it in school.

And that's probably true.

I mean, if I was raised by wolves, I probably would not know about the multiplication table.

But that doesn't make the multiplication table false.

It doesn't mean that the multiplication table is just an opinion that's passed down in certain families and not others.

It's a fundamental truth.

So and I have good reasons to continue to believe it.

But, yeah, I was taught in school.

And yes, I was taught about Christianity by my parents.

But that doesn't mean that I don't have good reasons to continue to believe in Christianity.

So this, again, is this is a fallacy of irrelevance because you're changing your

you're making a claim that is perhaps true, but it's irrelevant to the conversation that you've been having, which is

regarding the truth of the Christian worldview.

This is a common one that you'll see critics say, well, creationists are not real scientists.

And how do you define real scientists?

Well, obviously, one that believes in evolution.

But that's not the definition of a scientist.

This is the no true Scotsman fallacy, where you protect a position from a bubble by incorrectly redefining terms.

If you look in a dictionary, the definition of a scientist is not someone who does science and rejects creation.

It's just someone who does science.

That's all.

And so it is it's dishonest to redefine terms that way.

So arguments against the Bible are always inherently fallacious.

I've given you many examples.

Have I demonstrated that arguments against the Bible are always inherently fallacious?

No, because I would have to give every possible example if I were going to do it by example.

But the neat thing is, I don't have to give every possible example to know that any argument against the Bible is

inherently fallacious because rationality presupposes the Christian worldview.

The whole idea of logic, rationality, that there are rules and reasoning that we need to follow, that these rules

don't change in time or space and so on.

I'll go into some of these details.

But all of this is contingent upon the Christian worldview.

And therefore, any argument that attempts to use logic, which is a Christian concept, against Christianity

would be irrational.

It would be self -defeating.

Consider laws of logic.

These are the rules that we use to think properly.

And even if you can't state a law of logic, you know them, at least some of them, because you couldn't

function in society without them.

God's programmed some of them into you.

And of course, you can learn to articulate them and learn more of them by taking a class on logic.

They're the rules that govern all correct reasoning.

But why should there be rules governing correct reasoning?

Why isn't it just, why don't we just get all our, you know, why isn't it just different opinions?

Who determines what correct reasoning is?

In the Christian worldview, I can answer that.

We have a standard of correct reasoning, and that standard is God.

And his reasoning is correct in the sense that it is consistent with the universe because God's, the

same mind of God that determines logic also controls the universe.

God's mind determines reality.

But if you think about what laws of logic are, they're abstract, universal, invariant,

exceptionless laws of correct reasoning.

And I want to go through each of those adjectives.

They're abstract.

What does that mean?

It means they don't exist physically.

They're not made up of atoms.

They exist in the mind, right?

You can't physically touch a law of logic or stub your toe on one or accidentally swallow one.

They are abstract.

They exist in the mind.

You can think a law of logic, but you can't touch one.

I could write down a law of logic, but that's not the law.

That's a representation of it, a formulation of it.

I could destroy that.

The law would still exist.

So they are abstract.

They're universal, meaning that they apply everywhere.

Laws of logic work on the earth.

They work on the moon.

They work in the Andromeda Galaxy.

That's kind of interesting.

Why is it they work everywhere?

Let's come back to that.

They're invariant, meaning they don't change with time.

It's not like the law of non -contradiction works on Thursdays, but not on Fridays.

Friday's contradictions can be true.

No, they don't change with time.

They're consistent over time, and they're exceptionless.

It's not that laws of logic work most of the time.

They work all of the time.

They have no exceptions.

Now, what worldview can make sense of these properties of laws of logic?

I want to suggest it's the Christian worldview, because in the

Christian worldview, we can make sense of things that are abstract.

Now, the secularists, in some versions of secular secularism, they're materialists.

They believe that everything that exists is matter and energy.

They can't have laws of logic, because laws of logic are not made of matter and energy.

You certainly can't account for logic in that worldview.

Christian can.

A Christian can say, well, we would expect to have things that are not material, because first of all, God himself is

non -material.

He's not made up of atoms.

He doesn't have a specific location in space to which he's confined.

And God thinks, and therefore his thoughts would necessarily be abstract.

And if we're going to think God's thoughts, they'll have to be abstract too.

We can make sense of laws of logic being abstract.

We can make sense of the fact that they are universal.

Laws of logic apply everywhere.

Why?

Because God's everywhere.

He's omnipresent.

His power is immediately available throughout the entire universe.

His mind controls everything that happens on the earth, on the moon, in the Andromeda

galaxy, in the most distant quasar.

It doesn't matter.

And so laws of logic work the same everywhere.

Now, the funny thing is everybody knows that.

Everybody assumes that, that laws of logic are universal, right?

But how could you possibly know that on a secular worldview?

How do you know laws of logic work on Mars?

Have you been to Mars to check?

In fact, most of you haven't even left the planet.

And our planet's pretty small compared to the rest of the universe.

Why is it we assume, all astronomers assume, that laws of logic work the same in deep space as they do on the earth?

I mean, there's lots of concern with this new, the Mars rover, this new one has a helicopter actually on it.

It's going to fly around Mars, hopefully.

Now, it might have a mechanical malfunction, but nobody's assuming that it won't work because logic's different on

Mars.

Nobody assumes that.

When the astronauts went to the moon, they had some concerns about the equipment and the conditions they would

find.

But one of their concerns was not, boy, I hope logic works on the moon, or we're in real trouble.

We might not be able to get back and get back.

Who knows?

See, it's in the Christian worldview.

We can make sense of the universality of laws of logic and how we know about it.

We know about it by revelation from God.

God's told us that he's sovereign everywhere.

Invariant, laws of logic are invariant.

They don't change with time.

That makes sense because God doesn't change with time.

Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.

God is invariant, and therefore his thinking will not change in terms of its fundamental character.

God can enter time and do things.

That's not a problem.

But his internal thinking, his internal consistency in his thinking is invariant.

Now, why would that be in a secular worldview?

I mean, you can't really explain why laws of logic exist in a secular worldview, or how they're abstract, or how they're universal.

How could you possibly know they don't change in time?

At best, you could say, well, they haven't changed in my lifetime.

And then some people might say, and therefore I assume they will never change.

That's irrational.

That's a hasty generalization fallacy, right?

Just because something has never occurred to you yet doesn't mean it never will.

They say, well, very likely they never will.

That's irrational, because that would be like saying, very likely I'm immortal, because after all, I've never died before,

so I assume I never will.

Well, that would be illogical.

Just because you've never seen a law of logic violated or changed with

time doesn't mean that they can't.

And of course, I have to point out that even when you argue that you correctly remember that laws of logic have never changed, you're

assuming that laws of logic have never changed.

And they're exceptionalists.

They're exceptionalists because God's sovereign.

God is sovereign over his creation.

And so, of course, they'd be exceptional.

The Christian worldview can make sense of the existence of laws of logic as a reflection of God's thoughts,

why they have the properties that they have, and how we can know that they have the properties that they have by God's

revelation.

He's told us some of his thoughts, because that's some of the things that, you know, that's sometimes the critic will say, well, you're saying,

you know, laws of logic reflects God's thinking.

How do you know how God thinks?

I've read his book.

It's a bestseller.

You should try it.

Laws of logic do stem from the nature of God.

Consider the law of non -contradiction.

Can't have A and not A at the same time in the same sense.

Why?

Because God can't deny himself, 2 Timothy 2 .13.

And all truth, all knowledge is in Christ, Colossians 2 .3.

Therefore, truth will not contradict truth.

It's impossible.

So when unbelievers use laws of logic, they're actually stealing from the Christian worldview.

I like to point out that unbelievers are presuppositional kleptomaniacs.

They're constantly stealing from the Christian worldview.

They can't help themselves.

They're made in God's image.

They don't like that, but they can't escape it.

And so as an example of this, take naturalism, the belief that nature is all that there is, everything that exists is matter and

energy.

But the problem is you can't have logic if everything that exists is matter and energy.

So when the naturalist tries to use logic to convince others of his position, he's immediately refuted his position.

You can't have logic if everything that exists is matter in motion.

So unbelievers stand on Christian presuppositions.

They don't admit it.

They'll say, oh no, laws of logic, that's neutral.

That's not a Christian presupposition, but it really is.

It's a Christian presupposition.

And we need to point out that inconsistency.

What are some possible responses to this?

I've heard them all.

None of them are good.

Some people will say, well, no laws of logic are material.

They're the chemical reactions in the brain.

Sorry, that doesn't work because I have different chemical reactions in my brain than you do, right?

Because our physical brains are different.

And so if laws of logic were material, they'd be different for different people.

So that's not going to work.

And frankly, it wouldn't make sense to say laws of logic work on Mars because no one's brain is on Mars.

Not yet anyway.

Laws of logic are descriptions of how the brain thinks.

People say, okay, they're not material, but you don't need God.

Laws of logic are just descriptions of how you think.

If that were true, then why would you need laws of logic to correct the way that you think?

Right?

Because you always think the way that you think.

And yet we don't always think logically.

So they can't just be descriptions of how you think.

They are descriptions in a sense of how God thinks.

And so that's the way we need to look at that.

Laws of logic are conventions.

A convention is something we all agree to it and it sort of works, right?

Like driving on the right side of the road.

But if laws of logic were conventional, then different societies could have different laws of logic.

You could say, welcome to Australia.

Here we drive on the left side of the road and here contradictions are true.

See, laws of logic are not conventional.

Language is.

And so sometimes the way we use language in terms of applying it to logic can change, but not the actual laws

themselves.

Laws of logic would change.

They'd be different in different cultures.

If they were conventional, they're obviously not conventional.

Somebody says, well, they're just a property of the universe.

Now that's problematic in a number of ways.

First of all, the universe is constantly changing.

It's apparently expanding.

Stars explode.

If laws of logic are a reflection of the way the universe is, we'd expect them to change because the universe changes,

but laws of logic don't.

And frankly, they're not really about the universe.

Laws of logic are not telling you about the planets and the stars and matter.

They're talking about rules of inference, what you can conclude from a proposition.

If A, then B, or if P, then Q, et cetera, et cetera.

One guy told me this, this actual quote, he said, well, we use them because they work.

I said, that doesn't answer my question.

I'm asking how you can make sense of them in your worldview.

And yeah, I know they work.

They work because they're true.

That's not my question.

My question is how can you make sense of them apart from the Christian worldview?

And I say, nobody can.

Nobody's been able to do that.

So the secularist has to stand on Christian presuppositions and use them to argue against Christianity.

Now that's not going to work out well for him because even hypothetically, if he were successful in refuting the Christian position,

he would lose any basis for the very laws of logic that he's trying to use to disprove Christianity because laws of logic

are a Christian presupposition.

There's no getting around that.

And I like to liken this to a debate on the existence of air.

This is an analogy I got from Dr. Bonson, my mentor on this topic.

And I think it's a great analogy.

Can you imagine two people arguing whether air exists?

What would the critic of air say?

He's making all these elaborate arguments that air doesn't exist all the while breathing air and using air to make

the argument.

You see, the critic of air must use air in order to make a case against air.

So the very fact that he can make his argument proves that his argument is wrong.

Likewise, the critic of the Bible must use biblical presuppositions in order to argue against the Bible,

like laws of logic.

Well, the Bible has contradictions.

Well, first of all, it doesn't, but why in your worldview are contradictions wrong?

That's what I want to know.

The idea that contradictions are always wrong.

That's a Christian conception because God doesn't deny himself and all truth is in God.

Therefore, truth can't contradict truth.

But how do you account for the law of non -contradiction?

Can't do it in a non -Christian worldview.

And so this is the picture that I think of whenever I'm debating someone who is arguing against Christianity.

Anybody who argues against Christianity has to stand on Christian principles in order to make the argument.

And that is powerful.

When you realize that, it will really bless your apologetic efforts.

It really will.

So every Christian should strive to be rational because we have a moral obligation to be rational.

It's not an option.

It's commandment.

Rationality has many practical benefits.

It'll help your theology.

It'll help every aspect of your life in which you use your mind.

And it's essential in apologetics.

It's really going to help you to be able to spot errors in arguments against the Bible because they always have some.

They're always there.

And to point out that rationality itself only makes sense in a Christian worldview.

So I hope that was helpful.

I do have some resources on this.

A book that I wrote a few years ago, Introduction to Logic.

It's really designed to be a curriculum to teach students logic.

But most adults have never had a class on logic.

And so it's not just for youngsters.

It's for adults too.

If you did want to use it as a homeschooling text, there's a teacher's guide that goes with it.

I also wrote the teacher's guide and I used some examples there that hopefully will be helpful.

It's got tests and quizzes and things like that.

I always sort of think that the latest thing that I've done is the greatest and the best, but it really is.

It's a good resource.

Something that I've done very recently for Master Books is I've done an actual online course

where I've done a number of presentations on various aspects of logic.

And if you'd like to sign up for that course, you can go to

masterbooksacademy .com, masterbooksacademy .com.

And there's several other good online courses there as well.

But this would be for those of you that, you know, a book's okay, but I need audio visual.

Well, it'll be me telling you how wonderful logic is.

And I use some funny examples that I haven't used in other places.

So it's kind of a neat thing.

If you want just a very basic introduction to logic, a book that you can read in a day, Discerning Truth.

It covers the top 10 errors and reasoning that evolutionists tend to make when they argue against creation.

So that's a fun resource.

Ultimate Proof of Creation, this was mentioned before the broadcast.

We were talking a little bit about that.

This has, it's a general defense of the Christian faith by pointing out that there's no alternative.

There's no rational alternative to Christianity.

And there are two chapters discussing logic briefly.

And then Understanding Genesis, it's what the title indicates.

It's a book on hermeneutics, how to study scripture, how to understand the meaning of the text.

And I actually have an appendix on formal logical fallacies, including categorical

fallacies.

And I think that's the only place I have that.

So that's another resource you might look into if you're interested in learning more about logic.

And do check us out on the website, biblicalscienceinstitute .com.

A lot of great resources on that website.

It's a free resource, so check that out.

And you can get any of the books or DVDs on that website as well.

And so I think that'll do it.

Thank you very much.

Wow.

That was really great, Dr. Lyle.

And boy, do we have questions.

So let's start out with an easy one.

Sammy wants to know what inspired you to start learning and teaching logic.

Bonson.

I just, I fell in love with the teaching of Dr. Greg Bonson.

He was a brilliant apologist.

He was known as the man that atheists most feared because he had demolished

several atheists in debate, at least three, two formal and one informal debate against atheists that are recorded and they are gold.

And I've learned that one of the things that impressed me about Dr. Bonson, he's not

only brilliant, his PhD in philosophy, brilliant mind.

There's man loved Jesus.

I mean, he had a heart for God.

And sometimes those things don't go well together.

Sometimes people that are very, very intelligent, they think they can, they don't really need God and they

can get a little stuck on themselves.

Bonson wasn't that way.

He had a humble heart and I just really appreciated his material.

And one of the classes that he taught was a class on logic.

And I was able to take it posthumously by getting the material.

It was recorded, of course.

And so I was able to sit down on that.

Like I was one of the students, except I couldn't ask questions.

That was the only bad part of it.

But I, I loved that class.

It was so much fun.

And then I picked up, I went through the rest of the textbook.

I got another couple of textbooks and really delved into logic because I realized how, how effective it is in apologetics.

It's one of the most important things you can learn if you're going to be able to defend the faith well.

And there were just lots of bonuses that came afterward.

Like I said, my theology improved and so on and so forth.

But yeah, it's, it was, it was Bonson that, that started the, the process,.

I believe.

Okay.

And Noel would like to know how long have you been writing books?

Well, my first book for layman was taking back astronomy.

And I think that was, it was year 2005 or 2006.

Technically the first book that I wrote would have been my doctoral dissertation.

That was in 2004.

And you don't want to read that.

So it's been, it's been a little.

While.

Yeah.

Okay, great.

Sorry about that.

I had a puppy tangled up in some cords, so we're good.

Okay.

So the next question, there's actually a couple of questions that are related.

So I'm going to read you both of them and I think you can put them together.

So Isaiah asked, what if someone grew up and was raised in a place and time where they didn't have access to

biblical sources and they still don't have that access?

Is it a sin for them to be thinking irrationally then?

How can one expect that person to be able to think rationally?

And how will that person ever be able to find the hope of everlasting life in Christ Jesus, our Lord?

And similarly, the Harris's asked, so Isaiah is more about like

somebody who is in a different place, right?

But the Harris's asked about severe mental illness.

Is severe mental illness unique in all the elements of life?

We can explain how physical ailments are the result of living in a fallen world and how we should not let our

circumstances impede our relationship with Jesus.

But for those who are incapable of understanding his love, how do we explain that?

So I think it's kind of two separate questions, but kind of related.

Yeah, they are, I suppose.

With regard to the first,.

The Bible does answer that question in a number of places.

It answers it, first of all, in Psalm 19, which indicates that the heavens declare the

glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

You read the rest of the chapter, you find that the creation is evidence

of the biblical God and it is indisputable evidence of the biblical God.

God has hardwired us, according to Romans 1, God has hardwired us such that when we look out into creation,

we recognize it as the work of God, a God who is good,

a God that we have offended because we do not live up to his standard.

And Romans 2, Paul makes a very powerful argument that Gentiles, they know the

law of God, they've got it written on their heart.

So when we come into the world, we already know something about God, we know our creator, he's revealed himself to us,

we know something about his standards.

Now, that doesn't mean we know everything about God, it doesn't mean we know he's a trinity, it doesn't mean we know that he created

six days, but we do know he's the creator, that he is good, he's moral, and that we have violated his law.

Everybody knows that, according to scripture, everybody knows that.

And that means the person in the most distant part of the world, he knows that, he looks at the creation, he says, wow,

God is amazing, the being that created this is awesome, and I don't always do what is good,

woe is me.

So that, so there is accountability there, there is accountability there, and Paul makes that very clear.

I believe that if a person seeks after God, God will make sure that that person has presented the gospel.

The problem is people don't seek after God, God has to intervene, God has to go into their life,

God is not obligated to save any of us, right, because we're born into the world, we're sinners, we sin of our own free volition, we

hate God, that's just our natural state, and God takes some of us and he turns our heart around, and

he always uses the gospel to do that, whether it's a, you know, it's a missionary or the text of scripture, usually it's a person, but

in any case, it is motivation, though, for us to go out and reach these people.

God's not obligated to save them, their condemnation is just because they have sinned against God, they know,

but nonetheless, God wants us to go and present the gospel to them, and some of them he'll save, and some of them he won't, and that's

his prerogative.

And that really, that really does go into the next question then, because what about people who have

mental disorders, and mental disorders are real.

I know that there are some Christians who say, you know, all mental disorders, that's a spiritual thing, and if you're a genuine Christian, you won't have any, well,

that's ridiculous.

The brain is a physical organ, and granted, our mind is more than our brain, I understand that, we have an

immortal spirit in us, and our brain somehow interfaces with our spirit, we don't quite know how that

works, but you know, if sections of your brain are damaged, it will affect your behavior, we know that.

The brain is not exempt, there's no reason to think that the brain is exempt from the curse.

Now, we all experience the curse in different ways, and you know, I occasionally get lower back pain,

and other people don't, but then they have, you know, migraines, or whatever, we all have, we all experience the curse

differently, and for some people, it's the brain, and this is something that hits home for

me, because I have a brother who has Down syndrome, and I love him more than anybody, he's a great guy, and

we've taught him all we can about Jesus, and we can ask him the questions, and he'll give the right answers, generally,

if you love Jesus, I love Jesus, who made the moon, Brian, he's all, God made the moon, he knows that,

does he have a saving knowledge of God, it's hard to tell, but the thing you need to remember is, God is sovereign,

in my view, God is sovereign over salvation, that's something that I believe the Bible teaches, God's the one that turns people's heart around,

and he doesn't do it just based on their intelligence, God can give a person a saving faith,

even if they don't have the intelligence to articulate that faith,.

Hope that helps.

I think that does, and then, before we move on to any other questions, let's take a little time

to talk about the one that actually was what we brought you here for tonight, because this question keeps

resurfacing, if you could please explain about the sun standing still for Joshua's long

day.

Yeah, let's see, can I do the, let's see, doesn't the sun naturally

stand.

Still, Jason?

Well, motion's relative, so it depends,

it depends on what you would want to define as your, as your state of motion, can you see that, can you see the earth there?

Yes.

Okay, so from the perspective of somebody that's watching from a distant star, so the earth's rotating like that, it does that

once, once a day, and so from our point of view, we're on the surface of earth,

and so we consider it stationary, it looks like the universe is turning, and those are both, in a sense,

mathematically, those are both equally sensible coordinate

systems, there's no problem there.

From a Newtonian perspective, it's the earth that's rotating, and it's also revolving around the sun, and so

people ask them, well, you know, what did, what did God do for Joshua's long day?

Well, basically, he did this, he just, he just stopped the earth for a little while,

it's that easy, and people had these silly ideas, well, why wouldn't everybody go flying

off, as if God could stop all the atoms on the earth, but would somehow forget to stop the atoms on its surface, that makes no sense,

they could just say, let the angular momentum in this area be zero, and it just stopped like that, no problem, I mean, if I can

do it on my computer, that's my simulation, why can't God do it with his universe?

So really, no problem there, God just stopped the earth, and apparently the moon as well,

and the sun, so from the perspective, everything just stopped in the solar system for about a day,

so that the Israelites could fight their battle, it's a, it was a unique time in history, the only thing that comes close is

Hezekiah's long, or Hezekiah's when he, when he turned the earth backward a little bit, so that's kind of neat too.

I was watching Chuck Missler, and he was saying that, I don't doubt that this happened, and I don't doubt

that God, you know, stopped everything, other than my understanding was the sun was

stationary, and we were revolving around it, but Chuck Missler was saying that it added time

to the calendars, so that was my question, did it add time, what was?

No, okay, because all motion, there's no, yeah, there's no way to check it astronomically, because all motion was stopped, the

sun, the moon was stopped, apparently all motion in the solar system was stopped for about 24 hours, so

yeah, and that had no impact on the calendar, or anything like that?

Nope, nope, and no, NASA computers have not discovered it, there's no, there's no way you could, now if, if God had

stopped only some parts of the universe, if he'd stopped the earth, but let the moon

continue in its orbit, then we might be able to detect that against ancient records, but apparently he

stopped everything, and so you stop all the clocks, then there's no way to register it, the only way you could know

there was a discrepancy, is if you stopped some clocks, and not others, and the only clocks that God allowed to continue were the,

our mental capacities, people were able to live and walk about in that time, so, but in terms

of an objective standard that we can have today, outside of God's word, there's no way to confirm it, there are other,

there are legends, I, I hesitate to mention this, but I will, because it's, it's cool, but I haven't, I haven't researched this, so

take this with a grain of salt, but I have read that there are other legends of people experiencing a long day, at the

time of Joshua, and other parts of the world, including people that experienced a long night in the Americas, for example, because they're on the

opposite side of the globe, so that's something I want to look into a little more, but it's, it's a tantalizing.

Possibility, I'll put it that way.

Okay, so we have three questions pertaining to atheism, so let's do these one

at a time, the first one is, would the use of human logic be effective in explaining the supernatural to

atheists and agnostics, what are the pros and cons or limits of using an approach of logic in

this context?

Say the first part one more time, sorry.

Would the use of human logic be effective in explaining the supernatural to atheists and

agnostics?

Well, I mean, there's just, there's logic, and it's, it's something that stems from the nature of God,

and because atheists are made in the, are made in the image of God, they have the capacity to do

logic, they don't always do it consistently, because according to Romans 1, they're suppressing the truth and

unrighteousness, okay, so atheists do know God, there's no doubt about that, no one's

truly an atheist in the sense that they genuinely don't believe in God, but there are people who profess atheism, because they

don't like God, they hate him, they hate his standard, they won't say that, they'll say, oh, I just haven't presented enough evidence, no, you

hate God, because, because you don't want to live according to his standard, and can we

use logic to, to help them to think through the issues?

Yes, because they have the capacity to think logically, because they're made in the image of God, you see,

and so, but, but keep in mind, they may, they may not respond logically, they might respond irrationally, they

might say, well, you know what, I don't care, I'm going to continue to be an atheist, and they'll put up all kinds of arguments, no matter how irrational,

so you, you can't make somebody be saved, only God can turn a person's heart around, but we should use

logic, we should use rationality, it's, what else do you have, I mean, a lot, a lot of Christians think that we should try and pull the

heart strings, no, it's God's job to turn a person's heart around, you can't do

that, it's our job to make an argument, so we like to reverse roles, and be Holy Spirit Junior, and say, you know, I'm gonna,

I'm gonna, you know, make this emotional case that you should surrender your life to God, no, make a

logical case, and let God turn the person's heart around, if he wants to do that.

Okay, actually, I'm going to ask the other two together, so the first, first of all, thinking about the

differences between knowledge, as in, I know I went to Disneyland when I was six, but I can't prove it,

facts, generally provable, and beliefs, unprovable, but accepted as true,

how would you rebut an atheist who logically or rationally claims that Christianity is just a

belief, and is therefore a truth only for those who accept it?

And I think you'll probably be able to answer the second question along with that, which is, do you have some practical tips

on how to bridge the gap in logic in reaching through to an atheist whose only presupposition is

naturalism, to reach a point to accept the reality of the supernatural?

Okay, problem when you do two back -to -back like that, it's hard for me to...

All right, do you want me to repeat the first one?

This part, just the first part.

Okay, so the Harris has pointed out the differences between knowledge and facts and beliefs.

That's right, that's what I wanted to hone in on.

Okay.

It would help you to know the definitions of these things, and that's what I wanted to hone in on, that was that phrase,

because knowledge is defined as true, justified belief.

Knowledge is true, justified belief.

So actually, knowledge is a subcategory of belief.

So if you believe something, well, we all have things we believe, in order for it to be classified as knowledge,

knowledge is a subset of belief, it would have to be true, obviously.

If you believe something that's false, that's not knowledge.

So if you believe something that's true, it might be knowledge, but there's more to it than that, because let's suppose that

you say, you know what, I bought this lottery ticket, and I just know, I know this is the

winning ticket.

Now, you'd have to be pretty silly to say, well, you know, I

really know that as a fact, of course not, you don't really know that.

But suppose that it turned out that I did win the lottery, it turned out to be true.

Now, at the time, I didn't know that, I claimed I knew that this is the winning ticket.

And a week later, when it turns out it is the winning ticket, it was a true belief.

But is it really knowledge?

Did I really know it?

I didn't really know it.

I had a belief that happened to be true by accident.

But you see, I didn't really have a good reason to believe it until it was finally revealed.

And then of course, I had a great reason to believe it.

So you see, knowledge isn't just a belief, it's a true belief.

And it's not just a true belief, it's a true belief for which you have good reasons.

And there are people who will pick on that definition.

And but it's at least that some people would add additional criteria, and some people add

certainty, I don't.

But in any case, so I have knowledge of something, if I believe it, if it's true, and if I have a good

reason to believe it.

And so I might have knowledge of going to Disney World, even if I can't remember it.

Because I have a belief that I went there, it's true that I went there and have good reasons, like maybe my parents told me that I

did, or they showed me a picture or something.

So you can have knowledge of something without having an immediate remembrance of it.

So is that helpful?

Yeah, I think so.

And so then, then taking that further, just, you know, so how would you read

by an atheist who logically rationally claims that Christianity is just a belief?

And then and then some tips for bridging the gap in logic and reasoning through to an

atheist who, whose only presupposition is naturalism to reach a point to accept the

reality of the supernatural?

Okay, well, is Christianity a belief?

Yes, it's more than that.

Atheism is a belief.

Atheism is a lack of belief.

Now you believe that the universe can come into existence apart from God, that's a belief.

We all have beliefs.

It's just a question of whether or not those beliefs are rational.

And I would argue, you know, I would say to my atheist friend that your belief, sir, is irrational.

You don't have good reasons for your belief that the universe can come about apart from a mind, or that you can have the kinds of

things we have in this universe apart from the biblical God.

My belief is rational.

My belief is not just a belief, it's knowledge.

Why?

Because it's true, justified belief.

It's true.

I have good reasons to believe that it's true.

And I believe it.

So that makes it knowledge.

And of course, you'll challenge me on that.

You'll say, well, what are your reasons for believing the Christian worldview?

And then then we can just go right into it.

I can say, well, for one, it makes rationality possible.

The Christian worldview makes sense of things like laws of logic, which you couldn't get up in the morning without laws of logic.

You claim you're a naturalist, but laws of logic are not part of nature.

It's not like made up of atoms, and yet you use them to get up in the morning, right?

So that's how I would start that conversation.

It would be something along those lines.

And sometimes there are other things

you can do, too, that I think go beyond just making an argument.

You need to understand that a lot of times skeptics, they have a lot of pride.

And that's common to humanity.

But atheists like to think they're very intellectual.

And so what I like to do is turn the table on them and point out, I'm sorry, but if you're an atheist, you're the least

intellectual thinker on the planet, really, because you can't even make sense of laws of logic.

You just take it for granted.

You can't make sense of why there's orderliness in nature.

You just take it for granted.

You live up to some kind of moral code that you can't make sense of on your own terms.

You just, you believe lots of things, and you don't have any good reasons for them.

And that's not rational.

And I, as a Christian, I believe in laws of logic and orderliness in nature and morality, but I have good

reasons for them.

Those things are consistent with my worldview, and they make no sense in yours.

And so I very, you know, and I do it politely.

And I do it by asking questions.

I try to reveal the person's suppressed knowledge of God.

That's my goal in apologetics, when I'm dealing with an atheist, is to expose his

suppressed knowledge of God by pointing out that he believes things that make no sense if atheism is true.

Laws of logic, uniformity, orderliness in nature, human dignity and freedom, and so on.

Okay, so then let's take that a little bit in a similar way, but from a different perspective.

How would you respond to someone who claims that logic or rationality is not uniquely Christian, because it

existed in other religions?

Maybe Zoroastrianism or absent religion

prior to.

Christianity?

Well, you need to understand, when I talk about logic being something that

only makes sense in the Christian worldview, I'm talking about the Christian worldview.

The Christian worldview is everything the Bible says.

The Christian worldview has always been true.

The Christian worldview is that God exists, that he's the creator, that he made man in his own image, and so on.

We didn't start calling Christians Christians until a certain point in time, but the Christian worldview, the biblical worldview, has always been

true.

It's always been the case that God exists.

It's always been the case that he is universal, in the sense that he's omnipresent.

It's always been the case that he's invariant, and therefore we can account for laws of logic.

These other religions cannot.

They use laws of logic, but they do that because Christianity is true.

So yes, the atheist can use laws of logic.

The Zoroastrian can use laws of logic because they're made in the image of God, because Christianity is true, which is to say the

Bible's true from the beginning.

The universe is the way the Bible says it is.

God is who he says he is.

He's revealed himself in the way that he says he's revealed himself, and therefore we can make sense of laws of logic.

It's just that the people in these other religions are inconsistent.

They fail to give God the glory for those very laws of logic that they depend on every day.

That process is described in Romans 1, where they suppress that knowledge of God.

They're not thankful.

Their mind is darkened, and so on.

They still have the capacity to use laws of logic because they're made in God's image, but they're not grateful for God giving those laws of

logic.

I would challenge them.

I'd say, can you show me any worldview besides Christianity that makes sense of the

existence of laws of logic, their properties, and how we can possibly know about that?

I haven't had any contenders that can do that.

I could give examples.

Let's say any polytheistic religion.

You can't make sense of laws of logic because you have multiple gods.

Which one's logic do we follow, Zeus or Hera?

Of course, those gods tended to roll over different regions too.

You'd expect to have different laws of logic in different regions.

That immediately wipes out all polytheistic religions.

Now you're down to what?

You're down to three.

You're down to Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

Of course, I could argue that Judaism should be Christianity.

It's the culmination of Judaism.

You just have to deal with Islam.

There's ways to do that as well.

I would just point out that really, only the Christian worldview can make sense of those laws of logic.

Yes, people of other religions can use them because the Bible's true.

That's actually evidence of the Christian worldview.

The fact that the Buddhist can use laws of logic proves that he's wrong.

Okay.

We still have a couple more questions if you don't mind.

I know we had a goal to be done by eight o 'clock Pacific time, but if you don't mind hanging out with us a

little bit longer.

Caden has been doing some research.

He's been listening to some progressive theology teachers.

He has a question about that.

He has a quote here.

In progressive theology, truth is depicted as omniscience and natural laws of thinking.

Since truth is defined as God's omniscience and natural laws of nature, it can now be

subjective since Jesus came down as a flesh truth incarnate.

Therefore, we can grow to be little gods and create our own truth.

God wants us to be loving and to be our true selves.

So that was something that he heard.

And his questions are, how can we respond to this claim from the progressive theology community?

They use familiar language, but they twist it so much so that it can be pretty appealing.

I think that's the key.

I think you need to ask, where are you getting that definition of truth?

And how do you defend that?

I, as a Christian, would argue that truth is that which corresponds to the mind of God.

Something is true, but something God thinks.

And God does not change.

God says, I, the Lord, do not change.

Therefore, you sons of Jacob are not consumed.

So God's thinking is eternal.

He's beyond time.

God's thinking would have to be eternal because he's beyond time.

He made time.

And so his thoughts are beyond that.

Now, he can come into time and do things.

That's fine.

But the eternal thinking of the Trinity is unchanged.

And therefore, truth is unchanged.

And any theology that argues that we can become little gods is immediately heretical

because there's only one God.

That's it.

And we have the greatest honor in the universe.

We've been made in his image.

And that's enough.

And we need to be like God in the way that he wants us to be on a creaturely level,

behaving in a way that's consistent with his character, thinking in a way that's consistent with his thoughts.

But we dare not think that we can become like God.

That was Satan's problem.

So yeah, I would go back and say, why are you defining terms that way?

Because that's not how I, as a Christian, would define truth.

Truth is that which corresponds to the mind of God.

And that's consistent with all the scriptures.

It's consistent with Jesus calling himself the truth because he corresponds perfectly to the mind of God because he is God.

So that definition of truth, the truth which corresponds to the mind of God, would be biblical.

And it's also consistent with our everyday experience because everything that's true that happens in this universe is something that corresponds to the mind of

God because he's in control of the universe.

It does come back to terms.

And by the way, the issue of terminology is becoming

really important really fast because in our society, there's now a war on words.

And you'll see this everywhere.

Words now mean something to certain people.

They mean something totally different.

And we need to push back against that because that's, if you allow words to mean just anything, that's the end of rationality.

God gave us language and we use language in our thinking process.

We do.

We use words when we use logic.

And if you're changing words so that they don't mean anything, you end up like the in Orwell's book

1984, where words mean the opposite of what they say and so on.

You can't make sense of anything.

That's the end of rationality.

So we need to push back against.

People who want to redefine racism or whatever.

On a little side note, I think grammar is also part of that.

Sure.

I mean, you see grammar is like taken so in English.

I mean, every language has its own rules, but our rules have become so relaxed, especially with

the internet age and people just putting information out there and not even caring about their use

of commas and semicolons or apostrophes, which changes everything.

And even though -.

What are you talking about, Terri?

It sounds kind of silly, and I wouldn't want to be labeled as one of those grammar Nazi

people.

But at the same time, I think it's important because when you relax things like that, then people

do easily misunderstand things just like with words.

So anyway, that's my soapbox.

Okay.

I think this might be our last question before we sign off on our

public forums, which, by the way, we did go live on Facebook from the very beginning,

but just so that anybody's confused, especially if you're still watching along on Facebook, I made the

choice, like it gives me a choice, and I chose to go live in the event instead of to our page.

And so it didn't notify people right away.

So it is there.

It's still publicly available from the very beginning, but some people got on a little bit late because of that.

So my apologies on that.

But this last question, is it important to believe that the earth is around 6 ,000 years old or

billions of years?

It doesn't change the point of the Bible, but is it wrong to take the first chapter of Genesis literally?

I would say it would be a sin to take the first chapter of Genesis as anything other than

literal history, because that's the way Jesus took it, and that's the way all the other books of the Bible take it.

So again, if you're going to have your thinking lined up with Christ's, take every thought captive.

You need to think the way he thinks.

Jesus referred to Genesis many times as literal creation.

He refers to Noah as a literal person.

He refers to Lot as a literal person.

He refers to Adam and Eve, not by name, but in the beginning, God made them male and female.

He quotes that in Matthew chapter 19.

And he quotes from Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, the creation of

Eve from Adam's side.

The exact date's not so important as taking the Bible

literarily, understanding what the author intended.

There's no doubt that God created in six days.

Okay, there's no doubt about that, because that's what the text says.

And you can go back and you'll get the Hebrew language there.

There's no doubt.

And there was evening, there was morning, one day.

And so God's defining the day and the night, and he did that in six days for our benefit.

Now you say, what are the two reasons why I shouldn't

say, well, the days could be millions of years?

Two reasons.

One, there's no doubt linguistically, that's not what they mean.

Linguistically, there's no doubt that we're talking about ordinary days.

God uses an evening, a morning with them.

In Exodus 20, they're compared to our work week.

God says the reason we have a seven -day week is because that's how long God chose to take to create and rest.

That's why we have a seven -day week.

So those are the same, it's using the same word for day, yamim, the plural form, which is always ordinary days

in scripture.

So there's no doubt textually.

So if you say, yes, but I'm not going to take it that way, you've just decided that you're going to be the Supreme Court that

overrides the meaning of the scriptures.

And if you can do that in Genesis, you can do that anywhere.

You can decide that Jesus didn't literally rise from the dead because after all, most scientists say that's impossible.

You can decide that he didn't literally turn the water to wine.

If it's okay to reinterpret the clear meaning of the text in Genesis, why not do it elsewhere?

And you could even do it in the gospel.

You know, you can say, well, the resurrection of Christ, that's not real.

That's a problem because then you're still in your sins.

Your faith is in vain, according to the apostle Paul.

The other reason why you don't want to add the millions of years concerns the fossils that we find all over the world, because we

do find fossils all over the world.

I'd expect that there was a worldwide flood, killed lots of organisms, buried them in sediment.

That happened long after creation, over a thousand years, a

millennium and a half later.

But you see, if the fossils are millions of years old, that means you got death before Adam sinned.

In fact, you got death before Adam existed, right?

Because if you got a dinosaur fossil, that's a hundred million years old, human beings do not go back a hundred million years.

Even the secularists concede that human beings are recent.

So if you say, well, the earth could be millions of years old.

These fossils could be millions of years old.

You've got death before sin.

And then why did, if death existed long before sin, then it's not something that was introduced into the world

when Adam sinned.

It's not the penalty for sin.

If it always existed, it's always been there.

And so if death is not the penalty for sin, then the whole gospel, it's undermined.

It doesn't make any sense anymore.

And so those are the two, those are the two reasons why you should believe in a approximately 6

,000 year old earth.

And nobody's saying you have to believe in exact, I mean, there's some people that say maybe it could be 7 ,000, because the Bible doesn't give us a date.

It gives us information by which we can estimate the date.

And there is some leeway in that estimation, but millions of years, that's out.

There's no doubt, according to the.

Text.

Okay.

Perfect.

Okay.

So Dr. Lyle, if you could go ahead and tell people one more time,.

How they can find you.

Well, check us out on our website, biblicalscienceinstitute .com.

And that's, that's the way to get ahold of us.

That's the way to see what we're doing.

If you want to see me in person, it lists events on the lower left.

You scroll all the way down to the bottom left, all the places that I'm going to be now that things are lightening up a little bit on my speaking

schedules, improving, although nothing in California, but you know what I'm okay with.

But we have some other events coming up, but you can check us out on that page.

And then I have, we do have a series of podcasts on rumble.

If you go to rumble and search for biblical science Institute, you can see some of the podcasts that we do there, the

discerning truth podcast.

So that's been kind of fun to do.

I'm not very good at it yet, but I'm getting there.

Okay.

Okay.

And then just for us, we are creation fellowship, Santee, Santee is S -A -N -T -E -E.

You can find our YouTube channel, our Facebook page.

And if you want to get information about our upcoming speakers, you can

email, sign up for our email list at creationfellowshipsanteeatgmail .com.

And we're going to go ahead and stop for tonight for our live stream and recording.

And then we have a couple of in -house things.