Revealed Apologetics Goes to Apologia Studios (Update)

All right, welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala, and this is a early morning, well not so early, but a

Saturday morning live stream, which I normally don't do. And if you're wondering why

I'm out of breath, I got a second serving of my coffee and I was running up the stairs.

I pressed record much too early. I shouldn't wait until I got my breath. So, whoo, anyway, yeah, so this is going to be kind of a short live stream.

I wanted to take a few moments to kind of share a little bit about my trip to Arizona to record at Apologia Studios.

It was a super, super short trip. So, I flew out on Tuesday and got there in the afternoon and, you know, met up with some folks there and went out to dinner and then that was it.

And then we recorded all Wednesday. So, then I left on Thursday.

So, it was a very, very short trip. But I just wanted to share a little bit about my journey. I've never been to Arizona, and I think

I've only been on the West Coast -ish, West -ish of the United States once before.

So, if anyone knows me personally, I love, I absolutely love palm trees.

So, it was really cool just visually being somewhere different than where I normally am.

But I do want to give a shout out to Isaac. Let me see if I can pronounce it.

And I'm Hispanic, so I should pronounce his name, but it's Banegas. Banegas, I think.

Isaac Banegas, and I apologize if I'm mispronouncing that. But Isaac was so kind to invite me.

Isaac is the production manager at Apologia Studios, and he had reached out to me,

I think in February, that he was interested in having me come down to record a teaching series on presuppositional apologetics.

And, of course, I very much appreciated the ministry of Apologia, their church, what they put out in terms of their

YouTube channel and their podcasts. That's right, multiple podcasts. And I just very much benefited from a lot of what they've done.

So, I considered it an honor and a really a pleasure to be able to participate in any way.

So, when he invited me out, I was more than happy to do so. And, of course, teaching presuppositional apologetics, as you guys know, that's what

I love to do. So, having the opportunity to be able to do that was very, very exciting.

Now, Isaac and Carmen and the other gentleman who made me laugh quite often.

I forgot his name already. That's so terrible. I'm so sorry. But I just want to say thank you. They did such an excellent job hosting me, getting me into my hotel, and just being great company.

Those guys were the sorts of guys that I can see myself hanging out with if I were in high school or something.

We all had a very similar sense of humor. So, we had a really good time. And Isaac was so kind to use the card, he knows what

I'm talking about, to make sure that I was comfortable and well fed. So, we had a great time doing some hibachi, which is my favorite sort of food.

And we had a wonderful time of fellowship and an interesting couple who shared the table with us, which was very interesting.

I expected to just enjoy a nice little hibachi dinner with the chef cooking in front of you, but we had an interesting couple sitting next to us and which the lady that was there, let's just say she was very interesting.

She shared some raunchy egg jokes, which I will not repeat here.

But it made for a very, very interesting time out to dinner. But nevertheless, we had a great time.

I got to share my nerdy interests, about movies and Star Wars and things like that.

So, we had a good time. So, I kind of eased my way in. One thing I do regret is the flight was,

I think the flight was, I had two flights. I had a connecting flight from Raleigh to Charlotte and then from Charlotte to Arizona.

And it was, I think, like four and a half hours or something like that. And I forgot to download certain podcasts and movies.

I'm a big movie guy. So, I was on the plane not knowing what to do. After I finished reading and listening to podcasts,

I was like, what am I gonna do? So, I think I was watching a movie on the person sitting in front of me.

They had their phone up. So, I was watching and reading subtitles. So, tips to those who travel and you're going to be on a long flight, make sure you download your stuff before you take your trip.

But anyway, it was a nice flight. Got in there. Got to meet everyone very briefly.

And then Saturday we began to do the recordings. So, again, it was a six -part series as part of Apologia's Academy.

So, if you're interested in watching these when they're up, after they do all of the editing and, you know, the back -end sort of things, you guys will be able to access that by going to ApologiaStudios .com

and subscribe to the website where you'll have access to all of their, you know, all of the nice little details that you have to pay a little for.

But it's reasonably priced. And you'll have access to the Academy, not only my lectures, my teaching series, but the teaching series of all of the other speakers that they've collected and we'll put up there on the website.

So, if folks are interested in that, I will definitely keep you updated. I believe Isaac or someone will send me a promo video when the time comes and I'll let folks know how they can access all of that.

So, I would highly recommend, if you have not already, to support Apologia by, you know, subscribing to the website, listening to their videos, sharing their content.

I know you guys already know they're doing some great work in the area of abortion and evangelism and things like that.

And here's something I want to share. When I met Jeff Durbin, kind of, you're in the studio and then there's kind of this other area where you walk down and there are little offices and stuff like that.

And, you know, that's where they had all their goodies and snacks. It kept me alive while we were recording all day.

But as I was there and just kind of hearing, I mean, you know,

Jeff, do ministry. What I learned very quickly was that Brother Jeff is the real deal.

He knows what he's doing is very important. He loves the Lord. He has a genuine love for Scripture and applying it to the everyday issues of the church.

And so, you know, I wasn't eavesdropping, but you could hear, you know, while I'm getting my stuff, and I won't say anything, but you can tell just in the way that he speaks.

He holds the Scripture in very high regard. And that's very... It was an encouragement to hear, because it's different when you see someone behind a camera, you know, doing stuff on YouTube and things like that, and actually getting to see someone in the context of just doing everyday ministry.

And so I was very much encouraged to really see that side of him. And of course, he's a super nice guy.

We got to talk a little bit about martial arts and some of the things he did back in the day with his tournaments.

He had a really cool poster of him when he was super young. I could have sworn I saw him back in the day to watch all those

Kung Fu shows. But it was really cool to to get to meet him. And yeah, so the recordings took all day, and we had a great time.

And then at the tail end of the recordings, when we were done,

I had the pleasure of being picked up by Dr. James White. We went out to dinner, which

I was... I was so excited. It was so much fun. We had such a good time.

We kind of shot the breeze a little bit at the studios with Jeff and Dr. White and Isaac.

And then after that, Dr. White and I went out to get some Mexican food, and I got to enjoy a side of Dr.

White that you don't get to see necessarily when you're watching him debate a

Muslim or a Mormon or an atheist or something like that. And I have to say, I stand as a witness.

Dr. White is a super nice guy. So thank you, Dr. White, for buying me dinner and being such a great host and just a joy to to have casual conversation with.

It was a really big blessing for me. And I just want to let people know. He's super nice in real life.

So but when he's debating, he's in the zone. So that's understandable. But after that, that was it.

My trip was super short. The next morning, I took a nice little early morning walk to get some coffee, and then

I was off to the airport. And so my trip was...

Well, that was it. It was super quick. So hopefully this isn't the last time that I have the opportunity to do that.

I really did enjoy it. The production value of what they're doing is excellent.

A lot of people think, you know, because I have a YouTube channel, I kind of know a little bit about the technology stuff.

I have no clue. I don't even know how I'm able to live stream with...

Here's the thing. Before I got my camera, I have a Canon T6i, a

DSLR camera. And before I got that, I used the webcam on my laptop.

And I have an Apple laptop. And I remember I was talking to Mike Winger, and Mike Winger encouraged me.

This was during COVID. Mike Winger encouraged me to get a webcam connector.

I had no idea what that was. And he said that it was this magical thing that when you hook it up to your computer, it makes your

DSLR camera your webcam. So I purchased this thing for an ungodly amount of money.

And here you go. It kind of looks much better. He says, when you look back at your old videos, they'll be disgusting, right?

When compared to this camera and the webcam camera. But it was because of his advice,

I was able to do this. And that's all I know. I have no idea how to use my camera. So looking at the production values at Apologia really inspired me to educate myself in terms of knowing how all this stuff works.

Because while production value is not everything, it's super helpful. So thank you very much.

That was a nice learning experience. Now, that was my trip. It was a blessing and too fast.

So hopefully I'll have an opportunity to get back out there. But in terms of what's on the docket for Revealed Apologetics in the near future,

I am back on schedule for writing my book, which will be a book on Revealed Apologetics, Presuppositional Apologetics, in which

I will, the first portion of the book, lay out the presuppositional method in the way that I typically teach it and present it.

I will also provide answers to common objections to the presuppositional approach. And then the second portion of the book will be kind of a more in -depth analysis of some of the interviews that I've done and how some of the topics that we've covered are applicable to the apologetic context.

So I'm super excited about that. Again, I don't do this full time. So writing is a very, very, very, very slow process for me.

But I got to write a little bit on the plane. But of course, that's not always the best context.

I'm kind of squished in this little thing, typing away with my iPad and the split screen and the notes and stuff.

So hopefully, by God's grace, I'll be able to continue to work on that, as well as my second podcast, which is called

Revealed Apologetics Simplified, which is a more introductory level podcast to teach apologetics.

So while it will be presuppositional in nature, I'll be covering a wide range of just general apologetic topics for laypersons and people that really have no background in apologetics.

So that's the goal. That takes a little bit of time. I do have to do some prep for that. Not too much prep, but I have to do some prep for that.

And so I'll let folks know when that is up and running, as well. There's oftentimes when

I share about what I do, it can be very complicated when I send someone to my

YouTube channel, because the things we talk about are very niche. We have apologetic method, and then we talk about the ins and outs of that, and it can be very complicated.

So I want to have a resource to send people to that, like, hey, I don't know what apologetics is.

I want to learn. And so here's a resource for you. Very, very important. Which reminds me,

I had a wonderful opportunity to share the Christian faith with a woman that I was sitting next to on the plane.

And Amy was her name. If you're watching, it was a pleasure sitting next to you.

I did give her my information, so that if she was interested, she can check out the YouTube channel. But Amy was this wonderful lady that had some good questions about the

Christian faith. And she is of a Jewish background, and she asked all sorts of questions, like things relating to heaven and hell, homosexuality, and transgender issues.

We even spoke a little bit about evolution and worldview, things like that. And so I hope that brief interaction that we had was beneficial to her.

I pray that she continues to seek and search, and by God's grace, come to know the Lord Jesus Christ.

So Amy, if you're watching, it was a genuine pleasure to have met you. And I encourage you to keep asking questions and pursue

Christianity more. And by God's grace, I hope that you come to know the

Lord Jesus as your Savior. So that was a great opportunity to kind of cherry on top of the cake, so to speak, of my trip.

After doing some teaching on apologetics, I was able to have a nice conversation about the faith with this wonderful lady on the plane that I was able to share some time with.

So here's the thing. The temptation, because I value my travel time, and that's when

I usually do my study, the temptation was to put my headphones in and just zero everything out.

But I'm thankful for the opportunity to be able to speak about the faith with Amy.

So evaluate the situation. If you have an opportunity to speak, to share, take that opportunity.

It's important. Don't always close yourself out to the outside world. You never know the situation that God allows you to engage in.

All right, so let's take a look here. That's a summary of my trip, and I've been on spring break.

So I've been on vacation for like two weeks. This is the tail end of my second week. So it's kind of cool to come back from Arizona and then still be on vacation.

But it's coming to a close, and I'm super excited because I do miss my students, and I love the school that I work at.

So I'm super excited about that. But nevertheless, on the 20th of March, I will be having

David Bonson, the son of the late Greg Bonson, on to talk about apologetics, to talk about his dad, to talk about what

I call the myth of the secular sacred distinction. We'll talk about that. What does it mean to live under the lordship of Jesus Christ in the workplace?

What does that look like? And so I want to talk a little bit about that with David Bonson, along with some other topics.

So that's going to be on the 20th, and that is going to be at 5 p .m. Eastern.

So just throwing that out there. Super excited. I have never met David Bonson before, and so I'm very much looking forward to being able to express my gratitude for the work that his father has done.

As you guys know, he's been a great influence on me, even in the way I drink coffee, right?

Even in the way I drink coffee, I'm impacted by Dr. Bonson. When I drink my coffee, I'm sure to drink my coffee very, very presuppositionally.

So drinking your coffee presuppositionally just makes it taste better.

So all right. Well, that is all in terms of a brief summary.

We have a few comments here. Let's see here. Clint says, hey, Eli, I'm on night shift down under and get to enjoy a live stream.

Well, wonderful. Thank you so much, Clint. Down under, I suppose you're speaking of Australia. I don't know what time it is over there, but thank you so much for listening in from Australia.

That's awesome. Jackson Speakman says, I appreciate gentlemen like Jeff Durbin, James White, and yourself.

Thank you so much. Presuppositional apologetics was distant from lay churchmen, even after being distilled by Bonson and Oliphant.

So he continues on. So having cohesive examples of the presuppositional methodology without all of the philosophical background is extremely helpful to the modern church.

Yes, this is really the heart of what I want to get at in terms of doing revealed apologetics simplified.

I don't want to stop what I'm doing. I love the interviews and the conversations and the discussions and covering vitally important issues.

However, I do think that there is a need to make this practical.

I remember I was speaking with a noted classical apologist who is also a friend of mine. I think it was

Braxton Hunter over there at Trinity Radio. Good friend, good brother. And I remember we were talking about apologetics.

And I don't know if he remembers this, but he says, you know, the problem that I see with presuppositional apologetics, and he actually likes aspects of it.

So we've had some really good conversations. But he says, the problem that I see is that it's just too complicated for the average person, right?

It's very difficult to do presuppositional apologetics without going into like these issues of transcendentals and preconditions and these sorts of things.

And I said, you know what? I think I said something along the lines, well, it can be simplified and it is meant for the average believer.

So I tried to give some pushback and defense. But as I think about it, there are not a lot of resources that really break down the method in a very simple, practical way.

There are resources. Every Believer Confident by Mark Farnham is a very good book. I've had Mark Farnham on the show before.

We have a couple here. Let me see. I have a couple if I could find it.

Well, I'm sure you guys believe me, but I have a bunch of books on presuppositional apologetics. And some of them are really, really, really, really good.

Very, very good basic practical applications of it. But there's not enough of those sorts of things.

So that's really the heart behind doing Revealed Apologetics Simplified. So, Jackson, hopefully this podcast, when

I start recording and going through stuff, will be useful and be a good resource to point people to who want to learn apologetics but have no background in it.

So let's see here. So Christian Salazar says, can't wait to see the Apologia content. Any chance there's an approximate date it'll be published?

I have no clue, but I can try to find out. I know when they were filming, they had kind of multiple cameras.

So I would imagine that there's going to be some editing that's going to have to be done where they put all the stuff together. So I think they're going to be revamping their entire academy or their website.

And so I'm not sure how long that's going to take, but I will definitely keep people updated as I'm in touch with Isaac, the production manager there at Apologia.

So I will let folks know as soon as possible. All right. Nathaniel Stalling says, what's the difference between classical and evidential apologetics?

That's a great question. Classical apologetics at its base is more rationalistic.

Okay. It kind of at its bedrock, it focuses on kind of a more rationalistic approach in terms of utilizing philosophical argumentation.

Whereas evidential apologetics focuses on specific evidences, evidences for miracles, evidences for the resurrection of Jesus, these sorts of things.

It has a more empirical, an empirical basis. So classical apologetics tends to focus more rationalistically on philosophical argumentation.

And evidential apologetics tends to focus on specific evidences that point to a miracle worker, if you will.

I'll give an example. The classical apologetic methodology is typically associated with what we call the traditional proofs for God's existence.

And these traditional proofs are not absent of evidential elements. As you know,

William Lane Craig and his debates will often go over and survey the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, right?

And so there he's looking at historical facts and asking what is the best explanation of these facts?

And of course, he argues that the resurrection of Jesus, God raised Jesus from the dead is the best explanation for the data surrounding the historical facts of Jesus.

So, but typically the classical approach will utilize what we call the traditional proofs.

And this will come in the form of various philosophical arguments like the cosmological argument, more specifically, the

Kalam cosmological argument, which is beautifully laid out in, you know, three little steps here.

Step one, whatever begins to exist has a cause. Step two, the universe began to exist.

Therefore, the universe has a cause. And that is a philosophical argument that is set in deductive form.

And what the classicalist seeks to do is to defend the truth of the premises so that they can logically draw the conclusion.

Therefore, the universe has a cause. And they will, utilizing further philosophical reflection, will try to iron out what it means, for example, what it means to be the cause of the universe, right?

All space, time, matter, and energy. And when you kind of philosophically reflect upon what it means to be the cause of the space -time universe, what you have are the traditional characteristics of God, right?

You have an immaterial, timeless, extremely powerful cause of the universe.

And so the classical form of argumentation will take kind of this more philosophical approach, often appealing to various forms of arguments, most popular of which are these deductive arguments like the

Kalam cosmological argument, the teleological argument, the argument from design. Dr.

Craig uses the argument of fine -tuning and that God is the best explanation for the fine -tuning that we see.

Things like the moral argument, right? For God's existence, that's another philosophical argument that tries to show that God is necessary for objective moral values and duties.

And of course, the ontological argument, all of these kind of philosophically and rationalistically based arguments are used to demonstrate the truth of theism, of theism that there is a

God. And so I think the essential feature of classicalism is that more rationalistic philosophical approach.

And I don't mean that in any pejorative sense at all. I mean, rationalistic in the sense that it's not just appealing to empirical data, it's appealing to kind of these rational philosophical arguments, which

I think are very useful in many respects. And so, I mean, I remember writing the Kalam cosmological argument down on a napkin to explain to someone that God is the cause of the universe.

So these are very helpful. The only thing I encourage folks to do as a presuppositionalist is that you make sure that when you formulate these arguments, you do so in a way that is consistent with a presuppositional and biblical framework.

So that is the classical approach. The classical approach I describe as a two -step approach, kind of a one -two punch.

So the first punch of classical apologetics is to establish the truth of theism.

And then the second punch is to establish the truth of the resurrection. So there is a God through theistic arguments, and this

God raised Jesus from the dead is the best explanation for the historical facts surrounding

Jesus of Nazareth. That's the classical approach. Evidential, you'll often have appeals to miracles and prophecy and things like this.

So that's the difference. Now, the difference between a classical approach, an evidential approach, and a presuppositional approach is that classical and evidential apologetics tend to be a bottom -up approach.

You work your way up to the conclusion. Therefore, God exists, Christianity is true, or whatever. The presuppositional approach is a top -down approach.

We start with God and his revelation, and we argue from there. We argue that if you do not start there, you lose the foundation for argument, logic, science, or anything.

That's simply to say that the Christian worldview provides the necessary preconditions.

It provides what must be the case in order for anything else to be meaningful at all. So it is definitely a different approach than classical and evidential.

Presuppositional is more a top -down as opposed to a bottom -up approach. Okay, let's see.

I hope that answered the question. Young Flav says, Do you know if they will be revamping the

Bonson You materials? I just need some subtitles. I don't know.

That's actually a good question. I mean, I could ask. I do know that if you're talking about Bonson You materials as they appear on apologiastudio .com,

I'm not sure. However, if you do not like the format that they use and how they present it, the audio is all available on Sermon Audio, and it's actually very nicely organized there.

So definitely no subtitles to my knowledge. But yeah,

I don't know. That's a great question. I just recently started using the subtitles on YouTube videos.

See, I'm so behind. I'm like, YouTube can do what? I can actually see the transcription of the videos. Golly. So I'm actually gonna be using that feature when

I write the portion of my book that analyzes some of the interviews that I've done. So I'm sure YouTube has been able to do that for quite some time.

But now that I'm aware of it, I will be using that feature. So I hope that they update it in such a way where subtitles will be available.

Yeah. Now, the next question here is a very profound question, and it strikes at the very root of my

Hispanic roots. And this is from Jehu. Eli, do you like Mufongo?

Mufongo? Is that how you spell it? Mufongo? I always thought it was Mufongo. I'm Puerto Rican.

I think Mufongo is Dominican. I'm not sure. I'd have to check.

I'm not a Hispanic scholar. Okay. If you're referring to Mufongo, the...

See how I don't even say it like a Hispanic person. Mufongo. If my family sees this live stream, they're gonna bow their heads in shame because I am the worst

Hispanic ever. If you're speaking about Mufongo, I have lots of Dominican friends, and I have had it before.

It is very delicious. Yes. So I do like Mufongo. Thank you very much for asking,

Jay. I really appreciate it. All right. So if there aren't any more questions, feel free. I don't mind taking some questions here.

This is my last one for now, but if another one pops up, I'll be happy to address it. Christian Salazar says, have you thought of doing a live stream where you go over a brief synopsis or review of the top 20 precept books on your bookshelf?

You know, no, I have not. I've kind of flashed a couple of my books on the screen before, but that would actually be a very, very good thing to do.

I would love to do that. As a matter of fact, I'm going to do that. Thank you very much, Christian. You've just given me an idea for an episode.

I'm going to do a review or a synopsis on each of those books. And I have some rare ones too.

Here, let me grab this one here. Now, not a lot of people have this, and I don't think that it's available on Amazon, but I have done a teaching that is on the channel, where I went through the first chapter of Tom Notaro's Vantil and the

Use of Evidence. Now, this has been a big question for a lot of people, because people who kind of have a passing acquaintance on apologetic methodology tend to see presuppositionalism as something that doesn't care very much about evidence.

And then you have kind of the classical and evidential approach, which cares very much about evidence. And so I like the presupposed approach, but boy,

I don't want to throw out all these evidences, right? And then like, I like what the evidentialist and the classicalist saying, but man,

I don't see if it's consistent with kind of a biblical methodology and we kind of throw back and forth. Well, presuppositionalists are very concerned with evidence, and I think we need to kind of iron this out a little more so folks could understand what does that look like?

What does it look like to use evidence within a presuppositional framework? So I can collect all of my presuppositional books and go through each of them and kind of just briefly summarize them.

And hopefully it'll be a resource for folks who want to try to get their hands on the less rare, if you can get your hands on this one.

I actually nabbed this one from a friend, Pastor Bill Shishko. You can't see the name there.

Pastor Bill Shishko was an OPC pastor and I believe he's retired, but he was a sort of mentor to mine.

If you think that name sounds familiar, Bill Shishko, Pastor Bill Shishko actually debated

Dr. James White on the topic of baptism because Pastor Shishko is a

Presbyterian. And of course, James White is a Baptist. And it was a really good debate.

One of the better debates on baptism that I had seen. But he was a sort of mentor of mine.

And every time I'd come to his office, he'd let me leave his office with a few books. And of course, I'd nab all of his presupp stuff because he actually knew

Dr. Van Til and he actually knew Greg Monson. So I got actually here, if folks aren't aware,

I stole this. I didn't really steal it. I had to convince Pastor Shishko to give this to me.

This old book here is an old copy of Van Til's, The Defense of the

Faith. And if you see there, it is actually autographed by Cornelius Van Til. And the date there is

December 14th, 1973. So I have an autograph, a

Van Til autographed copy of Defense of the Faith. Perhaps I should probably get a new cover for this.

Maybe, you know, to preserve it. But anyway, there you go. That's my little nerdy, my little nerdy moment.

So thank you, Christian. I definitely will try to do that. I do like that idea.

All right. Let me see here. Trevor Lewis says, Would you be interested in doing response videos to John Dominic Crossan?

Well, if folks email me with a specific video you'd like me to interact with,

I can try to give it a look. I have not really followed John Dominic Crossan too much. Although I did see his debate with James White.

So if you have anything specific in mind, I can try to look into it.

So again, if you guys want to reach out to me, if you have any ideas, don't just wait. I want to encourage you guys. Don't just wait for when

I have a live stream to let me know in the comments what you'd like me to do. I do have an ministry email, which

I do check. So if you have personal questions about apologetics, like something like,

Hey, I have a question about this. And you don't want to ask it on a live stream. You can email me at revealedapologeticsatgmail .com.

I do get some emails, but I wish I got more. Feel free to email me and I will try my best to write out a response.

And sometimes I've turned my responses into articles on the website. So please don't hesitate to shoot me an email at revealedapologeticsatgmail .com.

If you have a theological question or an apologetics question, I'd be more than happy to address that. Okay.

So yeah, if you have a video you want me to respond to, email me the link and I will, I'll check it out.

All right. All right. Let's see here. Thomas, I don't know how to pronounce your last name.

I do apologize. How do you demonstrate, Thomas asked, how do you demonstrate that someone has presuppositions?

Hint, hint, Tom Jumby. Okay. Oh boy. Everyone has presuppositions.

And I think it is philosophically naive to say, I literally have no presuppositions.

A presupposition is an elementary assumption, right? Everyone's got a starting point. Everybody does. And those presuppositions are not neutral presuppositions.

For instance, when we do apologetics as presuppositionalists, we are defending the

Christian worldview, which constitutes both the triune God and the scriptures that he's revealed.

And the scriptures that he revealed is filled with propositions that are divinely revealed and are part of our worldview.

Okay. And one of those propositions, if I can summarize the proposition, is that all men have a knowledge of God.

So that when someone says, I don't have presuppositions or I don't know the

God you're speaking of, what they're presupposing is the falsity of the Christian worldview because the

Christian worldview says that they do. See how that works? Now you could deny it from their own perspective, but their own perspective already has its own foundations.

You either are standing upon the rock or you're standing upon the sand. Everyone presupposes. You have to presuppose the uniformity of nature, all right?

Don't tell me you're demonstrating by independent demonstration the uniformity of nature. You're not. You're presupposing the uniformity of nature.

You're presupposing the laws of logic. You're presupposing personal identity throughout time.

You're presupposing all sorts of things. So it is just a, it is false to simply say,

I have no presuppositions. It really is, I think, philosophically naive. So when you say, how do you demonstrate?

You can demonstrate that someone has presuppositions and then they could refuse your demonstration until the cows come home.

But there is a difference between proving something and persuading someone of something. So asking questions about their fundamental beliefs, those sorts of questions will and can expose their presuppositions.

Whether they acknowledge those things or not, okay? So again, everyone has presuppositions, regardless of how confidently they assert that they don't, they do, all right?

Okay, thank you for that, Thomas. Clint, I can't recall who it was you were interviewing where you spoke about role -playing, so to speak, on conversations between the

Christian and the non -believer. Is this something that you're working on? It's something I want to work on, okay?

I want to do many things. And what is required for me to do the things that I want to do is time.

Time is hard, okay, to get. And that's why support is super helpful.

When I get support, that gives me a justification for sacrificing portions of my day to throw myself into something.

And so I very much would appreciate support in any way possible that will help me to free up more of my time so that I can throw myself more into some of these areas.

Yes, I did want to do something where we do role -playing, how to do presuppositional apologetics in conversation with a

Mormon, with a Jehovah's Witness, with an atheist, or whatever. So that is definitely something I'm interested in doing.

The issue is going to be time, okay? So again, I want to remind folks,

I do not do this full -time. I am a full -time teacher. And it is, you know, that's a very time -consuming thing.

When I get home, I have to spend time with family. I have to also reach out to my guests and run my regular show.

And I'll fill you guys in a little secret. I know folks love the interviews that we have going on.

But one of the reasons why I do interviews is because it takes almost no prep on my part.

Not that I don't want to prep. I just don't have the time. So I do have a thorough knowledge in the theological and apologetical issues.

So I kind of know what questions to ask when I have a guest. But for the most part, having a guest allows me to ask questions and allow the other person to kind of explain and expand.

So the more time I have, the more time I will have to do more prep.

And the more prep I can do, I will be able to jump into some of these things more directly.

So I hope that answers your question. I definitely want to begin to work on that. There's so many different things. All I need is time.

So in the future, near future, hopefully. Okay. All right. Let's see here.

Brian Etheridge. Morning, Eli. Thanks for the Saturday morning live stream. You're welcome. Thank you so much for listening in.

Let's see here. What's your fav? This is from Spanish Bowl FM.

I don't know. Okay. Hello, Spanish. What's your favorite movie that best shows or describes the world's presupposition?

Oh, I don't know. That's a good question. I can tell you what my favorite movie is.

My favorite movie. Well, actually, no, I can't tell you my favorite movie is because there are multiple tie for firsts. I am a huge Rocky fan.

I love the Rocky movies. I think I've seen Rocky 4 more times than I've seen any other movie as a kid.

I literally just watched it all the time. But I love all of the Rocky movies. Of course, I'm a Star Wars fan. I love the

Indiana Jones. The Lord of the Rings. It's a bit nerdy. I know. I apologize. But I don't know what movie best describes the world's presupposition.

But what I can say is that when you're watching a movie, it is a good opportunity to test your ability to identify presuppositions.

Okay. For example, while watching the, I think it was the

Avengers. I don't know which one it was. Where the Tesseract was causing an argument amongst the

Avengers. And Thor says something along the lines of, look at you puny humans.

I thought you evolved better than this. And of course, I saw in there the assumption of evolution and a whole host of other philosophical positions based upon what they were saying.

And so I try to listen to dialogue in movies to see if I could identify certain worldview commitments.

So for example, every worldview is comprised of at least three categories. These categories would make up a person's metaphysics, their theory of reality, their epistemology, how you know what you know, and your ethic, how you live your life.

And so what I try to do is when I'm listening to a movie, watching a movie,

I try to identify what is the metaphysic? What is the theory of reality that is being assumed in this movie?

And of course, I like to watch movies for entertainment, but they are actually good training for identifying worldviews.

So when you watch a movie, try to watch it intentionally to actually be able to see whether you can pick those things up.

So I don't know what my favorite movie is that reflects these things, but I do know that the exercise of watching movies while being, as Van Til said, epistemologically self -conscious,

I think is a very good exercise in training yourself to be a good presuppositionalist and a good philosopher, someone who thinks critically and tries to analyze things.

So again, movies often reflect worldviews, especially in our modern context, where you're going to have certain agendas being pushed and these sorts of things.

There are good ways to kind of sharpen your intellectual tools, so to speak. All right. Okay. So Daniel says, please pray for my soul.

Amen. I will definitely do that. Daniel Christopher. I'll try to remember your name. All right. Hope everything is well,

Daniel. Thank you for listening in also. I appreciate it. Let's see here. Ravi.

Hi. Why do you think presuppositionalism has not had much traction in academic philosophy and philosophy of religion, even amongst believers?

Yeah, that's a good question. I think there could be multiple answers to this, I suppose.

Why do I think? Well, first, presuppositionalism is typically characteristic of the reformed tradition, although you do have classical apologists within the reformed tradition.

But most presuppositionalists are reformed, and the reformed camp is not the most popular camp, if you think about it.

Although there are a lot of reforms. I mean, the history of the United States has been heavily influenced by reformed theology and things like this.

Let's see. Much traction in academia. I would say perhaps because of its dogmatic nature and the spirit of dogmatism, this kind of asserting with a self -attesting authority is not very popular in philosophical circles, in my opinion.

And yeah, I don't know. That's a good question. I think there is a lot to tease out there.

I think there's a big misunderstanding of what presuppositionalism is, even in the realm of academia. But yeah,

I'm not sure what the... I mean, there could be any number of answers to that. Now, I'm not in academia very much, so I don't know the trends and things like that.

I suppose I can find someone to interview, and we can talk about this topic. I think that'd be...

Maybe I can try to get James Anderson or something back on. Maybe he can explore that with us. Yeah, thank you for that question,

Robbie. Let's see here. Ah, yes. Yeah, that movie.

What Dreams May Come with Robin Williams. Yeah, that's a good worldview movie, right?

It talks about heaven and hell and reincarnation and these sorts of things. I remember watching.

I loved that movie. It was so good. But of course, definitely not reflecting a Christian worldview. So yeah, that's a good movie.

What Dreams May Come with Robin Williams. Watch that movie while keeping your worldview in mind. And you can easily identify that the worldview being presented in that movie is definitely not a

Christian one. But it is definitely a good exercise in identifying worldview.

I would highly recommend people watch that if they want to kind of do this mind experiment.

So thank you for suggesting that. Let's see here. Young Flav says, In Endgame, when

Steve Rogers commented about the seas being cleaner and the whales coming back to the shore was kind of nice after the universe vanished.

Half the universe vanished. Marvel was pushing depopulation. Oh, perhaps. I mean, there you go.

You have elements like that where it makes you think, Hmm, what's being pushed in this movie?

Is it a homosexual agenda? A transgender agenda? A depopulation agenda?

Or any kind of agenda being pushed? Those are worldview issues. Watch these movies.

See if you can identify them. It's a good way to train your mind. Yeah. Thank you for that.

Let's see here. Jackson Speakman says, The new edition of A Christian Theory of Knowledge edited by Oliphant coming out on April 24th.

Oh, I didn't know that. Okay. A book review would be strong. Hmm. Yeah. A book review on Van Til's A Christian Theory of Knowledge.

That's some rough reading, man. But yeah, that would definitely be a good topic to review. I will definitely keep it on the docket.

So thank you. All right. Let's see here. Yeah. And so you're saying,

So Jesus Christ is King of Kings. Lord of Lords says, Yeah, my class in school was death and dying. And they made us watch that movie.

Yeah. What dreams may come? Yeah. Yeah. That's definitely any movie or book or anything that's going to address the issue of death.

And where are we going? What happens is obviously going to be worldview heavy, right? You're going to see someone's worldview come out through movies and stories like that.

So all right. Well, that is the last of the comments and questions, guys. And this was my...

Let me see here. Oh, okay. So here we go. In the informal debate with Hugh Ross and Jason Lyle, you mentioned you are agnostic on the age of the earth.

Are you agnostic? If so, why? Okay. I am no longer agnostic.

I have now come to adopt the young earth position. Okay. And there are a couple of things here.

Okay. Number one, I adopt the young earth position because I think exegetically it is stronger than the older position in terms of how the exegesis of scripture is dealt with.

Now, I know why old earth interpreters interpret the way that they do.

And I don't think it is an impossible understanding.

So I would not go as far as to say old earth interpretations are flat out wrong.

I personally am not convinced of the sort of exegesis that old earth proponents use to interpret the creation account and all of the other relevant passages.

Okay. But I would not say that an older creationist is a compromiser and these sorts of things.

I just don't agree that when they are exegeting those passages that they're doing it appropriately,

I think that the younger position is much more stronger on an exegetical basis.

Now, in terms of the science, you have to understand something. And you guys have heard me say this before. And I've had guests who have discussed things to this effect.

For me, the issue of science, the interpreting nature is not done in a vacuum.

We all have our presuppositions. And our presuppositions will affect how we interpret the data. So the issue for me on young earth versus old earth is not an issue of the scientific evidence.

It is an issue of the interpretation of the evidence. And because our interpretation is dictated by our presuppositions, that is going to be a very important element in how we understand, quote unquote, the science.

So I don't really, I'm not very much concerned with the data.

I'm concerned with the interpretation of the data. So I don't think that's kind of a straightforward kind of, well, clearly the science says.

I don't think that's the nature of science. I don't think that's the nature of how our presuppositions work and our interpretive grids, these sorts of things.

So as now, I would say I'm a convinced younger creationism on an exegetical basis.

And so there is where I am now. Okay. So just sharing that.

Now, let's see here. And Robbie asks,

I ask because there's a tendency towards smugness with precepts, not yourself, but why

Durbin, Lyle, that puts people off. Well, I can't speak for them. I would say that here, let me say this.

I remember I debated, I think it was my debate discussion with Tom Jump and I was,

I never read YouTube comments because it can be a cesspool sometimes. Although I've been very happy with the comment section on my channel.

For the most part, people are behaving. I do appreciate that. But I remember reading through some of the comments and one comment said, this presupper, referring to myself, was the nicest presupper

I've ever listened to. And then the next comment was this presupper is the most arrogant presupper

I've ever listened to. Now, what do you do with that? No matter how nice you are, someone is going to interpret you in a different light.

I mean, how can two people watching that discussion say completely opposite things? And the same thing with Dr.

White, Durbin, Lyle, I mean, regardless of how they come off, they're going to be interpreted in some way.

The reality is when you're in the context of debate, evangelism, and arguing, there's a certain level of confidence that needs to be there.

Of course, that needs to be coupled with humility, but that looks different for people. Not everyone does it well.

It's very difficult to always maintain a consistent level of confidence plus humility. So if you interpret

White, Durbin, and Lyle in those ways, I would just encourage you to have a little patience and understanding.

It can be difficult. Also, when you're a teacher and you're trying to encourage people to be confident in the

Christian faith, you often will present the Christian faith and the apologetic with confidence, which can come across as arrogance or smugness.

And I don't think it's something that is always intentional. But again, people are going to read you and interpret you in different ways.

So I would just say, you know, just give them a little slack if you can and understand that the context in which they're in, it can be difficult to maintain that consistency, you know.

And yeah. So thank you, though. Thank you for saying I'm not smug.

I try. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. All right. Let's see here. Jay Hu says,

Eli, I reread the Act 17 Appendix and Always Ready based on your recommendation. 10 out of 10 would read again.

Now that is encouraging to hear. Jay is referring to Always Ready by Greg Bonson, Directions for Defending the

Faith, the Appendix. The Appendix has been said.

It's a pretty thick portion of it. It's a pretty large appendix. It is a biblical exposition of Act 17.

That's Paul making his Areopagus address. And some people have said that it's worth the price of the book.

It really is. It's a really good look into Act 17 from the context of a presuppositional framework.

So I'm glad you read it. I'm glad you found it useful. Yeah, I do highly recommend people look into that.

You will find it useful, I'm sure. All right. Let's see here. Do we have anything else here?

Let's see here. So Ravi, Eli, why do you think that Young Earth Creationism has been so unpopular outside of very small communities?

Why aren't more Christians becoming? Huh. I don't think that. I mean,

I haven't done a survey, but I don't think that's accurate at all. I think there is a large portion of the

Christian community that are Young Earth Creationists. Have you seen their conferences?

I mean, come on. Now, if you're asking the question about scholarship, well, it depends what you're looking at.

I mean, it depends how you define academia. I mean, you have this illegitimate game where if you're a

Young Earth Creationist and you also have a PhD in the specific field of, say, like astrophysics or biology, things like, you know, they're often seen as, well, they're not real scientists.

And that's just, that's ridiculous, right? They are real scientists, but they have different presuppositions than other people.

And so they're going to have different interpretations of the data, these sorts of things. And they're going to have different understandings of the role of the

Bible in terms of how to understand these things. So I think Young Earth Creationism is still very popular amongst lots of believers.

But if you're saying, why aren't more Christians becoming Young Earth? I mean, I don't know. I don't know the trend.

I mean, I became a Young Earth Creationist. So I'm a counterexample, right?

I'm sure I'm not the only one. But why do you think it's so unpopular? I think it's unpopular because science is perceived a certain way.

And the Bible is often perceived a certain way and presented in such a way as being against science. So people who don't want to be, quote unquote, against the science will adopt views of the

Bible that will tend to be more consistent with what the science is saying, right?

So that might just be one element of it. I mean, there's many different reasons why people become or not become a particular position.

All right. So well, those are my thoughts there. Sorry. Robby says, you were the politest preceptor ever.

Were? That's past tense. I'm sure. I'm sure you didn't mean that. Well, I appreciate that. Thank you very much.

Let's see here. Let's see. No. Jesus Christ is

Lord. OK, let's see here.

So Robby says, Eli, of the 2 .5 billion Christians in the world, not very many are younger creationists.

It's mostly in America where the indoctrination is much smaller, stronger.

Sorry. Well, well, I would want to explore what you mean by indoctrination.

Again, there are people who are not younger creationist simply because of indoctrination. There are people who are convinced of the particular reading of Scripture, interpretation of Scripture and exegetical basis of Scripture that undergirds

Genesis and the creation accounts. And there are people who are scientists who know the issues that are genuinely convinced that looking at the data through the lens of Scripture and a particular interpretation of Scripture informs their conclusions.

And they are very convinced that those conclusions are correct because their presuppositions are in line with what the

Bible teaches. There are people who genuinely believe that. So I don't think it's necessarily this thing of indoctrination.

And that is if you were using that in a more of a pejorative sense, which I'm not sure. But again,

I haven't done the research. I don't know how younger creationism stands outside the

United States. I would imagine that is probably true more within America. Yeah.

But I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm not familiar with the numbers. All right.

So let's see here. Let's see here. And Ravi, I watch you more than other people.

Thank you. I appreciate it. Very kind words. I appreciate that very much. Let's see here.

We'll do one more and then we'll wrap things up since we're at the top of the hour. Let's see here.

So Brian Etheridge says, thoughts on the use of precept with Catholics who subscribe to progressive theology, e .g.

Richard Rohr. I'm not familiar with Richard Rohr. However, there is,

I wouldn't say an influx, but there is the existence of Catholics who try to use presuppositional apologetics.

There are also Eastern Orthodox that try to use presuppositional apologetics. And you might be interested in my discussion with Jeffrey Waddington and Joshua Shooping, where we discuss the

Eastern Orthodox use of presuppositional apologetics. And of course, we talk about why we think it's an illegitimate move there, where at least there was a very helpful article written by Joshua Shooping, where he talks about what he called ecclesiastical epistemology.

I would imagine that a Catholic presuppositionalist would probably have something similar in terms of requiring as an epistemological basis, the authority of the church to tell us what scripture is and things like that.

So I don't want to go into that now, but you can check out that video, the

Eastern Orthodox use of presuppositional apologetics. I think it's called, can Eastern Orthodox use presuppositional apologetics or something like that.

And I would imagine that a Catholic presupper would probably use it in a similar way, given that there are similar views of the role and authority of the church.

So that would be very different from, say, a Protestant use of a presuppositional approach. All right.

So I hope that is helpful. Let's see here. All right.

Okay. So let me actually, before I move on and conclude, let me actually get the link to that video.

And I will leave the link there and folks can check that out.

So let's do this. Okay. We go to live videos.

Just bear with me. There we go. Boom, boom, boom, boom.

Yes. Eastern Orthodox presuppositionalism. So let's see. I'm going to share. I'm going to copy this link.

Let me see here.

Just bear with me. And I'm going to put it in the comments here.

Paste. Boom, boom, boom. All right.

Okay. So we got a couple of... I also had a super chat. Oh, super chat. Very cool. Thank you so much, Richard. Appreciate it.

God bless you, brother. Wondering what is your take on Paul on Mars Hill telling the Greeks of this unknown

God? How does that contrast with Romans 1? Yeah, this unknown

God. They had an altar to an unknown God. He's not arguing that there is a God unknown to them.

He's filling in the details of the God that he speaks about in Romans 1. So we want to take, for example,

Scripture as being consistent. Here's a presupposition that God has spoken and he's spoken consistently. So I do not believe that Scripture being the

Word of God is going to conflict with itself. The Bible teaches, okay, that all men have an altar

God in Romans 1. Non testam theon, knowing the God, right? They suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

I think Paul is using a point of contact, not neutral ground, okay?

He's not using neutral ground. He's not trying to find a neutral connection. He's trying to find a common ground, not a neutral ground.

There's a difference. And you guys can look back on some older videos where I discussed that. He's making this connection as a touch point to talk about who?

The God who has what? Revealed himself in the person of Jesus who he has appointed judge of both the living and the dead, right?

So Paul does not speak in terms of Acts chapter 17 in terms of like natural theology and a vague theism.

He presents Christ right there if you keep reading the context there. And of course, I would admit readily that Acts 17, while it is consistent with a presuppositional approach, he's not expounding on presuppositionalism.

He's talking about the God that is the same God as he speaks about in Romans 1. But he's finding a touch point with the

Athenian audience that he has there. If you want more details, I do highly recommend. There's a whole section on Acts 17 that Bronson writes in this book.

It's in the appendix. So definitely check it out. I can't unpack all of that now, but I think you'd find that very, very helpful,

Richie, okay? And thank you so much for the super chat. I really do appreciate that. Thank you so much. All right, but this always happens when

I'm about to sign off. There's more questions, right? Let's see here. Ooh, so Ravi asks,

I really don't get why the triune God is a necessary precondition for intelligibility. Could you explain this in a further episode?

Well, lucky for you, Ravi, we have multiple videos covering this.

So if you look at some of my past episodes, you wanna look with my episodes with Brent Bosserman, where we talk about the problem of the one and the many.

We talk about why the Trinity provides the necessary preconditions for intelligible experience. I also did an interview with the apologist,

Anthony Rogers on the one and the many. So you wanna check those out. They're long, but they're good.

They're some of my favorite episodes. And I think there's a shorter video clip in which

I take a portion of one of my older videos to address this specific question.

So again, I can't go through it now. It warrants an entire show. And that's why we've done multiple shows on this very question.

So please search through the past videos and live discussions. I know on YouTube, there's a distinction between the video category and the live category.

You wanna check both of those. And I promise you, you'll find an entire episode dedicated to this specific question, okay?

Thank you so much for that question, Ravi. All right, and thank you so much whoever shared.

I think someone shared, was that me? Well, I guess not. Yeah, so the Sire just says, go back and watch those

Bosterman videos. Yep, highly recommend those. All right, so Corinth, thank you so much for the $10

Super Chat. That was so nice. Thank you so much. I really do appreciate that. Usually Super Chats come with a question.

There's no question, but that's okay. I appreciate it. Thank you so much, Corinth. Let's see here.

Dude, so there are people pointing Ravi to my discussion with Anthony Rogers and Brent Bosterman.

Oh, thank you. Jay says, Eli, go enjoy your family. Have some mofongo. Yeah, today

I will enjoy my family. I have a dentist appointment today at like one. Definitely not fun, not anticipated.

I'm not a big fan of the dentist, but gotta go. So that's what I'll be doing later today.

Let's see here. All right, well, that seems to be it on the questions. Guys, thank you so much.

If I do have other speaking engagements, I'll try my best to kind of maybe do a live stream here and there to kind of summarize it and kind of just keep people in touch with what

I'm doing. If you're interested in having me speak at your church or your event, you can reach out to me through my email, revealedapologeticsatgmail .com

or you can request a speaking engagement schedule, a speaking engagement at a church or a school or wherever through my website, revealedapologetics .com.

So if you're interested in that, you definitely can do that. I am a teacher, but I am also a traveling speaker.

And so I do do events and things like that if you're interested in having me come to your church or whatever.

Also, if you're looking to financially support Revealed Apologetics, you can do so by either signing up for our

PresubU, a presuppositional class, which is a five -week course on presuppositional apologetics.

And I also have the Epic Online Presub Conference that was prerecorded that you can purchase on the website and the

Epic Online Calvinism Conference where myself, Dr. James White, Scott Christensen, Guillaume Bignon, Saiten Brugge and Kate, we all do sections on different aspects of Calvinism.

You can purchase those on the website as well. These are all different ways that you can support Revealed Apologetics financially.

If you're unable to do that financially, then I very much appreciate your prayers. So that is it for this live stream.

Thank you so much for your support and for listening in until March 20th, where I have

Dr., well, doctor, where I have David Bonson on. Until then, I will see you guys later.