Review of Portions of the Ten Bruggencate/Dillahunty Debate, Response to Max Andrews

And welcome to the Dividing Line on a, what day of the week is this, Tuesday. What's that? How come? Now, they see what's going on now? Yeah, what? The light's gone.

Oh, well you can lower it, and it needs to be closer to you so that, yeah, there you go, just put it right over the top of the thing so it kind of makes it. Yeah. But whatever was going on with it earlier today is not gone away, and so I've had to.

Really, I can't hear it. I've had to make some adjustments to your envelope. Well, that's a bummer. Your gain. I'm gonna have to move this then so I can actually see the video.

You had to lower your gain. Well, anyway, welcome folks. We've got a lot to get to today, and only a certain amount of time to get to it. Today, of course, a new Southern Baptist president elected. I don't know enough about that situation to get into it other than I am concerned about confetti cannons, but what can I say?

Obviously, something's going on there that I don't know much about, but what I do know about, last night, Wade Burleson posted what is found in the published materials that Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary distributed to the folks gathering at the Southern Baptist Convention, and I'll just read it to you.

I posted this on Facebook and Twitter last night. Southern Baptists have a seminary in Fort Worth, Texas that is determined to recover the Anabaptist and New Testament vision while appreciating the compromised theology of the Reformers.

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary refuses to truncate the everlasting gospel. Confident with the Anabaptist that we can say to every man, God loves you individually and died for your sins, Southwestern presses on the intensity of a campaign to get the good news of salvation in Christ to all seven billion on this globe while allowing no discrimination against our Reformed cousins who come to us.

I have no idea why that's coming up on the screen right now. We continue to sound the trumpet of leading people to Christ, baptizing them by immersion in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and gathering them into free churches with congregational government.

So here's the description of Southwestern. And it's a little bit of every little part of the Paige Patterson campaign. It's anti-Calvinist. I feel sorry for anybody at Southwestern who really knows history.

They've got some folks there teaching history that just have a really, really weird view of things, really imbalanced, can never really defend itself outside the walls of Southwestern. But the Anabaptist, which ones?

I mean, the Anabaptist movement was so wildly diverse, and especially in the early generations, most Anabaptists didn't live long enough to really establish much of a meaningful, systematic theology. So which ones?

Michael Sattler, maybe? You really want to agree with everything Michael Sattler had to say down there in Texas? I sort of doubt it. But determined to recover the Anabaptist and New Testament vision. Then you have this arrogant, condescending, well, appreciating the compromise theology of the Reformers.

Don't tell me you appreciate the compromise theology of the Reformers. You don't appreciate it. You're on an institutional-wide jihad against it. Don't talk about appreciating it. You don't appreciate it.

Especially when you accuse it of truncating the everlasting gospel. And then later on, talking about our Reformed cousins, not our brothers, our Reformed cousins. And then taking shots at the perfection of atonement.

God loves you individually and died for your sins. I mean, this is becoming hyper-Arminianism. I mean, just radical stuff. Changing history, just really off into the ozone layer. And then, of course, into free churches with congregational governments.

You know what that is? That's just a shot at the biblical, clearly biblical concept of a plurality of elders. Which I don't even know how you can argue that, personally. It's just so obvious, so clear.

But there's the description of the school. And that's not balanced, folks. It's not even close to being balanced. This is the same school that's now enrolling Mormons and Muslims. Okay, well, anyway, that was pretty wild.

At least two things today at the Southern Baptist Convention. The resolution about lawsuits did not go to the floor. Evidently because of lawsuits actually pending against Southern Baptist Convention, I guess.

At least that's the rumor I heard in the chat channel. And thankfully, Timothy Rogers was replaced and not put forward as a trustee for the IMB. And that, at least, was a small good thing. A small good thing that took place there.

But I think the wildest thing so far is this Southwestern stuff. Southwestern's really getting a little strange. I feel for anybody there that still has a sound theology of soteriology, a sound soteriology, and knows something about church history.

Because some really weird views have taken over down there. It's strange stuff. I said to you last time that I wanted to get to this article and I will try to as briefly as I can. I wanna address this, then we're gonna look at a few clips from mainly audience questions, from the Saiten, Bruggenkate, Matt Dillahunty debate.

And then if we've got time, we're gonna be going jumbo, we're gonna go an hour and a half. I wanted to look at some materials from a new book on Molinism as well. We'll see how fast we can get through these clips.

So lots to cover here. Last time I mentioned to you, oh, oh, oh, wait, wait. Neat, neat, neat, neat, neat, neat, neat. Where did I put this? I do need to at least mention this because this is, we keep telling you, we tell people in the society, this is what is a part of the gay agenda.

And we get mocked and we get laughed at and no, no, no, that's not what's happening. You people are crazy. And then a few years later it happens. And then the people who said we were crazy saying, well, that's a good thing anyways.

Homosexual couples in Denmark have won the right to get married in any church they choose. Even though nearly one third of the country's priests have said they refuse to carry out the ceremonies. Country's parliament voted through the new law on same-sex marriage by a large majority, making it mandatory for all churches to conduct gay marriages.

Now, of course, how can this happen? Well, you've got state churches. And once you've got state churches, then the government's in control. So that's understandable why that's gonna happen there. First, but do not be deceived.

It's coming our direction. It's gonna be used as a mechanism to punish Christians. This is, it's heading our way. If you can't see it, if you think this is the, oh no, no, no, no, then you're nuts. You're naive or foolish.

And one of the, or maybe a combination of all three. If you can't see it, this is exactly what they want. This is exactly where they're going. They cannot and will not simply accept tolerance. They will demand celebration.

And only Christians can explain why. Romans 1 explains why this is. And we've talked about over and over again. Suppressing the knowledge of God. If you do not celebrate them, but you're very non-celebration, you're pulling those fingers up.

You're pulling those fingers up. And so they, there's a wonderful picture here of people throwing flowers at a gay non-marriage. And that's exactly what they want. Because deep down inside, they know that it's wrong.

And so the only way to keep that voice quiet is to get everybody else to say, oh, you're good, you're good, this is good. Gotta celebrate, gotta celebrate it. So they, you know, they started in 89. You know, we looked over at Denmark, he said, those people are weird.

Yeah, we may be behind the curve, but that curve is coming our direction. So keep it in mind, when it happens, you can't look at me, oh, why didn't you warn us? Well, we did, we did, we did. Okay, an article appeared on June 4th on the Muslim Debate Initiative blog.

It's simply by MDI. So I guess it's just sort of a staff article. Why verses in the Quran can't get lost or go missing? Some critics of Islam allege the Quran has not been perfectly preserved. There are verses missing from the Quran, verses that have supposedly been lost.

Well, we allege that because there's evidence within the Islamic sources of that. But one of the great things about the Quran and its reliability is in the way it was preserved by the Muslims. Unlike most books, the Quran doesn't rely on textual transmission.

In other words, even if every copy of the Quran was lost tomorrow, the Quran would still exist. Well, maybe. The reason for this is because the Muslims have always memorized the Quran, and this started with the Prophet Muhammad and the early Muslims, and this continues all the way to the present day.

In fact, it's very well known for Muslims to make Quranic memorization competitions, and you will find children who have memorized the entire Quran. This is not only limited to children. You will find that even blind people can read the entire Quran because they don't need a text on paper to read it from.

In essence, the oral transmission of the Quran is its greatest asset and greatest protection because let's say something does get lost in the text, the oral transmission will ensure the verse does not actually get lost and remains preserved.

So in that way, it's virtually impossible for any verse in the Quran to simply go missing or to get lost because the Muslims who have memorized the entire Quran would have realized this and they would always be reciting the Quran, hence nothing can ever get lost.

Quran has been memorized by millions of Muslims, so it is impossible for a verse to go missing because everybody will notice it. Now, I just stopped for a moment. There weren't millions of Muslims in those first days, maybe tens of thousands at most, but there weren't millions.

So this is only relevant today. I'm not sure why the screen, there's chat boxes on my face and other weird stuff going on. So just thought you'd want to know that. Similarly, in the early days of Islam, thousands of Muslims memorized the Quran.

Now we're getting, you know. So let's say someone had some ulterior motives and they wanted to tamper with the Quran, the rest of the community would actually recognize this because they have all memorized the Quran.

So not only does the Quran remain preserved and protected through oral memorization, the oral memorization also protects the Quran from anyone who has bad intentions to change the Quran to suit their own purposes or agenda.

Now, years and years ago when I debated Zulfiqar Ali Shah at Duke University, this was one of his primary arguments. There are 30 ,000 people that memorize the Quran and all the rest of that kind of stuff.

There are many, many problems with this. First of all, even in the days of Umar, the third caliph, according to Sahih al-Bukhari, when many of the Quran who had memorized the Quran died in the Battle of Yamama, this resulted in a great concern that if any more of them died, that this would result in a loss of a major portion of the Quran.

Now, that shouldn't have been an issue. The result, the answer should have been, actually, this is the first time of Abu Bakr, the response should have been, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter if all the Quran died, at least according to the MDI.

Even if all the Quran died, everybody's memorized the Quran. No, there were specific people and even they didn't have all of it or there wouldn't be, in the Islamic sources, this concern, would there?

No, there wouldn't be. Further, right at the beginning, therefore, I suggest to you, Abu Bakr, or the Quran be collected. I said, Umar, how can you do something which Allah's apostle did not do? What?

He didn't collect the Quran? No, he didn't. That's what Sahih al-Bukhari says. Umar said, by Allah, this is a good project. Umar kept on urging me to accept his proposal till Allah opened my chest for it and I began to realize the good and the idea that Umar had realized.

Now, we've read this before and I just point out to you that even as they did this collation, for example, later on, it says, so I started looking for the Quran and collecting it for what was written on palm stalks, thin white stones, and also from the men who knew it by heart.

Oh, multiple sources? That's interesting. Why would you, why did the early people not just rely upon, just get a couple of the Quran together? Right there, that's what MDI says, right? But what was written, oh, wait a minute.

This says the Quran doesn't depend upon text. The Quran doesn't rely on textual transmission, but the sources say collecting it from what was written on palm stalks, thin white stones, and also from the men who knew it by heart.

I think palm stalks are, that's probably something that was written. I don't think you're talking to a palm stalker. Okay, could you recite for me? No, it's obviously something written. Same with thin white stones.

So there's text right there. There's textual transmission. And obviously, written transmission is significantly more accurate and significantly more reliable than oral transmission, especially when it comes to textual variation.

So I found the last verse, it starts with Ataba, repentance with Abi Kazami al-Ansari, and I did not find it with anyone other than him. Wait a minute, you didn't find it on white stones. You didn't find it on palm stalks.

You didn't find it with the people who knew it by heart. This obviously raises the real issue that when those Quran died, something could have been lost. Something could have been lost. And even after this collation, once you get to Umar, they remember something that they hadn't collected the first time.

Yeah. So again, we're not making this up. This is Sahih al-Bukhari. This is their own material, but there's more than that. And I pointed this out in whatever Christian you know about the Quran. Did a really nice interview with someone today on that.

And I really appreciated the young man who interviewed me because he had actually read the book and knew what he was talking about. It was a very enjoyable interview. We went very long. He'll get more than he bargained for, I think.

I pointed out in whatever Christian you know about the Quran, some hadith referenced Muhammad himself for getting a portion of the Quran, only to say that section was abrogated anyway. Such would lead to differences in remembrance and recitation among his followers.

For example, Aisha narrated that Muhammad said, Allah's apostle heard a man reciting the Quran at night and said, may Allah bestow his mercy on him. As he has reminded me of such and such verses of such and such surahs, which I was caused to forget.

End quote, Sahih al-Bukhari 6558. Oh, Muhammad forgot. He was caused to forget. The very next thing he says, the prophet said, why does any one of the people say I have forgotten such and such verses of the Quran?

He in fact is caused by Allah to forget. That's 559. Likewise in 550, the prophet said, it is a bad thing that some of you say, I have forgotten such and such verse of the Quran for indeed he has been caused by Allah to forget it.

So you must keep on reciting the Quran because it escapes in the hearts of men faster than camels do. Are these inaccurate? Don't you think this might be good to inform folks at the MDI article? Finally, Suyuti records a relevant story.

It goes like this. Al-Tabarani reports in the work Al-Kabir that Ibn Umar said, two men used to recite a chapter taught to them by the prophet. One night they awoke to pray only to find that they were unable to recall even one letter of that chapter.

The next morning they went to the prophet to inform him of what had transpired. He said, it is of those parts of the Quran that have been abrogated. So ignore it. I would think if you're really gonna be seriously addressing the issue of the transmission of the text of the Quran, that you might want to include this material, which I didn't make up.

It is right there in the Islamic sources themselves. I think that needs to be. Chris in channel just said, are camels fast at escaping? I think they can be, yes. I think that Chris should have to chase a camel now that he asks that question in channel.

Okay, so there's the article that I wanted to address from the MDI website. And I appreciate you listening to that. Now let's get to the clips. Let's get now. I don't know what's going on. We're having technical issues today, aren't we?

You know, we've had a little problem with the microphone and a little while ago, the lights were doing the Watusi thing on us and I don't, now sometimes the electrical quality in Arizona isn't, especially during the summer, isn't the best that it could be.

So that may have just been all it was. I don't know. But I tried to set up bookmarks in VLC in the video that the atheists posted of the Saiten, Bruton, Kate, Matt Dillahunty debate. And they were right yesterday.

I click on them today and they're like 30 seconds off. And do you think someone snuck in last night? Well, you were saying that all your sound settings got all messed up. So I'm sort of wondering if someone came in and just had fun playing with buttons and stuff last night.

I mean, I'm starting to wonder. So I'm gonna have to sort of wing it a bit. I've got the times on the screen. See right there. There are the times you can actually see that. And so, but it's not gonna be quite as exact as I would like it to be.

Why am I doing this? I've been asked to, a lot of people have asked, are you gonna review the debate and stuff like that? It's a little dangerous for me to do this for a few reasons. One of the reasons is unfortunate.

There are turf wars that have developed in reformed apologetics. And, you know, we, I try to avoid getting involved in such things. Mainly, I think it's really good when I'm standing in a mosque and South Africa's in place, it really gives me perspective when I come home to go, I don't know if that's really all that important to get all upset about.

And if someone disagrees with my methodology or how I handle stuff, fine. I don't care. I leave that, you know, unless you're gonna tell me, you know, I'm doing something wrong or I'm doing something evil or something like that, that's different.

But if you've got a different way of doing things, great. God didn't make us all the same way. And, you know, I can look at how other people debate and go, well, I would have done this. I would have done that.

I would have answered differently. But the fact of the matter is there are some people who have far greater training than I do in certain areas and they are going to feel very, very comfortable going to certain areas that I'm not and vice versa.

I mean, I like when folks ask Bible questions, especially when they think they know something about the original languages. Let's go there. This is good. Other people, not so much, you know? So I hesitate a little bit to get into this because I know people on both sides of this dispute that's been going on between size side and the choosing hats guys.

And I just go, guys, come on, let's grace this one, shall we? You know, if y 'all have different ways of looking at it, talk it out and then move on. So I'm not taking sides and doing this. This is just a real popular discussion right now.

And I think I could add something to some of the responses. And secondly, you need to be careful. You know, I've heard so many wild and insane things aimed my direction by people who have never sat in front of an audience to debate, especially in front of a hostile audience.

And this was clearly a hostile audience. This was clearly a primarily atheist audience. I happened to see the Twitter feed from David Silverman. And I've debated Silverman. Silverman is not a deep thinker.

And he's currently president of American Atheists. And I guess he was there and I saw his tweets as he was tweeting away. And, you know, very arrogant, very surface level, blah, blah, blah, blah. But look, unless you've sat there, you know, I think I at least, I think Cy will probably go, I'd like to hear what James has to say because he has sat there.

I've been there with Dan Barker and I've been there with David Silverman and others in that situation. And so I know what it's like to sit behind that weird little hotel table with the always annoying little skirt they put on it that hasn't been, I'm looking at the picture right now, hasn't been ironed in about 47 years.

And I know what it's like to be in front of a hostile. And so unless you've been there, you might wanna be a little less than nasty in your comments because you don't know what went on beforehand. You don't even know what's necessarily going on right at that time.

You may be watching it, but there may be stuff going on you don't know about. So there's a lot of stuff there. And so keep that in mind when evaluating what any of us do. You know, I was sort of glad that when we did the debate in the mosque in South Africa, the camera panned around so you can see what I was looking at and put yourself in my shoes and ask yourself the question, would I be impacted by being in a mosque where people are sitting on the floor in the prayer room?

Does that allow you to have absolutely perfect clarity of thought at all times? And that's why if there's a moment where one side takes longer to answer a question or the other side, everybody jumps on those things.

Most people do not evaluate debates in any meaningful fashion. I know that. And that's why it doesn't bother me a whole lot when people completely miss the point of the debate. I realize most people have never been taught how to evaluate a debate in the first place.

And one thing's awful clear in Western society today, people are impressed normally by the bad arguments rather than the good arguments. And I can't worry about those folks. I can't be of help to them.

How can I be of assistance to people who just aren't thinking well? Just who are impressed by bad argumentation. Should I start using bad arguments? Some people seem to think, yeah, be pragmatic, use bad argumentation, go for the emotions.

My commitments don't allow me to do that. My commitments won't allow me to do that. Can't do it. So that means that there are gonna be people who are not gonna find me to be their favorite apologist because they've got standards that are very different than mine.

So that's just sort of how that works. Anyway, so I've got two brief segments from the cross-examination or the, it wasn't really cross-examination, but one person in charge of the conversation. And then all the rest of them, as I recall, were audience questions.

And so let's get to them. Let's make sure I'm, yep, I'm plugged in here. So here's the first section. Oh, are we, do we got everything working in there? We're ready? Okay, let's do it.

So you're not an evidentialist anymore, even though once upon a time you were. I would say that I'm the ultimate evidentialist. I would say all evidence points to the existence of God. A presuppositionalist is the ultimate evidentialist.

I don't say special evidences point to God. I say that you can't make sense of any evidence unless you start with God. But you don't present evidence in any defense of God anymore because. I present evidence when I share my faith.

I go for a walk, I look up at the stars, and I actually laugh that there's people out there who look at the sky and deny that God exists. I present evidence when I share my faith. But when somebody says you're nuts for what you believe, then I don't put them in the judge's seat and got on trial.

Okay. Now, those of you who have seen my debate with Dan Barker at University of Illinois will remember that one of the slides I put on the screen before I talked about a fact of natural science was that I clarified and I asserted and I made sure that the audience understood that I was not putting them in the position of being judges.

And how you communicate that gonna depend upon the individual. But it is something that we have to communicate that we are not submitting God's truth to the judgeship of a creature whose mind possesses maybe 1 ,000th of 1 of all the knowledge that God possesses.

And that's being very generous, obviously. So I appreciated the assertion that we are the ultimate evidentialists because we don't believe there's any such thing as anything in the created order that does not testify the lordship of Christ.

If Jesus Christ created all things, if Colossians chapter one is true, then there's no such thing as a neutral fact. Every fact is a fact because God made it to be that way. And I find this to be a powerful proclamation that most people have never heard before.

And if you are trusting the spirit of God to prepare the way for your proclamation, that's the best way to go, best way to go. And so I understand what Si is saying here. He's saying, look, I'll present these things when I am presenting my faith.

But if someone has put themselves in the position of judging God, then I will not do that because I will not allow them to be judged. I agree at that point that we have to be very careful about that. I don't necessarily do it the same way that Si does in this debate.

And that's what most of the other clips are about. So we continue on.

In the past, and I apologize for bringing up the past because we haven't spoken much.

By the way, just go ahead. Remember when we had this problem, the glowing seraphim? This is always what happens when you try to videotape something in a hotel is they have these goofy lights and they're not all that bright really, but they're always in the way and there's just, and there's nothing you can do about it.

We had that, which debate was that we had? Well, we've had in a couple of them. And that's just a plain old light, cheapy light fixture back there. But it's just incredibly annoying, especially to videographers, that it looks like some space alien creature sitting there.

But that's just the way it goes with them. And I'm not talking about Si's head. No, that's what someone would say about me.

You'll have every opportunity to correct this, but you've said that God reveals things to you in such a way that you can be certain. To everybody. Well, for now, we'll just stick with you. Well, I say he reveals things to everyone such that they can

I understand that. That's what I say. How does that work? You know, that would be a very good question if you could know that you weren't a brain in a vat. Ah.

Okay, now again, I understand what he's saying, but that's not how I would respond. I think this is a valid question. Si's trying to go to the presuppositions here. I understand that. But I think that's about the fourth or fifth time to say it.

And my response at that point would have been, I am a creature. I am made by Jesus Christ, who is the creator of all things. And the word that Jesus Christ has identified as being from God, being God speaking to me, is specifically designed by God to communicate those things to me that I need to know to honor him as God.

And that you, Matt, are not only suppressing the natural revelation that God has given to you, but that likewise, you do not have any sound foundation for rejecting the written word of God that has been preserved down through the ages.

Now, of course, I have a real comfort in going into issues. And one of the last ones, I think the very last clip I have is where someone mentioned the Bart Ehrman stuff. That's my area of strength. And so I could tell by Matt's response that he's clueless, as most atheists are, that all they do is...

It's funny, even when they read Ehrman, it's plain to me, they don't understand what he's saying. The audience question guy, we'll get to it, remember this when we get to the end. The audience question guy clearly went way beyond what even Ehrman would say.

So they don't know. So I'm comfortable going there. And so I would press this. And what it does is it's relevant to the answer to the question. And it also gives me another opportunity to proclaim the Lordship of Christ.

And I think God's glorified in that. And to make application of the Lordship of Christ in the area of knowledge. Now, Psy does that out of the times, but in response to him saying, how can God reveal things to you that you can be certain of?

It, again, he's gonna say, hey, God can do that. That's right, God can. In fact, let me...

I think that's what he says right here at the end. So you're not gonna answer the question. No, I would say it's irrelevant. Your question presupposes that it's happened. What my question presupposes is irrelevant to whether or not you're willing to answer and give the explanation that no presuppositionalist has ever done, which is how is it possible for God to reveal things to you in such a way that you can be certain?

Because he's God.

God can do that. Yeah, okay. Okay, now, yes, he's God. God can do that. But I think we can go beyond that without in any way saying to the atheists, and I'm gonna allow you to judge this, because we know more about it than simply God has done it.

And that goes to our doctrine of scripture and to our doctrine that Jesus Christ, as the incarnate one, pointed men to the authority of the word of God and held them accountable as if God had spoken to them.

So I see we can make a connection between the overarching lordship of Jesus Christ and then the authority of scripture. He is the word of God enfleshed. It is the word of God revealed. The point is that he, as our creator, makes us in such a way that he desires to communicate with us.

And when he communicates with us, he can then reveal truth to us in such a way that as he said in his prayer to his father, "'Sanctify them in thy word, thy word is truth.'". So I realize, and I fall into this sometimes myself, you'll hear someone call into a radio program, for example, a talk show.

And as soon as they start quoting from the Bible, what happens? Well, we need to go to commercial break and people just wanna hear. And so I think sometimes we fall into the trap of going, well, I'm not gonna go there, I'm not gonna say those things.

But in this instance, I think there is an opening there to really say, oh, you really say no presuppositionalist has ever answered this? Now, if you're looking for some kind of naturalistic, materialistic process, then you're obviously missing the boat.

But what I am saying to you is that if Jesus Christ is the creator of all things, and if God communicates, if there's communication between the members of the Trinity, and then clearly he wants to communicate with his creatures, he's gonna make us capable of receiving that revelation that he deems proper for us to receive.

How is that in any way irrational? If God is communicative, how could we in any way shut his mouth? How are you saying he could not communicate with us? And I think this comes up in one of the other audience questions too as well.

So let me see if this is gonna get me close here. Yeah, see, that's supposed to be VLC. I don't know what you did to me here, but let's go to some of the audience questions here. VLC113. Okay, here's the first guy who talked to Psy.

And it's very hard to get it right where it needs to be,.

So we're gonna have to listen to some stuff that we don't necessarily want to. I'll hold the mic.

My question is for Psy. Psy, your first premise is flawed. The premise says that it is reasonable to believe what is true, but that glosses over whether our minds can know that something is true. If a blind person is told that a painting is by Van Gogh, that is a true statement, and it may be reasonable to believe it, but the blind person cannot know it.

Similarly, if we are talking about God, we are talking about someone who is qualitatively over, above, beyond, anterior to everything else that exists. There is no possible way that any of us, with our limitations of three dimensions of space and one of time, could possibly know such a thing, whether it happened to be true or not, any more than

This is why I wanted the questions written down, by the way. Any more than, yes, any more than a goldfish in its bowl seeing me standing in the living room could tell whether I was also suspended in water as it

Now, what's the immediate response to this? But no, yeah, yeah, I know. Well, that's what Sai was saying, is it'd be nice if these were written down ahead of time. Yeah, but what's, again, I'm just asking people in the audience, you know, put yourself in Sai's position, put yourself in my position, because these are the kinds of questions you're gonna be getting on the airplane and the bus and the train and, you know, sitting at the soccer stadium or whatever.

This is the, we are being called to be salt and light in a secular humanist society, and we can sit here with one another and go, oh, these people, can't they think straight? But that doesn't accomplish anything when you got to talk to the guy.

So you've got to be able to hear what he's saying and recognize what is inconsistent. Here is a man created in the image of God, but he's not thinking properly. Here is fulfillment of Romans chapter one.

There it is. Professionally wise, the dialogue in the mind, not working correctly, improper information, improper application, there it is, there it is. So how do you respond to him? As you're listening to him, you should be hearing what he's saying that is inconsistent.

He's using the goldfish in the bowl. Well, what's the problem? There's no meaningful relationship of creator creation between the person outside the goldfish bowl and the goldfish. He's completely missed the Christian understanding of God is creator, man is creation, and what we were talking about before, the desire on God's part to communicate with his creature.

And so he's missing the fundamental assertion of Christianity, and that is that God has chosen to communicate to his creatures in a fashion that is commensurate with their abilities. So if God wants to communicate with the goldfish, guess what?

God has the capacity to do so because he made the goldfish and he also made the goldfish bowl and he made the water and he made all the sensory organs of the goldfish. And if he wants to communicate with the goldfish, if he designed all of it, he can jolly well do so.

And it seems incredibly silly to say otherwise, but they don't have a creator anymore that made the goldfish bowl or the goldfish. And that's why he says, well, I disagree with your assumption, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

What's your answer? I didn't hear a question.

Do you have a specific question for Scott? Yes, how can it be reasonable to claim that to know something when our very minds are so framed that whether or not something is true, we could not possibly perceive it or authenticate it.

False assumption, completely false assumption right at that point. That's where you've got to go and say, that's directly contrary to not only your own experience, but it's directly contrary to what the Christian scriptures say that God has communicated with clarity and has made us to be able to receive that divine revelation and act in accordance with it.

I disagree with your premise, sir, I'm sorry.

I'm saying that we can know things for certain as God reveals them. And I think I'm really surprised that you disagree with the first premise that is reasonable to believe things which are true. I find that remarkable, but.

All right, who's your question for? Okay, so there was that encounter. And so I, oh, then we had this one. And now Sai is a good Presbyterian. I think he's a bit of a theonomist too. So here's, this one came out of left field.