Revealed Apologetics Meets the Wise Disciple

Revealed Apologetics

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Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Eli Ayala, and today

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I am very excited for my guest, Nate Sala of The Wise Disciple.

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Now, I just wanna start off, if you don't know about The Wise Disciple YouTube channel, you need to go right now, you click off this video, open up another window, look up Wise Disciple and subscribe to The Wise Disciple YouTube channel.

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There are some excellent resources, teachings on evangelism, there's a lot of apologetics content there.

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And Nate, which he's gonna explain his background a little bit, but just if I can give you a kind of a little teaser, he is a former debate teacher.

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And so he does these really cool debate analysis on apologetic debates between Christians and atheists,

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Christians and Christians. And he definitely brings an interesting take to the table and allows us to kind of, rather it teaches us as to what to look for in a good debate so that we can use some of those skills in our interaction.

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Of course, sharing our faith on the street is not the same as a formal debate, but there's definitely something to be learned by asking good questions, being able to analyze someone's comments and things like that.

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So his content is super, super helpful. So I highly recommend, if you have not yet subscribed to The Wise Disciple YouTube channel, go there now and then come back because we're gonna be covering a lot of stuff.

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Super excited. Now, by way of future interviews,

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I have just confirmed, although the date has not been confirmed, I'll be having Pastor Jeff Durbin on to talk about presuppositional apologetics, abortion, and actually the relation between what we think in terms of the ethical realm and our worldview commitments.

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So it's gonna tie all those things in an interesting way altogether for what I think is going to be an excellent conversation with Jeff Durbin.

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Also, I'm gonna be having Dr. Jeffrey Johnson on. If you don't know who Dr. Jeffrey Johnson is, he is the author of "'The

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Failure of Natural Theology,' a Critical Appraisal of the Philosophical Theology of Thomas Aquinas."

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And he's the author of the book, "'Saving Natural Theology' from Thomas Aquinas." There's a theme there.

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And he's also the author of the book, "'Absurdity of Unbelief.'"

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And so he definitely takes the apologetic approach along the lines of a presuppositional approach. So wherever you stand on the natural theology discussion, it's gonna be very interesting to kind of talk to him about those related issues and how to place that within the context of the whole apologetic methodological discussion.

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So very much looking forward to having Jeffrey Johnson on. Well, without further ado, let me introduce my guest in the flesh, sort of, kind of.

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Nate, how are you doing? Welcome to Revealed Apologetics. Happy New Year, Eli. Happy New Year.

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I caught you in the middle of drinking from that super fancy penguin cup. That was nice. That's right, that's right. This was a gift from one of my students.

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There we go. Yeah. Okay, very good. Don't ask me what the liquid is inside there. I won't ask you what the liquid is, but I know that the bird is wearing the same pair of glasses you're wearing.

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Is that intentional? I think maybe it was. That's cool. Well, why don't you tell folks a little bit more about yourself and maybe you can kind of reiterate where they can find your stuff and maybe there's resources you have that I didn't mention.

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Maybe you can share that with folks right now. Sure, thanks for having me on. So my name is

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Nate. I'm the president of an organization. We're a 501c3. We've been around for about, well, we've been incorporated for probably four going on five years, but we've been around for almost nine and we're called

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Wise Disciple and I got a small team that handles website stuff. WiseDisciple .org

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is the website. We have a store with clothing, which is still strange for me to say that.

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And you know, there's an audio - I see a T -shirt with your face on it. Is that - How's this?

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Yeah, so that one, that one, I like. Is it? But really at base, we're just about trying to get

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Christians to be more communicative, more effective in the way that they communicate their

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Christian convictions, the gospel, all of that stuff, because we're surveying the landscape, Eli, and it just is a dumpster fire.

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Like the way that we talk to people, the way that the culture is right now with tribalism and all that stuff, like I'm really am,

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I'm sensitive to the notion that Christianity has to challenge the status quo.

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And right now the status quo in our culture is anger, fighting, clashing and stuff like that.

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So how can we navigate our Christian convictions but do so in a way that upholds relationship, that leads to discipleship, the fulfillment of the

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Great Commission and all that stuff. So that's what we're focused on there. I have a YouTube channel that I started.

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Well, actually we started the channel, Eli, this is so embarrassing, I think maybe four years ago, five years ago or whatever it was.

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And we just started trickling out videos. We had no idea what we're doing. And only just in the last year,

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I told my team and my board, hey, what if we like really put effort into thinking about videos and all that stuff?

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And so here we are now, I had a thought one day like, how can I get more people aware of us?

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And it was just like this strange what if thing where it was like, what if, because I'm a former debate teacher, what if I sort of squashed formal debate rules and adjudication on top of informal apologetics debates and debate teacher reacts was born.

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That's awesome. And again, I'm sorry, all of your other videos are super interesting, but my favorite is, when

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I get the notification like, oh, Nate's doing a video and then it's like, oh, it's a debate teachers react, like I have to park the car, make sure

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I find it and put it on. It is my favorite part of your channel, but it's funny, as you just said, it was never your intention for it to be like a thing.

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I think that's hilarious. Right, right. And that's how life is, right? It was a gimmick and now it's the most popular thing.

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Yeah, well, it's excellent folks again, if you haven't listened to his debate reactions and he's shared with me before, he listens to these things kind of like on the spot, he listens and he reacts and gives his analysis and you get a nice fresh take on really important and insightful observations.

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I love how when you were reviewing the Mike Winger and Matt Dillahunty debate and you did the

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Drax laugh, I thought that was hilarious from the Guardians of the Galaxy.

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Right. I died, but it's good. I think it's helpful because a lot of people can be intimidated by folks like Matt Dillahunty and it's really cool to see someone who knows debate and is able to kind of like spot what would otherwise intimidate someone and keep them quiet.

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Like, I don't know how to respond to that. You can kind of identify really the emptiness in a lot of the argument or lack of argumentation.

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So I think it's super helpful in that regard. Boy, I mean, you say that and I see that logically, but deep down,

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I'm like, really? Like people are intimidated by Matt Dillahunty? I mean, I don't want to, what are we in two minutes in?

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I don't want to bash him, but there's nothing there. There's no there there, you know, it's -

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It's rhetoric, right? He's able to talk his way and give you kind of jabs here and there that for a lot of people, it seems effective, at least on a surface level.

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But yeah, it's great to see someone be able to say, wait a minute, there's really nothing to that. Let's talk about that. So in that sense,

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I think it's very helpful. Now, I do have a question and I want to get back to the debate stuff because it's super fascinating. But you said that the focus of your ministry was to be more communicative and that when you survey the landscape, it seems like it's a dumpster fire in terms of how

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Christians communicate. Are you suggesting it's a dumpster fire from the arena of like popular

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Christianity, like well -known public figures who are out there talking, or are you saying it's a dumpster fire in terms of how

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Christians communicate within like the popular realm, like face -to -face or on the internet? Can you differentiate that?

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I think that's an interesting observation. And then maybe we can talk about how we can fix that. Yeah, more so the latter.

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Because I strongly believe, just my observation, you know, surveying the landscape, like I said, we have adopted way too much of the culture.

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The culture has crept into the church. I don't know when it happened. You know, March 9, what year that happened, but it happened and here we are.

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Like we look so much like the world. It really is, to me, sometimes sickening.

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And so if, for example, politics is the du jour, right?

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The thing that we are constantly consumed with, or I should say the world is constantly consumed with, well then guess what?

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So are a lot of us in the church. It just seems like whatever is coming is trickling in from the culture and affecting us.

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And so if people are very tribal in the way that they communicate, so here's the greatest example. And so whenever I go around and I give talks on, so my methodology is called first aid evangelism.

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And whenever I do that, I always like bring up this particular illustration or this particular scenario because it's true across the board.

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You're on social media. You say something on social media to your friends.

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They're supposed to be your friends. And it's from your Christian convictions. And all of a sudden you get attacked by like nine people.

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One of them you know, eight of them you don't know. And they just come in and they start attacking what you said.

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And you're like, oh my gosh, what's going on? Like there's no manners. There's no love.

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And ultimately I think that's what this betrays Eli is that we've just forgotten how to be in relationship with each other.

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So yeah, I would say the latter. And I think Dr. James White had mentioned this a while back.

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And we'll talk a little bit about Dr. White as I just learned that you just watched the James White and William Lane Craig interaction, which

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I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts. And I'm sure folks would be interested as well coming from a debate teacher's perspective.

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But Dr. White often says this in reference to how technology has made it easy for us to quickly respond, which means we're not thinking very deeply about what someone puts out there.

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We're just kind of reacting. Is that kind of along the lines of what you're getting at in terms of, you know, how the online interaction is going?

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Yeah, you know, it's not one thing. It's like, so I'm from Vegas, right? So it's like a perfect cocktail of multiple things.

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But definitely the ability to be able to provide your hot take, you know, that is key.

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Another one that goes into this is the fact that we've become over time. And now

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I'm not even talking about the church. Now I'm just talking about people in general, like humanity writ large.

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We've become illiterate. We've become people who no longer reflect. Like we no longer sit down and try to read to better ourselves.

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There are outliers, right? There's you, there's, you know, there's others, right? But it seems like the vast majority of us really are super interested in what this is happening.

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Like what's going on in the glowing rectangle. And that's it. And that feeds into all of what

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I'm saying. Uh, so, um, okay. How do we fix it? And I want to,

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I want to, we'll segue into, uh, some other areas that I want to talk to you about. But, uh, what is your suggestion?

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How did, how can we engage in that kind of, I mean, cause this is, this is the way we communicate, whether we like it or not.

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I mean, that's just the way it is. We live it. I don't think there's any turning back unless, you know, satellites go down and we're going back to kind of the stone age.

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How can we be better at communicating at a level that shows we're giving thought, but we're also wanting to be relevant and speaking to issues as they come.

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How do we balance that? How do we walk in and navigate that? So there is a way to do all of this kind of in one foul swoop.

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And, uh, again, you know, sort of going back to our signature methodology of communicating, it really does boil down to, at the end of the day, putting the focus on other people.

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Okay. The thing about social media especially is that it is a curated, uh, museum of you, you know?

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So it's like every photo that you took 9 ,000 of and you choose the one, it's a collection of all of those things, the best curated self, and you put it out there.

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You are your own apologist essentially. And if you flip that paradigm upside down and you, you,

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I'm not advocating that we get off social media, you know, sure. But if we flip that around and put the focus on other people and we start asking people genuine questions about their lives, it's harder on social media than in person, but it can be done.

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Then what happens is people start talking about themselves. So one of the things that, uh, you realize, especially if you look at some of the surveys out there is that people love to talk about themselves.

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It's like the number one American pastime. Football has been replaced. Now we're, it's talking about ourselves.

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It's the number one American pastime. And so all we have to do is just start asking people about themselves as if we were on a first date with somebody and, uh, ask them about themselves.

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Then what's going to happen is over time, when they get more comfortable and start trusting us, because it appears that we care about them because we should, this should not be manipulative.

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Sure. Um, they'll start to open up about what they believe because guess what? Everybody's spiritual. And so when somebody starts saying and speaking freely about what they believe, guess what happens next?

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All these claims, these metaphysical claims, these religious claims, they start spilling out of people.

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And that's where we can, I think I described this as gentle cross exam.

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That's where we can start to do a gentle cross exam, still with the notion of maintaining relationship and continuing to build it, um, where we start to challenge the, uh, the, the claims that we're hearing as Christians, knowing that, uh, the exclusivity of Christianity is true.

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So, um, that's how, and what you do is, so I've seen this happen with, uh, some people that we've interacted with is they'll start using their social media platform, especially as ways to just put questions out for people.

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And what you find is when you consistently do this, people start answering because they want to answer, especially if they're spiritual questions.

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Sure. You know, what do you think happens when, after we die? It's probably, you'll get probably the, the greatest number of answers from a, a large selection of different kinds of people, because everybody has an opinion about that.

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Right. So, yeah, that's funny. I remember a long time ago, um, when I was just starting to do apologetics, like on online, like in Facebook, I would pose a question.

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I remember, um, it was, what was the question? It was a basic question. How does one get saved? Um, and, um,

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I just left it there. It was just a quick, how does one get saved? It was a question. And there were a lot of comments. Some were not even

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Christian. One person just put yoga, yoga. That was it. Along, you know, you had the traditional

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Christian answers. Then I was like, what do you mean yoga? And then they kind of just unpacked their Eastern perspective.

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Right. I mean, people have a lot to say, like you said, that people are spiritual. God created us to have those sorts of inclinations.

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So that's interesting. So I, I never, I watched a lot of your videos, but I don't think I've watched the first date evangelism.

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So now I kind of get it. When you go on a date, you ask someone about themselves. And I think that's, that's excellent. And a lot of these excellent pieces of advice are common sense too, um, which, um, yeah.

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So, all right. Super cool. That, I think that's, I think that's, that's super interesting. Were you going to say something you wanted to say? These are, these are not new things, you know, and there's a much longer story here, but the way

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I came to first date evangelism is basically it's a, it's a combination of, uh, my debate training, uh, or, uh, teaching debate to students.

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And it's also looking at Jesus in the, in the gospels. So this is old stuff. I didn't invent this.

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This is not new at all. And, uh, there's all kinds of different ways to do this. I just, uh, with, so I lead the college ministry at my local church in Las Vegas.

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And we just did this with them, uh, it was a year ago or something. Marvel, uh, Avengers came out, uh, or no, it was a couple of years ago, uh, end game came out.

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Right. And so I just, we took our college kids and we said, Hey, here's your homework assignment. You're going to ask your friends one question, and then you're just going to listen.

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Okay. And here was the question was Thanos, right? You know, because Thanos is making a lot of decisions based on worldview, right.

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Based on presuppositions that he already has. And so we sent them out there like that. And it led actually to gospel conversations, if you can believe that.

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So it was, it was great. Very easy. Very good. Very good. Now. Okay. So evangelism obviously is very much connected to apologetics.

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I mean, it's very rare that you're just going to lay out the gospel and then baptize someone in the puddle in the parking lot.

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There's, they're going to be questions. They're going to be a pushback. Um, how do you approach the whole issue of apologetics?

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People who watch my show, uh, they know that I'm, I'm very presuppositional in my, my perspective, but we have a wide variety of perspectives and a wide variety of ways to, uh, employ our apologetic equipment.

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Um, what route do you take when you sense that there is a transition being made from evangelization to now

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I'm in apologetics mode. So you need one foot in the apologetics arena and one foot in the evangelism arena.

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How do you navigate that with an individual that maybe you're talking with a face -to -face? Yeah, that's a, that's a good question.

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It reminds me of a question. I'm an, I'm answering your question, right? But it reminds me. He started very politically.

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Like, that's a great question, but let me show you. This leads me to another question, Eli. I'll answer your question with a question, but I was talking to, uh,

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William Lane Craig and he was talking about how he came up in apologetics. And back then the big guy, the big kahuna, one of them was

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Francis Schaeffer. Now, Francis Schaeffer for me was seminal. He, he was a gigantic influence.

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When I first got saved, I, uh, was working at a hospital and I sat in one weekend and read the

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Francis Schaeffer trilogy. Cause I was so like enthralled with Francis Schaeffer and his ideas.

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And, um, so it's very, how do you pronounce this? Schaefferian. What I would say, right?

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Which is essentially, if I'm starting to talk to somebody and I noticed the conversation is shifting, the only reason that I'm going to notice that the conversation is shifting is because people are asking me questions that are designed to engage me to, to answer their questions.

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So in other words, I'm not really a huge proponent and I'm not saying it's wrong, but I'm not a proponent of shoving my script down somebody's throat.

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And so the only way I'm going to allow somebody, it's a lot like judo, right? Like judo, you use the force of your opponent to then move them around on the mat.

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And that's basically first aid evangelism for me is like, if you do judo with your, with your wife, while you guys were dating, it's judo.

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Okay. That's another, that's another episode for another night. But I, I'm, I'm going to sense that, you know, so for example, like if I, if I'm trying to communicate the gospel message, but then they go,

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Oh, but wait a second, wait a second. You know, God hates homosexuals, you know,

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I'm like, Oh, okay. Well, the first thing I'm going to say is, well, what do you mean by that? Right. And how did you come to the conclusion that God hates homosexuals?

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And let's talk about it. Right. And so it's really a matter of letting the person lead the way, even though I'm in control of the conversation by asking those leading questions.

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So first aid evangelism doesn't shift for me. If I'm talking about the gospel, or if I'm talking about apologetics, it's principally the same thing.

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And it really is based on, I mean, it is in a way, it's very friendly to presuppositional.

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Sure. The presuppositional approach. I was going to say reformed epistemology actually, because at least reformed epistemologists understand that there's something going on besides simply giving somebody the content of your argument.

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There's all this stuff that's going on in the heart, you know, that must be addressed before you can actually engage the intellect, so to speak.

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Now, I noticed in your language, you sounded very, okay, so you said Schaeferian, which is, it is an actual word there.

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You could be Vantillian, you could be Clarkian, you could be Schaeferian, but you also sounded very

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Kochelian, if Greg ever watches this,

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I just made up a word, so we could totally make it a thing. You did sound very much like you were drawing from Greg Kochel's tactics.

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Do you find that that approach works well in the way that you communicate with folks?

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Yes. Yeah, it's, so Greg's a friend, and I've talked to him about this before, but, you know, trying to, somebody asked me early on, you know, this first aid evangelism thing, it sounds a lot like tactics, you know?

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And I was like, well, to me, where tactics is really much more a script of questions to ask,

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I hate to be too reductionistic here, but it appears to me that tactics is a lot of, like, here's what you would ask in this situation, and here's why that's good.

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I think for us, we're trying to go even further than that, you know? So the, what is it, the

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Columbo questions, you know, let me ask you a question about the, you know, like the Columbo questions.

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That was a good impression. Oh, thank you. The Columbo questions are key, and for me, they're almost like the appetizer, and then

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I suggest we go a little bit further with our first aid evangelism method. All right.

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Very good. By the way, just a quick commercial. You can purchase tactics right now on Amazon Kindle for half price.

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I don't know how much it costs, but actually, it's pretty affordable. So if you don't have tactics, you definitely need to get that book.

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It's excellent. I also had Greg Kochel on the show a while back, and he, I think he did an excellent job unpacking some of the principles in that book.

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So you guys might want to check that out. All right. So now, oh, here, oh, this is awesome.

22:42

Okay, so let's see here. So we have Cochlean or Coca -Coline.

22:48

Okay. We'll see which, we'll try it out in discussion.

22:54

We'll see what happens. I got one. It's, what's the new show on Disney? Cochlorian. The Mandalorian?

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No. The Cochlorian. It's fine. No worries. It's okay. It's a 10 -foot joke.

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It's over their heads. It's fine. At least you got smart humor. Sometimes people, they're not able to get it.

23:11

No worries. All right. So, okay. So, so let's shift here. So we, we shift from evangelism apologetics to really, which is my favorite aspect of your channel, which is these debates.

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So, so I'm going to ask you a couple of questions with respect to what was your favorite debate to review?

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What was your least favorite? Who is your favorite debater? We're going to get into some of those things and, and kind of some things that you can kind of go through to help folks who are interested in debating what they can do to kind of prepare to engage that realm.

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So, okay. So I forgot what I was going to ask just now. It just hit my mind.

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But why don't you tell folks a little bit about your debate background? So how did you get into that whole field?

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I know you taught at the high school level. Was that something you went to school for so that you can teach?

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Or is it something that kind of was dropped in your lap? Like, hey, there's a debate team and, you know, would you like to teach it?

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How'd that look for you? Basically, that's what it was. The way I think of it is like, so back in the day, so I think we're about the same age,

24:12

Eli, but back in the day. How old are you? How old are you? I'm 42. Oh, okay.

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I'm 39. I'm a young duck. I haven't reached the 40s yet. Let me tell you about your 40s, right?

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You wake up with your back hurting for no reason. And that's your 40s. My back already hurts and I'm not.

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Oh, you're there. You're there. No, back in the day, Saturday Night Live was really popular.

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Now it's not funny at all. But there was a guy, Chevy Chase, and he was really known for like falling backwards down the stairs.

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Like everybody laughed at that. That's how I feel I got into debate. I was like, I fell backwards down the stairs.

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Like I went to school. So I have my theology degree. And then I realized, very long story.

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Hey, you know what? I think I'm supposed to be a teacher. So then I went and got another, like a master's in teaching.

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And then I started teaching, but it was in literature. So I originally entered what's called

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Clark County here in Las Vegas, teaching literature. But like second year in, the debate teacher retired.

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And so they were asking around. And the only thing I knew about debate was, well, there's logical fallacies involved.

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And I was like a huge fan of philosophy. I took a couple of classes in theology, but then like just reading things on the side.

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And so I'm like, I think I could do that. So I got into it, but then I didn't realize that, oh, there's this whole broad category called forensics, which is basically debate, like public forum debates,

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Lincoln Douglas debates, you know, all that policy. But then on the other side, in terms of category, there's what's called like humorous interpretation, dramatic interpretation.

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There's all these, it's almost like these monologues. Like if actors go out to audition for a part, they would read these things.

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And that's ultimately what the other side of forensics is. I was not prepared for any of that.

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So like I basically bit off way more than I could chew. It was at a school that was in North town.

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So there were no resources. There was no money. Most of my students were not getting out to the tournaments every weekend because they just couldn't afford it.

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They didn't even have clothes like to put on to go, you know what I mean? Because like you got to dress up. And, um, but the, the couple that did like, there was a couple of ladies, she, they, they reached out to me years later.

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I had transferred to another school and they were like, because of you, Mr. Sala, you know, we're, we're going on to study law.

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And I was like, oh my gosh, like, that's, that's awesome. And so nobody taught me anything.

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I basically fell into it backwards. Somebody helped me out with like their own lesson plans. Another debate teacher from another school that I met basically emailed me all of his lesson plans.

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And I just went through there and just tried to like figure out what the heck to do week by week. You learned on the job basically, which

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I learned on the job, which I'm a school teacher as well. And, uh, oh wow. Yeah. So, and, and there's a lot you learn on the job that they don't prepare you enough in college for the actual classroom.

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I think I learned more being in front of a class than sitting in a classroom, learning how to be in front of a class.

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That makes sense. Oh yeah. No, I hear you. Um, but some of the things that I realized were quote unquote best practices with my students was number one, we practice debates all the time.

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We would practice debates. We would get into drills. I would have, uh, my students, um, especially realizing that not a lot of them were ever going to go to tournaments.

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We would do mock tournaments. So we would get together and pair up with people. They would have to write what are called argument briefs, which are basically arguments from one side of a particular topic.

27:47

They would have to write both of them. So like for affirmative and the negative, they would have to write, and then we would flip a coin and then they would learn on the spot,

27:57

Hey, I'm actually arguing the affirmative. So they would do a lot of that stuff. We would do probably one of the, the, the number one questions

28:05

I get from like my audience is like, what should I do to get better at debate?

28:10

Here's the number one thing that I've realized really helps everybody. You take a transcript of a debate and you annotate it.

28:18

So like the debate itself, if you can find like a transcript, a transcript of the words on a paper of what is being said, if you can print that out and look at print it out, what am

28:27

I, if you can get it on your device and then you look at it because with your eyes, you can visualize, okay, there's the claim, there's the evidence that's supporting the claim.

28:38

And there's the, so we, we followed what was called the Tolman model, uh, of argumentation.

28:43

So claim data warrant, you know, the warrant justifies, uh, the, is the warrant is the explanation for how the data justifies the claim.

28:52

Okay. So we have to annotate all that stuff, identify all that stuff out. And I found that that is probably the number one thing you can do to like improve, um, your skill.

29:03

So, I mean, this is helpful because William Lane Craig, um, you know, uh, has all of his debates transcribed on reasonable faith.

29:12

There you go. So, uh, and again, I, as I said before, I'm a presuppositionalist, but I've learned a lot from reading through debates and listening to debates, people who

29:18

I don't necessarily agree every jot and tittle. Um, and I think that's a perfect way to kind of analyze, um, even the opponent's perspective because the people he debates are top notch thinkers in their field.

29:29

So it's a really good way to kind of get, um, you know, the structure of the basics of their argument.

29:34

So that's an excellent, that's an excellent, I mean, I've done it before, but it's not something I've thought about in terms of doing more intentionally.

29:40

I think that, and I, I enjoy reading transcripts because it's faster than if I'm reading a book because I'm, it's just going, they're just, it's like they're talking.

29:49

So it's, it's very easy. Um, excellent. That's really good. That's really helpful. Yeah. Can I add one more thing, Eli? Sure, sure.

29:55

The, the thing that is not attractive, right. And there was another word I was going to say, it starts with an

30:01

S, but it's just not very attractive to say this, right.

30:06

Because people are looking for that quick fix. But, um, it just, you have to do the hard work, right.

30:14

One of the other things that I'm asked is like, how do you, you know, like you immediately hear something and you recognize what you're hearing and whether or not that's an answer to a question or not.

30:23

It's because I'm looking at these transcripts, man, I've been doing this for like, you know, months and months add up to years. You, you, once you develop that muscle, it's very quick for you to be able to hear something and go, oh, okay.

30:35

That is not a substantive answer to the question. He avoided the question. He's filibustering, et cetera, et cetera. Excellent.

30:41

Excellent. All right. Well, so let's transfer over into some of the debates you've reviewed. What is the least favorite?

30:48

So when you're kind of just like, oh, I mean, this was a pretty bad argument, or this was a pretty lame debate.

30:54

People wanted me to, to review this one. I did. And it's just kind of like, you know, which is your least favorite debate that you've reviewed on your channel and why?

31:04

So I don't know if this is going to answer the question. So two come to mind and for different reasons.

31:11

So first of all, I'm in my forties. So I don't remember two weeks ago, let alone like I've done,

31:18

I don't know how many videos I've done now, but I do remember like any

31:23

Matt Dillahunty debate just really, it put like the gag reflex.

31:28

I really stand because I, there's two reasons why

31:33

I don't like watching Matt Dillahunty debates. Number one, because there's no substance, there's hardly any substance there. And partially,

31:39

I think what makes me so angry, if that's the right word, when I watch

31:44

Matt Dillahunty is I feel like he knows better. I feel like he, he's smart enough.

31:51

It seems to me to be able to put in the hard work to make substantive arguments, but he doesn't.

31:56

And so that even makes me more upset, you know, but that's the first thing. The second thing is the, the, the way that he commands authority, like it's just really, it's really, it's an interesting phenomena.

32:14

I think I was talking to Trent Horner about this, but like you, you can agree to debate Matt Dillahunty. Have you debated

32:19

Matt Dillahunty before? I was invited to, and I turned it down because, well,

32:25

I have three kids. So I don't have time to prepare. Right. Yeah, exactly. A lot of people don't know this and I'll let you finish, but a lot of people don't know this.

32:32

One of the reasons why I do interviews on my channel is number one, I love talking to people and I think it's really interesting, but it's, it's usually because I don't have time to prepare stuff to teach myself, like to give.

32:45

So I do every now and then, but the, I have a theological and apologetics background. So when I interview people, I already kind of know what to ask and the direction to go, but it's easier.

32:53

So it takes less prep. So I haven't debated him. I turned an invitation to do so down because just a lack of time.

33:00

Yeah. Well, and maybe that's something else to talk about, but your prep time for debate. I mean, that's substantial. Yes. So if you want to do this correctly, but anyway,

33:09

I, I just, you could debate Matt Dillahunty to say, yeah, I'm going to debate Matt Dillahunty. You could have 500 subscribers on your channel, but all of a sudden your debate with Matt Dillahunty now is a hundred thousand views and they're all his followers.

33:21

Like he's got these followers. It doesn't matter what he does. There was a, there was a moment. Well, I don't know if I'm going to turn your audience off.

33:28

There was a moment in the election in 2016. Trump was like, I could basically go out in the street and shoot somebody and it wouldn't matter.

33:34

And it's like, that's how I feel like Matt Dillahunty's followers. Like he could murder somebody on camera and they would be like, well, he's correct.

33:41

You know, it's like, wow. So anything to do with Matt Dillahunty and people keep asking me and I'm like, you know what?

33:46

The last one was the last one. I can't stand it. I can't, I can't sit through this anymore. Okay. That's the first one.

33:52

The second one was the James White, Leighton Flowers debate. Hey, be very careful because Leighton sometimes pops his head in some of the comments.

34:03

Sometimes, not a lot. And if he hears what you're about to say, he will make a four hour response.

34:10

Right. No, I, I, to me, the debate itself was probably the easiest to adjudicate because there, there were the way that it went.

34:23

Like, you know, it really wasn't, well, okay. Sorry, Leighton. It really wasn't lion versus lion.

34:29

It was more like lion versus bunny rabbit, in my opinion. And so, you know, that, that was easy.

34:36

You know, I was like, okay, this, this is happening. This isn't happening over here. And I laid out, I think

34:41

I did this. Like I laid out the criteria at the beginning of how I was going to judge the debate.

34:47

And so I was like, well, there you go. I had my flow and I realized, yep, that's it. So it was pretty easy.

34:52

But the aftermath that, that I did, I have a huge distaste for all of that.

34:58

And the reason is, again, I said this at the beginning, I'm, I do not want to be somebody, there's a lot of channels out there who they point out differences.

35:07

And I think that's important. Okay. I'm not discounting that at all. They point out the differences between doctrine and they point out the areas of problems, problematic things that are going on in the church and all that stuff.

35:18

I don't want to be a voice in that arena. I want to be somebody who, as much as we can challenge the status quo of tribalism and clashing and try to unify as much as possible.

35:29

And I'm not going to, I'm a Protestant. Okay. I'm not Catholic. So I don't hate to burst anybody's bubble. I had

35:34

Trent Horn on, but I'm not Catholic. And, and I hold to my convictions, solo scripture and all that very closely, very seriously.

35:43

But if I can work and stand shoulder to shoulder with somebody like Trent Horn, I'll do it. Hmm. So, okay.

35:50

So in terms of the Leighton Flower discussion, James White, so you're saying it was easy to adjudicate because it was clear that one side was doing what they were supposed to do in the debate.

36:01

And that's it. That's regardless if you agree with their position or not, one person was doing what they were supposed to be doing.

36:06

And the other person was not doing what they were supposed to be doing.

36:12

Who are you referring to Eli? I'm just kidding. Leighton and I are cool.

36:18

We're, we're, we're, we're buddies. Not really, but I don't really talk to him a lot, but you know, he's a nice guy. But yeah.

36:24

So in terms of just what you're expected to do at a debate, Leighton didn't really bring what he was supposed to, to address the specific topic.

36:33

Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Essentially. All right. So let's shift from that one.

36:40

Okay, good. That was safe. We navigated those waters without saying anything too controversial. Okay.

36:47

I'm sure it was fun though, to know that there was some history there. You wanted to kind of like, all right, I don't want to get into that mess.

36:53

There's definitely history there, unfortunately, but yeah. At any rate. Okay. So, okay.

36:58

So you have the Leighton Flowers, you have the Leighton Flowers, James White, the Matt Delahunty and anyone. There's your worst, the worst debate.

37:06

What is your favorite debate? Number one. And number two, what was the most difficult debate for you to adjudicate?

37:16

It was like, whoa, these two debaters are excellent. And it's very hard for me to kind of say who won.

37:25

Boy, yeah. So the ones that I generally love to watch are the, it's like, in my opinion, it's like Rocky versus Ivan Drago, right?

37:39

Just give a punch, take a punch. And probably the,

37:45

I mean, the James White versus Trent Horn debate I thought was pretty good.

37:52

And, you know, I mean, here's the thing, like I try to remain objective and not share exactly like what my specific thoughts are when it comes to, especially to like Trent called them intramural debates or whatever, because I really do want to focus on the skills, the tactics, the strategy.

38:14

But I try to put myself in devil's advocate's position and sort of go both sides and go, what would

38:20

I do if I were in that person's shoes? And to me, they were both doing exactly what I would have taught my students to do.

38:28

You know, it's just really great. It was a really fun debate to watch. Another one along those lines was, what's the,

38:39

William Lane Craig and Shelley Kagan debate. Yes. Yeah. I listened to that a while back and I did think that the atheist there, he did an excellent job and just in terms of skill.

38:51

And I mean, I didn't, I don't, I think his view is obviously problematic, but I think he was able to hold his own enough to give a good back and forth there.

39:01

Totally agree. You know, so, and I, it is what it is.

39:07

You're going to have to go back and watch the video, but I was pleasantly surprised to see somebody that was putting up such a fight, you know?

39:15

Yes. Yes. And the most difficult one to judge, boy,

39:23

I don't know. Did I stump the debate teacher?

39:28

Oh my goodness. I don't think anyone has been particularly difficult.

39:34

Okay. Okay. That's fair. I do. Well, okay. I will say this, the ones where they're way informal.

39:40

So here's the trick, right? Apologetics debates, typically speaking, they're not formal debates at all.

39:48

They seem more like conversational town hall style, you know, back and forth.

39:55

A lot of the debates now, like with capturing Christianity and who's the other guy with pints with Aquinas, it's a lot of like, let's just talk to each other.

40:03

And, you know, they have the third party moderator also stepping in. Those are more difficult for me because of the way my brain works.

40:11

Like I'm already stretching so far to get the formal rules of debate and squash it down on top of informal debates to even further, like make that complex and make it, it just makes it really difficult for me to figure out like who a winner is, you know, when there's no clear contention stated, there's no clear rebuttals, you know, so like the

40:35

Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris video, that was hard. Not because like,

40:40

I couldn't keep up with what they were saying or something. I didn't know how to adjudicate at the end of the day. I don't even think I did.

40:46

I don't remember. Somebody's gonna have to fact check me on that. But those kinds of things, this one with William Lane Craig and anything with unbelievable, you know, because Justin Brierley, I love

40:56

Justin, I love that show, but Justin Brierley will jump into the conversation and become a third voice when, you know, in formal debates, it's really interlocutor to interlocutor.

41:07

So yeah, those are the most difficult ones for me. Yeah. Oh, excellent. Now, who is your favorite debater, individual of all time?

41:18

If you, if you had to pick, it's kind of like, you know, what's your favorite movie?

41:24

It's really hard to answer. Who is, who do you think right now? Okay. Who is your favorite debater?

41:29

Yeah. Maybe the answer to this is the same. And who do you think is the best debater right now? Who's my favorite?

41:36

Who's the best? I mean, it's probably the same answer, right? No, sometimes. I mean, there are people who are, I don't think are the best, but they're my favorite to listen to because I think they're more entertaining in the way they engage the issue.

41:50

So there is no, there is no perfect debate and there is no perfect debater. And, you know, spoiler alert, but both

41:58

William Lane Craig and James White, in my opinion, on the video tomorrow, they made mistakes.

42:04

They made some mistakes. Having said that, and I don't even agree with everything that this person says or believes.

42:13

Sure. I think William Lane Craig is probably the best on balance, considering everything now.

42:19

So I'm not just talking about what comes out of his mouth, but also his non -verbals. There's a lot of things that go into debate that you, that you really -

42:27

He's got some good, he's got one of the incredulous, the incredulous face.

42:32

He's got some pretty good non -verbals. It's, it's funny. Well, and he's on balance.

42:38

So he has his moments too, where it looks like he's smelling a fart. But, you know, can I say that on your channel?

42:44

But he's not watching it. Is he, is William Lane Craig watching this? No, he's not. Kevin Harris might.

42:50

Kevin Harris might. He might watch it. Whoops. Look, I love everybody. Okay. It was just a joke. But the, on balance, the non -verbals need to be controlled.

43:00

And so, cause this goes into furthering, you know, your ethos, pathos, logos. Like you, you have to be a full, your presentation has to be across the board, robust.

43:12

And I think when you consider it that way, William Lane Craig is probably the best that I can, that I can think of.

43:19

With a, with a few close runner -ups, James White is actually really great too. I'll, I'll spoil it for you, but I make a comment about his non -verbals in the unbelievable discussion.

43:29

Cause it looked like he wanted to murder somebody half the time. So. James White?

43:35

James White. Yeah. I wondered out loud in the video, I don't want to give too much away,

43:40

I wondered out loud if he knows his cameras on, you know, which you sometimes, I guess you can forget. I don't know, but yeah, that, that wasn't.

43:48

So everything has to be controlled in that way, but he is actually, when he speaks is probably one of the best

43:56

I've ever seen. James White, Trent Horn too, is probably, you know, one of the best in terms of like anticipating the other side.

44:05

Trent's probably one of the best I've ever seen. I, I agree. Again. And I, and what, and I liked what you said in terms of you're just talking about skill now.

44:14

So for example, you just said you're a Protestant, right? So you don't share Trent Horn's perspective.

44:20

However, however, on, from a perspective of skill, I mean, someone to be an idiot, to not be able to acknowledge at a debate level, like he knows what he's doing and observing debates by Trent Horn and anyone else, you could learn a lot.

44:38

And I think there's, there's a lot to be, a lot to be said there. So I would agree out of non -Protestant debaters,

44:44

Trent Horn is definitely up there for me in terms of skill. William Lane Craig, of course, the

44:49

Protestant side, he's, he, I, go ahead. Did you want to say something? I remembered somebody,

44:55

Jeff Durbin. Jeff Durbin has to be, yeah, one of the, one of the best that I've seen as well. Yeah.

45:01

Non -verbals are very controlled. Really doesn't, he trims the fat.

45:06

There's not a lot of wasted words with Jeff Durbin. I really appreciate that too. Yeah. Yeah.

45:12

I agree. Okay. I was a funny question.

45:17

I hope Dr. White doesn't watch this, but which Dr. White, which version of Dr. White do you find more intimidating?

45:25

Cause I was just listening to a bunch of different debates now and when he was more heavyset.

45:30

And I don't know if you've seen the older one. When I watch the ones, when he's more heavyset, his face during cross -examination, the heavier set

45:40

James, the heavyset James White looks way more intimidating than this one down. I rode my bike up a mountain,

45:46

James White. Do you notice the difference there? So here's the other thing.

45:53

So I think I know what you're saying, but I haven't seen a whole lot of debates. So when

45:58

I was teaching, there was no time to keep up with a lot of debates. Okay.

46:04

Literally like the last apologetics debate I remember watching was, and I don't remember what year this was,

46:09

Sean Carroll versus William Lane Craig. Oh, wow. So there's a gap. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

46:15

Oh, wow. Where I'm coming back to this as somebody retired now from teaching last year or whatever.

46:21

And whenever that debate was. So you're basically, you're basically sure. I'll review a debate by Matt Dillahunty.

46:29

Who is Matt Dillahunty again? Well, that's exactly what happened. I was like, okay, Matt Dillahunty, because I get everybody votes in my community.

46:37

I ask them what they want. I give them some choices. They tell me what they want to see. So I do it. The first time I saw Matt Dillahunty, I'm like, cool.

46:44

So then I started watching the debate. I'm like, what? Who is this? You know, so yeah, me personally,

46:51

I do. One of the things I like about a presuppositional approach, and it has nothing to do with its truth, like whether it's the view, the method you should use.

47:01

You know, I think it is. But this element of it that I like is that it tends to be a little more aggressive in terms of its attack.

47:09

It's attacking foundation. So I find that people who are presuppositionalists tend to be more aggressive in their argumentation than someone who is saying, hey, we're going to leave our bias outside and kind of just follow the evidence where it goes.

47:22

So it's interesting to see the two methodologies or however methodologies that some methodologies tend to be a little more aggressive than others, while the less aggressive ones tend to focus on a different tact.

47:35

And it's awesome in its own right as well. But I like in debate, at least in terms of entertainment,

47:42

I do enjoy a good presuppositional debate because it tends to be a little bit more on the aggressive side.

47:48

And that's interesting to me because, you know, I will say that the approach is a good one, you know, especially in that more formal sense.

47:57

So I don't know if we'll get to this, but I absolutely do not advocate that people who consume lots of debates and watch them should then go out and try to mimic that, just whatever they see on the debate side in a regular conversation.

48:11

I think that's a recipe for disaster. But on the formal side, people who are skilled in presuppositional apologetics methods, like Jeff Durbin, for example, yeah, you're right.

48:24

Like they don't, they don't even let people get, like, if there was a plane that was about to take off, they wouldn't even let it taxi onto the runway, you know, because they're like, wait a sec, like, what are you using in order to make this argument in the first place?

48:36

And where does that come from? And there is no response to that. You know, it's like, you know, somebody coming in to use my toilet and then telling me

48:43

I have no plumbing. It's like, well, you know, come on, dude. Like, you can't, you can't do that. So that's great.

48:49

The transcendental argument's great. The problem of induction, I think, oh yeah, Jeff Durbin and James White, I did a video on that, and they brought up the problem of induction.

48:57

There's no coming back from that, you know? Some people think there is, but I'm not convinced. I think it's still a good, a good point to use there.

49:06

Yeah, I know, I know a guy who thinks that it's not, that it's answerable. He's a Christian. He thinks atheists are able to answer it.

49:12

I disagree, but I think it's an excellent, it's still an excellent point to bring up. Greg Bonson used it in his debate with Gordon Stein and Edward Tabach, which, which leads me, as someone asked the question here,

49:25

Nate, will you be, if you're on Revealed Apologetics, I have to ask you this because we here at Revealed Apologetics, we promote a presuppositional approach.

49:35

I have to ask you, are you going to be reviewing the Bonson -Stein debate at any point? Boy, I would love to.

49:41

I would love to. I've been waiting for that one, but like I said, I've constrained myself to the votes and the votes, multiple times

49:49

I put that debate up for vote and it did not win any of the times. So if whoever's asking can rally the troops at my community and get it to win the vote, or maybe

50:00

I just do an executive decision. What do you think, Eli? And just do it. Well, you, I mean, you're the, you're the boss.

50:05

I could, I could tell people, go to his channel, his next live stream and just super chat him. Maybe that'll convince him.

50:10

Just get a bunch of super chats. Right. There's no way, there's no possible world.

50:18

Anybody? WLC? Anybody? There's no possible world where I do not do that debate next year. Okay. Well, that's, well, that's good.

50:25

So it's all in, it's a necessary, it's a necessity. Very good. Are you a Molinist?

50:30

No, I'm just kidding. We're not going to open that kind of one. Okay. I'm totally kidding. Well, people who know me,

50:36

I used to be a Molinist, actually. I used to be an ardent Molinist, but I came back to the, to the

50:42

Calvinist side. But that's an interesting journey that I won't share at this point. But I, I enjoy those discussions.

50:49

So this leads me to my next question. How many of the points of the, I'm just kidding. How many of the five points?

50:55

I'm totally joking. The toll toll. I'm just kidding.

51:01

My question was then now this brings us to really the most anticipated and unexpected debate that, or we call it discussion.

51:11

And that is the debate between James White and William Lane Craig, who for better or for worse, who whatever, and there are people who take sides, in my opinion, are the two best debaters that Christianity has today.

51:24

Right. Whether you like James White, or you like William Lane Craig, I mean, you know, they are very skilled at what they do.

51:32

And of course, they have very different styles as to how they go about that. Okay. So what

51:38

I anticipated, what the reason why I anticipated this, and was glad that God actualized a world in which this actually occurred, he instantiated a world.

51:50

What made me excited, and maybe this was one of the reasons why when you heard it, you're like, Oh, I got to do this, is that unlike reviewing a debate between an atheist and a

51:59

Christian, when you're, when you're reviewing a debate between William Lane Craig, and James White, you are reviewing a debate by two people who are themselves professional debaters.

52:13

Right. So it's not like, you know, oh, Matt Dillahunty and Mike Winger. Sure. It was interesting.

52:19

And there were points where it's kind of like, on this point, oh, that's interesting. But they're not like debaters, like debaters, debaters in that, in that sense.

52:26

And James White is engaged in over 175 moderated debates. I mean, that's, that's crazy.

52:32

Yeah, I don't know if you knew that over 175 moderated debates with atheists, you know,

52:38

Muslims, Mormons, Roman Catholics, you look, if you look them up on YouTube, he's got some older debates that you might not have listened to.

52:45

And they're, they're excellent. Yeah. Regardless, what I, the reason why I anticipated is that, wow, like there are these two guys who have these different perspectives, but they also are really good at defending and navigating these sorts of discussions.

52:57

So that was the reason why I highly anticipated that interaction. Now, the fact that you saw it without giving away what you want to give away when you do your own show.

53:10

Right. What did you think in terms of, okay, I listened to it. I, I, you know, besides the essence of James White thing, that's a cologne now it's really popular and there are a lot of memes coming out.

53:21

It's pretty hilarious. I'll send you a couple of them. They're hilarious. Besides the essence of James White cologne that will be coming out next year.

53:28

Um, what did you think of the interaction in terms of content style?

53:34

You don't have to give away who you think won or whatever, but, um, what do you think? Well, so yeah, it's funny you bring up essence, right?

53:44

So I, as of me sitting down with you, because I had to travel and I came back into town and all that stuff.

53:49

Sure. I literally just watched it for the first time and made a reaction to it, uh, a couple hours before, like I'm sitting with you.

53:57

And so it's going to premiere tomorrow. If anybody's watching, you should go check it out. It's going to premiere, I think tomorrow at noon or something like that.

54:03

But, um, so I'm going in fresh. The, the, one of the first things I'm like, why is

54:09

James White saying essence over and over and over again? And then, and then if you notice not to be too, uh, disrespectful to the topics that are being discussed, but you could almost make a drinking game out of how many times, uh,

54:25

William Lane Craig says God is the author of evil. Like it's so many times, you know, and, uh, but, uh, so my, my thought was just what you said.

54:37

Here are two guys that are really good at what they do and let's see how they do going up against each other.

54:44

And I don't want to give too much away, but I, I think I did say this, like William Lane Craig and James White, they shined in certain places in the discussion and they made mistakes in other places.

54:57

Both of them did. And so you're like, wow, you know, like this is what, cause here's the thing. It's really difficult to debate.

55:02

It just really is. Especially when you're looking, you're not even face to face, which I'm sure James White and William Lane Craig are used to like looking at somebody you're looking at a camera, hearing something here.

55:13

Like this disconnection really goes a distance to like harm your, your, uh, that your scale sets, you know?

55:21

So, uh, I, I think there, there were moments where I was, um,

55:29

I was really happy to see James White say what he said. And there were moments where I was happy to see

55:35

William Lane Craig say what he said, you know? Um, I'll, I'll go even one step further.

55:41

I don't think I'm giving Eli, you're, you're putting a gun to my head. I'm so sorry. No, but I'll go.

55:46

I just sent you a picture that somebody made. Oh my gosh. Tell me that doesn't look like a real.

55:55

I would, I would probably wear that. I totally, I totally would. It would make you smell reformed.

56:01

Uh, I would probably wear that. And my wife would probably hate it. No, it's all right.

56:08

Only the elect would appreciate the smell. That's right. That's right.

56:13

Um, and now I completely forgot what I was going to tease. I'm so sorry. Your perspective on the, the, the

56:21

White and Craig discussion. I was going to say something to you that I wasn't going to share with you.

56:26

And you sent me that picture of cologne and now I've totally run out of my head. You can get it back.

56:33

Help me out. Uh, okay. You said that you were going, I have a gun to your head and you're going to tell me something that.

56:39

Oh, right. Okay. Okay. Okay. When it came to, I, I, I, so there's, what should

56:47

I tell you and what should I not? Um, when it came to the topic, here's where, here's where my teacher brain goes.

56:53

You look at a topic like that and I'm thinking to myself, okay, that doesn't leave a whole lot of place for scripture because literally the topic was, it was so vague.

57:03

Um, the main point that they were arguing, you said it was vague. Yeah. It was right in the title.

57:09

And Justin Brierley says it once and they don't talk about format. They don't talk about a whole lot going into how they're going to debate.

57:16

So really all you have is this sentence and it's Calvinism. What was it? Calvinism versus Molinism on the problem of evil.

57:24

When you look at something like that, like you could get away, I think I said this in the video, you could get away with arguing for the systems proper for their coherence and validity for the way that they interact with the problem of evil, like on a philosophical side and not have to go to scripture.

57:41

Like you could do that. And so what was, what was cool was James White made it about scripture.

57:48

When he started talking about the scripture, James White was stronger in my opinion, um, than William Lane Craig.

57:56

But when William Lane Craig was talking about the systems proper, he was stronger than James White.

58:01

So I think that's all I'm willing to, I'm giving too much away already. So, okay. So they shined in their respective areas of expertise.

58:09

They did. They did. I agree. I agree. Um, I wanted to explore a little bit of the philosophical area of the truth maker maximalism thing.

58:19

I know that Dr. Craig said, I thought it was interesting and I wish he fleshed out. He says that not all truths require truth makers.

58:27

And then he gave an example. Right. And then he said that free, the free will libertarian free will is a good candidate for something that does not require a truth maker.

58:37

And then I asked myself why, what makes it a good candidate? You can't, you can't show that a statement over here doesn't require a truth maker.

58:46

Therefore libertarian freedom doesn't require a truth maker. I wish he would have unpacked that a little bit more to strengthen what he was trying to say.

58:54

And I'm saying that from a Calvinist perspective that doesn't agree. I thought he should have fleshed that point out because I thought that was vital.

59:00

Is, is he trying to say that the indeterminacy of libertarian freedom is the thing that makes it a good candidate for?

59:11

Yeah. The nature of libertarian freedom, he said it, it makes it a, what is a good candidate for something that does not require a truth maker is something like libertarian free actions.

59:24

Yeah. That's the claim. I mean, I wish that it was unpacked. I'm not saying that no

59:29

Molinist has an explanation for it, but I thought that was a key, a key point there because to prove that truths don't require a certain propositions don't require truth makers doesn't mean you prove that the specific proposition that libertarian free decisions don't require them.

59:46

They don't in fact need them. You see what I'm saying? Right. And people make that leap too. So for example, when, when someone argues that libertarian free will is an incoherent concept, someone says, well, if God has libertarian free freedom, therefore it's possible for creatures to have libertarian freedom.

01:00:04

That doesn't logically follow. Right. All those is that, you know, God could have libertarian freedom, but who knows, maybe it's incoherent to think that a derivative creature could have that sort of freedom.

01:00:13

You need to argue a little bit more for that. So I would have unpacked things a little bit more on, on that end, in my opinion.

01:00:19

Yeah. To argue that God has libertarian freedom. And then therefore humans do is to assume that humans and God share the requisite qualities to, to have both of these things, but humans and God are, you know, qualitatively different.

01:00:34

So. Yes. And it might be the case that they do, but that you have to, you have to, there's further argumentation there.

01:00:40

So that wasn't what they were arguing about. It was more whether or not, you know, libertarian free choices require truth makers.

01:00:46

I wish that was a little more, you know, unpacked a little bit, but that's. I'll tell you what I wish would have happened because it would have,

01:00:53

I think it would have been more productive of a conversation because these two conversations stood on top of, oh, here you go.

01:01:00

I didn't even make this in the, I didn't talk about this in the video, but these two conversations, the, the two interlocutors are having a conversation, but they're presupposing the things that I think would have revealed the true clash.

01:01:12

So for example, we're talking about free will, right? Free will should have been part of the conversation in that video.

01:01:18

And they didn't even go there to, for William Lane Craig to talk about Molinism, you have to presuppose libertarian freedom, but first he has to make an argument like James White should have made him make an argument for libertarian freedom.

01:01:31

And they were trying to get James White on the other side to talk about compatibilism a little bit. He made brief mention of Jonathan Edwards, but they really should have fleshed that out.

01:01:41

Yeah. Well, if, as you know, I did have the, the Calvinist philosopher,

01:01:46

Guillaume Bignon on and to talk about what I think should have been, because again,

01:01:52

James White, in my opinion, went a little bit more on the offensive, trying to kind of, you know, push at this grounding objection.

01:01:58

And he really didn't have the opportunity to unpack really what was the main proposition of the discussion, which, which view explains the problem of evil, better Calvinism or Molinism.

01:02:07

And so a lot of people were left kind of like, yeah, but Dr. White needs to kind of flesh that out a little more. And so that's why

01:02:13

I wanted Guillaume on to just cover how a Calvinist might, you know, explain all the details surrounding the, the, the author of evil objection.

01:02:23

And speaking with Guillaume, I'm sure he wouldn't care if I, I think we discussed it in our discussion, but it might've been just a private conversation.

01:02:30

I'm sure he wouldn't mind me sharing this, but he thinks that if he were interacting with Dr. Craig, he would not have focused on the grounding objection.

01:02:39

Not that it's not a good objection. He wouldn't have focused. He would have focused his guns. He said on libertarian freedom and why that's false.

01:02:47

So coming from a philosopher's mind, because Dr. White is more of a theologian. Guillaume is very philosophical and he's this, this is his topic.

01:02:56

So like his book is literally about that topic from a Calvinist perspective. And so he thought it would have been a better tack to attack libertarian freedom and then make his critique that way.

01:03:09

So, yeah, I, I, I agree with you. I think that should have been more central to the discussion, but again, you know, there's a lot.

01:03:17

There's a trade -off because within the, well, again, people are doing whatever they want.

01:03:23

Unbelievable. Justin Brierley, like he, he can call his discussion with William Lane, Craig and James White, a cheeseburger and French fries, and they can talk about whatever they want.

01:03:31

But for me, like, you really do have to take the topic and the way that it's worded much more seriously.

01:03:37

And so it's a trade -off because the topic is Calvinism versus Molinism on the problem of evil.

01:03:42

You can talk about, uh, free will, but you, you could only do it.

01:03:49

You couldn't do it the whole time, or else you'd be sort of doing a bait and switch on the topic itself. There would be a time and a place for that.

01:03:55

And you would really have to hammer it home in a more true crossfire sense. Right. So you have to be very careful too, because not all

01:04:01

Molinists are created equal, right? So you have some people who will say, yeah, I don't know exactly where Dr.

01:04:07

Craig stands on this, but there are some people who say that the twin pillars, the essential pillars to Molinism is middle knowledge and libertarian freedom.

01:04:14

And then you have people who says, well, wait a minute, libertarian freedom for some people. That's true. But remember

01:04:19

Molinism is, is a view of God's omniscience. God wanted to actualize the world in which determinism was true.

01:04:26

That's right. So it depends who you're talking to and what role they give to, or how central role they give to libertarian freedom, because there are ways to refute certain aspects of Molinism that doesn't touch

01:04:38

Molinism. And it's, I don't want to use the word, but it's essence. There it is. So a lot of people do this when they confuse, for example,

01:04:45

Molinism with like a soteriological perspective. They'll critique Molinist application of, you know, with mental health to salvation.

01:04:54

When in fact, Molinism is not a soteriological view. It can only, it can be applied to that.

01:04:59

So critiquing soteriological applications of Molinism is not the same as critiquing

01:05:05

Molinism itself. And I think that's an important thing to keep in mind, but at any rate. Well, so one more thing to say about this, and then

01:05:11

I really can't give anything further away about, but no, I'm really enjoying this.

01:05:16

That was my biggest issue with, so there was a moment where the scripture got involved and James White was really pushing the scripture.

01:05:26

James White goes to Ephesians one, you know, agree or disagree, but Ephesians one is pretty strong.

01:05:32

Like on the Calvinist side, that's pretty strong. So now it's William Lane Craig's turn. And he's like, well,

01:05:37

I want to talk about how the scripture, you know, I can derive Molinism from the scripture. And he goes to first Corinthians chapter two.

01:05:45

And what he did was he, I think he identified some form of like a way of speaking that identified a counterfactual to human freedom.

01:05:55

And I was thinking to myself, well, wait a second. And that was the only verse that he went to. And I was thinking to myself, but that doesn't give you

01:06:03

Molinism. That just gives you counterfactuals to human freedom. So that's why this wasn't very strong.

01:06:10

It was actually pretty weak on the biblical side for William Lane Craig. Yeah. That's a key point because a lot of people who think

01:06:15

Molinism can be defended biblically will point to counterfactual examples when what you need for middle knowledge is to place those counterfactuals logically prior to his divine decree.

01:06:27

You don't get that from simply reading counterfactual instances in scripture. The whole debate, I think at that point needs to kind of zoom out.

01:06:34

And that's where the philosophical system comes in, which philosophical system best makes what makes the best use of the scriptural data.

01:06:43

And I think that's important to keep in mind. Yeah. All right. Okay. So this has been an excellent discussion.

01:06:49

I'm so happy you came on today. This is a lot of fun. Thank you. I had a great time too. Yeah. I'm sorry for making you almost spill the beans on what you're going to be talking about tomorrow.

01:06:59

One more detail that I tease out. Nobody's going to watch the video tomorrow. So that's not true. Hey, guys, seriously.

01:07:06

I know there are a couple of people in the comments. They said they went to your channel and they subscribe. Oh, thank you very much.

01:07:12

Seriously. You guys need to binge watch. And I'm not just saying this to be nice to if I hated

01:07:17

Nate, if I hated him, I was like, man, that guy with the glasses. He's so, you know, you know, he had

01:07:23

Trent Horn on. Oh, I can't believe it. If I did not like Nate, I would still point you to his debate teacher react videos.

01:07:33

If he's going to review a video, you need to go and watch it. It is super, super educational, entertaining.

01:07:42

You're not boring when you do it. You add humor. Your personality comes out. I think that's excellent. But I highly recommend folks check out his debate reviews, especially if he's going to be reviewing really what wasn't a debate.

01:07:53

It was kind of just a moderated discussion. But still, I'm sure it's going to be awesome. Now you have to deliver. If it stinks,

01:07:58

I'll be like, I don't know. All right.

01:08:04

Well, I usually do live questions for my host, but I didn't tell you and no one is asking questions.

01:08:12

I have people listening, but no one's asking questions. So if there are any questions and Nate's okay with answering them, just preface your question with the word question.

01:08:21

If not, we'll kind of wrap things up as we're at the top of the hour here. Is there anything, any last comments you want to say to summarize anything that we've discussed?

01:08:31

Anything you want to kind of get in before we start wrapping things up? Any questions you want to ask me? I'll preempt a question that maybe somebody is wondering, nobody's wondering this.

01:08:45

There was a, just keeping it lighthearted, but there was a period of time for a couple of months just recently where I had a mustache and everybody was like, oh my gosh, you know, like whatever.

01:08:56

And then I shaved it. Here's the deal. I lead a college ministry. I said this at the beginning.

01:09:01

Every October we host a murder mystery dinner party and I dress up and play a detective that hosts the, uh, the party.

01:09:09

And so I always grow this out. Well, this year I grew it out and my wife looked at me and I go, don't worry,

01:09:15

I'm going to shave it off. And she goes, maybe keep it. So I had to please. It's kind of like the bearded

01:09:24

William Lane, Craig, William Lane, Craig, without a beard, right? James White with hair.

01:09:30

You have to look really deep in the archives of YouTube, but they're there. And then James White without hair.

01:09:36

So yeah, with and without a mustache. If there were apologetics trading cards, I would value the mustache,

01:09:43

Nate Sala, and I would, you know, I get it laminated. Oh, thank you, sir. Well, now I have a question for you.

01:09:48

Okay. I love this. So I've been checking out your videos and the, the one that I really do enjoy, and this is how weird

01:09:56

I am, is when you do the Bible contradictions guy. And I was wondering if you could do just real quick for me, like Bible, God, the

01:10:07

Bible has contradictions. Well, the Bible has contradictions in it.

01:10:15

I love that guy. I don't even know. I literally, I was at work and I had a two,

01:10:21

I had two periods in a row off. I had a prep period and a lunch, and I went out to lunch and just went in the parking lot and I was like,

01:10:27

I'm going to make a quick video. So I literally just made that voice up. If someone says do that guy, you do like,

01:10:33

I have no idea, but if you think it's cool, I'll try to make, I'll try to make more of them. You know, I, I guarantee you two students walked by and they were like, what is

01:10:41

Mr. Ayala doing in his car? Oh my gosh,

01:10:46

I did that on what I was in the car. I did another one when I was outside. It is, I have to find the, like these quiet.

01:10:52

I think one, I was like behind a pizzeria and I did one real quick. Dude, when you do the

01:10:58

YouTube game, you're trying to keep up with the creativity. You look like a weirdo in. It is so strange.

01:11:04

Like to be sitting in front of a camera, wearing a nice shirt and gym shorts and talking to, you know, people.

01:11:11

It's really strange. Hey, I wore jeans for you, Nate. I'm wearing, I'm wearing my Jordans.

01:11:16

I wore my nice sneakers. You know, I'm treating you good here, man. I thought it was understood gym shorts.

01:11:24

Come on now. So, uh, and watch, I was really pajamas. So we do have a couple of questions here. If you're okay with taking some, uh, sure.

01:11:30

Okay. And I apologize. I usually tell people beforehand and I forgot. So some, most people don't have a problem with it, but I mean, you never know.

01:11:38

Right. Okay. So some of them are related and others are just asking you what you think of a person or whatever.

01:11:45

Oh, here we go. So Richard, Richard Cox says, Nate, what problems do you have with precept?

01:11:50

I guess, I guess someone's just asking you if you're not, if you're not a presuppositionalist, what are some issues? And don't worry, you're not going to trigger me, um, and have me debate you on the topic.

01:12:00

But, uh, you know, I I'm pretty patient when someone says, here are my problems with it. And I, I kind of just stay still.

01:12:06

So I won't cage. Look at Richard trying to cause a fight between, between us right now.

01:12:13

Look at that. Look at that. I don't have a problem. So I'm going to choose to interpret your question as presuppositional apologetics and not presuppositionalism, um, but presuppositional apologetics,

01:12:24

I've absolutely no problem with. Uh, and as I said before, I think those style of arguments when brought into formal debate structures are extremely beneficial to use.

01:12:36

There, there's no, nobody that I've seen has come back from the challenges that are offered by presuppositional apologists.

01:12:44

I will say that, uh, so I haven't really given it so much thought though.

01:12:50

Maybe Eli, you can help me out here. I haven't really thought about this all the way through. There does seem to be a correlation between people who, um, how do

01:13:00

I say this gently? People who utilize presuppositional methods and, and their attitude.

01:13:09

Yes. Between presuppositionalism and presuppositionalists.

01:13:16

Correct. Okay. Yeah. Well, and, and, and just, um, disposition, you know, overall general disposition.

01:13:24

So like, um, uh, who's the guy? Saiten Bruggenkate, who was a guy who had a ministry, fell out of ministry.

01:13:33

Um, I, I started to, so somebody said, you should watch Saiten Bruggenkate versus, uh,

01:13:39

Matt Dillahunty. Okay. And I went in there and watched 10 minutes of it and I was so shocked by like Saiten Bruggenkate's disposition, um, that I couldn't,

01:13:50

I couldn't get through the rest of it. And I'm sitting here thinking, Matt's going to be the, the ogre, you know, like it was, it was, uh, it was definitely a sight to see.

01:14:00

So I guess that would be a criticism that I have, um, but it's not really a criticism against presuppositional apologetics though.

01:14:07

Yeah. Yes. I think that's an important distinction. I have some people who are, they're classicalists, hardcore classicalists, and they'll say something along the lines, you know,

01:14:15

I don't have a problem with presuppositionalism. Presuppositionalists I have a problem with. And I, and I, uh, and I won't speak to Sai.

01:14:21

I mean, Sai's a friend of mine. Um, and I, I know that he has, um, that's fine. Don't worry about it.

01:14:26

You're not stepping on any toes. And if Sai was here, he'd be like, okay, he's crazy. He's kind of a down to earth sort of guy.

01:14:33

But I think it's, I think it's correct to identify that presuppositionalists can tend to come across a certain way that I think hurts what they're trying to accomplish.

01:14:43

And I, and in that sense, I think it's, um, it's, it's unfortunate, but I hear you. No, no worries there.

01:14:48

No, you didn't. No, one's triggered here. Okay. All right. Okay. So, uh, someone is, okay.

01:14:55

So Simon, Hey, Simon, how's it going? Simon's a great guy. Hello, Simon. John Lennox versus Richard Dawkins.

01:15:01

Have you reviewed that debate or you have any intention? I did. I did. Oh, you did. Okay. Yeah.

01:15:07

All right. Was that a suggestion to do it or was he asking for my thoughts on it? Uh, I don't know now that you did it.

01:15:14

Why don't you just share quickly your thoughts on it? I love, I love guys on YouTube, right? Like the, the briefest comments with no context whatsoever.

01:15:23

It's like John Lennox versus Richard Dawkins. Like, what does that mean? Like, I don't know. No, um, In a fight.

01:15:28

Who would win in a fight? I'm teasing, Cy. Uh, if they had superpowers, who would, no.

01:15:34

John Lennox. So I did that, uh, video and I believe I said John Lennox lost. So here's the thing.

01:15:41

Um, I don't remember cause it was a long time ago, but there apparently are and help me.

01:15:46

Like, you probably know there were two different, uh, debates slash discussions between John Lennox and Richard Dawkins at this like museum of evolution or something like that on two different nights.

01:15:58

One of them, John Lennox apparently wiped the floor with Richard Dawkins. I didn't see that one. I saw the other one where it was more informal.

01:16:06

And so somebody came back around and asked me later, but I think the biggest thing that I remember saying about John Lennox was he was pulling his punches.

01:16:14

It just seemed like he really wasn't, he was letting a lot of things go and he really wasn't challenging in the way that he should in a normal crossfire, but it wasn't a normal crossfire.

01:16:21

It was more informal discussion. And so that was my critique. But somebody came back around and said, well, the night before he had really done a number on Richard Dawkins.

01:16:31

And so now he was trying to win him over or appeal to him and stuff. And I get that. I totally understand that.

01:16:37

Was that night before recorded anywhere? Am I getting this wrong?

01:16:42

It was either the night before or the night after, but there were two discussions between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox at this.

01:16:50

Actually, I don't, this is so rude. Do we look this up right now? Let me see. You can look it up. That's not rude. I look up stuff all the time.

01:16:56

Someone will ask me a question about God and I won't know the answer. And I'll be like, hey, Siri, we can, you know, it's fine. Yeah, I, Lennox versus Dawkins had two different debates.

01:17:09

Are you familiar with what I'm talking about here? I'm familiar that they had a debate.

01:17:15

I don't know how many debates they had, you know, and when people mention that, I mean, I, you know, well, he got, you know, he didn't do well in that interaction, but you should have saw them in the parking lot.

01:17:23

John Lennox, I don't know. Does that count? Yeah. So if you type

01:17:30

John Lennox versus Richard Dawkins at the top of YouTube, you'll see the God delusion debate and has science buried

01:17:35

God? I think I did. Has science buried God? Okay. And not the other one.

01:17:41

Now, do you, do you find that in debates or informal interactions of the atheist side tends to do better in the informal interactions?

01:17:52

Is that, is that a thing? Do you, is that something you noticed? And I'm not saying that I noticed it. I'm just wondering if that's an observation you've made that on the formal argument back and forth, the

01:18:00

Christians often come, come off really strong, but then the informal points, they kind of, yeah. Well, do you, do you mean do better from like the audience perspective or, or in terms of the way that they're speaking?

01:18:13

Do you think the atheist tends to do, well, I mean, if I don't agree with the atheist,

01:18:18

I don't think they're making great points a lot of the times, but it definitely looks like they're making great points in the eyes of the audience.

01:18:25

Um, well, here's my, my, I don't remember when I had this observation, but it was a few videos in,

01:18:31

I started doing this and I realized, so I started out doing like the four horsemen of the new atheism, right?

01:18:38

Um, uh, Richard Dawkins, Hitchens, uh, Sam Harris and whoever the, uh,

01:18:45

Denit, Denit, right? Denit, sorry. And I met, uh, Christopher Hitchens once, uh, years ago. Um, and I'm a fan of his like political writings, some of them.

01:18:54

But anyway, um, I noticed quickly that, that Hitchens and Harris were doing this thing where they were not really like debating at all.

01:19:03

What they were doing was they were getting up, they were saying, yes, I will do this debate. And then they were getting up and just like providing this long polemic against Christianity.

01:19:12

Sure. And that is, I think what Dillahunty does. I think that's what, uh, who's the guy,

01:19:20

I forget names. He's looks like he's Lord of the Rings. Um, the, uh, inspiring philosophy, uh, debated this guy,

01:19:28

Aaron Raw, Aaron, Aaron Raw. I'm trying to remember his name. Aaron Raw has got the hat on, but like they do this thing where it's like, they think that their polemic is debating, or they know better that they're pulling a bait and switch.

01:19:44

They're not really debating and they're providing a polemic. Either way, it is really per, uh, persuasive for a lot of people from the audience.

01:19:51

They just don't know any better. And so they follow it. That's striking to me. Yeah. And I did listen to the debate between Aaron Raw and Michael Jones.

01:19:59

And that was, um, a massacre, I think in my opinion. That's what I thought.

01:20:06

Yeah. All right. Um, okay. Simon's got another, uh, another question here. How do you view

01:20:11

Matt Slick as a debater? Have you ever, um, watched Matt Slick do a debate? That name's familiar.

01:20:17

No, I've never seen Matt Slick. So again, I'm coming to this stuff late. So if you don't tell me to watch it, I probably haven't seen it.

01:20:23

If it was within the last 16 years. Are you familiar with CARM .org, the website? Okay.

01:20:29

That's Matt Slick. That he wrote, he wrote 99 .9 % of that very large website.

01:20:35

I'm generally familiar with CARM. I've never seen Matt Slick in a debate. Okay. All right.

01:20:40

Fair enough. Let's see here. Well, what are your thoughts? Um, well, he's a friend of mine.

01:20:46

So I have to be, I think, um, and I have to be fair.

01:20:51

I mean, Matt Slick has been, I mean, he is one of the OGs of apologetics. I mean, I think his website was one of the first apologetics websites out when like the internet was invented.

01:21:01

So it's been around since the beginning. He's had a lot of informal debates. I would say that he's a very scrappy debater because he's very like street level.

01:21:11

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Um, um, in terms of his debating, when he is clear -minded and not seeing, he doesn't seem like he's frazzled.

01:21:20

Sometimes he can come off a little frazzled. He's got a mild form of autism too. So he tends to interact to certain things a certain way when he's not doing those things.

01:21:28

I think he's excellent. Um, especially his command of scripture memory, um, that gives so much weight to a lot of the things that he says, depending on, on the specific debate.

01:21:39

I think he debated a guy on the issue of his baptism necessary for salvation. And I mean, like, I, I kid you not every sentence that he spoke the period at the end of the sentence was like four or five scriptures, like just memorized and like quoted.

01:21:52

So he, I, I like him in that sense when he's debating biblical topics. I think he's, he's really good.

01:21:58

Um, in terms of skill wise, not saying so much that they necessarily agree with the actual content of what he's saying, but, um, so yeah,

01:22:05

I've learned a lot from him. I've learned from Matt Slick. Um, I, people might interpret it as cockiness because it can come across as cocky the way he, he, but I've learned confidence in discussion.

01:22:18

So like by listening to him, I've learned to be able to speak up and that when someone comes back, no,

01:22:24

I don't have to, I don't have to push back. I can ask questions and kind of drill a little more. So I learned a lot of like the confidence aspect of interacting with someone from him.

01:22:33

And of course, as with everyone, you eat the meat, you spit out the bone. I mean, myself and Matt were different people, so we debate and argue different ways.

01:22:42

Um, but I've learned, I've learned so much from Matt Slick. He was really my first exposure to apologetics. So that's good.

01:22:48

So yeah. Okay. Um, do, do, do, do, do.

01:22:53

Let's see if there are any more questions. Some funny comments too, with another essence of James White.

01:23:01

I really, I really hope that comes out. I will totally buy it. Anyway. Okay. I think you're,

01:23:07

I think you're safe. Uh, there was, there was, uh, no other questions.

01:23:13

There we go. You are marked safe from your episode here on Revealed Apologetics. Well, I would like to personally thank you so much.

01:23:21

I said it a bunch of times before, but, um, I really admire what you're doing. I think what you're doing is excellent.

01:23:26

And again, if people are now we have more listeners and viewers watching now, if you have not, please go over to the

01:23:34

Wise Disciple YouTube channel and subscribe and, um, his interviews, his teachings, his discussions.

01:23:41

Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Um, so are there any last words you'd like to say before we close this interview out?

01:23:49

Eli, I just want to thank you, man. I, uh, was a difficult person to get on, on your, on your channel and you've been very patient with me and it's been a pleasure to know that there's guys like you out there and I can, you know, do the work of the ministry shoulder to shoulder with somebody like you.

01:24:06

I'm a fan of your videos too. So I, I made light of the Bible contradictions. I, I, I like your channel.

01:24:13

I, I just encourage you to go as far as, as the Lord allows and Godspeed.

01:24:19

Absolutely. I do have to say you are the second hardest person to get for me to get on.

01:24:26

I'd have to say the first most difficult person and it still hasn't come to fruition has been

01:24:33

Jeff Durbin. There was, I think last year he agreed to come on, but he's just so busy that I ended up like, it's the grimy job of getting high profile guests that you have to keep pushing and reminding.

01:24:48

So I find myself sending messages, waiting a day message. Oh, did you catch that date? That's open. And I've been doing that for so long with Jeff that the first interview fell through.

01:24:57

And then after I had Dr. White on Dr. White had asked Jeff on my behalf, if he'd be willing to come on. And so he responded to me and I'm just waiting for him to give me a date.

01:25:06

So you're the second, it took a while to get you on. He's the, he's the first. So, but, but again, thank you so much for coming on guys.

01:25:15

Stay tuned for the, when Jeff Durbin does come on and Jeffrey Johnson. And if you're asking questions now, we're, we're finished.

01:25:21

Come on. Now the questions are coming. Nate is tired. Look at his eyes. He's in his forties. I got two small children.

01:25:28

Come on. He needs a nap. Look at him. So, so I apologize if we didn't have time to get to your question.

01:25:34

Oh, there were good ones too. Oh man. You escaped. Send them over to my community tab or ask them in one of the other videos

01:25:43

I did and I'll try to respond. One person's asking about the heart mind dichotomy, compatibilism. They got mad technical all of a sudden, but.

01:25:51

Oh, all right. Well, you are free to engage if you want, but we'll wrap. I don't want to respect your time.

01:25:56

I already stolen. I'm above the hour. So yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much,

01:26:02

Nate. And thank you everyone for listening in. And if you haven't subscribed to reveal the apologetics, stop demonstrating your total depravity and do so now share these videos.

01:26:11

And it really helps when you write a nice review on iTunes. So all those things are super helpful. Thank you so much guys for listening in.