Debate Teacher Reacts: Frank Turek vs. David Silverman

shows uh -huh david i think they'll clap for anything in this audience this guy doesn't care at all about how he comes across to the audience he's his eyes look at this person's facial expression in response it's amazing look at this look he's just not happy at all with people in the audience that's i actually respect that i respect that quite a bit like i'm you be quiet i'm just talking to him right now welcome back to another episode of debate teacher reacts my name is nate and i'm the president of a christian organization called wise disciple where we help you become the effective christian that you were meant to be before i jumped into ministry i taught debate and so i look at theology and apologetics debate from a teacher's perspective and i adjudicate from that perspective kind of talk some inside baseball along the way guess what i call balls and strikes when i see them that means sometimes the christians win and sometimes the atheist wins well today let's look at a debate that originally was one of the first to ever be requested on this channel i went back to the list of suggestions and realized that some of the like the original requests like a couple years ago they've actually slipped through the cracks this one is frank turek versus david silverman the topic is what better explains reality theism or atheism now if you haven't seen the videos that i made on formal debate rules and the burden of proof i encourage you to go watch those and i'll give a link to them below because it appears that in the video that we're about to see both interlocutors shoulder their own burden all right now you got to watch the whole debate in order to figure out who actually did and who outperformed the other uh in the fuller debate but we are going to zoom in on cross examination that's where all the magic happens that's what i used to tell my students in the classroom you can either shine very quickly or suck very badly all in a matter of seconds in cross examination so let's go there right now david you were just talking about uh leaving a kid in an orphanage rather than putting it with a gay couple is immoral i thought you just told us that there is no such thing as objective morality is it immoral or you just don't like it no i said it was no such thing as objective morality i said all morality is relative so why are you why are you objecting to somebody who doesn't want to put a kid with a homosexual couple then why are you objecting to that if there's no we have the right to object we are always doing that okay we're always making these choices it's not wrong to say that i'm making my independent choices independent of any other book or any other holy book we all make the same moral choices i find it wholly immoral according to what so this question comes up in various ways coming from the christian apologetics side right why object if you don't think that there is such a thing as objective morality why even say anything at all the way that the question is worded especially here is unhelpful so i don't think turk's off to a great start and the reason is when you ask the question that way it appears that you're suggesting that if you don't think morality is objective then just sit down and be quiet and that's kind of how silverman is responding here and silverman's right you know he can say what he wants as a moral subjectivist being fair to turk maybe what turk is trying to ask is well what do you mean by immoral because when you just say the word it doesn't really provide much clarity and also if your standard is relative which is what silverman says what is the basis for it you know is it social contract theory is it something else so let's see how silverman responds but standard your own according to my standards well that's okay that's exactly the same way you do it okay well but is is are you condemning somebody else for having a different relative standard than you no i'm saying we all have to take responsibility for our moral judgments we are all making those decisions in real time just like you are okay the same reason that you're not going into leviticus and saying and let's kill the gays that's immoral to you and me we're making that relative moral decision you're supporting your relative moral decision with makeup with with with uh with the bible with other bible quotes that you're finding yeah but you're so silverman isn't helping himself here so when he says you need to take responsibility for your actions to whom would you do that the government god you can't just say the phrase take responsibility and then just let it float out there in the ether you know as if it's just disconnected from a standard that actually holds you responsible and silverman so far has not clearly identified the standard if i had to guess he probably agrees with social contract theory but he just hasn't clearly said it yet you're confusing the decision with the existence of a moral standard you're saying that there is no moral standard or there is a standard objective outside of humanity to which we should obey there is no objective moral standard we are responsible for our own and responsible to who to ourselves and to our society which society mother teresa's or hitler's the society in which we live okay so yes this is not an easy question so at norenberg then we really had no right to convict the nazis of obeying their government we as a world society judge our criminals and we judge them as we see fit i know we judge them so you're saying we just judge them based on our preferences you know in some cultures they take care of their babies in other cultures they eat their babies which do you prefer i prefer the ones where they take care of the babies i also prefer the ones where the where the nazis don't do terrible things under the name of god but it's just a preference so first of all the way silverman speaks is a little unclear when he says that we are all responsible for our own actions it sounds like he's speaking individualistically which seems to imply that we live according to our own moral standard but then he says that we're responsible to ourselves and to society which then seems to imply that we live according to something like social contract theory and in social contract theory the desire of the individual is oftentimes overruled by societal standards you don't get to just do whatever you want even in social contract theory so like which is it i think if i were turic i would be zooming in on this line of questioning before i ask anything else yes okay so you're it's an opinion okay if it's just an opinion you're saying then if it's just an opinion i don't know why you condemn a christian couple for not wanting to put a baby with a homosexual because that's just their morality that they have every right to express themselves they have every right to do it i'm saying it's a wholly immoral position according to who according i hate to keep interrupting so frequently but the the the real issue here is not being articulated the the real issue that turic and silverman they're just going back and forth over right now is really authority if morality is relative as silverman says then by what authority can you tell somebody else that they're wrong turic keeps mentioning the word standard i mean i guess yeah but really what they're talking about is authority now according to christians god's word is the authority and if you violate that then you violate god's authority over your life if you're a materialist which i don't know silverman hasn't really said that he is but i mean he certainly speaks as one um so i think that's what he is you know if you're a materialist and you're an advocate of social contract theory then authority comes from social agreement right but that's not how silverman is speaking he jumps back and forth between individual responsibility and then social responsibility but he doesn't identify the authority that someone like him needs to tell somebody else that what they're doing is immoral and if i were turic i would really try to press him on that to me well okay well that's just it's all according to us we all make our own moral decisions yeah i understand the only difference between you and me is that i take responsibility for my moral decisions and you justify your moral decisions by finding a passage in the bible that matches your moral decisions and saying aha it's objective morality well if there is no objective morality then we have it's even hard to talk this way because we say we have no right but that implies a moral standard too no we have a societal right society according to you or according to hitler according to the government that we create yes okay well then we had no real way to condemn the nazis for what they did that's the hard the hard answer is you're correct the hard answer is it is a matter of opinion the hard answer is they thought they were doing objective good they did well we condemned them as a society but you know we do this all the time yeah they may have thought they were doing good but they really weren't according to a standard but the only way you could know whether they were really standard the the unchanging objective moral standard that is god's nature and they they did it under the name of god well there's a lot of people that you you don't judge a philosophy or a religion by its abuse david jesus never said that we ought to go kill the jews quite obviously he was a jew himself you should know that yeah okay so so be because people have abused religion doesn't mean that the religion is false the fact that people have abused religion shows you that morality is relative if it was objective you couldn't abuse it no you're confusing sociology and that's interesting let me hear that one more time the fact that people have abused religion shows you that morality is relative if it was objective you couldn't abuse it no you're confusing what does that mean is that a statement about inability or is that a statement about knowledge in other words is that about not having the free will to stray from objective moral principles?

Or is that about not being able to get away with abusing objective moral standards because everybody would know what that objective standard is and then call you out when you deviate from it, right?

And if it's that second option, you know, that's the one that is true, well, then isn't that what

Silverman is doing by calling the Nazis immoral? He knows that it's objectively wrong, what they did, and he's calling them out for deviating from that objective standard, right?

So this is the difficulty of debate and, you know, it's easy to fall into here because your heart's beating, your thoughts are racing up on that stage, but if you're not very precise with your words in a debate, you lose the opportunity to strengthen your own argumentation.

I've seen sociology and morality. Sociology is how people behave, morality is how they ought to behave.

We all ought to behave a certain way, but we fail to, by the way, that's why we need a savior. Zing!

You're clapping for that? Really? You're clapping for that? Okay, go ahead.

Okay, now we're gonna switch. David, you can keep going, or you can ask Frank. First cross is done.

You know, it's kind of hard to say who has the advantage here. I think both interlocutors could have communicated more clearly.

Turek did focus on Silverman's statements in opening and rebuttal, that's what you're supposed to do in a debate, and Silverman didn't respond very well to Turek's questions, although he did get a nice zinger in there about the

Nazis being religious, right, walking around with the saying on their belt buckle. I don't know, this is kind of, it's kind of difficult after first cross.

Let's just wait and see how second cross goes. Now, let's go on to evil because, you know, you brought up the word evil and you said,

I'm supposed to bring up the word evil, and then you totally eliminated and went around the problem of evil.

So I want to talk a little bit about the problem of evil. You said that evil proves

God because objective evil proves objective good. Yeah. I'm telling you there's no objective evil either.

Well, then what are you complaining about? What I'm complaining about is I want to know about the real problem of evil that Christianity faces.

If God is all -powerful and omniscient and omnibenevolent, why does he need babies to be born with cancer?

Okay, now actually what you're talking about here is a theological question that can be answered if the scriptures are true by going to the scriptures, but we're not...

Listen for the dancing, listen for the dancing. We've got an all -powerful God, he can do whatever he wants and he doesn't need babies to have cancer.

We've got an all -knowing God, so he knows every baby that's going to get cancer. Now the only thing left is benevolence.

Define benevolence and tell me why a God who can do anything under any circumstances needs babies with cancer.

Excellent question. A part of me actually appreciates that Silverman and Turek are not extremely precise in their words.

I used to teach literature as well as debate, and so, I think that poetry trades on figurative language and figurative language requires imprecise non -clinical forms of speech, which that's like a whole separate channel, you know, for that kind of discussion.

But there's like a real sense of musicality and poetic flourish that Turek and Silverman use when they talk, and maybe that's just the

Long Island in them, you know what I mean? So anyway, when Silverman says, I don't believe in objective evil, but let's talk about the real problem of evil with regard to Christianity, it sounds like he's saying,

I don't believe in evil, but let's talk about real evil, right? That's weird. But probably what he's getting at is, let's internally critique the

Christian worldview. Does it make sense for Christianity to really say three things, you know?

Number one, God is all -powerful. Number two, God is good. And number three, God kills babies with cancer.

So, there's the dilemma, right? Turek says, well, in order to do that, we need to go to the

Bible. And I think he's right. If it's an internal critique of the Christian worldview that we're really after here, well then, we need to take the full worldview into account to see if it makes sense or if it contradicts itself.

The reality is, a lot of atheists, when they critique the Christian worldview, they stay half in and half out of their own worldview.

They put one foot in, it's the hokey pokey, they put one foot in to the Christian worldview, they keep their other foot out into the atheist worldview.

And so, in the atheist worldview, when you die, you cease to exist. And that's really bad, right? That makes 80 years on this planet the most important thing that you would ever do.

In the Christian worldview, when you die, it's not over. You step into eternity. And eternity now comes into the equation and dwarfs 80 years on this planet.

Eternity actually undercuts the force of the atheist argument because death isn't really that big of a deal if eternity exists.

But that's what you got to do. If you really want to critique the view, then you have to concede eternal life. The fact is, if a child of God suffers and dies here on earth, they don't cease to exist.

They go to eternal life with God. And eternal life reduces suffering on earth down to an infinitesimal degree.

The Bible calls this momentary and light affliction in light of eternity. So, the internal critique doesn't work, in my opinion, because you have to include eternal life if you're going to be fair in your critique against the

Christian worldview. And, you know, maybe some atheists are like, well, eternal life is just a cop -out because it's just an ad hoc way for Christians to minimalize suffering, right?

But see, that's why the internal critique of the problem of evil doesn't work. And when an atheist kind of says that, they're showing that they recognize at some level that it really doesn't work.

But let's see how Turek responds. I know. We live in a fallen world, don't we? That's a good excuse, but you can't blame

Adam. What if it's true? What if anything is true? The question is, why do we need, why does

God need babies to be born with cancer? Please. There's another part of me that doesn't like imprecise language, you know?

At least, you know, not when it's time to be more precise, which is definitely in debates, and Silverman is speaking imprecisely.

It's a category error to say that God needs. Any being that has a need is by definition not the

Christian God properly understood. Let me, let me, God doesn't need it, God might allow it.

Because he's omnibenevolent? Okay, yeah, hold on, let's, let's get there. Let's get to the benevolence. I can't,

I can't, I can't say anything better than this one minute and 46 second video, which

I'm going to show you, and hopefully it'll work. I don't want a video, I want you to tell me. Oh, I will tell you, because I'm telling you through this video, okay, so stand by.

I think we need, uh, HDMI. I've never seen someone play a video in response to a question during cross -examination before.

This is, uh, this is a first. It is? Hey, stand by.

Doesn't even have it queued up yet. All right. This better be good, man. It's good. It's gonna be good. If it's not good,

I'm totally gonna kick your butt. There's no such thing as good, it's all relative. It is all relative. All right, you gotta listen, you gotta watch closely,

David. I'm sorry, you got a bad angle here, but you really gotta watch closely. You guys ready to go? We got sound? Here we go.

Is God good? If he is, why is there suffering and evil?

Let's assume for the moment that God is all -powerful. This means that God can do anything that is logically possible.

So he can create galaxies and subatomic particles and rainforests and you.

But God cannot do what is logically impossible. He cannot make a square circle or a one -ended stick.

So can God make a rock so big that he can't lift it? No. So what if when

God created human beings, he wanted them to be free? Freedom's a good thing.

But if humans are to be free, they cannot be forced to obey God. So if this whole video is on the free will defense for the existence of evil in the world, which is how some

Christians respond to the problem of evil, that evil exists because mankind chooses using their freedom, their free will, to choose to do evil, then this is totally missing

Silverman's point. Silverman is asking about cancer. Hopefully, Ture can get to the real issue, because so far, this is not a great response.

Because freedom without choice is like a square circle. It's a logical contradiction.

No choice, no freedom. God didn't want robots. He wanted real people.

The first humans endowed with the awesome power of free choice abuse their freedom. The tragic consequences of their bad choice and our bad choices ripple across the world.

God is responsible for the fact of freedom. But humans are responsible for their acts of freedom.

But let's remember, we don't suffer alone. God will put an end to suffering and evil.

And God became a man to suffer with us. God is good. And he wants real people like you to know him.

But the free choice is yours. So the ultimate answer to the question is we have free will.

And why do we have free will? Because that's the only way we can have love. Free will. Yes, free will. You're actually saying

God wants babies to be born with cancer so that we can have free will. We couldn't have free will if babies didn't have cancer.

No, no, no. What I'm saying is the entrance of evil into the universe was a result of free choice.

And the reason we had free choice was because that's the only way we could have love. But this also creates the possibility for evil.

The entrance of evil into the universe was a result of free choice. Let's talk about that for a second, okay?

Adam and Eve are in the Garden of Eden, and God is there with them. Okay, okay. I'm sorry, you brought it up.

Yeah, yeah. I'm allowed to do this. I understand. You want to keep going on this? Yeah, I want to finish the thought here on evil, if you don't mind.

Yeah, let's keep doing this because this is good stuff. Okay, all right, good. Because when it comes down to it, Adam and Eve are in the

Garden of Eden with God. And God is omniscient, and God knows the future. And God puts the tree of knowledge of good and evil in spot

X. Yes. And when he does that, he's omniscient. And he knows that Adam is going to eat that fruit.

Yeah. He knows it's going to cause the fall of man, and billions of souls will go to hell.

And according to you, babies will start being born with cancer. Okay. If he puts the tree of knowledge over here, it doesn't happen.

Or if he doesn't put it there at all, it doesn't happen. God puts it where he knows with 100 % certainty that Adam is going to eat of that fruit.

Who made that choice? God knows the end from the beginning. So, the question maybe some of you are probably asking is, why is

Silverman spending so much time on this, right? I mean, if you're trying to think as a debater in terms of topicality, you know, are we still within the realm of the topic?

In Turek's opener, he talks about objective morality, and then he links it to the existence of God, that a good

God is required in order for there to be objective good and evil. So, Silverman is spending time questioning one of the foundational tenets of the argument, that God is really good.

And then, Turek mentions the Garden of Eden. I probably would not have if I were him.

And so then, Silverman follows him down that path, right? This is all an internal critique of the

Christian worldview. And so far, I would say that Silverman has the upper hand in this exchange. Beginning. Yeah.

And he created the universe, and he created what would, he knew what would happen. Anytime you want to answer the question.

I'm getting there. But that doesn't mean people don't have free choice. And you're saying that God then could not have done that if somebody sins.

Well, let me ask you a question. That's not what I said at all. What I asked you was, who made the choice in the

Garden of Eden? Adam and Eve did. Adam and Eve made the choice. Now, let me ask a question. Let me put it this way.

God knows with 100 % certainty that if I put the tree of knowledge here, billions of souls go to hell, and babies get cancer, according to you, which doesn't follow either.

But I'll let you pass on that. But if I put it over here. No, no, hold on, hold on. No, no, this is the point. There's nothing wrong with babies getting cancer, because it's all relative.

You know what? I judge that. I judge that to be wrong. But you're also avoiding the question in a great big way.

No, no, no. If you allow me to continue with my presentation, I'll go into it. Another video? I want you to answer me.

It's not another video. Okay. Answer me. When God put the tree of knowledge of good and evil here, instead of here, knowing that when he put it here, knowing with 100 % certainty.

I got it. Let me answer it. Okay. Go for it. Here's the problem. The problem here, David, is that you're assuming that God could have created another universe where nobody sinned.

While it's logically possible, it might not be actually achievable with free creatures. So sin was not an option.

No, sin. If God creates a universe with free creatures, he might not be able to create a universe where everybody freely chooses not to sin.

So he creates the universe we're in now. People freely choose to sin. And then his job, the whole purpose of the

Bible, and we're not really even here to talk about the Bible, but since you brought it up, the whole theme of the

Bible from Genesis to maps is one word. And that is redemption. You have paradise lost in Genesis, paradise regained in Revelation.

You are totally avoiding my question. No, I'm getting there. Before Adam ate that apple, he was without sin.

Yes. Before he ate that apple, he was without sin. God put the tree here. Yes. He knew it would cause the fall of man.

Yes. God pushed Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. God made the decision. Yes. God made the choice.

And then God made the choice to go in and rescue him. So that's what the redemption is all about. God chose.

David, let me - I think they'll clap for anything in this audience. Let me - God is the villain here. God is -

This guy doesn't care at all about how he comes across to the audience. He's -

His eyes, when you see his - When people clap for - A lot of these debates take place in churches.

And so when the Christian says something that Christians like from the audience and they clap, look at this person's facial expression in response.

It's amazing. Look at - Look, he's just not happy at all with people in the audience.

I actually respect that. I respect that quite a bit. Like, I'm - You be quiet.

I'm just talking to him right now. That's good. David, let me -

I think they'll clap for anything in this audience. Let me - God is the villain here. God is - Wait! Stop!

There's no villains because there's no good or evil. You've already said so. Stop changing the subject. God is the one who made the choice.

I'm not changing the subject. You said evil entered into the universe because of a choice.

I'm submitting to you that it was not Adam who made that choice. Who was it? It was God who made that choice.

Yes, God made a choice. So God's a villain. God's the one who sent you to hell. God's the one who sends everybody to hell.

God's the one who caused the fall of man, and he did so with intent, with deliberate. God is an ass.

Nobody sends anybody to hell. You send yourself there. God sent you - Everybody to hell.

That's good, but you're not listening to the argument that you're applauding. David, people who are in hell are there justly, okay?

Oh, well, who's justice? Well, there is no justice according to your worldview. Okay, hang on one second. Yeah. Let's stop with the applause.

Okay, let's just stop with the applause so we can get more time in here, okay? We're getting a little off track.

The topic - We can't change. So that did not go well for Turek. If the topic is theism versus atheism, you know, what best explains reality,

Turek should have stayed with the moral argument. As soon as he talks about the Bible, then it becomes a conversation about interpretations of Genesis, which, in my opinion, puts the

Christian on his heels. Because almost always, atheists mischaracterize the Bible, and then the

Christian has two jobs at that point. The Christian not only has to spend a lot of work on dealing with interpretation, but then also providing an answer.

And in terms of optics, this looks bad. Silverman definitely has the advantage so far in this exchange.

Which better explains reality, atheism or theism? That's why we're talking about the

Bible theology. It's fine if y 'all want to go there, but that wasn't the topic. But you still haven't made the answer to my question.

It's still you. I still want to talk about this. All right, let me continue. Well, no, it's now my turn. No, that's right. No, no, wait.

Who just - He, he was asking me. Oh, yeah, it's his choice. Yeah, okay. But you still got 40 seconds, go. I still got 40 seconds.

What I want to know is, if God made the choice to put the tree of knowledge here instead of here, isn't it true then that the sinless

Adam was merely a pawn? No. And that God made the choice to cause the fall of man?

Because there's a faulty assumption in your scenario here. You're assuming that if he puts it over here, it doesn't happen. He knows.

He knows. He's 100 % for knowledge. Yes, yes. So he knows that if he puts it here, it happens. Let me finish. If he puts it here.

David, let me finish. Yep. It might be that there's - Now it's your turn. You can keep going or do you want to change the subject?

Giants are better than the patriots. Oh, come on. They are. Oh, come on. Yeah. That's too far, man.

That's too far. Where were we? Oh, it might be that there's no other scenario whereby sin ultimately wouldn't enter the world.

Again, let me say this again. What is logically possible might not be actually achievable with free creatures, okay?

That's the problem here. You're assuming that God could have created a universe where nobody ever sins.

Well, if there are free creatures, there might not be any universe whereby nobody ever sins.

That's not my point at all. My point is that free will is eliminated. There is no such thing as free will if God is omniscient.

Oh, no, no, no. So we have strayed from the question. The question, which was meant to,

I think, internally critique the Christian worldview, was, what about baby cancer? And Turek has not explained how

Adam's sin in the garden affects what is more generally known as natural evil.

Natural evil includes hurricanes, tornadoes, and even, you know, disease, genetic defects, animal suffering, all those things.

So, Silverman definitely is holding on to this thread, and he doesn't want to let it go.

But if I were Silverman, I would ask Turek to explain how you get from human choice, which was

Turek's original answer, to natural evil. He mentions it, I think, one time, but that's what he should be really zooming in on at this point.

That is my point. Oh, no, no. God knew the future when he put the tree there. Look, I knew you'd be here.

Does that mean I caused you to be here? God knew—if I drop this, if I drop this, does it have a choice to fall?

Yeah, but you see, that's not an agent. We're agents. We make decisions. If I have 100 % foreknowledge, and I know with 100 % certainty that if I put the tree of knowledge here, it happens, and if I put the tree of knowledge here, it doesn't happen.

If I have 100 % foreknowledge, like your God supposedly does, I would be the villain by putting it here instead of there, because Adam would have no choice, because I have 100 % foreknowledge.

Wait. I have 100 % foreknowledge. It's my time. It's my time. Hey. It's my time.

I let you play a video. I let you play a video. It was cool. It was good. Well, not by your standards.

No, it wasn't good. Get to your point. My point is that you're avoiding the subject that God— If you would let me answer—

All right. Now, let him answer. Go for it. Again, it might not be actually achievable. You're assuming that if he puts it over here, they're not going to sin.

Well, maybe if he puts it over there, they are too. Let me also point this out. You didn't have to put it anywhere. Well, then there would be no creation.

But you see, comparing— There would be a creation. It would be all perfect. No sin. Comparing a moral world to a non -world, there's no way to compare them, okay?

Now, just because you know something doesn't mean that you're choosing or that the person doesn't have free will.

I mean, you have a 16 -year -old daughter. You knew when you had her that she would sin one day, but you're not responsible for that sin, yet you chose to have her.

I don't have 100 % foreknowledge. I can't cause her to sin. You knew she would sin because she's a human being, yet you chose to have her.

These guys are from— Where are they? New York? You know, whatever, New Jersey, Long Island. Turek, be careful, bro.

You got a mother? Easy, bro, easy. You got a daughter, right?

Careful, bro. But Adam was without sin. He was perfect at the time. Yes, and he chose, but God can redeem.

He didn't choose. He had no choice because God put the tree of knowledge of good and evil— Let me ask you— —where he knew

Adam would eat the fruit with 100 % certainty. Let's assume you love NFL football, which I know you do, okay?

And one day, your Sunday, you're away from the TV, so you've got TiVo, and you record a whole bunch of games while you're away.

Then on your way home, you hear the scores on the radio, and you go, oh, I didn't want to hear the scores, right?

But then you come home, and you elect to watch the Giants and the Patriots, and we know how that's going to turn out. It always turns out the right way every time, right?

Now, as you're watching the game, you know what the score's going to be, but does that mean you're causing the players on the field to do what they do, or do they still have free will?

They don't have free will. They don't have free will. The players playing football don't have free will. On the recording?

No, on the recording, they don't have free will. They're fictional. They're just a recording. I know the answer. I know the score.

Yeah, you know the answer. You know the score. But while they were playing, they had free will. Here's the point. The point is,

God's outside of time, so he knows the end from the beginning. Just because he knows what we're going to do doesn't mean he's causing us directly to do it.

We still have free will. Just like when you watch a football game after it's happened, they still have free will, even though you know the score.

But in the Garden of Eden, God did cause it to happen, because there has not been any sin. There was no ambiguity to what

Adam would do if he put the tree of knowledge there. God knew the beginning to the end. God kicked

Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, according to your own Bible. God caused original sin.

Then God held it over all of our heads, according to your Bible. And then God sent billions of souls to torture.

I hate to tell you that. I hate to tell you this, but you said an atheist argument's never been refuted. Everything you just said is false, okay?

That's not Christian theology. I said a non -theistic scientific argument has never been refuted.

Please don't twist my words. I said a non -theistic argument has never been proven wrong by a theistic argument.

You have misquoted me three times now on that quote. I said a non -theistic argument has never been proven wrong by a theistic argument.

Are you calling me immoral? I'm sorry? You're calling me immoral. Am I calling you immoral? Yeah. I'm calling you a liar.

Is that wrong? Yes. Really wrong? Yes. Oh, so there is objective morality.

No. Good. We made some progress. Okay. Let me just deal with this, because basically you're saying there's gratuitous evil in there.

There's no purpose for some evil. I can't figure out why a baby has cancer. I can't figure out why bad things happen.

So therefore, this must be gratuitous in God's ability. Okay, here we go. I'm pointing out a few things. Here we go. First of all, how could you know that only someone with an eternal perspective could know whether good couldn't come out of evil?

We see good coming out from evil all the time. Secondly, with trillions of interacting... Can I refute these on a point -by -point basis?

No, let me get through it, and then you can do whatever you want. It's still my time. Okay? Is that cool? To do what?

To start another segment of debate? Is this another rebuttal with slides?

Or is he answering... Who controls cross -examine this? But I think they've lost their way a bit.

With trillions of interacting choices made every day, every evil may result in good either now, later, or in eternity.

In fact, how many have seen the movie It's a Wonderful Life? The story of The Wonderful Life is

Jimmy Stewart doesn't really understand how his life has impacted so many other lives.

He's given the opportunity to come back and see what his life would have been, or what the town would have been like if he'd...

So again, I mean, if this is the first time watching this and stuff, cross -examination is not this. Cross -examination is where one side, one opponent asks a specific question that is meant to focus on something that their interlocutor said, likely in the opening, when they were making their case, maybe in rebuttal.

And it's meant to challenge that. It's meant to put focus on those kinds of things.

And you're not supposed to make statements in cross -examination, you know? Turek is supposed to be asking questions at this point, and instead of asking questions, he's just giving another whole presentation.

Clearly, this is not a formal debate, and they've strayed, and that's unfortunate, because cross -examination is what

I'm after here. So let's, maybe we can get back to it or something? We don't know how events right now can create a ripple effect throughout eternity, so great good could come down later in time, a thousand years from now, or it could create something good in eternity.

Now, I don't know why the purpose for some evil, but I know why I don't know why. I'm finite, and God is infinite.

To say I can't see any good reason for evil doesn't mean there isn't a good reason for evil.

Also, this earthly life is not the end of the story. If God exists, his justice spills into eternity.

If God doesn't exist, evil and injustice don't exist, so there's no problem. Okay, so point one and three are the same point.

Point one and three merely say, we humans are too stupid. My man is going to walk across the stage, and now with his pointer, he's going to just, he's going to destroy these four pieces of information.

That's good. Stupid to ask this question. No, it's not that we're stupid, it's that we have a limited capacity. We can't see the end from the beginning.

With trillions of interacting choices made every day, every evil may result in good either now, later, or in eternity.

But if you have an all -powerful God, he can do whatever he wants without babies being born with cancer.

So whatever this later good is, God can make it happen. Whatever that fine plan is,

God can make it happen without childhood leukemia. Point number four. This is why Turek should have talked about eternity.

This is why, when the eternal critique is brought forward in a conversation between, you know,

Christian, and let's face it, you're watching this channel, you're likely not going to get up on stage and do a formal debate. You're just going to have a regular conversation with somebody who disagrees with you.

And when this comes up, and it's an internal critique of the Christian worldview, you have to talk about eternity.

Because if you don't, then atheists get to say things along the lines of what Silverman is saying.

Well, he could have just did it immediately. Why does he have to, you know what I mean? Four. This earthly life is not the end of the story.

That's a lie. That's an empty promise that you tell people so that they stop questioning. No, people can keep questioning.

All of this does is it avoids the subject of why an all -powerful

God needs evil to exist if he's benevolent. Because free will exists.

If free will exists, evil is possible. The free will argument doesn't work. The free will argument doesn't work. It works just fine.

What? It works just fine. We have free will. We can do good or evil.

If we can't do evil, then this isn't a moral universe then, is it? It's not a moral universe. It's a neutral universe.

What I mean by a moral universe is you can choose the good or the evil. That's what I mean. You can choose it. Yeah. Okay. I'm not seeing where you're going.

Where I'm going here is that in order to have a moral universe, you have to have free choice. So we wouldn't have free choices if babies weren't born with cancer?

No, we could still have free choices. Okay, so why do babies be born with cancer? But the fact that babies are born with cancer is something that we might not know the reason for right now.

In fact, it might seem completely inconsistent with the concept of a benevolent

God. Because whatever that reason is in the future, whatever that possible good is in the future, it can happen if you're an all -powerful omniscient

God without babies being born with cancer. Let's suppose that nobody could ever get a disease or nobody could die until they hit the age of 70.

How would we live? Well, Turek and Silverman both have opposite ends of this rope, and they are tugging for dear life.

If I were Turek, I would move on to something else, you know? I mean, Silverman has made his point.

You know, he never came out and specifically stated that what he's doing is he's giving an internal critique of the Christian worldview. But I think he's made his point.

The conversation then shifted to God's actions in the garden. That's because Turek shifted it.

Silverman followed him there. Silverman, again, has the upper hand. I would not advise

Turek at this point to continue to tug away at this particular thread.

I would just suggest that he move on. I mean, there's other things that Silverman talked about in his opening that Turek could ask.

Well, if there were an all -powerful ruler of the universe, he would create a planet that was more than 15 % habitable, and we would have plenty of room.

How do you know that? Because I would do it. And anybody would do it. We can judge

God. We're allowed to do that. Oh, okay. Yeah, we can say things like he's doing a bad job, or he's an evil

God. You can't as an atheist, because there's no such thing as good or evil. Oh, we can talk about anything that we want.

We just can't say that it's objectively so. Well, then you have no objection, then. It's just your own, but not your own family.

No, I do have objection. I have a personal objection. Okay, well, that's fine. There's no objective morality on which

I can blame. I judge God personally. Me. Well, that's fine. Yeah, that is fine.

And you do it all, too. God gives you the authority to do that. The free will. Look, David, if we don't have free will, why are we even arguing here?

We do have free will. How do we have free will if we're molecules in motion? We're molecules.

We're atoms. We're patterns. And we are reacting to most of our surroundings.

Some people have posited that we don't have free will. I don't really know. Okay, that's a good place to stop.

All right, now you guys go back to your corners. No, we're just getting started. Go back to your corners. Wow, this became a bit of a mess on the

Christian side. Turek should have returned to anything that Silverman said to make his case in the opening.

Silverman made comments about the first cause. He made comments about design. And those comments could have been easily challenged in cross -examination.

But Turek chose to stay in the hot seat on this particular issue of morality. And he did it to the detriment of his performance in cross -examination.

This was a difficult debate to watch. And I think the reason why was just because there were so many missed opportunities really coming from both sides here, both interlocutors.

At the end of the day, I think that Silverman outperformed Turek. I think Silverman won this particular exchange.

Was he precise in his language? No. But he did spend most of his time challenging Turek. And Turek did not adequately respond to those challenges, in my opinion.

We're simply looking at the cross -examination. But in true debates, every segment matters. So definitely take a look at the full debate.

Watch the full thing. I'll leave the link below. And you tell me, who performed better, theist or atheist?

I am still collecting all of your suggestions. And I'm writing them down on my great list of to -dos. And so let me know if you want me to look at a particular debate and react to it from a debate teacher's perspective.

In the meantime, I hope that this video blessed you and that it got you thinking a little bit more critically when it comes to these kinds of discussions.

I'm going to take a break for now, but I'm going to return soon with more videos. In the meantime, I'll say, ta -ta.