Matt Slick Bible Study - 12/13/17 - The Kalam Cosmological Argument

All right, here we are again. Okay, all right, so what we're gonna do today, well

I'm gonna go over the cosmological argument for God's existence, so if you're watching and you're gonna be watching pretty soon, you might want to take some notes.

This is gonna be simple, I think it's a very good argument. I used it against Eddie Tabash here at Boise State about five or six years ago, and I got a nice little story about that.

I'll get into you right after I pray, and we'll go into the argument, I'll show you what it is. So those of you online, if you want to ask some questions later on and stuff, we can go over it and it'll be fine.

So let me pray, we'll jump right in. Lord Jesus, thank you again for the time, and we ask

Lord that you would bless it, and that my thoughts would be clear, and that those who might be on the fence about various things might be moved towards truth, your truth, and it might be moved towards receiving you and trusting in you.

Lord Jesus, just give you this time and ask for your blessing in it, and we just, we're here for you, because of you.

We ask this in your name, Jesus. Amen. All right, so I'll go over this a little bit, what the cosmological argument for God's existence is, and so about five or six years ago,

I had a debate with a well -known atheist here at Boise State, and I'm known for the transcendental argument for God's existence, and so I've been studying this thing as well, the cosmological argument, some call it the

Kalam cosmological argument, and so I had a call on the radio show, and someone asked me what

I was going to use against Eddie Tabash, Dr. Tabash, in my debate.

So why would I tell somebody what I'm going to be debating in my tactics over a live radio show, that would then get back to Dr.

Tabash. So what I did was, I said well I'm not going to give you my answer, because that's showing my hand,

I don't want to do that. I said however, let me just say that I will be using a lot of logic, and the reason

I said that was because it was true, since I had been planning to use the cosmological argument.

I've been planning, it requires a lot of logic, but tag also requires a lot of logic, so what I was assuming might happen is that they would assume that I was going to be using tag, and then tell

Eddie Tabash, who would then prep for tag, when I wasn't going to use it. That's what

I was hoping would happen, and that's what happened. And so after the debates, when walking out, somebody came up to me later, and told me this.

The debate was ended, and an atheist came up and said that he didn't agree with me, but he thought I won, which was pretty, you know, nice to hear that from an atheist, because they'd never admit, you know, that kind of thing.

And then someone else later told me, he said oh yeah, man I could tell you this, since I was next to Eddie Tabash, when he was walking out with the guy, the atheist guy, whatever his name was, who set everything up or something like that, and he said

I overheard him say, I thought Matt was gonna use tag, and I got a chuckle out of that, because the strategy worked, you know, so there you go.

Anyway, the cosmological argument for God's existence has to do with what came before.

So let me go over some basic principles, and I'm gonna end up erasing this and drawing on the board and showing you some things going over bit by bit.

So the thing is that premise one, everything that begins to exist has a cause.

If something does not exist and then it does exist, then it has a cause. So events have causes.

That's just basic, it's a priori, which means it doesn't have to be proven, we know it's true.

So events have causes. So we have an event, okay, an event, but there is a cause to the event.

Events don't happen without a cause. Events don't happen without a cause. Now the cosmological argument basically deals with the issue of the existence of the universe.

Where did we come from? Well we came from my mom and dad, where'd they come from their mom and dad, where'd they come from mom and dad, where'd they come from?

Well the evolutionists are gonna say well we evolved in a biogenesis and you know here we are today.

Well where'd that come from? Where'd this come from? Basically where'd the universe come from? So the universe is not infinitely old.

So we talked about the universe, we know that the universe had a beginning. There's a

COBE experiment with radiation background in the 60s that proves that. There is the issue just simply of logic, something, if the universe were infinitely old for example, this is a symbol for infinite, if we're infinitely old then it would have run out of usable energy.

One of the laws of thermodynamics is that things are always moving towards disarray.

You know you have batteries, you let them sit. Even if you don't use them, they're eventually gonna not work on you anymore.

Things are running down. If the universe were infinitely old then it would be what we call,

I don't know how to exact right wording, a complete state of entropy. Basically entropy is non -usable energy.

The entire universe would have run out of usable energy if it was infinitely old. Well since that's not the case, therefore the universe is not infinitely old.

Real simple. That's one of the ways of demonstrating it. And there are other ways that people like to get into philosophically and stuff like that.

So another thing is that if the universe were infinitely old, for example, then we have an infinite amount of time to now.

But if we exist here in the now, that means from infinitely to here we have to cross, an infinite amount of time has to be crossed, right?

To get to now. You can't cross an infinite amount of time to get to now, or an infinite amount of time cannot be traversed because otherwise it's not infinite.

Make sense? It's like saying an illustration

I have is dominoes. Dominoes.

Let's say that we're, and I use this illustration a lot and I developed it actually for the debate, an infinitely flat surface, and in my mind it's white.

I just want to know it's white. And we're standing on this infinitely flat surface and it goes infinite directions everywhere.

It's infinitely big. And there's a line of dominoes that just is going across us and we're talking about infinity and these dominoes are falling, or not start, but we hear them falling one at a time.

So let's say one happens, you know, a couple, three, four a second, it doesn't make a difference, but they go, and we're looking.

But we happen to know that this domino line is infinitely long in the past.

Now is that logically possible for it to be infinitely long in the past and the dominoes reach us?

The answer is no. Because it would mean then an infinite number of dominoes had to fall to get to us.

But that doesn't make any sense. How can an infinite number have fallen to get to us?

It just doesn't make any sense. And there's these kind of problems with the idea of infinities, with this kind of thing, an actual infinites and things like that.

So the universe is not infinitely old for the issue of entropy, for the issue of infinite amount of time.

All right, so the universe had a cause. Now, real simple, the cause of the universe is either personal, okay, or not personal.

All right, it's either personal or it's not personal. There is no other option.

Personal meaning self -aware, alive. Okay, an alive being.

And then, not the case that there's an alive being. There is no third option. It's the thing and the negation of the thing.

We either have, is it a personal cause or it's not the case that it's a personal cause. There is no third option.

So what we can do is understand something. If you only have two instances to work with,

P and this way, not P. We have a personal cause and not a personal cause.

There are no other options. And these encompass all possibilities. Because in the personal, you'd have a

Christian God, Islamic God, but whoever God, blah, blah, blah. And the personal just means no God at all, no personal being.

All right, so we only have two options, just two options.

If we were to negate either one of these, the other one has to be the truth. Destructive syllogism.

If we can negate either one of them, the other one has to be the case.

Because we cannot logically get rid of both of the only two possibilities. An illustration

I have, I'll just throw it out, is kind of illustrates something. We have a very rich man who is a coin collector and he has this room built.

The room is like 10 by 10 and it is, it's got, you know, steel and cement and iron and, you know, kryptonite and everything.

It's got, you look around and say, nobody can get into this thing. There's only one door and there's a single electrical outlet and there's an air -conditioning vent.

It's only a couple inches high, you know, six inches wide. One on one side of the room, one on the other side of the room, so that air can flow through.

And there's a single door, this door is like this thick, solid steel, and the only way to open it is with his retina, voice print, fingerprint, and a keypad code.

And he's the only one who knows this, all right. He's the only one. There's no way anybody can get in there.

And the vents are not straight lines, they're cattywampus, the whole bit, they got grates in different places.

And in the room is a table and a couple of chairs and a light that comes down from the top, all right.

So this rich man buys some very expensive coins and he is delighted. And he wants to open these and he's gonna go through them, he loves coins.

And so he has to go to a meeting, so he takes the coins and he puts them in this vault, you know, all the stuff.

And he goes in, he puts the coin, now the coins are in a leather bag, it's got a little bowtie on the top, and he puts the coins on the center table.

And he he's looking at the table and he closes the door and he sees the coins in the bag right there.

Closes the door, okay. Does all the stuff and he leaves. He goes to his meeting, he comes back a few hours later and he's so excited.

He opens the door and he finds something very suspicious. The bag is open and laying on its side and the coins are stacked in each denomination.

Just stacked. And of course he wants to know who got in there.

So he knows he's the only one who has all the codes and the whole bit and there's no damaging marks, there's no entryways, there's nothing.

He calls the police, he calls the security guards, he calls everything. They go look at the film, they don't have any film on the inside, they only have film on the outside.

And nobody the whole time. Nothing. Now we have a mystery. Now I've got a question.

Since the bag has been opened and folded and sitting next to the coins and the coins are stacked in denominations, like say pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, fifty cent pieces.

They're all stacked just by that. The question we have to ask is, was there a personal cause or a non -personal cause to the stacking of the coins?

Now a non -personal cause would mean something like this eraser. Did the eraser cause it to do it?

No. Did the chair that's in the room stack the coins? No. Did the table do it?

Did the light do it? Did the air flowing through do it? No. Because personal causation does, or personal option, does not answer the question of how something could be opened and then, because it requires an intelligence, to stack things, which requires dexterity, in denominations, which requires knowledge and understanding.

Definitely personal experience was involved. We can rule out the issue of non -personal.

It has to be there's a personal cause because we can't say the coins did it themselves, the bag did it itself.

We can't say that. So we don't have to prove that this is the case. It's true by the impossibility of the contrary.

This contrary option is not possible. Therefore, this is the case. Make sense? It's a simple logic, all right?

It's proof by what's called the impossibility of the contrary. All right, so we have two options. We have the cause of the universe being personal or not personal.

So now what we're going to do is look at the issue and the possibilities of a non -personal causation of the universe.

But before I do that, we're going to get into something. We're going to do what's called the necessary, necessary and sufficient, necessary.

The cause has to have both necessary and sufficient ability. Necessary causes, necessary attributes.

Now what do I mean by that? Well, for example, this piece of chalk in my hand. In order for me to throw it to Dave, for example,

I would have to have the ability to be able to project this sufficient distance.

The necessity is that I'm standing here and I'm going to throw this. If I'm going to be the one who's going to do this,

I have to be able to let it go. And the force that I let it go with has to be sufficient.

Now it might be that I got a problem with my arm and I can only throw with a little bit and it goes right there.

The necessity and the sufficiency don't match or are not sufficient. They don't work, okay.

The necessity is my arm, the sufficiency is my strength in sufficient amount. In other words, when you have a cause of something, for it to occur, there has to be necessary and sufficient conditions.

So we have to have both a necessary condition and a sufficient condition. Otherwise the event can't occur.

So let me give you another illustration of something. Necessary and sufficient conditions, all right.

So let's say that this is a surface and this is a fulcrum and here's a lever and this is a boulder of some shape and this is a force that's coming down.

Now think of this in terms of non -personal. No intelligence, no desire, no will is involved.

This is just merely physics. So we have this weight here, this mass, all right.

This lever will not bend. The fulcrum won't break and the mass needs to be moved.

So in order to move it we need to apply a force here. Now let's just say hypothetically that the force that's needed to move this has to be exactly 25 pounds, equal to or greater than 25 pounds.

As soon as 25 pounds or more as a force occurs here, the automatic result is the movement of this mass.

Make sense? As soon as all the conditions are met, what's necessary for this to move is the fulcrum, the lever, the base, and a force.

But if we have a force of 24 .99 pounds, not 25, then we have everything that's necessary but we don't have everything that's sufficient.

Sufficiency is here and up and this has to be sufficiently strong.

This has to be the fulcrum sufficiently strong and in place, etc. So the necessary parts are all these elements but without the sufficiency of them as well, the movement doesn't occur.

Make sense? All right. So that means that whatever causes an effect has to have both necessary and sufficient conditions.

Now in this scenario, we have this mass that's there, not weight because mass has to do with gravity.

Weight has to do with gravity, excuse me. So mass is there. If this weight here is 24 .99

pounds, will it ever move? It will never move. But if it's 25 pounds, will it move?

Yes. But if it was always 24 .99 pounds, will it ever move?

No. It would never have moved. If it was always 25 pounds, it would have moved automatically a long time ago, right?

So there is no choice. Whenever the necessary sufficient conditions are met in an impersonal situation, the effect is automatic based upon these necessary sufficient conditions.

Are you with me? Make sense? All right. This means that whatever brought the universe into existence had to precede the universe because it had to cause the universe to come into existence.

And whatever was the cause had to have the necessary sufficient conditions to bring the universe into existence.

But if it was personal, excuse me, if it was impersonal, the necessary sufficient conditions that brought the universe into existence were impersonal, then it had to always have the sufficient ability.

But if it always had it, it would have happened automatically, right? If it had it always, then it would have happened an infinitely long time ago, because that's always.

But if it had happened infinitely long time ago, the universe would be infinitely old. Brought into existence an infinitely long time ago, but we've already shown that's not the case.

So since it's not the case that the universe is infinitely old, and since it's not the case that this scenario would have been in place because its actuality would have necessitated the existence of the universe, therefore this option, not

P, is removed as a possibility. Therefore, since this is removed, the only other option is a personal cause.

Now some might say, well, let's reverse this and see. Well, if you reverse it and analyze the personal issue of the cause, it makes sense.

We don't even have to do this. We've already shown this doesn't work. But let's just have fun. So let's say there's a personal cause.

So Cameron, I'm going to pick on Cameron, all right?

So here's Cameron. This is his, that's his mail delivery hat he's got, and there's his nose right there, and he's right there, and he's delivering mail, right?

He's a mailman. And there's his mail right there. There's his mail stuff in there. Okay, a lot of mail, all right?

So he walks up when he sees this, and he wants to move this thing because he's got to get in it to the mailbox.

That's a big problem. And so what he does is, he has an idea.

Oh, what's this? I've been listening to Matt, and now I can think properly. Okay. So, so he guesses, hey, can

I smile like that? Okay, and you need to gain some weight, buddy, because you're not looking good. I was going to say you got a little skinny there,

Cameron. A little on the skinny side. So he knows that this can be moved, and he's perfectly capable of producing 25 pounds of downward thrust or force on that lever in order to move this thing.

Now, what he's doing is contemplating. He's saying, okay, let's see. When do

I want to do this? Do I want to do it right now, or do I want to wait a minute? Do I want to do this in 50 seconds, or 20 seconds, or right now, or not at all?

You can decide, because there's personality. There's personhood involved. So what he does is, he thinks about it, he walks over, and he puts force down on this, and that thing moves.

So what the personal decision involves, this does not have the automatic necessity of occurrence.

It occurs when a will decides it occurs. And when he decides it occurs, there's a beginning.

If there's a beginning, then it's not infinitely old. An universe is not infinitely old.

It had a beginning. The personal cause works. The impersonal cause does not work. Therefore, the universe was caused to exist by a personal cause, namely

God. Real simple. This is the argument

I've used against Eddie Tabash. I've used it successfully against many atheists.

When it comes to this, however, there's some problems that some atheists are bringing up.

Now, in the tag argument I use, it's the same variation. Check this out.

Let's see if I can do this right. We have P, and then we have,

I'm not sure, just do this way, continue on. Not P. P and not

P. So I can do this the way they do it. I haven't done this for a while. I wasn't planning on this. We have

P, and not P. Let's do that. Okay. We have two instances.

So we only have this option, and this option. Personal and not personal. If we negate this, then the only thing left is

P. So P, not P. Therefore, if it's not P, like this, not

P. Therefore, P. We have P and not

P. So therefore, it's not P. Therefore, P. Okay. And what they're saying is, well, when you negate this, this becomes equal to that.

P equals P, so therefore, it's meaningless. This is the refutation that is floating around the well.

And it took me, this guy introduced me to this, an atheist. He said, my argument is trivial.

Makes the issue of, you know, personal, not personal. If it's not personal, therefore, it's personal, because this means it's equal to that, and that means this equals this, and that's tautologous, and it's meaningless.

And the atheists are saying it's now refuted, because of this. Seriously. Okay.

And so it's not refuted, because it's still true, it's either P or not P. It's still true, and it's still true when you negate one of the only two possibilities.

The other one has to be valid. It's still true. Now, I don't know the symbolic logic well enough to be able to say what the right way to write this thing is, but what they're actually doing, the atheists are actually doing is saying, if you say there's only two options,

P and not P, they'll grant you that.

Most of them will. That's a really obstreperous. They'll grant you that, but as soon as you say not

P, therefore P, well, that's just saying that P is P. There's something wrong in them thinking someplace.

It's the bridge of the gap between these, and I know it,

I can't articulate it. So what if you just say A and B? A represents P, B represents not

P. So it's not B, therefore A. It's the same thing. Right, but I did logic class.

That's exactly how it works. Yeah, yeah, that's what they say, and so this is their big refutation.

So when I've talked to them, I say, wait a minute, is it still true that you only have two options? After 20 minutes, they'll finally say yes, because they argue all the way.

Yes. So if we remove one, is the other one still true? Well, yes, but your thing's wrong.

Okay, is it still true? Yes. Then how's it wrong? It's wrong. Why? Because P equals P. Exactly.

That's exactly correct. P would be P. Personal would be the only option left.

I even ran this by John Frame. John Frame, you know, well -known apologist, and he said,

I said, I wrote what I just said here. I go, is it still true? He goes, yep. Yeah, what's the big deal?

He says, you're exactly right. So I was supposed to have met with a PhD in analytical philosophy, and we're going to write out in the way that they like the reputation.

But at any rate, it hasn't happened yet. So anyway, P or not P, and this is basically how it works.

So we only have these two options. The universe is caused personally or not caused personally. The cause of the universe is either a personal cause, or it's not the case that the cause of the universe is a personal cause.

Well, if it's not the personal cause, then it's not a... If it's not not personal, then it has to be personal, right?

No problem. Personal. But then they'd say, no, you can't do that. On paper, it doesn't work.

Oh, yeah, it does. And this is a big reputation they've got. So that is basically the cosmological argument for God's existence.

Now, of course, I'm not going to be arguing for the Muslim God. I'm not going to be arguing for the Mormon God.

I'm only going to be arguing for the Christian God. The Muslim God is self -refuting, as is the Mormon one. So they can't be true.

And nevertheless, those are the... That's it. Okay? Interesting?

A little bit? Okay, let me try something else with you. Something popped in my mind. And I haven't worked through this yet.

I'm thinking out loud. I'm going to put some pieces together. It gets you to think. I've already done parts of this here.

And I'll do a little bit more. And have some fun with something that I... I'm just thinking it through.

All right, now I've got a question. Now... All right.

Now, is this true? Okay, is that true?

Two plus two equals four. What year is it, Winston? That's true, right? What'd you say?

What year is it, Winston? Yeah, what year is it? What'd you say? And if it's modern math in California, then it's not true.

Whatever you feel it is, it's true. Okay, what do you reckon? Kidding aside. So two plus two is four.

That is true. All right. We know that's true.

Now, here's a question. Should... Should we believe that two plus two is four?

Yes. Should we believe it? Ought we believe that two plus two is four?

We should. Why? It's true.

Because it's true. So we simply ought... ought to believe truth, right?

Is that what we're saying? Is it true that we ought to believe what's true?

Well, yes. Because if it's not true, we can't believe anything. And if we believe things that are not true, we can't know anything.

But since we know we ought to believe what is true, we're assuming truth. Now, we can take a tangent and get into the necessary preconditions for intelligibility and God is a necessary precondition for all of this.

But I'm not going to for now. We ought to believe in truth. Now, this word here, ought. So we're going to talk about this in different senses.

Two senses. Ought. Okay. Now, we have a...

I'm going to just call it... I don't know what to call it the right way. Maybe these guys have thought about this before me.

I'm sure they have. This is just my own thinking. Logical ought and a moral ought.

So logically, we ought to believe 2 plus 2 is 4. Because when I go to a restaurant and I pay my bill,

I want to be able to know that 2 plus 2 is 4, 3 plus 3 is 6, and 100 minus 50 is 50.

Because this represents mathematics, all right? It doesn't matter what formula it is. This is what it is. So there's a logical requirement, a logical thing about this.

That we ought to believe that 2 plus 2 is 4, logically. The reason we would say that is because, well, it works out for practicality.

Because I want to be able to make my car payment. I want to be able to eat right. Count my calories. Know how much medicine to take.

Now, what's interesting about this is... I'm going to draw something here. Tell me what you guys think this is. Okay. It's a lion.

Thank you very much. We have an intelligent person back here. All right. And here we go.

Let's see. All right. Anybody know what that is yet?

Hells? Is it a bridge? No. This is so stupid.

So it's a roller coaster. Yeah, a roller coaster. We're supposed to figure this out for the artistry. I know,

I'm pretty bad. But he got it. The least intelligent person here got it. Okay.

So Cameron's got... You're right. Now, roller coaster. Theoretically, we could all get on a computer and program and write.

You use physics, trig, calculus. And we could design using nothing but math a roller coaster.

Print the plans up. The builders go out and build it and it works.

Why? Why does math, 2 plus 3 equals 4, relate to our world, to actuality?

This is something I'm wondering about recently. Because it's just describing reality. But why does it relate to it?

Math described reality. It's transcendental. But it's transcendental. I guess it is. That's the only reason

I can find any commonality to transcendentals. Now, 2 plus 2 is 4. And we can design something and it works.

A roller coaster works. And this relates to reality, to actuality.

So we could say then, one of the reasons we ought to believe this is logical necessity.

And this has to do with practicality too. Right? It has to do with practicality.

Because if we get our math wrong, right? We don't want that.

You don't want to have problems. All right. So now look at this. So now if we're designing this, do we have a moral obligation to do our math properly?

To do the physics properly. Physics, math. Do we have a moral obligation to do this properly?

Now, we've got people who are going to be writing on this. Because there's people involved, do we have a moral obligation to do it right?

So no one gets hurt? Yes. But what if there's no people involved?

Now do we have a moral obligation to do what's right? Maybe you want to watch a break.

Maybe you want to watch a break. But then that comes with intentionality. And morality deals with intention.

So if I were to slap you, is it morally right or morally wrong? It depends.

If I don't like your haircut, that's a good reason. But for most people, it would not be,

I guess. But if there's a, it would not be a good reason just to slap you because I don't like you. But if there's a dangerous something on your cheek and is going to bite you, and I'm saving you and I whack it to kill it, the exact same action is good.

But another time it's bad because the intention. Now just because something is intended doesn't mean it's automatically right or wrong.

That's another discussion. But we're talking about the issue of morality. But morality deals with people.

Morality deals with people, not just objects. In other words, this computer and this podium don't have moral issues dealing with each other.

Morality only really comes into play when we talk about people. And when we have people, look, like I saw or read about a video of some guys dragging a shark by its tail behind a boat.

I don't know if you guys saw that or not. And people were outraged at it because people were, these three guys in a boat, speedboat that were dragging this thing, and it was just flipping and bouncing and things alive and basically torturing it.

And just for fun, they were laughing about it. Well, you know, so outraged because people were involved in doing something.

So if we are going to build this, and people are going to be on it, we have a moral obligation to do it properly.

But then again, on the other hand, what the heck? Who is that? I'm teaching a

Bible study. Call me back tomorrow. Whoever you are. And from Ontario, California, I got his name.

They don't even recognize his name. It's weird. So we have a moral obligation. Now, let's just say that we know there will be no people on there.

What we're going to do is try and get this to crash. Okay, I'm going to see these.

Let's see. Hello? Hi, Matt. I have a monthly donation.

Tell you what, I'm teaching a Bible study. You called twice, which is why I picked up. Call back tomorrow at the office, okay?

The office number? Yes. Or call this number at noon tomorrow, okay?

Okay, I'll do that. Okay, thanks. Thank you. Okay, bye. I don't know how that name got in.

Twice call, it's weird. Sorry about that. So if we want this to crash, then what we're doing is saying that the crash is what we desire to occur.

And that's a good thing because we want to do that. But if we wanted to crash, we would do the math in such a way that it would crash.

But even then, we would do the math on purpose. So we would discover what would make it crash. So in either way, the math has to relate accurately.

If we have people on here and we do the math improperly, people get hurt. Well, that's another issue.

But math is interesting. It relates to this. It relates to actuality. And we're getting to the why, which is transcendentalism.

So we have a morality to do with believing that math, for example, is there.

But I'm using math because it's neutral. And it's true that 2 plus 2 equals 4.

And we've already agreed we ought to believe that 2 plus 2 is 4 for logical reasons.

And also, we could say for moral reasons, particularly when people are going to be involved.

So ought we believe the truth? Yes, whenever we can take this.

I'm skipping a lot of options. But whenever people are involved, then we ought to believe what is true.

Right? Now, we have in a present situation, for example, the left media.

The left media is not concerned about truth. The leftist media...

This wasn't why I was getting all this. I'm just throwing this out. Our leftist media is not concerned about truth.

The leftist media is concerned about agenda. Anybody who's supposed to be reporting information is morally obligated to present the truth.

Not an agenda. Whether the truth is for you or against you. Truth is the issue.

And all of us should be trying to deal truthfully with everybody else.

Because that's what's morally right. Now, why is it 2 plus 2 equals 4 relates to the world?

And he stepped ahead. And he's... I think he's correct. But the issue... This time, the issue has to do with transcendentals.

So this is a 2. And that's a 2. So these are manifestations of 2 -ness.

Now, did

I just destroy 2 -ness? No, 2 -ness still exists.

Because look, here's two more 2's. So what I did was I erased instances of the concept of a 2.

I didn't destroy 2 -ness. What I did was I erased or destroyed a manifestation or a particular instance of 2 -ness.

Now, 2 exists there. 2 exists there. And look at this. 2 exists here.

And I wrote them in different places at different times. Now, if... You know, I was just in Denver a couple weeks ago doing some debates.

And I'm sure if I would have said, what's 2 plus 2, people would have gotten it. In fact, the plane

I drove flew on... This represents mechanics and stuff. The plane, I'm sure that the engineers knew 2 plus 2 equals 4.

Now, so 2 -ness is a concept.

4 -ness is a concept. Plus is a concept. Equal is a concept. Roller coaster is a concept.

The only way in my limited education in this area that I can find to bridge the gap between the concept and the reality is by transcendentals.

Because from what I understand, all transcendentals are abstractions.

So chalk, coat, microphone, cell phone, all of these are concepts.

And there's a cell phone here. We have cell phones. Like, Rob's got a cell phone. He's on. And so cell phone -ness is in there as well as here.

So we recognize the mental aspect of what it means to say cell phone or laptop or microphone or chalk or chalkboard or numbers or concepts and ideas.

Transcendentals are those universal abstractions that are not dependent upon space and time for their validity or their actuality.

They have existence because we tap into them. We recognize them.

We discover them. And yet we know that they are all conceptual, as is a roller coaster.

The idea of a roller coaster is a construct of individual parts by which we then say roller coaster.

And we can build one here and we can build one over there using the exact same math. So what we're seeing is that the transcendental nature of math and the transcendental nature of truth about how it works in relationship to actuality have a common thread.

The common thread is transcendentals. A transcendental, again, is an abstraction, a universal truth abstraction.

And the universal truth abstractions are all around us. We're standing on a floor. There's a roof above us.

Floor -ness, roof -ness. Now, some people might say, well, that's awfully platonic of you. Well, maybe, maybe not.

But I'm presupposing the universal transcendent mind of the Christian God, who is behind all things, who holds all things in place by the exertion of his will.

I believe that since we're made in the image of God, we are then able and made capable of understanding these things as they relate.

And my opinion is somehow in the mind and the work of God, I don't know how, that the concepts of math and the actuality of our existence are related as God has decreed that they be related by his divine mind and purpose.

That's way beyond me to be able to get into. I just believe it's the case. I don't know how it works. I just believe it is.

It's the only way I can bridge the gap between the transcendental nature of math as it relates to actuality, and it actually does.

Actuality actually is the manifestation of transcendental truths. And this is transcendental.

And since they both are, therefore, there's a common denominator between them. And that's what I think. I can't articulate much more than that.

What do you think of that? It's good. Interesting. In your article, you added to that by saying, and truth statements require a universal mind.

Yeah. Universal truth statements require universal mind. Yes. Because one plus one would be two anywhere in the universe.

Yes. I think that math is the stronger transcendental because it proves logic.

You have to have logic to be able to observe math anywhere in the universe. Some people think that math is a subset of logic and are the same.

These guys get into some weird conversations. Occasionally, I'll hear somebody talk about these things and I'll bring it up.

I think logic is logically part of math. Okay. Logic is logically part of math.

Okay. Might be. So this is what I've been thinking.

I haven't read anything about this. I'm just thinking these things out. I don't know if they're good or bad. I don't know if my thoughts make any sense.

I don't know if other guys have thought these things. But this is what I've been wondering about lately. And so I'm thinking about writing an article called

Bumping into Transcendentals. We live in a world of God's mind.

Now, I'm certainly not going to get into this idea of the mind sciences, what Christian science would say. Matt, we love what you're saying.

Because everything is divine mind. And you've got to think properly about the divine mind. No. God became flesh.

God dwelt with us. And the reason we exist is because of his decrees in us as revealed in the scriptures and things like that.

So mind science denies the incarnation, denies all kinds of stuff. Go to history.

Science and health is the key to the scriptures. Page 25, line 8 through 12, I think. I can't believe

I remember this. The material blood of Jesus was no more efficacious to cleanse from sin when it was shed upon the accursed cross than when it was flowing through his veins as he went about daily performing his father's duty.

That's from like 25 years ago. Okay. Back when I was younger. So anyway, there's some things

I've been thinking about. And this gets into the issue of the cosmological argument for God's existence.

Because we have to use logic. P, not P. These are conceptual entities. These are universal truths.

These are a priori truths. And we also know the nature of infinity going back to some degree that we can't have the universe be infinitely old.

And God is behind that. I believe God is behind this. I believe God is behind everything.

And I also suspect that the manifestation of God's exertion in our universe in the issues of truth, abstractions, and actuality is far, far, far, far greater than any of us have any capacity to conceive of.

I see things like this as being bubbles in a giant ocean of God's truth.

We see one bubble come up. Hey, look at that. And it's vast. That's what I think. I think

God is so completely, ominously, beautifully, wonderfully in control of everything that his majesty is unfathomable.

And he has everything in our lives worked out. And yet at the same time, we can help direct our own courses as God has directing what we do as well.

I believe that God is so far greater than our capacity. This is what this is causing me to think.

These kind of things. So anyway, 2 plus 2 is 4. That's when

I hear people say that now, because that's what I started with. I believe 2 plus 2 is 4. Why?

And that's what I've been thinking about for a while. Anyway, interesting. Yeah.

All right. Why don't we take a break for 5 or 10? Come back. We'll do some Q &A. And since the holidays are coming up, we'll not make it too long.

And then we'll mosey on. And we're not going to be doing this until January, the first Wednesday of January. Yeah. And we'll figure out what we're going to do then.

I got some ideas already. Thinking about stuff. Oh, that's right.

Actually, Josh, the pastor here texted me.

And let me see if I can find his message. Because I was doing something when

I saw it come up. He says, I believe most nights are available. Tuesday and Thursdays, there's stuff happening upstairs.

So it was maybe loud. Don't know. But you're free to use it then. But I think Mondays and Friday, except for special events, nothing is going on.

All right. All right. So let's close out. We'll take a break.

Come back. Do some Q &A. All right. All right. We're gone. Oh, that's right. Lord, thank you for this time.

And I ask, Lord, that you would just once again bless the hearers. And I hope that these two talks have been interesting, a little challenging.

And Lord, I just think we're just barely, barely able to just begin to scratch the surface of that iceberg, that part of the truth that we can see.

You're just vast. And Lord, I just ask that you would just bless the hearers and bless us.

Bless me, Lord, as well. And that your mercy and grace would just abound upon us.

And that you would convict people of their sins. And they would realize how great you are. And that they're going to face you one day.

And that holiness requires righteousness. So, Lord Jesus, I just ask you be with us. Thanks for this time.