Ask an Apologist #presup #apologetics #jasonlisle #jamesrwhite #apologia

Episode of revealed apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala and tonight. I have a very special live stream a

Q &A ask an apologist theme live -stream and so you have Three apologists you have one little pig me little apologist myself and two giants of the thing

Jason Lyle and James White super excited to have both these brothers here and hopefully we can cover kind of I'm not gonna take too much time with the introductions because everyone knows who

Everyone here is But I'm looking forward to kind of addressing a lot of the questions that folks have

If we don't get as many questions as I have been anticipating I do have a whole bunch of questions to to throw in there that I think will be

Useful I think dr. White got raptured and now it's only dr. Lyle and I I don't know if that's if that's consistent

It is James James a pre -millennial dispensationalist. Is he a secret? Secret max, so when it works

Well, I'm sure he'll pop in You know in a few moments there but so yeah, so happy to be happy to be here with Jason and James I just want to throw this out for folks who are interested

I actually did a mock debate with a fairly well -known youtuber by the name of Hayden Rodea and that's gonna drop tomorrow at 11 a .m

Eastern I've shared the the post on my Facebook page and basically it's a role play

Hayden plays an atheist. I'm the you know, the standard presuppositional list and and I think we covered lots of ground

So folks were interested in what presuppositional ism looks like in the context of a debate discussion I think folks will find that super interesting

So without further ado, I don't know. I thought he would have returned sooner, but we'll see.

We'll see Let me see. Let me get Twitter up here. That's the primary way We interact here.

Let me see Okay trying to reconnect there we go. Yeah, he's trying to reconnect that's fine

So I just want to give folks a heads up if I mean we we're gonna have a lot of viewers I would imagine if you don't want me to skip your question, please

Preface your question with question. Okay. Now, this is another set of instructions

You also want to preface your question with the person you'd like to answer the question

So all three of us two of us for now Fair game If you have a question for me just say question

Eli and your question question Jason and your question so on and so forth Okay, so without further ado as we're waiting for dr

White is there anything you'd like to say by way of welcomes and I know you were just on just not that long ago

But uh, would you like to share anything before we get started? Well, just thanks for thanks for having me on and it's good to be back and I'm good to good to chat with James He's gonna be here in Colorado in a month.

So we're gonna try to hang out and do some stargazing. That should be fun Awesome. Very good. Well, let's jump right in I mean,

I'm sure I would imagine he would get connected at some point and we'll see this is a question from Alyssa Scott Help me understand

Jacob wrestling with God and winning Did you have any thoughts on the on that story with Jacob dr.

Lyle It's yeah, it's in Genesis. So it's something that it's least at least partly under my umbrella, although it's beyond chapter 11

So it's it's a little bit outside my wheelhouse and I was hoping I saw that I thought that's a great question I can't wait to see what

James says about that Yeah, I mean it's obvious that it is God because Jacob says as much he says

I've seen the face of God and lived and the fact that God wrestles with that it's I see it a little bit like a father, you know

Wrestling with his little toddler now the father has the power To kill that toddler, but he wouldn't because it's he's the father and so it's that kind of wrestling match

It's one where God easily obviously could win, but he wanted to see Jacob's tenacity you wanted to see if he would hold on to him and he blessed him

God blessed him as a result of that that he was holding on to him. So Jacob on some level It's it's a strange encounter but God works in mysterious ways and that's one of those ways that he worked in the past and revealed himself to Jacob and he blessed

Jacob for holding on we're holding on to God and you know and got you know, God says it's morning, you know

Let me go as like as if well, you have to go to work or something No, I mean God it's it's for Jacob's benefit that he needs.

Yes He knows that Jacob has other stuff to do it's time to end this and Jacob No, you need to bless me and God does bless him

So it's just one of those weird ways that God worked in the past and it's an angel of the

Lord but sometimes the term angel of the Lord means the Lord himself angels just messenger and sometimes that messenger is

Christ himself who is of course God, you know, but what I like about the story is kind of its broader implication

I mean if you remember the story that Jacob is is given the name Israel a one who struggles with God and I think that's so Appropriate of the entire story of the

Old Testament right the entire story of the Old Testament is a story of Israel Struggling with their

God and by extension from a Christian perspective right living in this modern context We read that story How accurate is that with respect to our walk with God that we wrestle with God in so many different ways?

and so I think Just to piggyback what you were saying I think one of the reasons why these type of stories play out is

God is also teaching us something at a broader level So there's a specific historical application to that story for sure

But for those who will come to the scriptures later and read this there is a very strong sense in which the

Christian life is One in which we're wrestling with God and God invites not rebellion

But that give -and -take interaction in terms of relationship, which I think is so important now, dr

White just messaged me here says that stream yard does not like me. He's gonna try to he's gonna try to To reconnect.

I'm gonna see if let me see if I could send I don't know how to send the link again.

It should be the same link. Hmm. All right We'll let him try a couple more minutes if he has difficulty.

I'll see what I can do on my end So let's continue and I'll keep my eye on any text or anything like that.

Okay. All right Here's a question for dr. White who is not here as a synergist

I recently took you up on your challenge to walk through John 6 and Romans 9 without jumping around. I'm now a monergist lol

Do you have any upcoming debates on this? Well, we can't speak to dr. White, right?

But let's talk about monergism real quick Would you mind defining monergism for us?

Dr. Lyle and maybe talk a little just briefly about why it's so important theologically in terms of how it relates to Understanding the grace of God and how salvation works and things like that.

Well, yeah, it's basically God does all the saving Salvation is a hundred percent of God and it has to be that way

Because the Bible indicates that we have nothing to boast about in our salvation So everything, you know the faith that we have what's

God's gift to us Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith. Jesus initiates our faith He's the one that gives us that faith, but but I repented of my sins

Well that was granted to you by God you wouldn't repent of your sins except God gives you a new heart But I changed my mind

Well, you can't change you can change your mind on some issues But you can't change your heart the heart is the core of your being and you can't do heart surgery on yourself

You just can't do that It's only God who can take out that heart of stone and replace it with the heart of flesh

The Bible is very clear about that that before you're saved you're dead in your trespasses And when you're dead, you really can't do too much at all other than take up space

You can't do anything that's pleasing to God when you're spiritually dead So God has to be the one to give you the faith to trust in him that faith that and yes

Faith is an aspect obviously of salvation You can't be saved apart from faith But that faith is by God's grace and it's by him alone not by works lest any man should boast

And so that's the that that key lest any man should boast that really once you realize that takes out anything in terms of our contribution to our salvation because the question that often comes up is

In particular because we all I mean think I think we all agree. I hope that Salvation is from God, but there are some people who say yes

But you know, I had to do something there's something of me in that it God did the saving to be sure

But hey The reason I'm saved and Joe Schmoe isn't something good in me and the

Bible says no because then you'd have something you could boast about Sure. So the reason that I'm saved and this person is not as yet saved.

We don't know that he'll remain that way It's by God's sovereign decree It's because God has chosen to open up my eyes and he hasn't as yet opened up the eyes of my of my

Colleague over here who is not as yet saved. So salvation is entirely of God and it's not of us

Yeah, monergism is that the teaching of monergism is so convincing to me

It's actually one of one of the standards that if I consider review if it if it's not monergistic

It's that's not even on my radar because I'm so convinced that monergism is is is correct I remember when I was a while back.

I was flirting with Molin ism. I actually was a Molinist for quite some time And it was as a result of reading a book by dr.

Kenneth Keith Lee who's a professor at Southeastern Theological Seminary right here in North Carolina where I am he's not that far from me

And he wrote a book called salvation and sovereignty. I think that's what it's called a Molinist perspective and he

Presented Molinism, but he presented in such a way where he tried to maintain monergism this is interesting because one of the two key components of a

Molinist perspective is the notion of libertarian free will and The idea that God has middle knowledge and for folks who are not familiar with that middle knowledge is the kind of knowledge that God has

It's counterfactual knowledge that God has That exists logically prior to his divine decree.

And so he had this I'm not familiar with this He had what's called the ambulatory model of salvation.

So he says that the sinner is kind of like someone who's laying on a stretcher and He wakes up and finds himself being taken to the hospital if he does nothing

He will be taken to the hospital ie the point of regeneration and be saved and so see it's monergistic

Okay. Yeah. So now the thing that he can do is he can choose to get off the stretcher

But if he doesn't do anything, he'll be taken to the hospital It's like oh look That's monergistic and I'm like that that works and so I was a

Molinist for a little while until I recognized something Wait a minute. Is that the biblical example that you know, the

Word of God provides Are we people on stretchers being taken to a hospital or are we people who are by nature are at enmity with God?

If that's the case and I'm at enmity with God by nature, then I would never just sit on the stretcher

I would my decision to remain on the stretcher would be a decision that was made prior to regeneration

In which case you have an unregenerate person doing something spiritually good namely making the decision to stay on the stretcher so right there

I was like when you try to Stay monergistic, but you incorporate elements that don't fit with monergism

It kind of reminds me of kind of like a bootlegged version of something that is of higher quality. It's kind of like, you know

Magical marshmallows the bootlegged version of lucky charms, right? You kind of dress up monergism, but really it's not it's not genuine

And so that was something that I struggled with and I came to understand that monergism I should take it as the scripture says

I don't need to adopt these other Convoluted theological perspectives. And so yeah, so there you go.

Let me recommend too. There was a debate that James White did against William Lane Craig on that topic.

Molinism was at least a big part of the debate, right? And I thought I thought it was very helpful. I disagree with William Lane Craig on just about everything but In particular on that issue.

I thought now that's not true. You both believe that God exists Well, I mean even he wasn't it wasn't it

Bill Maher that asked him are you sure that God exists he said well, no Lawrence Krauss Lawrence Krauss. Oh, that was

Lawrence Krauss. Yeah. So I'm sure God exists. So even there I'm sure that God exists.

I'm not sure they got it. So you both believe it God exists, but you believe it God exists in different ways That's it. That's an interesting distinction.

All right, dr. Lyle. This next question is for you Now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna post the question up there and allow you to answer it, but I'm going to Exit the room resend the link to dr.

White and come back in. Okay, okay Okay, if I don't return you can just make creation jokes or Bible jokes, you know, like You know

Adam knocked on the door Yeah, like a Protestant a Catholic walk into a bar. I think you'll do fine, but I won't leave you too long

Okay, I want to make sure I'm able to get back in. Okay Okay Here's the next question.

So this is from sky apologetics ultimate proof of creation is awesome And then someone and then they asked here we go.

Sorry Jason, will you be updating the ultimate proof of creation? So why don't you tell folks a little bit about what that book is about if they're not familiar with and then perhaps share

If you're making an update to that book and I'll be right back. Okay. Okay. Sounds good Yeah, so this is the this is the book ultimate proof creation.

There it is It's one of the earlier books that I wrote back in I think it's 2006 This is 2009 man.

I was studying this stuff earlier than that But it's my it's my personal favorite of all the books that I've written and what it does is it gives you an ultimate proof?

Biblical creation. That's what it's designed to do And but more it does it does more than that It really proves the

Christian worldview and it does so by what's called a transcendental argument Basically showing that the

Christian worldview and biblical creation in particular must be true because of the impossibility of The contrary that there is no other worldview that can make sense of those things that are that are necessary Logically for us to have knowledge about anything and I kind of focused in on the scientific aspects.

So while I'd be updating it Not again. I did an update back in I don't remember but a number of years ago

I did update it and So if you have if you have the version that has an index in the back

That's the updated version if it has no index It's it's the original and all I did in the update really was there's just a few things that I wasn't happy with the way

I'd worded them. I mean the arguments the same. It's just that Having read more

Bonson in the meantime, I thought I need to say this a little more precisely So I've already updated it once and I'm not likely to update it again

Nor will there be a sequel people have asked is there a part two? No, because then it wouldn't be the ultimate proof right? This this is it you get this book.

That's it It's the ultimate proof but I have thought of doing books were Something like conversations involving the ultimate proof where I show how to use this technique and there's already examples of that in the book there's some examples in the appendix of me using this technique and actual conversations that I've had with skeptics and I've thought about writing a follow -up or the more conversations that I've had with skeptics on how to apply that But I'm not planning on updating the book itself again.

Yeah, it's excellent book. I think you cover such I mean, it's it the interesting thing about Your book.

Let me see. Dr. White is messaging me here. So Let me see.

Can you dr. White? I have this blank square on the screen. Can you can you talk? I don't know.

Can you hear me? I There's just a big Rectangle but you're there you're there.

I have absolutely no idea I've reset my computer.

I've done everything that I know to do and It simply will not

Everything's working on my end So and when it cut me off that was not just a slow failure.

That was we don't like you you go away Yeah, I I don't know.

Well, dr. White I know because you're fairly well -known People know what you look like if you feel comfortable we could hear you perfectly

If there's a question you could see us. Would you mind still staying on with us? Even if you're a black screen black square on the screen

Well, you can you can you can put the black square down if that if you have that Capacity and I can

I can chat. I don't I don't know what else to do about it Well, well,

I don't mind keeping you up there so that you're at least verbally involved in the discussion because I think more more people

We all know what you look like and unfortunately, we can't see you But I'm sure folks would still like to hear your thoughts on the questions that up something happened.

Well, you haven't appeared I'm I'm just hitting I'm just hitting buttons, you know I'm like,

I don't know why it worked for a while and then it's like nope. You're out of here I'm gonna actually look like someone just said nut you're out of here.

It's so so you are everything's plugged in all the way and My I can yeah everything if you go to if you go to settings does it set to tell you

I have tried Everything in settings there is to use the settings. All right well, if you don't mind

I'd love to still have you we could hear you perfectly and You know, maybe maybe when

I upload this later I can edit it and I can put like a still You know when you're looking at your opponent exegetically that but that one's a good one we can have you looking down All right, well here's a question for Jason And then the next question will let dr.

White cover because it's actually an interesting one. I'd be interested in dr White's thoughts, but here's a question for Jason How do we see the light from stars being millions of light years away?

Even though the earth has only been here for 6 ,000 years. I'm sure that's a you've never heard that question Yeah, that's a very common one and different creationists will give different answers.

There's not a consensus, but I can give you my opinion There's there's different ways that God could have done that but the easiest way the simplest way is that he's using a definition of simultaneity that was the

Universal definition before modern times and basically simultaneity

Defines how we what do we mean by now? Over there like now right now means the time that my watch says but what do

I mean by now over there? And there's different ways of doing it But one of them involves what's called the visual synchrony convention

Whereas we define things by when we see them happen. And so if you see a star explode, when did the star explode?

Well when you saw it happen Which is concurrent with when the light reaches your eyes and Einstein actually wrote about that and Realized that these that that's that's a perfectly legitimate convention

You might think well doesn't it take time for the light to get from there to here and the answer is it depends on how? You define simultaneity

It turns out that it doesn't necessarily take any time at all for light to get from there to here depending on how you define

Now the speed of light in in one direction keys can be as much as instantaneous Now when we talk about the speed of light the speed of light that we measure that's always a round -trip speed effectively

We're measuring the speed that the time it takes to send light out bounce it off from here and bring it back And then we measure the total time we measure the total distance divide the total distance by the time that gives you an average speed

And in a vacuum that is always a hundred eighty six thousand two hundred eighty two point three nine seven miles per second

And it can't be changed in vacuum But the one -way speed can be as much as infinity and then the

Return speed would then have to be half of the canonical value the speed of light to make up for that And so that's called the anisotropic synchrony convention or ask

ASC I've written on that there's a lot on our website on that topic if you go to our topics astronomy distance starlight

You'll get a whole series on that issue and I've written up technical articles too and the answers research journal for example

So that's that's the that's the short answers to how we do it the long answers check the website or my book the physics of Einstein which gives you enough of the physics of Einstein to understand that answer and even be able to prove it mathematically actually.

Hmm. Excellent. Very good. Very interesting. Dr. White. This one's for you It's for everyone, but I'd like to hear you

I'm interested in what you have to say about this one who really was Melchizedek was he just a type of Christ or was he something more a lot of people have questions about this because he he's

Almost it almost seems like it's a pre -incarnate Christ situation, but I know there are different views on that What are your thoughts on Melchizedek?

Well, yeah, there are a lot of different views on it. I Obviously he was a historical figure.

He existed in time. He interacted with Abram, but Is he a?

Pre -incarnate Christophany Or something along those lines

Well, we're not really told I don't I don't think it matters Which way you take it as long as you don't push it too far one way or the other

Because he is said to be without father and mother and so if he was a historical Figure he did have a father and mother and you could understand that as well

But their father mother wasn't mentioned and that's all it's being referenced and things like that I don't think there's any way to be dogmatic one way or the other

On that element of saying well, is this a Christophany is this something along those lines he certainly represents those things you could you can understand it that way, but No, I I think you the the key obviously is that you have this mysterious

Person in the Old Testament revelation and then you see the fulfillment that comes in the

New Testament And yeah, that really makes you go. Hmm what a what a fascinating thing and and it does point to the unity of You know

Genesis through Revelation. Hmm, and that's a very Unusual position anymore.

I'm that's that's how theology and biblical studies were done up until the Enlightenment and from that point forward

It became much more over time the default to assume disharmony disconnection a natural reading of the text rather than Going Wow, you know, here's

Melchizedek in Genesis. Here's Melchizedek in Hebrews and therefore there needs to be a connection and harmony and Instead today in the vast majority of stuff you'll get taught in seminary that part just isn't there you just don't you don't do the the harmonization thing is considered to be fundamentalistic and Backwards so, you know, but dr

Why what are your thoughts on because I've heard with respect to Melchizedek the idea that he's without Father or mother is just a kind of a linguistic way of referring to the fact that he gained his priesthood not by normal means of it being passed on That's basically what

I was saying is that you know, is that just simply a statement that that's not recorded for particular reasons

We're not told there are you know, you can you can speculate you can

Go well, you know, my favorite preacher said this is song. Okay, fine.

Unfortunately When you're involved in apologetics you actually sort of have to prove stuff so I tend to be a little less willing to dive into a lot of the especially

Especially the stuff you read in the early church Which which is strange because I mean they were involved in apologetics too, but it was in a very different very different context and a very different Way of doing debate and things like that than we have today.

So But man you read some of the early church Speculations on relationships of this person of that person and numerology and everything else that was

Rather rather common even in people that we have a lot of respect for today But you know, you can be reading along in August and going.

Oh, this is great. This is great. You turn the page and go. Whoa Just go

I have no idea what just happened Yeah, that's That's a common experience

That's a great point actually because a lot of people appealed to the early church as kind of like being so important and they are

But you're right there They're the early church fathers said all sorts of things and that's why we need to test what they say with Against the

Word of God not simply just appeal to the fact that they're closer to the Apostles Yeah, and what you you've got to be really really careful when you hear people say well the early church believed this we right we only have a

You know, sometimes with somebody we have most of their major works, you know

We certainly have most of what Augustine did things like that, but then there are other people we only have fragmentary amounts of material it's maybe been quoted by somebody else and So you you have that issue to have to deal with that you're looking at fragmentary amounts of information

But then the other thing is, you know I've used this as an example and for years and no one's ever disputed it or even tried to respond to it, but the first relatively focused full -length

Discussion of the atonement in early church history comes in the fourth century so Does that mean nobody was talking about the atonement before then?

No, but There were other issues that were significantly more the central focus

Christology being the primary issue and so when people try to say well still there was a

Ubiquitous unanimous consensus On the soteriology that goes this direction.

I go. No there wasn't and they weren't even talking about it So you are simply inserting stuff into Material that just could you know cannot possibly

Substantiate what you're claiming But it happens all the time. Mm -hmm. All right.

Thank you for that next question from musculus prove Eddie that sounds Italian For dr.

Lyle, how fundamental do you think the old earth creationist verse young earth creationist debate is some people view this as a

Salvation issue. What are your thoughts on that? Well, it's not directly a salvation issue Nobody's saying you have to believe in six days to be saved that that itself would be heretical

The the main issue that makes it relevant salvation is death before sin Because if you have death before sin if sin it then that means

Adams Sin did not result in death coming to the world because death was already in the world And if death was already in the world

Then why did Jesus have to die on the cross what if death is not the penalty percent and it really undermines the atonement

So that's that's the that's the issue. The number is not the issue. The number is I mean the number is something that we would say comes out of Reading the

Bible hermeneutically exegetically and so that's another thing that I would say I would say that there's no way you can simply walk through the text of Scripture and come away saying yeah

There's no doubt thirteen point eight billion years. You'd never get that from the text of Scripture You'd never get that but you can read through it naturally and say yes six days a few thousand years between Adam and Christ So that would be about six thousand years ago something like that So I think exegetically the the young earth position is strong the old earth creation position

I don't believe it can be defended exegetically. Okay, and by the way, a lot of over there's will admit that they'll say yeah

We we don't get that from Scripture But we think that Scripture at least allows for it and then we get the millions of years from what they think is science

And I would challenge them even on that issue because there's there's really nothing in science that would do that either But so that's where the issue is.

It is It is foundational not because the age itself is is an issue

But because death being the penalty for sin is in play and the method by which we interpret

Scripture is in play Are we permitted to reinterpret God's Word to be congenial with the current understanding of human beings?

I think that's a dangerous approach. We're all tempted to do that, but we got to be very careful not to do that No, I'm gonna throw a monkey wrench at you.

Dr. Lyle. I'm not sure if you aware of this, but if you listen to Q and I think it's a Q &A session with dr.

Bonson He was asked a question about death before the fall and if I heard him correctly He does not hold to the position that it is necessarily the case that there was no death before the fall

He actually seemed to be not okay with it But kind of like there's there's no reason to think that there wasn't necessarily death before the fall

So so how would you interact with someone who says well? I'm not sure this is necessarily something you can get from the scriptures or if you can it's not something that he seemed to have

Too much of a problem with he did admit that there wasn't a lot of information With respect to that necessarily, but what are your thoughts on that?

Sorry to pit you against our box But I don't think I would be I think he would have I think you because I've heard that Q &A

I've heard everything by Bonson. So you're not gonna Well anything that's

I don't know I don't there but have you ever have you ever read Maybe I shouldn't say this. I'll get in trouble.

I'll say maybe when we're off when Never mind, go ahead even read somebody like his follow -up to the

Bonson Stein debate I've read that stuff too and that's not even publicly available, but I've read it Anyway, yeah but in anyway the

Yeah, so I think I think when Boston was talking about that He was he was qualifying it because there's different definitions of life and death in modern biologists use a different definition of life and death and the

Bible uses and so they would include things like bacteria and Plants as living the Bible doesn't the

Bible the word the Hebrew words nephet nephesh chi living creatures It applies to human beings. It applies to animals

It's never used of plants plants are never referred to as nephesh chi nor bacteria as far as I know The Bible doesn't mention those and and so You know do bacteria die before sin?

Well, yeah But in a biological sense, but not in a nephesh sense because they're not alive to begin with So I think that's what he was referring to but I do know that Bonson had the biblical timescale, right?

He was what we would call young earth creationist because I heard him defend that in his other presentations, correct? Very good Thank you for that.

Here's a question for all of us as a fun question here So, what are what are your fate? What's your favorite Bonson book lecture and material in general?

Dr. White? Why don't you share? Something that maybe you've read or listened to of dr. Bonson. You're like, hey, that was a really good talker good book

I'm sure you've read a lot of Bonson back in your early days. I'd imagine it's not part of I'm sorry, who's this

Bonson fellow? Yeah, he was an Arminian philosopher I remember when

I first went to Phoenix Reform Baptist Church, I think one of the very first Times I visited and by the way, you know how this you know where this camera is coming from.

It's my cell phone It's good quality. I was gonna say I've never seen this angle. I've never seen your ceiling before Where else can

I you know, I mean literally it's it's my cell phone So, I mean, I have no plate. I have no way of you know

Sticking it on something someplace. So I I've just got it sitting on my Battery's gonna last but how in the world is that working when three 4k cameras sitting there?

He probably said I have a little thing for you I have no earthly idea what all that's about but anyway

Um, it was one of those first times when I was introduced to the the debate with Stein and And that was back before we had run

Stein that that that audio through 47 ,000 different audio filters, which now makes them all sound like they're from another planet or something like that.

But I remember that was a That was right around the same time

I was reading Van Till which will melt your mind as well and so You know

At the same time I was reading Van Till and he was talking about Roman Catholicism I was involved with Operation Rescue and I was getting kicked out of Operation Rescue Because I was talking about Roman Catholicism.

You can't do that in the pro -life movement And so there was a lot of stuff going on at the at the same time

I never knew until the Bonson family gave Apologia Church All of you know, you know

Bonson you is is something that Apologia does I just never knew there's just so much there that you can listen to entire series is on Proverbs and all sorts of stuff like that.

I mean the guy the guy produced a lot in a short period of time I've outlived him by a long shot now which is sort of an amazing thing to start thinking about you get to my age and you

You know, I can give you a whole list of people. I've debated who are now dead I don't think it's because they debated me but it's sort of just simply the progress of time

Hope not We're really we wanted to have some debates I'm going to Colorado in less than a month now and we want to have some debates up there and We just it's it's not happening

We're struggling with it so So I still I still go back to that, you know to that stuff

And of course, I don't want to go on any longer here But I just would recommend to anybody because I know it

I'm pretty certain it's on YouTube I of course,

I knew I I I It's not like Greg and I were buddies or something like that But he did trust me enough that he had he had been scheduled to debate.

Jerry Matta ticks in Omaha, Nebraska On Roman Catholicism and that's when the opportunities for him to debate the two homosexuals came up for the same weekend

Hmm, and so he asked me to take the debates in Omaha. I can guarantee you Jerry Matta ticks was not happy about that and and so I did and So we had some other connections his dad was involved in ordaining a dear friend of mine

Jeff Neal who co -authored my book on homosexuality with me and So I knew he was going into the hospital.

I knew this was his third open -heart Situation most people don't survive that this was 95 not 2024

Diabetes is a horrible disease and so I I kept really up on what was going on at that at that time and it was only

I think maybe a month after he passed that I managed to get hold of a cassette tape copy

Of his final sermon. I was old enough for cassette tapes when I grew up. I was born 1982 So when you make reference to cassette tapes and like I that's my error

I mean, I'm not old but I I was around for those things a lot of a lot of people today I have no idea what you're talking about.

They're CDs and everything and then all they've ever had but his he basically got to preach his funerals for him and It's It's an amazing thing to listen to and I highly recommend it to everybody.

No, excellent. What about you? Dr. Lyle a favorite book lecture material in general.

They're all so good and I've been so blessed by it Yes, I've listened to his Proverbs series He's got these series on different books of the

Bible and praise God they were recorded because each one is a gem Yeah, and you'll learn something new

I mean, yeah, I've been a Christian for a long time But when I listen to bonds and I learned something new and and something that's valuable to me his his book always ready is a good

Premier introduction to a presuppositional apologetics. That's a good one to begin with sure any of his materials on Apologetics the the

CD set one of the best ones in terms not only of the quality of the material but the audio quality because a lot of his stuff was poor quality, but one that was very well done was it was done by American Vision and Was it a yes?

Yeah, and there's it's a two -volume set if you get all the CDs, of course, you can get it now, you know online for nothing, but If the audio quality is superb in that one and the content is amazing and he basically

Presuppositionally refutes everything that's not Christianity and he does it systematically and logically and it's brilliant So his his presentations were masterful.

He's a good writer. He's an excellent presenter He just had something he would just the way he spoke was amazing. Yeah I'm gonna get in trouble for this, but his book theonomy and Christian ethics

I think is very brilliant and I would highly recommend it and then Jason's camera goes off I look what you did.

Those are the buzzwords YouTube just waits for you to say it and you know Thank you for sharing that I'd have to say

One of his more if someone wants to understand kind of the main thrust of the presuppositional argumentation in my opinion

I think the best thing to listen to over and over again to capture the essence of the argument not necessarily the biblical foundation

Obviously that's important is his lecture lecture lecture series on transcendental arguments

That's actually American vision just put out a transcript Of his lecture series called the objective proof for Christianity and it was edited by a friend of mine

Joshua pillows I'm highly recommend the book But if you go to apologia or sermon audio listen to the series lectures on a transcendental arguments

That's the scent the central nugget of the argument So if you really want to understand the argument itself

Listen to those and of course he has Lectures on everything related to that biblical foundations theological foundations and so forth.

So highly recommend that dr. White I would imagine this one is for you Anyone for anyone who knows but I would imagine only dr.

White would know this one. I Don't put anything past Jason Any updates on the

CB GM coherence based genealogical method text I feel like it's been three to four years since a notable update

So so Jason between all your you're searching for exoplanets and stuff. You're not doing CB GM I you know, it's it's fascinating and I'd love to because I like textual criticism and I love

What you know in my doctoral research? I that's what I did basically was took huge data sets and then tried to extract patterns from them

And that's kind of what this project is But I don't I don't have the time to study it in depth the way you do So this is definitely you're slow down guys.

I'm asking chat GPT. What the heck this thing is. I don't know Well, you know it's sad

I I'll try to be short. I started a

PhD program at what used to be known as potter's room University in Potter's room,

South Africa and the reason I went there was side of the fact I was traveling down there every year Was my dr.

Votter? Did his PhD under Metzger at Princeton and I was going to use this

P45 as sort of a window into the period of time before our manuscripts pick up so because p45

It could originally contain Matthew Mark Luke John and acts the only manuscript we have

That contained all of that But each one of them had a different textual Character to them.

So I was thinking this could give us a light into that dark period It's a very short dark period in comparison to any other work of antiquity but still and unless you have the originals then that's that situation you're facing and Once we start on that immediately

I ran into CBGM the CBGM really originates you

You'd say 2010 to 2014 That time period is when it starts starts to ramp up and start being used there aren't 200 people in in the world right now that really have a handle on CBGM So, you know a lot of folks in New Testament have read some basic stuff about it

Peter Gurry who teaches here at Phoenix Seminary did his dissertation on the subject which is published by Brill and So I immediately was faced with CBGM.

So I had to work through it to see how that was going to be relevant to the

Study that I was doing So far Coherence -based genealogical methodology, which is

Based upon having the largest collations of Greek manuscripts we've ever had

People in the past who did textual criticism would just die to have the amount of data which is online you can go online and that's a bummer about what's going on right now is

I I Could if my setup was working correctly or whatever is going on.

I could Actually show you this material online It's free.

You don't have to pay money for it. I like that. All this material is out there to be to be used but so far

The CBGM has been used to analyze the the manuscripts and the readings in Mark acts and the general epistles

Revelation is done and is coming out by the end of the summer

Now again, you can get all this stuff online, but if you want to have the beautiful bound volumes

Get ready to rob a bank because The revelation just revelation is four volumes

Just under 2 ,000 pages and is about six hundred and thirty dollars Mark was 360, but that was before by dynamics kicked in So I have it because I sort of need to have it and So in answer to the question, the next update is revelation

And like I said, it is done. I actually visited Munster, which is the headquarters of all this stuff in January of 2019 and I met with the guy who was running all of it.

He told me that they had funding through 2030 And that Mark was already done and That it did eventually come out

John, unfortunately was farmed out to Birmingham and The guy that was doing it in Birmingham has retired and no one's picked up.

So it's like stuck and Which I find troubling honestly because I think once either

Paul's epistles or John Finally gets the treatment and Is published in what's called the

ECM. I don't have my ECM volumes in here But the edition of critical me or this massive critical edition of Greek New Testament I think once you know because there's some really key variants in John Gospel John John 118 for example be a really important one

And of course, there's variants in Paul Romans 5 1 things like that Maybe finally it will

Start sneaking out of the back rooms of New Testament textual criticism at first.

It's gonna be Scientists use computers to change Bible and all the rest is silly stuff like that the reality is if you look at the

Changes that have come about by the use of CBGM CBGM is just a tool.

It's not If it's not like you put it in and out comes the answer What it does is it?

Yeah, I'll give you a real quick example Jude 7 Jude 5. Sorry The standard reading of The Nessie Allen text all along has been the

Lord delivered a people from Egypt The Nessie Allen 28th edition says

Jesus Delivered a people from Egypt now, we've known that the manuscripts had couriers and Jesus all along what we didn't know and couldn't know and Jason would really get this aspect of it is

What what the computer analysis can do is keep so many data points Focused you can access that the human mind just can't there's too much stuff out there and So the reason that the na28 and hence the versions of that that will come afterwards

Now read Jesus is because the manuscripts that read

Jesus have higher coherence than the manuscripts that say

Lord and what that means is Many of the manuscripts that say Lord their closest relative which the computer can identify by Looking at all the readings in the manuscript

The ones that say Lord will have close relatives to say Jesus But the ones that say

Jesus their close relative to say Jesus. So there is coherence. There is consistency in the copying methodology and So that's why they've adopted that now interestingly enough

The NESB 2020 Rejected the CBGM analysis and kept

Lord and that's fine. They they actually wrote up. I don't know about four or five page

Thing where they explained their reasoning and stuff like that but the point is it's it's a tool and Your New Testament has already been impacted by it and Will be

I think in the future But so far and every volume They publish a list.

This is all the changes we made from the Nessie Island to the ECM and the number has been tiny and honestly in 95 % of them if you don't read

Greek, you wouldn't even be able to understand what the difference is It's a grammatical termination or something like that. So what that's telling us is we've been doing a pretty decent job all along And now that we've got much broader collation data sets to draw from We actually did.

All right up until this point in time. So there are still some really important variants

That will be addressed and revelation. Oh my goodness Revelation has the wildest textual.

It's it's the wild wild west of textual variation. So I'm gonna be fascinated to see

These volumes we've already ordered ours to see these volumes and see but again

I've already heard there's only like 80 changes from the Nessie Island 28 Which may sound like a lot quote -unquote changes again 95 % of them unless you read the language

You're not even gonna know how it how it impacts it. That's so I I don't know.

What's next. I think I Think Matthew is next I've been hoping for John for a long time.

Like I said, but I think Matthew may be next. We'll see Interesting.

Well given the fact that if you say CB GM really quick It sounds like you're speaking in tongues, which leads us into our next question

Is it biblical and logical to believe in Apostle gifts the gifts of being around for today? So I guess this is

Specifically with respect to Apostles, but I guess the various gifts and things like that. I know that could be a controversial question

I don't know if if it is for you guys, feel free to answer that in any way you'd like I'd want to clarify when it is it biblical and logical to believe in the

Apostolic sign gifts. Yes in gifts that existed during the age of the

Apostles I mean, there's there's a lot of different directions that have to be gone there if we're talking about Gifts Specifically given to the

Apostles to verify the validity of the divine revelation coming through them.

That's one thing right if we're talking about gifts given to the church like discernment ministries things like that, that's something completely different and I was of course raised in a primarily independent fundamentalist

Baptist background and so We we just blew all of that off, but once I started seriously studying theology

I thought a cessationist was a person who believed that there were specific apostolic

Gifts that marked the Apostles out separately from You know other people so as to verify the the validity of their message

I've discovered that there is different kinds of cessationism and there are literally people who do believe that all of the gifts that you would see in the

New Testament have ceased and I could not possibly hold that I mean so I it seems to me that so many of these gifts of the

Spirit are meant for the continuation of the church and For the promulgation of the gospel and things like that So there is an extreme form of cessationism that I would not hold to I think the cessationism that I hold to is a sort of mainstream understanding of specific apostolic gifts

That had a particular purpose and function at that time in history You can get into 80 70 destruction of Jerusalem stuff like that argumentation at that point and Then there's there's you know, you go from there.

So That's how I I think the way we with the whole spiritual gifts and the you know

You see debates titled and have this have the spiritual gifts ceased and all this kind of stuff I had a mentor back on Long Island by the name of pastor.

We'll shoot Bill Shishko And I know you're familiar with with pastor Shishko. Dr. White actually did a very good debate with him on his baptism

He scared about five years out of my life once Okay Well, I mean he had he brought a gavel to the debate

And he was sitting behind me and when the time Expired for some reason he and it was right behind me.

It's like a gunshot. Yeah Yeah, I lost about five years. I'm actually only 47

Well, well he's an OPC guy and and I'm in my theology

I'm a reformed Baptist myself and he was trying for a time to convince me of infant baptism. And so we

We were I used to go to I used to love going to his office because every time I went to his office he would let me leave with a box of books and I was able to finagle out of his possession a signed copy of defense of the faith

Cornelius Van Tilts I have a signed copy of Van Tilts defense of the faith and I remember asking and I have this he goes

No, sir, you put that back. You know how he talks at least, you know Eventually, I was able to finagle it out

But we got into the topic of spiritual gifts and in one of our discussions because I grew up in us in a

Spanish Pentecostal church And I think one way that was helpful that he kind of suggested the way we come at the question because a lot of people

Say are the gifts for today. He says the better question is what is the purpose of the gifts? And when you establish the purpose and that puts you in a better position as to whether it is still for today now

Regardless of where people land on that question I think perhaps kind of rephrasing the question and coming at the topic from that angle

I think is is is super helpful. You have any thoughts on on on the question there. Dr. Lyle I'm tempted to answer it in an unknown tongue and then people can interpret

Scientific jargon That's how you answered the question about the speed of light so why not

You have no right to be telling us about the speed of light because you know I thought James answer was good.

And I think that the real issue for me is I believe the canons closed I think there's good evidence for that. And so if you know if people are are speaking new revelation from God Wouldn't that be new scripture?

You know if we if we wrote that down wouldn't it wouldn't we add that to the Bible then and so I don't think that Happens, I think that causes all kinds of problems.

I believe the faiths already been delivered to the Saints. So I like this question.

This is for dr. Lyle. Can you list favorite science book titles for parents? Homeschooling, I love this question because a lot of people who are just you know, they're not in the world of apologetics

They're not in the world of science or theology But they're really just trying to teach their children and have good resources

And so these are great questions and perhaps you can answer this question for this individual here. Yeah, I'll try well not

Not to sound too commercial, but the ones that I've written I would highly recommend My grandkids

Are using them so You know when you wake up 3 in the morning and you watch the infomercials and you have those pastors if you call the number on the bottom of your screen, we'll send you a copy of Jason does those commercials live because he's up at 3 a .m.

Staring at some nebula someplace We'll send you some sand from the Holy Land and a copy of his logic textbook.

There we go. My logic textbook We're just not a science. They're asking about science books, but my logic textbook I wrote with homeschoolers in mind that was you know whenever you write a book you kind of You have an audience that you're writing to and I try to make it as broad as possible

I try to write to a broad range, but ultimately others, you know, there's a person I'm thinking of that I'm trying to reach but the logic book it was homeschoolers and I wrote the study guide for that as well

So the tests and quizzes I came up with those and I need to order the study guide I didn't know there's a study guide.

I teach from that textbook. So it's like for the majority of the year I will take I I need it. I'd what

I'm creating The chapters I'm like typing it like a doofus and there's a whole study guy.

Yeah, I gotta order that Okay, you need to order it on Amazon or something get it from our website.

Yes, you can order it on Amazon Okay. Well if it helps on the website, I'll do I'll do it that way that yeah, either way either way and then the

With this for astronomy, I've written taking back astronomy and stargazers guide to the night sky Those are the two books that I wrote and there would be perfectly suitable for junior high to high school high school level students stargazers guide chapter 2 gets a little meatier, but you can skip it it's

If you want to it's it's it depends on how much in -depth you want to go into that topic

But it's it's kind of how to enjoy the night sky from a Christian perspective Whereas taking back astronomy is more of an apologetic book that gives an overview of astronomy

And I use those books when I've taught even college level classes I just I beef it up a little bit. But what

I've taught at Masters University, for example, I I used to teach a Winter in class where you compress a semester into a week

It's quite intense and those are the books that I recommend the students read and then I just add to that a little bit and our website is

A free resource and I'm in the process right now reorganizing some of the topics on that but you can use that website

There's a lot of information biblical science Institute comm go to topics. We got we got articles on astronomy physics

Biology genetics theology geology, whatever you name it The other thing is

I can't give a list of all these different books for homeschoolers I'm not a parent and so I don't

I don't tend to keep up with it as much Other than the ones that I myself have written. Well, I'm a parent

I'm a parent Jason and your content is perfect for I teach middle school. So I teach eighth grade

Logic and so it is perfect the kids like the chapters. It's easy to follow The only thing is

I'm I'm just really bent out of shape that I have manually typed up I'm so I'm laughing but inside I'm crying.

Okay next question here. This is another one for dr. Lyle And then there's another one for dr.

White right right after that one. So here's a question here from Chris Dr. Lyle, I've asked this before but could you explain whether God could know the one -way speed of light?

If not, does it have to do with indexicality in relation to his omniscience at all? interesting question

Yeah, it is an interesting question and the answer is Actually, no because the speed of light is not a property of nature.

It's not something that has one answer or another Okay. Now he could he can know in advance what what one -way speed of light you'll prefer certainly and he does because he knows everything

That's logically knowable But it's it's like asking the question is suppose.

I have a table. That's Three feet long and I ask you now is this table really three feet long or is it one yard long?

And which which one of those two is right? And does God know which one's right? Well God knows that those two things are equivalent

One foot is the same as three yards and it's the same way with the one -way speed of light

We tend to think well, it's either this or it's that but the fundamental reality is what's called the space -time interval

That's the thing that is fixed by God that is is objective and independent of human experience

But the one -way speed of light depends on how we choose to define now and God has given us options on how to choose to define now within a certain limits and That's called that that principle is called the conventionality of simultaneity

And you might even look up there's there's even a good Wikipedia article on it believe it or not It's actually reasonably accurate on the conventionality of simultaneity how we define now at a distance and because there's more than one way to do it

Because it's a matter of definition rather than Truth in nature. It's something that God allows us to choose like picking your favorite color

God God will know what you pick but it's no objectively better than anyone else's choice I hope that kind of gives you a ballpark understanding of where we're going with that.

Sure. Absolutely Next questions for dr. White James White, how do

I become the best anti -catholic Eastern Orthodox apologists? Absolutely any advice from the best apologists against this stuff is greatly appreciated now

Let me preface this by saying I Happen to agree a lot of the stuff that I've learned in terms of interacting with Catholics and Eastern Orthodox stuff has been listening to Many of your debates which are very different than a lot of the debates that are out there

I mean, I tell people all this time all the time when I first got into apologetics I listened to all of William Lane Craig's debates, but let me tell you something

You listen to one opening statement. You've heard them all Whereas You know, dr.

White's position, but you know that when you listen to a James White debate There's gonna be some fireworks and I mean that in a good way.

There's interaction. There's spontaneity If you're not reading through a script, it's much more conversational and back and forth

And I think at least for me that's helpful in terms of kind of seeing I learn in conflict So when

I see views in conflict and clash the way they do in many of your debates, I learn a lot So I really appreciate this question, but go ahead.

Dr. White Why don't you which would probably mean you didn't get a lot out of my recent debates with Jimmy Akin? Because when you're when your opponent has his opening statement both rebuttals and closing statements in slides

Before the debate begins You know, there's not gonna be a whole lot of interaction going on that Your Tassie debate was probably the most difficult one because he had you on the ropes a couple of Cuz it was clear

Jason have you seen the Steve Tassie debate? I don't think so. Good It was clear he had you on the ropes because you're clearly a

Molinist I yeah Fact I don't even list that in my in my list if I was

Eric if I was Eric and Cantor I'd have it on there ten times, but I don't even put that on the list.

Um, I Don't like the phraseology Anti -catholic, but if we're talking about responding to Catholic claims and what's interesting is

I am doing a little bit more next week In fact, we're providing to do a program With Jason Wallace on Cyril Lucaris the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople who was a

Calvinist? We're gonna do a program on that There's a great video that Jason's put out and he did some good digging to provide more information on that But I haven't when people say oh you've been dealing with Eastern Orthodoxy when

Hank Hanegraaff converted to Orthodoxy a number of years ago. I I think this is one area where there is such a challenge to communicate

That that's one of the reasons there's so little information out there and what I mean by that is real

Eastern Orthodox theology Does not function on a linear

Logical level like we do in the West and As such I think probably would cause

Jason's hair to turn gray much faster than it currently is if he really dove into that area

Because it's really outside Of Our normal experience and so having those conversations is really tough.

There is a rise in Orthodox Apologetic activity right now but I think it's primarily been prompted by Francis's Strange machinations in Rome more than anything else.

So in answer to the question when When when people ask me generally apologetically, what were the most important classes you took?

To prepare you to be able to do the broad work of apologetics But this is especially true in dealing with Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy.

It's it's real easy church history in Greek. Mm -hmm, so Being able to deal with the original languages is really really important really really valuable and if you're gonna do one of the two, it's got to be

Greek because While Hebrews fascinating and wonderful and beautiful and all the rest that kind of stuff

The vast majority of time you're dealing with Old Testament passages. It's as they are being cited in the

New Testament and they're being cited almost always by the Greek in the Greek Septuagint, so Greek Vitally important.

I don't know why more apologists are not polished In that field it just I don't understand it

Well, I think I know I think I know why a lot of apologists are generalists. They will argue broadly

They're not in the text as much in my well, okay Yeah, but when you get pressed to the foundations

Unless unless it's someone whose foundation isn't really biblical in the first place, but when you're pressed to the foundations

Man that's just that's just basic stuff from all the way back before the

Reformation But anyway, so Greek and then church history There there's few areas where it's so obvious that Christians can be just so completely

Befuddled then when someone starts throwing church history Citations at them. They don't know when these when these men lived what context they lived in What what were the actual?

conflicts of their day Any of that kind of stuff and so you can you can make claims that are just absolutely outrageous

Well, isn't it Martin Luther who nailed the 95 theses on the the White House to start the civil rights movement is that is that If I got it wrong,

I don't know. Yeah. Yeah It's almost it's almost that bad.

I mean, oh, what was the guy on MSNBC? He used to be a conservative coffee with Anyway There's some guy who once was a

Republican Elected official who now is a leftist wackadoodle on MSNBC And I guess the week before last he went on MSNBC and told the whole world that if you just would do

Enough study you would realize that the Christian Church supported abortion up until 1980.

Mm -hmm and the sad thing is what percentage of even sound evangelical believers

Would have Even the first inkling of where to go to or even where to look to refute such a completely

Idiotic claim it is a completely idiotic claim, but if you can't demonstrate that it's an idiotic complain

Claim then, you know, what good is that? So those two areas and of course obviously dealing with Roman Catholicism Eastern Orthodoxy Yeah, okay

Yeah, there you go Last dividing line I was doing I was reading out of the

Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea so This is I think this volume itself

May be one of the most important volumes in demonstrating the fundamental fallibility of both

Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy since they both claim a form of apostolic continuation and infallibility they both claim to hold to Second Nicaea.

This is not this is not the Nicene Creed. Okay, I don't want to don't want to get in trouble on that one We're not talking about what the

Southern Baptists were talking about last week We're talking about 787 here And this is the council that defined the necessity of honoring and venerating icons

And anathematized anyone who would not do so The biblical argumentation presented in here is

Absolutely laughable. It's laughable and so Knowing that context and being able to use that kind of information

That's really what has made our debates with Roman Catholics, especially Very different than you know,

Dave Hunt. Okay, let's just you know, use someone who's really really well known along those lines They had never run into anybody who knew church history hmm, and So it's sort of like when someone runs into Jason and wants to start talking astrophysics.

It's like oh, well, let's talk about that Because I've been listening to converts to Catholicism Jerry Matitick Scott Hahn People like this and they were debating a certain non denominational denomination almost all the time

I won't mention which one it is but and they once they get into church history, they would just steamroll these guys because This particular non denominational denomination has no concern about being connected to church history in the first place so Once once we started getting involved in August of 1990 that started to change so That's what

I would say an answer to the question. Hmm. All right. Thank you for that Next question another van

Till question. This is for myself and dr. White Recommended reading in terms of van

Till in order. I would say I kind of was flummoxing in the background Well, dr.

White was answering the question, but I wanted to get Christian apologetics by van Till if you're going to Access van

Till and not access him through Greg Bonson Which I highly recommend you access him through Greg Bonson first, or you know, even dr.

Lyle's ultimate proof for creation This is the best place to start. It's thin it's straightforward and in kind of nugget form

You have all of the key elements of the presuppositional methodology. So that's the entry point if you're looking for something super easy

Don't look for van Till. I think there's a really good book out there It's super super introductory.

It's called every believer confident by Mark Farnham I always suggest that to people who have never heard of presuppositional apologetics.

So I highly recommend that but do you Dr. White or dr. Lyle have any ideas that once you finish this one?

Do you have any suggestions in the direction someone might go in studying van Till? All I was gonna say was none of that stuff existed when

I first started reading that stuff. I had the old P &R In fact

They were the old old P &R that had like the the the courier font like the typewriter font in The in actual books you guys know you probably never even seen those guys.

Have you yeah? There was no Bonson for me to read when I first started writing in this stuff. He was still alive.

He was still working So I didn't get to do all that. I had to read the sort of English Dutch Cornelius van

Till and So yeah, that can be a challenge. There's been all sorts of neat stuff that has come out since then

It'd be a whole lot easier to get a decent introduction Now than it was in the mid -1980s when when

I first started dealing with this stuff So it is helpful to have that that new stuff out there.

Cool Bonson's book where he Bonson on van Till I got all my shelf back there where he you get a lot of van

Till in the book But Bonson sort of interprets it for you. So it's it makes it a lot more sensible van

Tills Apologetic I think is the title of it by Bonson, but it's it's a combination of analysis

Yeah, it's like yay thick yep It's not an easy read but it's it's easier than pure van

Till I think because you get Bonson's interpretation of it, right, right Next question from Alyssa Scott.

I would like to hear everybody's answer Please if somebody asked you how do you know the Bible is true is the true

Word of God? What do you say? How about dr. Lau? Why don't you start first? I know it's true by the impossibility of the contrary that is any alternative to the

Bible would not make sense of those things that are necessary for knowledge and logic and observation morality anything all these things that you take for granted or things that make sense in the

Biblical worldview and make sense in no other worldview and at that point the person's gonna challenge me and say well, you know

I think this world you can make sense of that and then I'll say how and then we'll we'll interact from there But that's gonna be my start is that knowledge begins with God It's something the

Bible itself teaches that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge Colossians 2 3 or Proverbs 1 7 the fear of the

Lord's the beginning of knowledge Knowledge comes from God He's his mind is the source of all truth and then our minds are the recipients of some truth

And so unless the Bible is true, we would have no way of justifying no way of knowing we might have beliefs that happen to be true, but we'd have no way of knowing that they're true and So that that is the the short answer and then depending on how the conversation goes we can get into the details of that.

Hmm Dr. White well Obviously, I'm really impressed when

Jason can summarize stuff that the us old guys, you know We wander around for about 10 minutes trying to make ourselves look smart to say the things he says in like 47 seconds, but Obviously what you're dealing with today,

I would just add It just it just strikes me that Almost the the generation coming up the young generation

Especially if they have been only taught in the public indoctrination system

Have already had some of the most important switches in the mind turned off in regards to the ability to Hear what

Jason just said and to Listen to it and think about it rather than respond emotionally.

Hmm I think that's really what throws a lot of people off is that They'll listen to Jason to listen to me.

They'll listen to Jeff Durbin. They'll listen to whoever presenting Factual cases and you know building building blocks and this upon that this one that and At the end they're like, yeah, but I just that just sounds mean and and You need to realize that's really what they're thinking.

That's what they have been taught to do in the indoctrination system is to emote rather than think and if I didn't believe that Our Ultimate contact point is in fact

That they are made in the image of God. I would I would really question whether there's any sense and even trying and I was thinking about as I was driving in I wondered if a question would come up that would be relevant along these lines and That is we can sound so Ah Clinical and Logical and scientific and and you know you

James what you're always talking about Greek or church history people We've never heard of another system and the reality is all that stuff is important, but I I completely recognize

I can't tell you how many people how many times people have come to me my Cousin just joined such -and -such a group and you need to come over and get him out of this and I'm like the chances aren't very good that's gonna happen and they're like why and I can explain to them the convert syndrome and the honeymoon stage and all the rest of stuff that I've experienced over and over and over again, but the reality is and this is important for reformed people to Explain to people often we do believe in the

Holy Spirit and We do believe that fundamentally the only way to get past all of the

Conditioning that has taken place the rebellion the conditioning everything else is for the

Spirit of God to bring conviction of sin open hearts and minds we Everything that we're doing

Will not accomplish that without the work of the Spirit and so You know if you're thrown into an apologetic situation suddenly without Warning okay, you can trust the

Spirit of God's gonna work work in you and and and your proclamation The truth is gonna be glorifying to God But obviously if you know you're gonna be going into something like that man you should really be praying for the

Spirit to use your words and for the Spirit to be present and and all the rest that stuff because I can

I can press home the antithesis But until spiritual life is given

All I'm doing is really impressing myself. You know, I think Yeah, I think there's an important distinction to be made with respect to how we know the

Bible is true This Word of God and how we provide a justification for it So when we talk about presuppositional apologetics and say the utilization of transcendental argumentation

Which is kind of the centerpiece of the methodology I would say that We know the

Bible's the Word of God because his spirit his spirit bears witness to our spirit Romans 8 16 There is a theological response to that question

I remember listening to an interview with a well -known Christian apologist whose name I will not mention But he's been on the show before when asked.

How do you know or why are you a Christian or? You know, why do you believe the Bible's true? I think he gave the answer because of the evidence

And that was it it just because the evidence is there and I'm thinking to myself I'm like when someone asked the question, how do you know the

Bible is the Word of God? I think it's so important to be able to answer that in the way that the

Bible Explains as to why we believe and I think we we don't answer that question in a way

That's consistent with the very Bible we say is true Evidence plays a key role, but that's not the reason why we believe because of our hardened hearts

We look at the evidence and we we balk at the evidence so I think we want to make a distinction between how we know the

Bible's true and it's the Word of God and how we Show it to be true. And I think one of the ways we do that as presuppositional list is

Maybe the transcendental argument or some other approach along those lines, but we want to Give God the credit in terms of bringing us to a knowledge of the truth of his word

When I was talking to pastor Shishko years ago I was asking him questions about Van Til because he known him personally and I said, you know

What kind of person was Van Til just kind of just boil it down and he looked at me says well well

Elias You know how he talks Well, he has that very warm deep voice that you all you need is a warm glass of milk and you're out, right?

Well, well Elias Van Til if I could explain him in a phrase

He was Like a child living in his father's world and that was it. I was like, huh?

And as an intellectual giant that he was it really boiled down to if this is what God said

I'm gonna believe it. I'm gonna trust my father and Someone could only be in that position by the grace of God And so I think when we answer this question

We need to answer that question in the way that God explains as to why we know it's only by his grace

And that's why we give him full credit But the tools that he's given us in terms of justifying that claim

We can utilize all sorts of things transcendental presuppositional argumentation, which is part of that But I would keep those two things distinct how we know it's true and the things we use to provide a justification for its truth

Okay Thank you for $5 super super chat question How do we refute primitive

Baptist theology eternal justification and no temporal application and any other thoughts on those issues?

I don't know if you understand that question or If that's something you don't want to get into that's fine as well.

Well, I Suppose in some parts of the u .s.

It's a it's still a Real real issue. I haven't run in anybody like that in in Arizona.

They're smart enough to not live in the heat, I guess but down south there's there's some of that Most people never heard about it

It has to do with forms of what would touch on hyper

Calvinism the idea that Well as it as it says right there eternal justification so if you're in Christ if you're of the elect then

You have to have been justified All all of the work of Christ had to have been applied to you in eternity past so that you have been eternally justified and it's a it's a conflation of eternity and and Time and the fact that obviously in the scriptures

It's said very plainly in Ephesians. You were children of wrath even as the rest

But God and so yes what God did to bring about My justification took place long before I was born but the justification in God's decree is on the exercise of saving faith in time and Therefore it takes place in time.

There is a the ordo salutis is Primarily logical relationship between You know adoption justification

Sanctification so on so forth, but there is somewhat of a there has to be a temporal aspect to it because we're temporal beings and so the the idea of eternal justification feeds into the

Hyper Calvinistic idea that you don't have to do evangelism What you're looking for is evidences that someone has already been regenerated which means they've already they've already been justified and You're just letting them know what's actually happened to them rather than calling sinners to repentance.

Hmm and that kind of theology did Well that was that was part of the opposition to the initial missionary movements

And you know sending missionaries out to foreign lands and stuff like that. There is a mate an amazing amount of opposition to that from reformed and Baptists and conservatives and so on and so forth.

It was the Reformed and the Baptists that were pushing it too, but the point was That theology had ramifications and that those ramifications

Sort of worked out in time and we look back now and and think about people like adeniram

Judson And they were they had to deal with this kind of stuff. That was part of the big argument going on in their day

Sure, and they fought against it Andrew Fuller as well You may not necessarily agree with all of the arguments they made the conclusions they came to But it was a major.

It was a major area of Controversy for a long long period of time. Okay. Thank you for that I'd like to give a shout out to Semper Picatum for your $50 super chat.

Thank you so much I really appreciate that very much. Thank you He says great conversation. All three of you are gentlemen.

All three of you gentlemen are tremendous blessing. Thank you Really appreciate that. Here's a question for don't worry

When I go back to Arizona then I'll use this $50 to buy you Mexican food It sounds good to me, all right

Dr. Lyle, how about you tackle this one here? How do we respond to critics who say the Bible does not lay out a consistent univocal worldview that provides the preconditions for intelligibility?

But rather an inconsistent picture of God. I'd ask him to defend that because I don't think that's true

The Bible's self -consistent and it would have to be it's the Word of God and God doesn't deny himself so the Bible gives us a very consistent a picture of God God has

Different attributes and we see different attributes acting at different times So we see God's wrath in some instances his mercy and love and others and so on but it's the same

God So I don't see any inconsistency there. I'd have to I'd have to follow up and say what what do you perceive as an inconsistency?

Because the preconditions for intelligibility that I'm looking at would be things like laws of logic Which are universal rules of correct reasoning that don't change with time

The Christian God makes sense of that because the Christian God is the source of all truth All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in Christ Colossians 2 3

They are they apply everywhere because God's omnipresent and sovereign over the entire universe He says do not do not fill heaven and earth

So they apply everywhere and they don't change with time because God doesn't right I the Lord do not change therefore you sons of Jacob were not consumed and so I can make sense of that based on the character of God as Revealed in Scripture and likewise for some degree of uniformity in nature because God tells me that in certain circumstances

The future will be like the past if the conditions are sufficiently similar. We have a promise from God There are cycles in nature

Genesis 8 22 and so on and God's in a position to know that because he's beyond time He created time.

He declares the end from the beginning So he's in a position to know that and to tell me that and likewise with morality

So, you know, I don't see what those I don't see I'm thinking I'm reading the question out loud to myself I wonder which preconditions of intelligibility does the biblical

God not provide? I mean you have Personal identity through time we have a doctrine of creation and man and identity what it means to be a human being

You know uniformity as you mentioned laws of logic I don't I don't see how the Christian worldview doesn't so Those critics that I've encountered would not would not argue that way

Anyway, most of them will admit yeah, the Christian God can make sense of that but they think something else can too that's right or some other

God can or they think a God that they can they think they Can make up a God that can they said you really believe in that God? Well, I just made him up to show it.

Well a fictional God can't account for anything So unless you unless you admit you actually believe in that God. That's a good point. I think yeah, right

So yeah, so most of them will admit the Christian world you can do that It's just they think something else can as well and then

I would press them on that. Sure. Thank you for that. Dr What I mean, I would just very briefly Say that you know

Jason I don't know if you've ever considered this a blessing but You really have been blessed that you didn't have to go to like Fuller Theological Seminary And and the reason is and we need to understand this and conservatives need to understand this

That if you do go to almost any theological seminary any

Bible College today You are going to minimally encounter and in all probabilities be taught that what we're doing is we are oversimplifying and we are assuming

Continuity consistency harmony Everything all the passages you just quoted you are assuming that There is an overarching revelation that's found across scripture and I'll just never forget when

I went to Fuller and man when I went to Fuller Fuller is Continuing on its leftward trajectory.

They just put out a thing where they're very clearly they're gonna eventually Change their views on homosexuality gay marriage the whole nine yards.

It's it's it's inevitable but When I was there from 85 to 89 not in Pasadena, I did it here in Phoenix, but I remember this fellow who started at the same time

I did and he was a part of a local evangelical church was involved in in evangelism and stuff like that and over the course those four years

I Saw him get a Masters of Divinity degree in Confusion And he

Did not have nearly the confidence in the Christian faith when he graduated than he did when he started and Thankfully, I was already involved with apologetics when

I started at Fuller and So I already knew how the faith was being attacked and so When I would see it in the books,

I was reading. I'm like, okay, I get it But most people don't have that and so we are in the minority and so I understand the question

Christopher's question because in the vast majority of places you would go to and I'm not talking about The State University or something like that I'm talking about in Bible colleges and seminaries

You're going to be taught that there is no coherent overarching Interpretation of Scripture that results in a coherent worldview.

That's what you're gonna be taught And when we see the rainbow stolled chicks in the

ELCA pulpit They're the majority not us That's a fact just we need to recognize that and know why it is, you know

Well, let's uh, let's try to wrap things up here. We were at the an hour and a half I really appreciate you guys giving me so much your time.

I do apologize. Dr. White for some technical difficulties But you're here. You're here work. And by the way

Using your phone. I've got to see parts of your office. I've never seen before well, you know,

I I was going to I was going to apologize to Jason because I sort of feel it's it's a little bit unfair

That I have that wonderful Enterprise D warp core behind me and he doesn't have an enterprise

Do you have an Enterprise D warp core not a warp core, but I got an Enterprise D But but hey

Jordi Jordi had to ask to borrow this For the end of Picard, so, you know, they had to get the

Enterprise D working again, so I feel left out because You see that I see it.

I see it. Yep. There's Romulan Warbird. I got a few others too. Okay. Yeah Yeah, I got a bunch of this.

You see now now Eli you made a big mistake I know because because when when Jason and I get together and we're gonna be getting together in July I'm going up to Colorado Springs.

I hope the weather is good for that night If not, we'll sit around and do Star Trek stuff But when we get together and sit around at eating chips and salsa and stuff like that Inevitably, it ends up being a test of who knows

Star Trek better than the other guy And just so ultimately geeky.

It is just absolutely Disney by Star Trek, you're gonna be doomed just like I am

Already has Yeah, I Was telling a series

Discovery, it's just yeah perverse abomination. It's my stop watching it.

I was telling dr. White last time He was on being a Star Wars fan is like being a Catholic while st.

Francis Use the terminology correctly there.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No Anyways, I'm not sure how I got onto that but that's okay

So so we'll do two more questions and then we'll wrap things up and and we have a lot of we have a hundred and Fifty viewers here.

Obviously, we can't get to everyone's question There's some pretty good ones, but I saved a nice a nice one for dr.

White towards the end, but this one's for dr. Lyle Let me see if I hopefully I didn't lose it.

It was here we go This is from power hog. That's the Internet. They have those interesting names their power hog.

Sorry power hog Wouldn't an infinite anisotropic one -way speed of light toward Earth be impossible since the earth rotates and changes orbitable order

Okay, now I'm speaking in tongues now orbital position while stars are seen in every direction

No, it wouldn't that wouldn't affect the speed and keep in mind the the one -way speed of light is definitional

It affects how we choose to define now and that affects how we measure one -way speeds inherently

And it's not toward the earth that it's infinite It's toward the observer and so different observers one one observer could see the light beam as being instantaneous

Well another one who's offset a little bit It would not be quite instantaneous because it's not directly inward and that challenges people but it's an inevitable

Aspect of the physics that Einstein discovered is that one -way speeds there isn't there's a little bit of subjectivity there

They can differ between different observers. The only thing that's objective is the round -trip speed of light That's the only thing that's objective between all observers regardless of their motion position one -way speeds can be different and but there's a there's a

Consistency in terms of what they will observe Like if you're if you're asking when you know two asteroids if they're gonna collide

Two observers might disagree depending on how they define now as the wind that collision takes place

But they will both agree that the collision takes place or that it doesn't they agree on that every observable

Property Observers have to agree on what they actually observe but in terms of the times and speeds that are assigned to those events

Those are inherently relative and that's something that you'd have to learn something about the physics of Einstein to see why that is

And again, I've written a book on that the physics of Einstein Which is available on our website biblical science institute comm with some with a little vial of sand from the

Holy Land. So Be sure to call the number on the book By the way a little tiny a little tiny

Klingon battler There your answer was exactly what

I was gonna give but I didn't want to Yeah, I was like let it let Jason go he's you know, okay this one this last one's for you.

Dr. White Okay, and this is I think is a really good question I've thought about this before how how do you explain that?

The Bible is infallible while acknowledging the reality of textual variance Yeah, I Think a lot of people do struggle with that because people are not aware of the fact that We today

Being able to hold The Bible in our hand like this in this kind of form

Vast majority of Christians have not had that That Privilege it really came out of the

Reformation and The Lutheran wing of the Reformation picked up by the Reformed that everybody needed to have the

Bible and of course printing helped make that possible, but still The the process whereby this came to be in our hands

Should be in my opinion Basic Early Christians, you know coming up, you know when you when you're training

Christians from the start you need to Tell them what this is all about Unfortunately, that's not the way it is.

We hand people a Bible. We don't tell them where it came from. And so the idea of textual variation that is the fact that Human beings are not photocopiers and Every work of antiquity without question without exception has experienced textual variation in the processing of manuscripts down through the years and So it was not till 1949 that the photocopier was invented.

And so you could not have an exact Reduplication even in printing you had to set type

And so that was a that was not a part of the argumentation really for a long long period of time, but now people

Not knowing that history not knowing The regularity of using manuscripts and things like that They can easily confuse two different categories when we talk about the infallibility of the inspiration and inerrancy of scripture.

We're talking about As it is given to us and what it contains and what it communicates and then the other issue is how then did

God choose to preserve that text over time and Most people would rather that it was sort of the

Indiana Jones Holy Grail thing where you've got, you know, the old monk in a cave someplace with All these, you know, it's got the original manuscripts and when we need to know we can go ask him

That that makes people feel better The problem is what was that guy doing in there alone with those manuscripts for 700 years?

Yeah, if you go that direction you you he becomes your ultimate authority and so God did not choose to inscribe everything on a mountainside and We have to go and and check that out the gospel is to go into all the world and therefore it had to be portable it had to be carried and The by -product of that is textual variation scribes

Well, you know some people think you know Like Bart Ehrman thinks that if the Bible is really inspired there would be no textual variance

It's like when I first heard him say that I was like so You're you're you're a scribe but not even a scribe you're just a

Christian copying first Peter And Your kid comes in and distracts you for a second and you're about to make a mistake

What's God gonna do? Is he gonna take take over all of a sudden and start doing automatic writing?

Are you gonna spontaneously combust? You know exactly how does this work? I have no earthly idea how this is supposed to work

The the fact is that to get the New Testament out into all the known world

You had to make copies especially since the Romans were trying to kill you for doing it and They did not always do it perfectly but the fact that they got it all the way out there and all these different places means that you have multiple streams of transmission and I can't go into it right now

But we believe in the tenacity of the text that all the readings including the silly readings

But the original readings as well continue to exist in the manuscript tradition. It's just a matter of Identifying them as one person put it whose name keeps slipping my mind

I'm getting old It's like having a thousand -piece jigsaw puzzle and we have eleven hundred pieces

It's not that we have nine hundred pieces The issue is identifying the extra hundred Because the later manuscripts are always longer than the earlier manuscripts.

There's a there's there's expansion over time And but those are different issues One issue is the mechanism of distribution

The other is the actual inspiration for the in the first place, right and for folks who want longer discussion

I mean, dr White has a lot of material on YouTube that's out there where he talks about Textual variants and textual criticism and things like that and debates and stuff.

So definitely check those out. They're super worth it now I want to squeeze one more in for dr.

Lyle. There's a Discussion I guess going on here and I think this will be something right up his alley and it's in terms of logic

So let's get this up here. So I apologize. I was I was fibbing. That wasn't the last one

This is this was the last one. I promise So manager Oh one, I guess he's arguing that the laws of logic cannot be universal or transcendent

He I think appeals to different logical systems. So you have kind of sentential logic you have fuzzy logic these sorts of things

Does the existence I mean, let me clarify the question because it's kind of he's just making an off -the -cuff comment here

Does the existence of other systems of logic diminish the transcendent and universal nature of The fundamental laws like law of identity law of excluded middle things like this because I was under the impression that even to speak of other

Systems you need to presuppose categories of identity Non -contradiction excluded middle and so forth.

How would you address that and then we'll wrap things up here Yeah, and there are I am a familiar with that. There are different systems of logic in the sense that they use slightly different definitions and in terms of whether or not a sentence has

Existential import whether using the Aristotelian system or the modern Boolean system, but those are linguistic conventions

And once you establish the convention the rule the laws of logic the principles of logic are determined by the mind of God They do not change

How we define terms a little bit like the one -way speed of light that's definitional That that has to do with how we define things and so there are little different systems where you know there's some debate about the excluded middle and and things like that, but Principles don't change and therefore the law of non -contradiction

Doesn't change and if you say oh, yes, it does then I'd say therefore it doesn't Right, because if somebody says well, yes, it can change then

I'll say well, then it doesn't change You say well, you can't say that why because that violates a law of non -contradiction, but you just told me that can change

Right, so you see if laws if laws of logic can change then they don't change You see my point it's it's fundamentally irrational to think that these principles can change with time or space and the read but but the

Christian can justify why it is that they don't because God doesn't change over time and space and laws of logic reflect his thinking and therefore if we're to think

Properly, which we should be as as image bearers of God. We need to think in a way that's consistent with his mind

Yeah, I'm wondering about this if if he's arguing the laws of logic are not universal then

How does one arbitrarily pick when one instance of the application of the law is to be this one it counts here

You can't be contradictory here But you it doesn't matter over here because I can kind of dip in and out of different Logical system that seems kind of a name, right?

Yeah You would only be even remotely justified and you really wouldn't be justified there in assuming that laws of logic don't change in areas and Locales that you've been if you think that they can be different in different locations

You would be concerned every every time you go someplace new right like when the astronauts went to the moon

That is you know, the first time they went back in 69 That was the nobody's been there before and so, you know, were they thinking boy?

I hope the law of non -contradiction works on the moon. Otherwise, we might die and not die right because I mean who knows

That was not one of their concern they had lots of concerns because that was a complicated mission But one of their concerns was not boy

We hope laws of logical work on the moon God's hardwired that into us we need that presupposition in order to function babies are born knowing something about logic and and Frank frankly principles like induction and you baby burns his hand on the candle

He doesn't he doesn't stick his hand in the candle again because he assumes it'll hurt again But in the chance universe, maybe the next time he burns his hand.

It'll be incredibly enjoyable I mean, how do you know that in chance universe? So these these really are

Christian presuppositions They really have no basis in a secular worldview David Hume was reduced to utter absurdity on the question of how does he know the

Sun will rise tomorrow from his non -christian perspective? But the Christian can answer that so they really are

Universal principles. Yes. I know we can have slightly different definitions And that's how you get things like the Boolean system versus the

Aristotelian Aristotelian system, but those are definitional the principles Are eternal and unchanging because God is okay.

Thank you for that. Now. I'll end it there as you guys are talking There are super interesting and good questions that are coming up and it's so tempting, but obviously we can't would we'd be here forever

So I do apologize guys. Thank you so much for the questions I do check my comments later and then some of the videos

I do in the future will be based They're sometimes based upon questions. I get in the comments. So if you're writing your questions out,

I will try my best I'm gonna be on the road for the next two weeks Family road trip and so I won't be putting out anything

Within two weeks, but once I get back, I'll try to get some more shows together I might be doing something on Francis Schaefer to that folks might be interested in so Gentlemen, thank you so much.

Not only for coming on tonight and I apologize once again for the technical difficulties, dr Why but thank you both both of you for your ministries and all the wonderful work you guys are doing for the kingdom

I really appreciate it and I as well as the viewers here are very blessed by by everything you guys do.

Thank you so much Thanks for having us on sorry about the problems. I think it's on my end. But who knows?

No worries. No worries. It worked out Well, that's it for this episode guys. Thank you so much for listening in I hope it was a blessing to you guys and until next time.