(Meta-Critique) A Presupper Critiques a Guy Critiquing a Presupper (Jeff Durbin)

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December 2, 2020

In this episode, Eli Ayala critiques a critique of presuppositional apologetics as presented by (Jeff Durbin). Presuppositional methodology is pretty badly represented here so Eli tries to offer some correction and insight into the presupp methodology while pointing out some common misconceptions.

00:01: Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Eli Ayala, and today we have an interesting episode, a sort of meta -apologetic analysis, okay?
00:13: In this episode, there's going to be a guy who's gonna critique another guy who's critiquing a guy.
00:20: Does that make sense? So there's a guy, me, critiquing another guy who's critiquing another guy, all right?
00:27: And hopefully, you know, we can make some good use of our time here and make some good, helpful apologetics applications, okay?
00:36: And so we're gonna be looking at a video. I think the creator of the video is an atheist, a skeptic.
00:43: I don't know much about him, and so I can't really speak to him as an individual, but he is critiquing presuppositional apologetics as it is presented by Jeff Durbin, who is a fellow presuppositionalist.
00:56: I'm sure folks who listen to, well, if you know anything about presuppositional apologetics, you're most likely gonna know about Jeff Durbin.
01:05: So Jeff Durbin is over there at Apologia Studios and Apologia, is it church?
01:11: Apologia Church, Apologia Church? I don't know how he pronounces it. I've heard it pronounced different ways, but so that's what's gonna be happening.
01:18: We're gonna be looking at a video in which an unbeliever is critiquing Jeff Durbin's presentation or doing a
01:25: Q &A that is, I guess the topic was something relating to presuppositional apologetics.
01:30: And I wanna try to do more of these sorts of videos where we are taking what others have said and kind of picking it apart with the hopes that we can, or I can do my best to teach folks how to think logically and rationally and to apply a presuppositional mindset to various contexts.
01:49: And so I'll try my best to do that. I am a teacher at heart, and so I do apologize if when
01:55: I move from the introductions where I kind of sound very casual and then when
02:01: I start teaching, I sound very teacher -ish because I am a teacher. That's what I do.
02:06: And so sometimes I get into that teacher mode. So I do apologize if that comes across a certain way.
02:12: But basically guys, if they're folks just joining in, we're gonna be doing some meta apologetics.
02:17: We're gonna critique a critique, all right? So it's a critique of a critique. A dude critiquing another dude who's critiquing another dude.
02:25: That's basically what we're gonna do today, all right? Now, before we jump into that, if you have found the content helpful on Revealed Apologetics, you can do me a solid and hit the notification bell to get kind of the announcements, maybe through an email or I don't know how the technology works, but when you get a notification where new videos are coming out, okay?
02:43: And so if you could do that, if you haven't subscribed, I don't know what's wrong with you. You should really take the time to press the subscribe button and share the videos.
02:52: If you think this content is useful, I very much appreciated that folks have enjoyed kind of the respectful manner that I try my best to get across in my interactions and explanations.
03:06: That's something that I think is something that we should promote, okay? And I encourage you to function in the apologetical realm with gentleness and respect.
03:16: So I appreciate it when people recognize it and what I'm doing, and that is on purpose, okay?
03:22: Because I always try to highlight the importance of allowing the way that we present ourselves being consistent with how scripture says we should be presenting ourselves.
03:33: Now, do I do it perfectly? No, definitely when you're engaged in this sort of, context, some snarkiness can come across and some pride can come across.
03:44: And so anytime that I reflect that in the way that I present things, I do apologize, but share the content and hopefully this can start some conversation or even be content that you guys can use in your own
03:56: Bible studies or apologetics, small groups or whatever you guys do. And you can use this as kind of a platform to talk about some interesting stuff, all right?
04:04: So if you haven't subscribed yet, make sure to subscribe on YouTunes. YouTunes, I just made something up.
04:09: On iTunes, all of the episodes here will be, well, they are turned into podcast episodes, okay?
04:17: So you can listen to it on podcast. Some people like to watch and look at my face, not much to look at, or you could hear the deep smooth voice of a
04:25: Puerto Rican apologist presuppositionalist. Look at that, I just created a new label. So if you like the audio better, iTunes is there.
04:32: If you like YouTube, you can watch here. Both are great resources.
04:37: All right, so with that said, I was debating in my mind whether I should play the video and interact or play the whole video, then play it back and interact.
04:45: So we're gonna do it the simple way by just playing the video and I'm gonna stop at various points, okay?
04:53: Now, let's see here. Let's get this up on the screen. If technology is not acting up on me, and it looks like it is, there we go.
05:03: Get behind me, Satan. There we go, there we go, very good. All right, so before we start the video, okay?
05:11: The skeptic, the atheist, I'm gonna call them, I mean, we can call him a generic unbeliever.
05:17: I suppose he's an atheist or a skeptical sort, but let's assume he's an atheist slash skeptic, whatever fits in that category.
05:26: He's gonna start off with a definition that he offers of presuppositional apologetics. And I think this is very important. Definitions are critical when you are doing apologetics and when you're just doing communication in general.
05:35: So you wanna always make sure you define your terms, okay? Especially when we're speaking of presuppositional apologetics, that word itself can be very intimidating for folks.
05:45: And so it's important to properly define the methodology, properly define what we mean by presuppositions, transcendentals, things like that.
05:55: As you guys know, I'm actually writing a book entitled the Presupp Answer Book. And part of the questions that I'm addressing are just basic terms so that you can learn the language of the presuppositional form of argumentation.
06:08: And then when you master the definitions, you can take that information and you can cater it to your particular context.
06:15: And I think this is very important. We don't wanna get bogged down with language, technical language, such that when we're sharing our faith using a presuppositional method within our everyday lives, you know, we're not talking a completely foreign language.
06:28: You need to be able to take ownership of the information and then convey it within the context that you are in, okay?
06:35: So if you are working with young people, you need to be able to convey this sometimes complicated information to younger people.
06:41: You know, I think this is very, very important. Otherwise, we're just pontificating and using big old fancy words, all right?
06:48: So with that said, let us play the video and I'm going to stop and explain and respond and blah, blah, blah, those sorts of things, all right?
06:58: So let's get started. All right, there we go.
07:09: Apologetics is an approach that tries to establish that a God exists a priori, that is in a way that does not appeal to evidence.
07:15: Presuppositional apologists insist that the existence of a God must be assumed before any argument can be made because in order for any argument to be completely reliable, there must be an infallible source of knowledge.
07:27: One of the many - All right, let's stop right there, okay? There is already a problem with definitions, okay?
07:36: I don't know of any presuppositional apologist, you know, any adherent to a presuppositional school of thought that would actually agree with that definition.
07:45: So this specific person who's making this video, he defines presuppositional apologetics thusly.
07:51: Presuppositional apologetics is an approach that tries to establish that a God exists a priori, i .e.
07:57: in a way that does not appeal to evidence, okay? Again, if you watched my previous episode, we talked about the presuppositional use of evidence, so we know that there are issues there.
08:06: But presuppositional apologists, he says, insist that the existence of a God must be assumed before any argument can be made because in order for any argument to be completely reliable, there must be an infallible source of knowledge, okay?
08:19: So how might we respond to this? And you wanna think, think of that definition, look at the phraseology, how he's wording what, how he's explaining what he understands as presuppositional apologetics.
08:30: And we wanna understand where does he go wrong there? And basing your understanding of what presuppositional apologetics is and what it isn't, how might you respond to something like this, okay?
08:40: Well, first, we need to point out a couple of things. First, presuppositional apologists don't try to establish the existence of a
08:47: God, okay? I don't know if that popped out at you. If you are a presuppositionalist, you would know that we do not try to argue for the existence of a
08:56: God, all right? So in a generic sense. Now, the gentleman who made this video kind of understay, he's kind of treating the presuppositional form of argumentation as a sort of generic theistic argument, okay?
09:10: Kind of like what the classical apologists use. If you understand classical methodology, they usually follow a two -step approach in which you would try to prove a general theism through the utilization of the classical arguments for God's existence, cosmological argument, teleological argument, the moral argument, things like this.
09:28: And when you establish the existence of a generic deity, you narrow down which
09:33: God this is by appealing to historical evidence for the resurrection. And so you show that there's a connection here that based on the evidence of the existence of God, the arguments for the resurrection, you have
09:44: Christian theism, which has established a very high probability, okay? And this gentleman here seems to be understanding the presuppositional approach as something like a classical sort of argument, okay?
09:57: So we prove a general theism. That's obviously not the case with the presuppositionalist. Now, the presuppositional apologist is arguing specifically for Christian theism.
10:08: That's very important. We don't argue for a generic God, as Doug Wilson once said in a debate, a fuzzy benevolence in the sky, right?
10:17: Kind of this ambiguous concept of deity. Rather, we're arguing specifically for the Christian God, the
10:22: God who's revealed himself both in general and special revelation. We're arguing for the Christian worldview as a unit, as a worldview system.
10:30: As Greg Bonson once said, we're arguing for the whole enchilada of the Christian worldview, right?
10:36: It's the whole system, not just generic theism and then working our way up to narrowing it down to Christian theism.
10:42: And the presupper is not seeking first to prove generic theism as the necessary precondition for intelligible experience, right?
10:51: We're arguing specifically for the Christian God, as I said before, as revealed in general and special revelation, and we are arguing unashamedly for Christian theism as a unit, okay?
11:02: I think another important thing to keep in mind also is that we're not trying to establish the existence of God as the end of like an argumentative syllogism, right?
11:11: We're not arguing for God as a conclusion, okay? We're arguing that unless one begins with God and his revelation at the start, intelligibility, knowledge, or whatever would be impossible, okay?
11:22: You have to understand that we remember what is the presuppositional claim? What's the claim of scripture? We're arguing that all men know that God exists and are then without excuse.
11:31: So in the final analysis, we're not seeking to add another marble to the bowl of human knowledge, right?
11:38: And to an otherwise ignorant person, rather the presuppositional argumentation is it's geared towards unmasking the natural man's pretensions and exposing the fact that he has a knowledge of the
11:51: God whom we're presenting, a knowledge that the Bible says he is suppressing, okay? So that's a very important point, okay?
12:00: Now, throughout the video, we're gonna move into this accusation that, well, why can't people, why can't proponents from other religious perspectives do this very same thing?
12:12: And we'll address that, but I wanna address this definition again, okay? Trying to prove the existence of a
12:19: God, okay? Now, this is very important. If this gentleman knew a little bit more about presuppositional methodology and he knew that we were arguing specifically for Christian theism, then he wouldn't make these statements because they're obviously inaccurate representations, okay?
12:37: If you take a look at, for example, the debate, a famous debate between Greg Bonson and the atheist
12:42: Gordon Stein, in Greg Bonson's very opening statement, he gave three reasons why he does not argue for general theism.
12:49: This is an important point when you're critiquing the presuppositional perspective, okay? Most people's access to the presuppositional methodology has been through the debate between Greg Bonson and Gordon Stein.
13:00: So I'm not sure if this guy saw that debate or whatever, but I don't know,
13:06: I can't really explain why he's misunderstanding the position because his definition alone definitely doesn't reflect what a presuppositionalist would argue.
13:14: Greg Bonson says this, he gives three reasons why he is not and does not argue for theism in general, okay?
13:21: Number one, Bonson says, quote, well, the various conceptions of deity found in the world's religions are in most cases, logically incompatible, leaving no unambiguous sense to general theism, whatever it might be.
13:33: Two, secondly, I've not found the non -Christian religions to be philosophically defensible, each of them being internally incoherent or undermining human reason and experience.
13:42: Thirdly, since I am by the grace of God a Christian, I cannot from the heart adequately defend those religious faiths with which
13:49: I disagree. My commitment is to the triune God and the Christian worldview based on God's revelation in the
13:55: Old and the New Testaments. And so first, I am arguing for Christian theism, okay?
14:02: Bonson lays it out, he's arguing for Christian theism. Now, granted, this gentleman is critiquing before he's kind of giving a definition here, which he's kind of falling flat here, but he's critiquing a question and answer session of Jeff Durbin.
14:18: But if you know Jeff Durbin, he is trying to follow closely with presuppositionalists like Greg Bonson.
14:24: And so I would argue that Jeff would agree with me that the Christian is to defend specifically
14:30: Christian theism, and it is to be defended as a unit. So I think that's a very important thing to keep in mind right off the bat is getting the definitions wrong here.
14:40: All right, let us continue. Let's see here, let me just go back just a little bit.
14:45: There we go. In order for any argument to be completely reliable, there must be an infallible source of knowledge. One of the many problems with this approach is that even if it is the case that we need an infallible source of knowledge, which it isn't, this only establishes theism to be necessary.
15:00: It doesn't show that we must subscribe to any particular religion. My question is, when you debate belief systems that -
15:07: All right, let's stop there. Okay, oh, my mouse. My mouse seems to be possessed by the devil.
15:13: Okay, so it's not working here. All right, let me get that here.
15:18: Boop, boop, boop, boop. I have to do it the old -fashioned way and use my fingers. What's up with that? Okay, so here's what he says.
15:25: He says once he understands, once he lays out his, what I think fallacious definition of presuppositional apologetics is, once he lays that down, he says that one of his problems, he's quote, one of the many problems with this approach, the presuppositional approach, is that even if it is the case that we need an infallible source of knowledge, which it isn't, this only establishes a theism to be necessary.
15:48: It doesn't show that we must subscribe to any particular religion. Now, again, this is wrongheaded for the same reasons
15:54: I said before. So his response here fallaciously assumes that the presuppositional argument is for the existence of a generic, non -defined theism, right, which it's not.
16:04: The argument is for the Christian system as a unit, as we said before. Now, with regards to his comments about having an infallible source of knowledge, first we need to recognize that one's conception of knowledge,
16:19: I mean, this is gonna come up later, one's conception of knowledge is going to be worldview dependent, right?
16:24: So knowledge itself is not worldview independently defined. And as you'll see later, this particular skeptic, his epistemology is gonna rear its ugly head later on in the form of pragmatism, which we'll talk about once it comes up.
16:40: But again, when we speak of knowledge, when we speak about, we don't need an infallible source of knowledge, we need to also define what we mean by knowledge, okay?
16:49: And that's going to be dependent, worldview dependent, a sort of worldview dependent definition, okay? So I think that's gonna be important to keep in mind.
16:55: So let's continue. Now it's transferring over to Jeff Durbin's talk here and then he'll make some further comments here.
17:03: Let me just clickety -click. There we go. Affirms absolute truth from another source, like the
17:10: Quran or the Book of Mormon, by showing its internal inconsistencies, isn't that actually evidential apologetics and not presuppositional?
17:19: No, because it comes down to... So there's a confusion about what presuppositional or evidential apologetics is.
17:27: Like presuppositionalists believe in the use of evidence, but it's a coherent appeal to those evidences.
17:35: What we would say is you don't appeal to those evidences apart from the authority of Jesus Christ, the authority of scripture.
17:42: You don't appeal to those evidences apart from something that grounds those appeals to evidence, right?
17:50: How would that be different from how a Muslim presuppositionalist would argue? Even if you believe that to argue at all is to presuppose some ultimate source of truth or ultimate ground of evidence, how could you presuppose it to be the
18:02: Bible rather than the Quran? So for example - All right, well, let's address that here, okay?
18:09: Give me a moment there. Okay, yeah, that's a good question. It's not a good criticism, but it's a good question, okay?
18:16: I think that's important to keep in mind. So it's true, a Muslim can argue presuppositionally, but that wouldn't bother the
18:24: Christian presuppositionalist one bit. As a matter of fact, that's precisely how we want the Muslim to argue or the atheist to argue or the
18:31: Mormon to argue. We want them to argue presuppositionally, right? And admitting this is not really a big thing for us.
18:39: I mean, basically what we're saying is when I say we want the
18:44: Muslim or the Mormon or the atheist to argue presuppositionally, basically what
18:50: I'm saying is nothing different than what Cornelius Mantill typically said when he spoke of being epistemologically self -conscious.
18:57: We wanna argue in a way that is conscious of the fact of our epistemological and metaphysical and ethical foundations.
19:04: And in like fashion, we want the unbeliever to be conscious of his professed metaphysic, epistemology and ethic.
19:11: Metaphysics being his view of reality, epistemology being his theory of knowledge and his ethic dealing with how he thinks one should live their lives in light of those other assumptions, okay?
19:22: So I want the unbeliever to argue presuppositionally. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons why it's so hard to argue sometimes with unbelievers, especially when you're engaged in the sort of debate where you're laying out the presuppositional method, we lay out the presuppositional method and talk about worldviews and the myth of neutrality and the fact that everyone has presuppositions and that we interpret the facts in light of those presuppositions.
19:46: The reason why we lay that out in say, for example, an opening statement or something like that is because we want to lay down that important groundwork so that the unbeliever too can argue his position in a way that is consistent with his professed foundations because we as Christians want to expose that foundation because we think the foundation crumbles.
20:07: That's super, super important. We're not running away. This isn't a word salad methodological trick that we use to get unbelievers to mess up in their words.
20:17: Well, how do you know that? We're not asking these questions just for the heck of it. We want the unbeliever to be epistemologically aware of his own foundations.
20:28: And a lot of unbelievers don't think in these categories. They don't question their worldview many times, okay?
20:37: And they don't often understand the Christian worldview and that's why we lay out the worldview systems. Very, very important.
20:43: All right, so I don't mind at all when we want both sides to lay out their perspective, right?
20:53: And it's at this point that the apologetic encounter occurs, right? And we argue on its own terms, on the terms given the truth of Islam, on the terms given the truth of Mormonism, on the terms given the truth of a particular flavor of atheism, knowledge would be impossible.
21:11: Science would be impossible. Intelligibility would not be possible given the truth of that worldview.
21:17: On its own terms, it crumbles. And then of course the unbeliever is gonna say, but what about the Christian perspective?
21:22: It's easy to point fingers and poke holes in these perspectives. What about the Christian perspective? That is what we want the unbeliever to say because the point is we're following this approach that Van Til taught us that we want to lay out our worldview and ask the unbeliever, hypothetically grant, hypothetically grant the truth of the
21:42: Christian worldview and see how it fits, how it grounds these things, how it answers those difficult philosophical questions.
21:49: I want him to do that. I want him to consider Christianity on its own terms.
21:56: And in like fashion, I want to understand his view and consider it on its own terms to show that on its own terms, it falls apart.
22:04: So this is not like a trick where we're trying to avoid getting into specifics.
22:10: I mean, some people might argue that way, but that's not a deficiency of presuppositionalism. That's a deficiency in the presuppositionalist.
22:17: And perhaps that person needs to reflect upon why are they using this methodology? If they don't understand the
22:23: Christian worldview enough to lay out the argument in a way where someone can meaningfully interact, then perhaps they should kind of go back to the drawing board, look at their motives, study the arguments, make sure their mind and heart is grounded in what scripture teaches with regards to how we would approach these things.
22:37: And then you get back into the struggle, so to speak. So those are a couple of things, couple of important things to keep in mind.
22:46: Let's continue here. Let me do that, minimize that, click here, and let's continue here.
22:54: Example, let's take it, I'll get back to the Quran and Mormon question in a second.
23:00: So let's say that I'm talking about the issue of say dinosaurs, right?
23:06: Dinosaurs in scripture. Someone said, do you believe in dinosaurs? Of course I believe in dinosaurs. What do you think, I'm a dummy?
23:12: Right, of course. Well, like how do you make that work? Because, you know, we dig up these bones, they seem so old and all those different things.
23:19: What I like to do in moments like that is actually show, well, in order to have any examination of history and archeology and evidence at all, you have to have the
23:29: Christian worldview and the word of God, otherwise it's meaningless, it's purposeless. First of all, if an idea can be put to human use, it isn't meaningless or purposeless.
23:37: The idea that dinosaurs existed can effectively be used to explain why fossils are there, and to some degree what future fossil discoveries will look like and where they will be found.
23:47: That is the idea's meaning and purpose. All right, let's stop there. Let's take a look at that, okay?
23:55: I don't think this gentleman who's offering the critique really understands what Jeff means by meaninglessness and without purpose.
24:03: So he's not speaking of meaninglessness and purposelessness in like an existential way, right?
24:10: You know, he's saying, well, of course these things could have purpose. We just assign a purpose, but that's not what he's saying. He's saying,
24:16: Jeff is saying that without the Christian context, okay, things like paleontology, right?
24:24: Things like archeology, things like biology and all the other ologies you can put in there wouldn't be intelligible.
24:31: You can't look at these specific disciplines in a vacuum. There is a worldview context required to make sense out of the specific data and the data points of human experience.
24:45: And that's what Jeff is saying. So the gentleman here says, first of all, if an idea can be put to human use, it isn't meaningless or purposeless.
24:52: Well, sure, we can create subjective meaning for that. I can put the fossils, the data of the fossils to human use and therefore it has meaning.
25:02: But the question is, does it have objective meaning in the sense that can we make sense out of these things in a meaningful way, given an unbelieving perspective?
25:10: We would argue, no. I think that's where Jeff is getting at. That paleontology, the study of fossils and all these other things are not really intelligible, independent of a worldview, a coherent worldview that can ground them, okay?
25:27: Now, I wanna say something to, actually, let me continue and then I'll make the point I wanna make because I think there's something that's gonna be said that will be relevant here.
25:35: One second here. Secondly, even if it did require a God -given purpose, I don't see why a purpose can't be given by a
25:41: God of any theistic religion or at least any Abrahamic religion. Why does Jesus need to be involved?
25:47: All right. Okay, why does Jesus need to be involved? Okay, this doesn't make sense, right?
25:55: Jesus, you just add Jesus, it doesn't make the whole thing. Listen, Jesus Christ, okay, is meaningless, independent of a worldview context, okay?
26:07: If I say Jesus Christ, that name has content that is worldview sensitive, right?
26:14: He's understood within a worldview. Now, we understand if we break apart the essential features of a worldview, all worldviews consist of at least three foundations, okay?
26:24: Every worldview has a metaphysic, a theory of reality. What do you think is real? Every worldview has an epistemology, a theory of knowledge.
26:32: How do we know what we know? How is knowledge acquired? What is knowledge? And an ethic, how should we live our lives, okay?
26:37: Now, when we speak of Jesus Christ, it's not an issue of, again, adding the marble.
26:43: If we have a bowl of marbles and the marble represents, the marbles represent individual facts and the bowl represents the human mind, right?
26:53: When we talk about Jesus, okay, and the Christian worldview, it's not the issue that we're taking an individual marble, the fact of a historical person,
27:02: Jesus, dumping it into the bowl of marbles and then all of a sudden, it just, you know, oh, everything makes sense because I added this one marble called
27:10: Jesus. No, Jesus Christ is understood within a context and that context is a context of a reality that consists of an ultimate triune
27:21: God who has created all things. He's created man in his image. He has implanted a knowledge of his creator in the mind of man, okay?
27:31: And a man has a knowledge of this creator such that he's without excuse. And that has implications for metaphysics, that has implications for epistemology and that has implications for ethics, okay?
27:45: It's not adding Jesus to the picture and then look, it makes sense. No, the Jesus that we're speaking of, the
27:50: Jesus of the Christian worldview is part of a larger system of thought that is grounded in the triune
27:57: God who has revealed himself in both general and special revelation and holds man accountable, okay?
28:03: It's not an issue of just adding Jesus and then all of a sudden, everything makes sense. This kind of reminds me of my debate slash discussion with the
28:11: YouTube atheist, Tom Jump, where he said something to the effect toward the end of our discussion.
28:17: He said, well, suppose I could grant that Jesus rose from the dead, but that wouldn't make me have to accept that God is omnipotent, okay?
28:27: Listen to this. He says, perhaps Jesus rose from the dead, but that doesn't mean that God is omnipotent.
28:33: Now, look what happened there. Tom is actually doing precisely what this gentleman is doing.
28:38: He's pulling apart features of the Christian worldview as though we can make sense out of these individual facts independent of the larger system.
28:45: And you can't, okay? Because it is the omnipotent God who raised Jesus from the dead.
28:51: You can't have Jesus rising from the dead without the broader context of the Christian worldview, which includes the triune
28:58: God of scripture who is omnipotent, he is omniscient, he is omnipresent, and all of the attributes that we traditionally attribute to him, okay?
29:06: So it's not an issue of just adding Jesus, okay? He says, even if it required a God -given purpose,
29:12: I don't see why a purpose can't be given by any God, any theistic system. Easy. The reason why you can't just insert any generic theism is because generic theism always comes with a context.
29:24: What is God? If I say generically God, what does that mean independent of a worldview context?
29:30: What does it mean? It's just the word God. Well, you need to give me characteristics of this God. How do you know about this
29:36: God? That all has implications of what you think about the human capacity to reason about these things. How do we know that these characteristics are such and such?
29:44: Again, epistemology, metaphysics are all being assumed in the very question, okay?
29:49: So we don't argue for a generic theism because we're Christian and that would not be faithful to our Lord.
29:55: But at the same time, when you say, well, why can't this just be any old God? Because every other God that you can bring is gonna be part of a worldview.
30:02: And what we're arguing is that any worldview that is not the Christian worldview is going to fall flat on its face.
30:08: Now, that's the claim. That's the claim. And of course, an apologetic interaction is required to draw that out, okay?
30:14: All right. All right, I hope you guys are tracking with me. Again, let me just let you guys know if you have any questions and you want me to address it towards the end, put them in the chat.
30:23: If you could put question next to your question because there's often a lot of conversation going on in the chat that it's hard for me to differentiate.
30:30: So if you do have a question, I will try my best to answer it. If not, when I do finish up, we'll just,
30:35: I'll just say a couple of things towards the end and then wrap things up. But we're not done just yet.
30:41: All right, let's continue here. Like if you assume something is true and we ought to pursue truth.
30:49: Well, I never assume something is true and I'm also never entirely indubitably certain that anything is true.
30:55: I also don't assume that one ought to pursue truth. I'm much more interested in ideas that are consistently useful for predicting future observations.
31:04: Wait a second. Okay, I'm gonna make sure I am reading this correctly, okay?
31:10: Well, I never assume something is true, okay?
31:17: I want, I don't even want to address that directly. I want you to think critically. What is wrong with that statement, okay?
31:23: Is it even, let's ask the question. Is it even possible to not assume the truth of anything? Like you don't ever assume that anything is true, okay?
31:34: That again, it has within its own self -refutation, okay?
31:39: And I'm never entirely indubitably certain that anything is true, okay?
31:45: I also don't assume that one ought to pursue truth, okay? There is a whole host of implications in those comments here.
31:52: But let's take a look at his next comment. I'm much more interested in ideas that are consistently useful for predicting future observations rather than being true.
32:01: Now, here's my question. Is it true that he's more interested in ideas that are consistently useful for predicting future observations rather than being true?
32:11: Is that true, that he's more interested in those things? Well, if he says that's true, then yes, he is assuming the truth of it and so that's self -refuting.
32:19: If it's not true, then what is he doing? He's just giving us his opinion, right? And who cares? His opinion is not any more closer to the truth than someone else's, right?
32:28: And if it is his opinion, is it true that it's his opinion? Well, if it's true that it's his opinion, then it's true.
32:35: I mean, this is simple. I'm thinking in terms of Frank Turek. If you listen to Cross -Examine, the beginning of the podcast, they have little clips from his talks and things like that.
32:45: Many talks about when someone denies that there's truth, you ask them, is that true?
32:51: I kind of have in the Frank Turek moment in my head here, but you notice that this is hugely self -contradictory, okay?
32:58: And again, you're gonna see this because this is a reflection of his epistemology, which you will see if you read that last part,
33:04: I'm much more interested in ideas that are consistently useful for predicting future observations rather than being true.
33:10: That's where that scientific mindset is coming in. Now, it's not a good scientific mindset and it's not an essential feature of a proper scientific mindset because I don't think many scientists who are informed philosophically as well, that they would hold to such a notion.
33:26: But again, this is very, very important. You're gonna see this play out later on when he talks about what scientists do, okay?
33:33: Different, we don't assume anything, right? We'll get there. But again, if you take a look at these statements here, it's incredible, it's incredible.
33:43: I would say that he probably holds to a sort of pragmatic epistemology. So truth is what works.
33:49: Truth is, you know, truth is what works. It's pragmatism, which by the way, the foundation of a pragmatic epistemology is really arbitrariness, right?
34:00: I think a pragmatic philosophy, in my opinion, is a lazy philosophy.
34:05: It doesn't answer the real question because in fact, many pragmatists don't think you can. They don't answer the deep questions or actually get in touch with objective reality.
34:15: In my debate with Souris the Skeptic, which is one of the first debates that I did on the Gospel Truth Show and on my
34:20: YouTube channel, I think it's one of the first videos that I posted, in a cross -examination, I asked Souris the
34:26: Skeptic because he is, this gentleman I was debating, is a pragmatist. And so I asked him, in your worldview, do you have access to objective truth, okay?
34:36: And he says, well, I can give you a definition of objective truth. And I said, yeah, but that's not what I'm asking. I'm asking, given your worldview, your pragmatic outlook on life, your pragmatic epistemology, do you have access to objective truth?
34:49: And he admitted, and I appreciate that he did this, he says, no. And then later on, he pontificated on a bunch of things that we should believe are true.
34:57: You see, so you have attention here. And no doubt, this gentleman here who's making this critique here, no doubt we know that he does not follow that consistently.
35:06: It's impossible, okay? That's not my opinion, that he doesn't follow this consistently. I think it's a fact that he does not follow this consistently because it's impossible to never assume anything is true, okay?
35:16: Surely he assumes it's true that he exists. And if he denies that, is it true that he's denying it?
35:22: And you have to affirm your existence in order to deny your existence. So this is, this is not a proper representation of people who are on the unbelieving side, maybe more scientific -minded.
35:34: And even, you know, this is not a common, hopefully it's not, I hope this is an accurate statement. I don't think this is a common perspective because I think it's so easily demonstrated to be fallacious but be that as it may, let's continue.
35:48: Is rather than being true. In fact, most, if not all scientific models are not perfectly true.
35:54: Noam Chomsky once pointed out that even our most contemporary sophisticated models of planetary motion don't take into account the gravitational influence of Alpha Centauri.
36:02: So it doesn't give an absolutely precisely true picture of the way the solar system works. I don't care.
36:08: Okay, you're gonna see, let's go back just a little bit. There we go. Okay, you see here more in this comment where his, epistemologically where he's coming from.
36:19: A lot of what he says sounds like pragmatism and it almost sounds like a form of scientism, scientism.
36:27: Okay, that if we are gonna believe to something rationally it has to be scientifically demonstrated.
36:32: I mean, we're talking about the existence of God and then he's going on talking about, I never assume anything to be true, blah, blah, blah.
36:39: And then he goes and gives explanations with regards to how scientists engage in scientific hypotheses and how they test various theories.
36:47: I mean, that's surely the question of God is not a kind of question that is demonstrated in the same way one would demonstrate the truth of a scientific theory.
36:54: And when we speak of scientific theories we need to be very careful when we use the word truth in the sense of objective truth that we've actually come in contact with something we can know for certain about with regards to reality.
37:06: Because science itself is a pragmatic discipline. It is based on an inductive principle and it is based upon projecting into the future based upon regularities of the past.
37:16: And that is the whole issue of induction which given a non -Christian worldview, I would argue cannot be accounted for and doesn't make any sense, okay?
37:24: But that's just to say what Jeff was saying and what presuppositionalists were saying that the non -Christian worldview does not provide the necessary preconditions for any item of human experience one of which includes science, which presupposes induction and all these other sorts of things.
37:40: So whether he's holding to a scientific, not a scientific a scientific sort of epistemology,
37:47: I'm not sure but it sounds like that. And if that's his position, then it is I think it's philosophically fallacious, okay?
37:55: By the way, anyone who does claim that all knowledge comes through scientific experimentation need to ask him that.
38:01: What kind of scientific experimentation did you do to come to that conclusion? For if all knowledge comes through scientific demonstration and you know that not based upon a scientific demonstration then it follows you don't even know that to be true, okay?
38:14: So you wanna be able to recognize these sorts of statements when you hear them, okay?
38:20: Whether that's his position or not, I don't know there's not enough information but he definitely sounds like he's leaning more towards a pragmatic epistemology a scientistic kind of flavor to some of the things that he says, all right?
38:31: Let's continue. Of the way the solar system works, I don't care.
38:37: There's no reason to care because the gravitational influence of Alpha Centauri is so small that it's negligible with respect to any practical application of the planetary model.
38:46: And he doesn't care with regards to scientific models but does he care about truth? Not everything that we know to be true if in fact we know something to be true is known through scientific inquiry.
38:57: Does he care about any truth? The sort of truth that's not ascertained through a scientific process?
39:03: I mean, does he care? It seems as though he doesn't care, right? And he never assumes, he never assumes you know, whatever he said that last quote he doesn't assume anything to be true and things like that.
39:17: So there's a lot going on here that I don't think is it's problematic, okay?
39:23: Let's continue here. Knowing how that star's gravity affects our system's planets would be useless and pointless.
39:31: As long as the scientific model that we have of planetary motion is precise enough to work for the purposes to which we apply it
39:38: I don't see any reason at all to care that strictly speaking, it isn't true. And also he is assuming things that are true to even make that statement.
39:47: So again, that would be again the way he's explaining himself refutes. I mean, he obviously has to assume certain things that are true to even make sense of his understanding of the scientific method and how that all works with regards to examining various, you know scientific hypotheses and things like that, okay?
40:04: All right, let's see here. You're gonna have a worldview that makes sense of that. In order to do any historical examination at all and to use science and reasoning faculties you have to have the word of God to do that examination.
40:16: I don't think you do, but even if that were the case why should I believe that I need the word of your God and not the word of Allah? And yes,
40:22: I know they're in a sense the same God but I wouldn't be surprised if this dude saw them as distinct. I'm gonna go out on a limb and probably say that Jeff and he could speak for himself but if I can go out on a limb
40:35: I would say that he does think they're distinct, okay? I mean, think about it. If you compare the Christian God ontologically speaking right, the
40:43: Christian God, the God of Christianity is ontologically different than the God of Islam. If you know anything about the
40:48: God of Islam Muslims hold to a Unitarian perspective with regards to God. God is one being who is one person, okay?
40:56: Now with regards to the ontological makeup of the God of Christianity, God is triune. He is one being who exists as three persons.
41:04: So ontologically speaking, they are distinct. They're not the same, okay? And you can't mishmash the concepts of the
41:10: God of Allah with the God of Christianity because now you're taking an understanding of a God within one worldview and transposing it into another worldview acting as though you can make sense of them equally.
41:20: No, the worldview context is important and how that God reveals himself is important. So metaphysically speaking, you know,
41:28: God is Trinitarian within the Christian concept, okay? All right, let's see here.
41:36: Let's see. Let's go here. But also I would say that only the
41:43: Christian worldview can make sense of what we see about dinosaurs in the first place today. Like, aren't, are you up to speed on what's been dug up over the last 20 years?
41:53: That's what I point out to people. I'd say, because from the Christian worldview, I can make sense of what we're finding. Like, it makes sense to me that we're finding viable blood cells and tissues in the hip bones of a
42:05: T -Rex in the last 20 years. Like, of course, this is mind boggling to people who believe they died 65 million years ago, right?
42:15: They were finding viable blood cells and tissues. But I can make sense of that because my worldview has a framework through which
42:21: I can make sense of finding viable blood cells and tissues in the hip bone of a T -Rex. Well, first of all, the soft tissues that have been found in dinosaur bones are also consistent with the idea that they are millions of years old because it looks as though the iron and hemoglobin can act as a very strong preservative, especially when inside a bone.
42:38: All right, let's take a look at that, okay? First, I wanna make a distinction here. If you guys know about Jeff Durbin's position on the age of the
42:51: Earth, he is a young Earth creationist. And I know Jason Lyle, who I've had on the show in the past, he's a young Earth creationist.
42:59: And some young Earth creationists tend to argue presuppositionally in an interesting way that I don't hold to, okay?
43:06: Some people will argue that a young Earth understanding is necessary to argue in a consistently presuppositional way.
43:13: I don't see that connection. I don't see that at all. I don't see why a Bible -believing
43:18: Christian who makes the creator -creature distinction, okay, and interprets
43:24: Genesis within the context of an old Earth perspective, I don't see how that person, why he can't use a presuppositional approach.
43:31: Now, with regards to an internal discussion between believers, they could argue over the exegetical basis as to who's understanding that correctly.
43:39: But I don't think that it's young Earth creationism or you can't be a presuppositionalist. I don't think that that is a proper way to kind of link the two together.
43:51: Now, Jeff is right that how you interpret data is going to be dependent upon your worldview, right?
43:59: We all have presuppositions. Our presuppositions inform how we interpret the data. So that is definitely an important aspect.
44:05: But here's what the person who's critiquing
44:10: Jeff here, he says, first of all, the soft tissue that have been found in dinosaur bones are also consistent with the idea that they are millions of years old, okay?
44:19: Well, okay. So you can come up with a story that seems to be consistent, but there's a question, whose story is correct?
44:26: And is there any way to know whose story is correct? From a pragmatic perspective, I don't see how you can see it, how to know which theory is correct.
44:35: And if you can't know which theory is correct, then how could you point to the other theory and say, well, that theory is irrational.
44:40: That's not a good perspective to hold. Well, how would you know? Given your pragmatic epistemology, you can't determine which one is correct, you see?
44:49: Because it's just pragmatism, right? It's whatever works, right? Well, for the Christian, creationism works for him.
44:55: And for the non -Christian, whatever alternate explanation he gives is gonna work for him. So how do we know, how do we break the tie, so to speak, between these two kind of worldview deadlock positions?
45:05: How do we break that, okay? The Christian has the answer in a transcendental demonstration of the necessity of the
45:12: Christian worldview. Now that doesn't necessarily prove a young earth creation. Some people might think it does, but I don't think so.
45:19: But again, you see how we would go about this. He's giving an alternate explanation. Now we can ask a deeper question with our unbelieving friend here says, first of all, the soft tissue that had been found in dinosaur bones are also consistent with the idea that they are millions of years old because it looks as though the iron in hemoglobin can act as a very strong preservative, especially when inside of a bone, okay?
45:43: Now he has a theory, the young earth creationist of his young earth creation has a theory, okay?
45:50: Okay, you have two theories. Now we can ask the deeper question. The specific explanation that you have is based upon your broader worldview commitments.
46:00: And so can we not ask the question, which worldview perspective can make sense out of the intelligibility of the specific explanations that we give?
46:09: That is just to say, does your worldview provide the necessary preconditions for the intelligibility of your very interpretation and your very assumption of what a fact is or how evidence should be used?
46:21: Okay, that's a fair question. And we would argue that if he's an atheist, it doesn't. If he's an agnostic, his worldview doesn't provide the preconditions.
46:29: If you have a pragmatic epistemology or a scientific epistemological perspective, there are issues there, okay?
46:36: So there's a whole host of problems here, I think. But on the other side, I don't think you need to presuppose a young earth creation interpretation in order to do a presuppositional perspective.
46:47: I'm not sure if Jeff thinks that you have to, but from what I've heard, I think he is a young earth creationist.
46:53: Many people have asked me, what am I? And I say that I'm agnostic with regards to how to understand
46:58: Genesis. And that's why I really enjoyed the discussion with Dr. Hugh Ross and Jason Lyle when they were duking it out.
47:05: And I often return to that episode to kind of get my bearings and see which view
47:10: I find more perspective in line with scripture. But that's just me as my own personal kind of a little thing that I'm looking into.
47:16: So, all right, let's continue. Secondly, even if only young earth creationism could make sense of that, why would
47:24: Christian young earth creationism make better sense of that than Muslim young earth creationism? Okay, so because Muslim young earth creationism, if that's a thing,
47:35: I'm not sure the Muslim create what they believe with regards to the specifics and the in -house discussions that they have with one another.
47:41: The reason why it can't be the Muslim one is because the Muslim worldview is incoherent and does not provide the preconditions for intelligibility.
47:50: Okay, now I can say that, I can say that, okay, but that's gonna have to be fleshed out, all right?
47:57: And that would take a presuppositional approach to the Muslim position.
48:02: And we hope that the Muslim is just as epistemologically self -conscious as the Christian.
48:07: And then we could engage at that worldview level and show that given the truth of Islam, there are internal problems and various aspects of that interaction will show that the
48:16: Muslim worldview doesn't provide those preconditions. Again, again, I can say that, but there's gonna have to be more interaction there.
48:24: I'm just pointing this out in passing, all right? All right, let's continue here. Or how come, great example, go find this video, because it is so, it's a riot when you watch it.
48:36: They found a prehistoric shark and it was alive in an aquarium for 24 hours, right?
48:44: So they find this prehistoric shark, they catch it and it's alive and it's behind the scientist, right?
48:51: And he is so fascinated by this thing because it's a dinosaur swimming behind him. By the way, I just found another one the other day, just amazing, now we're just digging these things up, they're all over.
49:00: I thought they died 65 million years ago. So it's swimming behind this guy and this guy's like, this is the most amazing discovery in the history of mankind.
49:09: These died 65 million years ago. It's swimming behind him, close enough to bite him in the butt.
49:17: And he's like, these died 65 million years ago. His worldview, right? He is viewing everything through the lens of his worldview to the degree that the evidence could be there, it could bite you in the back.
49:31: Making sense of the fact that something did not, in fact, go extinct millions of years ago does not require the presupposition that there was no such thing as millions of years ago.
49:39: That is correct, okay? I think the observations of our skeptic here is correct in that regard, okay?
49:48: So he says, making sense of the fact that something did not, in fact, go extinct millions of years ago does not require the presupposition that there was no such thing as millions of years ago.
49:57: That is a correct observation, okay? But again, even if it did, how does this refute the Muslim or the
50:03: Mormons who also believe in creationism? And again, I don't need to repeat that. The Muslim or the
50:09: Mormon can present their case presuppositionally if that was their way of going about it.
50:14: And that doesn't mean that the Christian worldview and the Muslim worldview and the
50:19: Mormon worldview are at some sort of stalemate because they have different competing ultimate authorities.
50:25: You see, this is one of the common criticisms of presuppositionalism in that many critics of presuppositionalism think that the presuppositional way of approaching these issues leads to a sort of fideism and a worldview kind of stalemate because you have your ultimate authority.
50:41: He has his ultimate authority. The other person has his ultimate authority. And so there's no way to get around the fact that everyone has their ultimate authorities.
50:47: And so it's kind of like, there's no way to know, okay? And of course, that's where the transcendental argument comes in.
50:54: We would say, contrary to some others, some people think that your presuppositions, your elementary assumptions cannot be proved because they're your elementary assumptions, okay?
51:03: You can't prove the truth of your elementary assumptions by an appeal to something external to it because if you do so, then your elementary presuppositions are not in fact your elementary presuppositions.
51:13: The more fundamental thing you appeal to to demonstrate the truth of your elementary presuppositions are more ultimate.
51:18: So some would say that your presuppositions are ultimate. You can't prove your presuppositions. Well, Van Til, presuppositionalist, disagree with that, okay?
51:26: That's why we use the transcendental argument. You prove your presupposition by demonstrating its transcendental necessity.
51:33: Now, again, I could say that, but that is going to have to be fleshed out within the context of the interaction, okay?
51:40: All right, let's continue here. Go. And again, even if it did, how does this refute the
51:47: Muslims or the Mormons who also believe in creationism? And you still won't see it, right?
51:54: Why? You won't because you'll view the evidence through your ultimate authority and perspective.
52:01: That's projection. Competent scientists are trained to work the other way around. Science aims to infer ultimate perspectives from the evidence rather than view the evidence through an ultimate perspective.
52:11: Deliberately viewing the evidence through an ultimate perspective or authority is what dogmatists do. All right, okay.
52:18: So there are a whole host of things I think are problematic here, okay? He says that's projection.
52:24: Competent scientists are trained to work the other way around. Science aims to infer ultimate perspectives from the evidence.
52:33: So let me get this straight. So you move from a particular to the universal? Is that how science works, right?
52:40: Is it not the case that you already have presuppositions as to the nature of reality before you even confront the data?
52:46: You see, again, this assumes that the scientist is the guy who doesn't assume anything.
52:52: He doesn't assume anything, okay? This is it. He doesn't assume anything to be true. You know, he comes completely blank.
52:57: He is the epitome of a tabula rasa, a blank slate, right? This objective observer.
53:03: Science doesn't assume anything. It just goes out there, looks at the facts, and then, of course, from the evidence, right?
53:09: He, from the, from, what does he say? He says, science aims to infer ultimate perspectives from the evidence rather than the view, the evidence through an ultimate perspective.
53:19: That is completely backwards. Science is not some neutral, not some neutral methodology.
53:28: Science itself has with it presuppositions that you need to bring to the table to even engage in science or you have a meaningful conception of what science is all about, okay?
53:38: Now he says that deliberately viewing evidence through an ultimate perspective or authority is what dogmatists do.
53:44: Yeah, that's right. And the point I wanna make as a presuppositionalist is we are all dogmatists.
53:50: We all start with a dogmatic assertion about the nature of reality, and we interpret things in light of those underlying commitments, those non -negotiables, okay, at the foundation, okay?
54:03: If, say, for example, he says, this is the way we should do science. Okay, well, who says?
54:09: Okay, if you say that's how we should do it, that we shouldn't start with the other way around, then you're asserting your dogmatic position with regards to how science should be done or how good science should be done, you know, or how science should be done appropriately.
54:22: Again, science is not this neutral methodology that we just come to the data and then draw these universal applications from specific evidences.
54:30: No, we come to the scientific process with a whole host of presuppositions, which are themselves not demonstrated through a scientific method, okay?
54:39: So I think it's very important. I think this is a very philosophically naive perspective to address this issue of science here.
54:47: All right, let's see. So we don't say in presuppositional versus evidentialist apologetics is that, you know, evidentialists use evidence and presuppositionalists don't.
54:58: A presuppositionalist wants to actually ground the entire discussion in a meaningful way for an ultimate foundation.
55:06: So when I'm talking to, say, the Muslim or to the
55:11: Mormon, we're talking about this in terms of ultimate authority, not in terms of evidence versus no evidence, but in the terms of ultimate authority.
55:22: So I'm taking Joseph Smith's claims of ultimate authority and I'm actually filtering that through this ultimate authority.
55:30: But a Mormon presuppositionalist would do it the other way around. So why should I take you more seriously than the
55:35: Mormon or vice versa? How do you know which ultimate authority should be filtered through which? And we address that, right?
55:43: We want the Mormon to filter it through his ultimate authority. And then part of our critique is to hypothetically grant the truth of the
55:51: Mormon's ultimate authority and show that on its own terms, it collapses. All right, that's what we want him to do.
55:57: When you say, well, the Mormon could do the same thing. That's literally what the presuppositionalist wants him to do. We want the
56:02: Mormon to argue in a consistently presuppositional fashion because we think that's the proper way you should reason.
56:08: Namely, that you reason in a way that is consistent with your foundations. That's all. There's no trick to it.
56:13: There's no sleight of hand. That's literally why we talk about worldviews and foundations because we think that we should be conscious of the fact that what we say up here at our worldview has to be consistent with the foundation.
56:25: That's all, that's all. It's that, and then Van Til says, and with regards to ultimate authority, we can show the
56:32: Christian ultimate authority is true by appealing to its transcendental necessity. And then we lay out the argument within the course of the apologetic encounter.
56:39: But yeah, we welcome the Mormon presuppositionalist, the Muslim presuppositionalist. I wish that Mormons were presuppositionalist with regards to their perspective because then we cut right to the chase with the worldview comparison, doing the internal critiques of the worldview perspective.
56:52: That's literally, literally what we want to happen. Okay, so it's not a criticism. It's actually what we want the unbeliever to do.
57:02: All right. Okay, so that is it for the video.
57:08: Again, once again, I don't know who the gentleman was and I don't know how much he has been exposed to a precept methodology, but those are just my thoughts, sharing my thoughts and how he was critiquing
57:19: Jeff. In my opinion, I don't think Jeff was on the top of his game there. He could have clarified some things, but again, this guy who's doing the critique is critiquing
57:29: Jeff Durbin, who is answering questions in a different context. So we need to keep that into consideration as well.
57:35: So there's a context for Jeff's talk and then there's a context and angle from where the guy who's making the video is critiquing.
57:41: So we want to make sure we understand the proper context there. Okay, so I hope my critiques and criticisms were helpful.
57:50: I apologize if I was unclear in anything, but I'll take a few moments to take some questions if there are any, and just give me a few moments to scroll down here.
58:03: Let's see here. Meh, meh, meh, meh. Let's see here.
58:11: Okay, let me get a notification there. Let's see here. I got to scroll down.
58:18: Let's see, can someone explain why this method wouldn't work for Allah? Here we go. Okay, there we go.
58:25: Okay, so TJ asks, can someone explain why this method wouldn't work for Allah? And that's what I said before.
58:31: If you remember, it's not an issue of, well, the presuppositionalist says his authority is the only one.
58:36: Well, what about the Muslim? Well, we acknowledge that everyone has an ultimate authority. That's kind of the point.
58:41: That's what we want to bring out in the discussion. I want the Muslim to appeal to his ultimate authority. But then the ultimate authority to which
58:49: Muslims appeal to shoot itself in the foot because the ultimate authority of the Muslims actually grants the truth of significant portions of the
58:56: Bible. So at that point, we have kind of a common source there. And at that point, we want to show that what
59:01: Islam teaches is actually in conflict with what they grant us, namely those portions of scripture, okay?
59:08: Now, again, I could say that, but that's gonna have to be worked out in more detail. So again, yes,
59:14: Muslims can say Allah is the necessary precondition. And then we ask the question, let's take the
59:20: Unitarian conception of God. Can a Unitarian conception of God provide the preconditions for intelligible experience?
59:26: Now that can be a very simple, short conversation, or it can be a more philosophically robust one in which you can talk about details like something like the philosophical problem of the one and the many.
59:35: How is unity and plurality accounted for by an ultimate being who is himself only one, okay?
59:43: And the Christian could then appeal to, given the Christian perspective on its own terms, given the fact that the triune
59:48: God is both equally an ultimate unity and plurality, he can ground the unity and plurality we see in human experience.
59:56: And that's basically what a transcendental critique does. A transcendental critique takes any item of human experience and asks, pardon, what are the necessary preconditions for the intelligibility of that thing, okay?
01:00:07: And so you can go at it at various ways. You can take a philosophical approach. You can go straight to the biblical text and internally critique the
01:00:14: Muslim perspective based upon what they grant the Christian, because Muslims believe that Christians and Jews are the people of the book.
01:00:21: We do have a valid revelation, but of course you need the Muslim correction to correct what has been corrupted.
01:00:27: And there are different ways you can go about engaging that perspective, okay? All right, let's see here.
01:00:37: Let's see, I'm trying to look at some of these.
01:00:44: And I apologize if I don't get to your question. I might skip it on accident, why he doesn't believe it.
01:00:53: Let's see, I see a lot of comments.
01:01:07: I'm seeing if I could find a comment and transform it into a question that I could address. Okay, so TJ also makes a good point here.
01:01:20: He says, I agree, Allah is weird, but he doesn't seem illogical. So he could exist theoretically.
01:01:27: Well, here's the thing. It's not just Allah as kind of just like a being, it's the
01:01:32: Muslim worldview. Remember, even the very concept of Allah requires a worldview. And it is the worldview of the
01:01:39: Muslim that is problematic and their conception of God. Now, I don't know the proper names and perhaps someone like James White could address this, but let's take, for example, let's take a hypothetical example.
01:01:51: And again, I'm not an expert in Islam. So if I was engaging with a Muslim, I would ask respectfully questions for clarification.
01:01:58: I'd wanna know what he believes and then kind of reflect on it and then maybe meet up with him again and kind of go back and forth a little bit.
01:02:05: But I have heard, and I don't know if it's true, but let's suppose it is true. Give an example that Allah is able to lie, okay?
01:02:13: Allah is able to lie, okay? Now, suppose that's true. Can a
01:02:19: God who is the ultimate being and has the potential to lie be a foundation for knowledge?
01:02:27: Think about that. If Allah can lie, then how can we trust anything he says?
01:02:33: He could be lying to us. That would fall into one of those deceiving demon puzzles that's often, how do we know we're not being deceived right now?
01:02:42: That actually could fall into that category. Now, again, do Muslims believe that that's possible for Allah? I'm not sure.
01:02:48: I'm just giving you an example. So you take an attribute or something that Allah does or something about his nature, and you could show an internal inconsistency or maybe how it leads to, say, a problem for epistemology or something like that.
01:03:01: You take Mormonism, for example. Mormonism is problematic because you have an infinite number of deities.
01:03:07: There's no unifying, all -encompassing deity to ground universal conceptual laws. And so you don't have a necessary precondition, conditional grounding for universal conceptual laws.
01:03:17: Ultimately, on Mormonism, ultimate reality is actually impersonal because there are individual deities that exist in a void, an eternal void.
01:03:26: And the void in which these progressive deities exist is impersonal. So you have an impersonal grounding for universal conceptual laws of thought, okay?
01:03:36: Now, again, you can come at that at different angles, and someone might even be listening and say, well, what's wrong with that? There are problems with that that would be a fruitful point of contact in terms of an internal critique.
01:03:47: So there are different ways you can go about this question, all right? Good question there,
01:03:52: TJ, let's see. Let's see here.
01:04:11: Let's see, okay, well, not a lot of questions today. All right, let's see. A lot of conversation, which is good.
01:04:18: That's good, people having fruitful conversations here. Let me see here. Okay, well,
01:04:30: I guess it's gonna be a quiet night. That's fine. Let's see, okay, moving, moving, moving.
01:04:38: All right, okay, all right.
01:04:57: I guess we don't have any questions here. And I just wanna make sure I scroll all the way to the bottom, just so I don't miss anything here.
01:05:15: Awkward silence. All right, well, I guess that's it.
01:05:21: All right, well, if there are no questions, that's completely fine. I apologize if you did have a question and I missed it. And so, all right, well, fine.
01:05:29: Well, just a quick update. I am creating an online school on which folks can sign up and I will be teaching apologetic methodology and making some of this kind of heady stuff more practical, more tangible, all right?
01:05:40: I understand that people who are engaged in presuppositional apologetics are not necessarily gonna be doing it on YouTube and arguing at the level of, say, some scholars and things like that.
01:05:51: So I'm creating a class. We're gonna be having a website up soon in which folks can sign up. And I will be having a series of lectures that I will do to help equip people to defend the faith presuppositionally, biblically, and with gentleness and respect.
01:06:05: And again, I know I always highlight that point that is so, so important to my atheist friends, to the people listening who may not be
01:06:13: Christian. I love you and I don't have any animosity toward you. But at the same time,
01:06:19: I mean, we're critiquing worldviews here and it's my job as a Christian, doing these things in a consistent fashion with the word of God to call people to repentance and to tell them about the gospel of Jesus Christ, okay?
01:06:32: I know that when we talk about the gospel, when we talk about Jesus, we talk about scripture, there are gonna be some skeptics out there that laugh and ridicule and things like that.
01:06:40: Not all of them do. I have some atheist friends who are respectful and we can interact and have meaningful discussion.
01:06:47: But on this channel, I think it's important when we talk about all this intellectual stuff that it's grounded in a consistent application of biblical truths.
01:06:55: And so for my fellow believers, I hope this is an encouragement to you and it helps equip you to better think about these things.
01:07:01: And for my unbelieving friends, I love you, I care for you. And my prayer is that you come to know the saving power of Jesus Christ, all right?
01:07:09: Well, with that said, that is all for this episode. Don't forget to subscribe. If you haven't, hit the notification bell if, excuse me, for future upcoming videos and stay tuned for the upcoming website that's coming out and those online classes.
01:07:22: I'll definitely put out a trailer out there and hopefully you guys can share the content. We want people to sign up and to get equipped to defend the faith that has been once for all delivered to the saints.