Answering a Fool: How Could a Just God Condemn Men for Failing to Obey Hearsay?

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People are tired of hearing nothing but doom and despair on the radio.

Christ Alone Saves from the Coming Judgment

The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone. And any who reject Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation any hope of heaven.

The issue is that humanity is in sin and the wrath of almighty God is hanging over our head. They will hear his words, they will not act upon them. And when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come.

They will be consumed and they will perish. God wrapped himself in flesh condescended and became a man. Died on the cross for sin was resurrected on the third day. Has ascended to the right hand of the father where he sits now to make intercession for us.

Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words. They will act upon them and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day their house will stand.

The Podcast’s Purpose and the Answering a Fool Format

Welcome to Bible Bashed where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry. By answering the questions you're not allowed to ask. Listen and enjoy this midweek installment of answering a fool.

As Pastor Tim answers a fool according to his folly lest he be wise in his own eyes. In these shorter episodes Pastor Tim answers objections from internet trolls In an effort to help them go home and rethink their lives.

Troll hunting is hard work but hey someone's got to do it. Now without further ado here's Pastor Tim.

One of our primary purposes for doing this podcast was we wanted to provide a helpful resource for people Who actually have sincere questions about the Bible. Whether that's a believer or it's an unbeliever.

We wanted to provide a resource online that was interacting with questions. Particularly questions that as we said in our main podcast that people are too afraid to ask. Or that they're not allowed to ask.

But then that can extend to any kinds of questions that an individual might have. Now you know that when you put anything out on the internet That there are never ending lists of trolls who are going to respond to what you have put out.

Particularly if it's a religious podcast you know that you're going to get any number of atheist trolls That will respond as trolls do. And received internet wisdom has always been that you don't feed the trolls.

Unless they keep on coming back for more. But one of the things that we wanted to do with the podcast was to provide a resource That's going to equip the saints for the work of ministry. And to help people to know how to answer objections.

Even if they come in a way that is somewhat sarcastic or distasteful in certain ways. And so we wanted to use this podcast as a means of answering these common questions. Whether they're related to the Bible or religion in general.

And one of the things the Bible says is that a fool says in his heart that there is no God. And the Bible gives us some sort of instruction on how to answer fools. So when you go to Proverbs 26 forward it says Answer not a fool according to his folly lest you be like him yourself.

But then answer a fool according to his folly lest he be wise in his own eyes. And what you have there in the language of wisdom is that There is a type of person who can get drug down into the mud answering foolish objections.

And the end result is that you appear to be foolish yourself. If that's what's characteristic of you. And yet at the same time there is a moral imperative to seek to answer questions. Even when they're given or objections even when they're given in a foolish sort of way.

And we want to be the kind of people who are always ready to give a defense for the hope that is in us. And so in so doing one of the things that we're going to do in this podcast We're going to have a section that's going to be titled Answer a Fool section.

And then we'll also have general sincere questions sections that will also be included in this podcast as well. So one of the things that we're going to do with our weekly content Is we're going to have primarily probably one each week.

Probably one question that we're going to hop out and kind of question that we're going to interact with. But then we hope to have shorter questions devoted to particular questions. Whether they're coming from trolls or online internet trolls or whether they're sincere questions.

And so if you do have a question feel free to send it out. And if you don't want to be included in our Answer a Fool section Then a pro tip would be just to let us know that it's a sincere question. And maybe actually be persuasive as far as that goes in the way that you present it To present it as a sincere question.

But for all of our internet trolls out there that we have already and that we are soon to acquire We hope that you feel the warm affection that is flowing from us As we seek to spend our time answering your questions as far as that goes.

The Troll’s Objection about Hearsay Revelation

But the first question we're going to be asking today is coming from a troll. So this will be an Answer a Fool section. And here's the question. I will withhold the name just for the sake of protecting guilty.

Now here's the question. Maybe you haven't noticed this. But the Bible and the Quran and every other sacred text in the religions that have them Were written by people who claim God spoke to them directly.

Thomas Paine and the Age of Reason pointed out the rather obvious fact That if God did reveal something to one particular individual It was revelation to that one person only. It's hearsay to everyone else.

And we're not under any obligation to believe it. So this is a comment that was posted below our question. Should those who claim God speaks to them directly be considered false prophets. The atheist or agnostic individual in question Wanted to let us know that In case we haven't noticed this before in the course of our life It seems to this individual that every single religion The comment says every other sacred text in the religions That have them were written by people who claim that God spoke to them directly.

Now this is a remarkable insight that this individual has. Man, I'm floored by it. I don't know that I've ever considered that before That there are other religions that exist That believe that God spoke to them as well.

So that's a rather remarkable thing I don't know. Maybe I should go home and rethink everything that I've ever thought about the Bible. Because that's new information. But sadly, I don't know. I guess what I thought was the case Was that there were some religions that made appeals to direct divine authority In terms of their sacred texts.

And there were others that didn't. Like Buddhism for instance. Or Satanism. I know that Anton LaVey was a materialistic hedonist essentially Who didn't believe in the supernatural at all. And in his religious texts The Satanic Bible was making no claim to direct divine authority at all.

But apparently our troll wants us to know that every single religion Is making a claim to divine authority. So I guess that's news to me. But on to more substantial issues. The individual points out essentially The point of the comment is essentially to say Hey, we're doing a podcast.

Should those who claim God speaks to them directly Be considered false prophets. So we're criticizing a type of individual Who is making a claim to direct divine authority today. But he's essentially dismissing the whole enterprise in general.

Saying that every individual who is making a claim to direct divine authority Is somehow deluded and deceived. And then he's appealing to Thomas Paine in The Age of Reason To point out the fact that This is a rather obvious fact That if God revealed something to one particular individual It was revelation to that person only.

So supposing that did happen. And he did talk to one person. Well it's only revelation to that person. To everyone else is just hearsay. Because they weren't given access to that. And then no one's under any obligation to believe it Essentially, particularly if it's second hand.

And essentially This objection is basically making a moral claim. It's making a moral claim to say That it's fundamentally Essentially if I try to put it in the best possible light It's immoral to hold someone accountable To a particular law or prescription That they have not themselves personally been given.

So basically the argument goes Assume for the sake of argument. And Thomas Paine and this person do not believe that God exists. I assume they're agnostic as far as that goes. But assume for the sake of argument That God himself did reveal something to someone.

Then assuming that he has the authority to do so Assume all that for the sake of argument. Then that would be only morally binding on that person To everyone else is hearsay. So the objection there is to say That it's immoral essentially For a deity to give revelation.

If that deity did exist It would be immoral for that deity to give revelation To one individual and expect other people Who did not receive it directly to hear it. Now this is, I suppose it's an interesting sort of objection In general and the Bible does have a lot to say About this kind of objection.

And there's a lot of things that we could say about it. I'll limit myself to a couple of observations. One of the things that we would say is that Romans 1 .18 tells us this The wrath of God is revealed from heaven Against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men Who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

For what can be known about God is plain to them Because God has shown it to them For his invisible attributes Namely his eternal power and divine nature Have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world.

And the things that have been made So they are without excuse. So part of the biblical worldview is to acknowledge That there is a creator God who has made us He has made us in his image And he has written his moral law on his heart.

And one of the reasons why this God Is able to hold mankind accountable for their actions Despite the fact that he has not personally spoken to anyone In a verbal and auditory way Is due to the fact that there is a revelation of this God That is in nature That is sufficient to condemn them.

And so the creation itself the Bible tells us Declares the glory of God. If you look around at the creation One of the things you say is that there is strong evidence Of a designer within the creation itself.

So in terms of just the way this kind of argument works If you were to imagine yourself walking on a beach somewhere And you were to see a watch that was laying in the sand. You look down at that watch.

One of the things that you would notice instantaneously Is that there must be. You would draw certain assumptions on the basis of that. And one of the assumptions that you draw Is that this thing looks designed.

This watch it looks designed. You wouldn't conclude by looking at that watch That this is obviously the result of blind random chance. One of the things you would say is that This watch it appears to be designed.

It looks to be uniquely designed. And so the only way that that can come about Would be that there is some sort of intelligence that is behind it. So the same thing would happen in normal ways. I was looking at YouTube And for whatever reason It was showing me some videos of individuals Who made log cabins.

So I watched one of these videos Of this guy spending a year Making some log cabin in the middle of the woods. And then it was showing me other suggestions Of a video of a man Who basically made a small apartment Out of a cave in a mountain.

And one of the things that you realize instantaneously Is that if you were to ever stumble upon One of these little log cabins Or this apartment cave in the mountain In China or whatever You would know You would say that someone made this.

This wasn't the result of random blind chance. And you know that just because of how complex it actually is. So you look at it and you see the evidence Of something that is exceedingly complex. It doesn't bear the evidence of blind random chance.

It's way too complex to just have happened. So you think about the log cabin In the middle of the woods kind of thing. You have trees that are cut down And cut down in a uniform kind of way. There's cement that's put in between the tree branches.

There's a roof that has nails and everything. This is not the kind of thing that results from Blind and random chance. And when you look around the world If you know anything about the world And as science increases our knowledge Of how complex the world actually is.

One of the things that you realize is That nature doesn't tend towards order But it tends towards disorder. And you look around the world And it bears strong evidence of design. It is complex. And not only is it complex It's irreducibly complex.

And what that means is that In order for something to be irreducibly complex It is so complex to the point where You can't take any part away from it. And it still functions as the thing That it's designed to function as.

Think about a mousetrap. A mousetrap is irreducibly complex. Meaning, in order to have a mousetrap You need kind of a board. And then you need a spring. And then you need a bar or a lever. And then you need some sort of pressure plate.

And every single part on this mousetrap Has to come together. And if you take away each part If you take away any of the parts It's no longer going to function as a mousetrap. It's irreducibly complex.

And this is one of the great lies of evolution. Is that you can just randomly Have certain survival mutations That are adapting upon an existing framework. And you can go from something very simple To something very complex.

But the problem is that the world As we see it, is irreducibly complex. That's the point. So getting back to the question The morality of God revealing himself To a particular person. And that would be a hearsay to everyone else.

The objection there is to say that If God does exist And does reveal himself Then he must reveal himself personally To each individual person In some sort of audible or verbal way Everything that he has to say.

Or else that objection is somehow immoral. Because how can you hold someone accountable To something that you haven't been told? Well the Bible tells us that God has revealed himself in nature. And the revelation of himself in nature Is a revelation that's sufficient to condemn.

And one of the reasons why it's sufficient to condemn Is because the world obviously bears The distinct marks of being designed. We live in a world that Can't possibly have slowly evolved In terms of, on the basis of Blind random chance The more we actually learn about science The more we realize how impossible that is.

I mean the world is far complexer. You know when you think about Just something like the genetic code It's far far far more complex Than something like Shakespeare is. But you give a monkey a typewriter And give him 10 ,000 years of 10 ,000 years, millions of years Of banging away at that typewriter.

And he's never going to be able to produce Shakespeare. It's just not going to happen Because it's designed. And you look around the world And you see that there's evidence of design. And anyone who denies that The Bible would say would be a fool.

The fool says in his heart there is no God. Because there has to be some sort of intelligence That produces the intelligence that we see On the level that we see it. But so that's one response You could have to that sort of question.

But then another response that you might have Is to say that You know if the world Is just the result of blind And random chance As our atheist or agnostic commentator Assumedly believes Where do you get all the moral indignation anyways?

You know if an individual wants to believe That there's a God who made us And that God who exists And has moral standards for individuals That he's chosen to reveal And he's chosen to reveal In the way that he wanted to reveal In a way that he thought was wise and sufficient And to hold them morally accountable.

Who are you to say That morality even exists? And so the idea of morality doesn't make sense In an evolutionary materialistic worldview anyways There's no way to go from what is To what ought to be As far as that goes In the move that you're trying to make.

And so where does the moral outrage come from? In a blind evolutionary system Morality doesn't even exist anyways. And so the idea that somehow That this God that you disbelieve in Would be doing something fundamentally immoral By giving a revelation to prophets And then holding the entire human race Accountable to that second hand information So to speak as you would say That's you know Where do you get the moral indignation To say that that's wrong anyways?

That right and wrong don't exist In an evolutionary framework. You know if there is no law giver There is no such thing as right and wrong. It's just ultimately about might makes right Isn't it? Now to answer the first part of this Commenter's question in more of a serious way The commenter noted that Something that he didn't think we noticed But that the Bible and the Quran And every other sacred text And the religions that have them Are written by people who claim God spoke to them directly.

And it seems like the objection there Is the kind of objection to say That hey how do you know That Christianity is true? Every single religion And not every one of them. But I take the point that The majority of religions Are making some sort of appeal To divine authority As far as that goes.

And so because every single one of them Are making these claims to divine authority What makes you think that Christianity Is uniquely true? Because these religions Don't happen to all Be saying the same thing.

Now I mean many times you talk With people about religion And they're saying hey you know All roads lead to the same place. And they're all basically saying the same kind of thing. But this kind of comment to its credit Does realize that there are fundamental differences And then those differences do matter.

So if you pick the wrong religion Then you might end up in hell As the Bible describes. But then The assumption there is Isn't it kind of immoral for God If he did exist To claim that Only one of these particular religions Is true.

And then essentially The problem there is just to say That there are certain assumptions That make this make sense. And so the assumptions being That man is basically good And that man would want to follow God If God would just reveal himself clearly.

But then the problem is that there's all these Paths that are presented And then you know which path you pick Is largely related to your upbringing. And so sociological studies could be appealed to At that point that basically Just you know Say that hey if you're born in America In the 21st century You're most likely to be Christian.

You can be born in a different part of the country Or a different part of the world And that would change What you perceive to be true. And so the fact that you know There's all these competing religions out there Who's to say which one is right And which one is wrong.

And isn't it largely based on your social location And isn't it kind of immoral for God To essentially Hold people accountable to one Particular path that he didn't reveal to them Directly But that he revealed through some sort of Secondary means when there's so many Things out there.

Why Competing Religions Do Not Disprove Christianity

And the problem with this is just I mean there's several problems with this I'll limit myself to a few comments But I'm sure that If you have a phone that functions You get plenty of spam calls all day long.

And one of the things That's amazing about all the spam calls That you get is that I mean there are people who straight up Lie to you. And you know I would say that Many if not most of the calls I receive On my phone are from people who are Lying to me trying to steal my money.

And so it doesn't Follow from that logically to assume That there's no such thing as a True caller, okay. The fact that there are counterfeits out there That there are fakes out there, that there are scammers out there Does not in any way Undermine The reality that there are actually People who I know who call me And who are trustworthy and Who are reliable.

The only way to Determine is this a scammer Or is this true is to evaluate It on a case by case basis. And so every single religion needs to be Evaluated on a case by case basis On the basis of the merits That are presented to see if If there is evidence That would indicate that This religion is truthful.

And if you do that with Christianity It far surpasses any Kind of evidence for the truthfulness Or veracity of any other religion. So just to dismiss Christianity wholesale By the presence of other religions Is fundamentally Ignorant and naive.

But then There are other assumptions There that are present in that kind of Question That could be responded to as well. And one of those is the assumption that man is basically good And wants to do the right thing.

And I think if you look at the history of the world You don't see that man is basically good. You look around the history of the world You see that man is fundamentally flawed And he's immoral. And the Bible tells us that no one seeks after God Apart from God's grace And apart from God's help No one will come to God.

Because man is fundamentally flawed And man is fundamentally sinful. Man is condemned as the Bible tells us Because he suppressed the truth And unrighteousness He takes what's been made plain to him And he suppresses it.

And the reason why he does that is because There's moral issues That are at stake. In high school I had a friend Who was a German atheist And one of the things that he told Me was that he didn't want to Become a Christian because then he would have to Give up his fornication.

And that's not something that he wanted to do. Essentially the Bible is making Moral claims that he Was restricting The freedom that he wanted And he refused to submit himself To the demands that God has given.

And so when you think about The nature of religion In general You know You're not starting out with Innocent people who are good. In fact what you see And what can be empirically verified As you look around the world Is that man is fundamentally immoral and flawed And evil.

And you know he needs a savior That's going to help him overcome that fundamental Moral problem. And he has an inborn hostility to the truth That's based on The moral condition that he has. And so these aren't just intellectual Discussions as far as that goes.

Closing Summary and Sign-Off

This has been another installment Of Answering a Fool with Bible Bashed. As always if you would like To be included in one of our Answering a Fool Episodes feel free to respond To us on our Facebook, Twitter, or Gab Posts with a disrespectful Sarcastic, often off topic Comment that shows you did not Thoughtfully engage with anything we have actually Said and we will do our best To include an answer to your trolling comment.

Keep in mind the days are Short and trolls are in abundant supply But we will do Our best.