Foundations Conference Q&A 2019

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Apologetics Foundations Conference Q&A session Ryan Galan

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Next question, logic and reason, are they the same? And then there's two quotes from scripture.
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God says, come, let us reason together. And then Paul says that he reasons with the people.
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So logic and reason, are they the same? Logic are the laws of proper thinking.
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And reasoning is when those laws are employed in our thinking. Does that make sense? So the laws of logic are the laws themselves of proper thinking.
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And reasoning is the actual process when we're using it. Logic doesn't have content.
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We put content into our minds, so to speak. And logic, when we reason, our minds are kind of processing that through logic.
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So we think, and the laws of logic help us categorize and make sense of that which we're thinking about.
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That process is the rational process. Yeah, I agree with Eli.
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Reasoning is the process of using logic. Now, you can use logic in a good way, or you can use logic in a bad way.
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So we can use logic and come to wrong conclusions, or we can use logic and come to right conclusions. And again, when we submit our thinking to Christ and we use the laws of logic that he's given us, that's going to be able to assess whether we've come to a right conclusion or a wrong conclusion.
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We test our premises. Like, how's the, what's the one with the, you said it was a man.
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Socrates. Socrates. All men are mortal. Socrates is a man.
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Do it, please. Yes. All men are mortal, in premise one. Premise two, Socrates is a man. Logical conclusion, therefore,
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Socrates is mortal. So each one of those premises we evaluate. All men are mortal.
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Is that true? If that's true and the second premise is true, then the third premise follows and is logically true.
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But if that first premise is wrong, we can start off with a wrong premise, get the right second premise, and then come to a wrong conclusion.
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Right. The statement that all men are mortal is the content, right, in which we are applying logic.
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So logic are the laws and we supply the content and logic helps us categorize and make sense out of the statements that we're making.
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So we want to follow the rules of logical thinking to come to logical conclusions. And of course, following logical rules can also, as you said, help us identify when there is a faulty reason.
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For example, someone will say something to the effect, God does not exist because evolution is true.
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Now, while it's true that I don't believe in evolution, it does not logically follow that if evolution are true, atheism is true.
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See the problem? You say evolution is true, therefore, Jesus didn't rise from the dead.
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Well, that doesn't logically follow. All right. Now, whatever you might think of evolution is irrelevant. The point is that the structure of that argument is not, it doesn't have a logical conclusion.
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And so applying those logical plots to someone's argument, as well as your own arguments, help us to reach proper conclusions and to identify faulty conclusions.
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Here's a way I'm going to show you how to just put this in context. It happens to me all the time.
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My wife brings something home that she bought. Honey, I see you bought a new whatever.
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How much was that? I bought it at Walmart. That's called a red herring.
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A hundred thousand. How much was it? It was on sale. We still haven't hit the conclusion.
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See, she's trying to logic me out from the conclusion I'm trying to come to.
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So, when your premises don't line up, you're going to come to the wrong conclusion. So, you just have to go by the laws of logic and this thing is called fallacies.
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You can find, just type in logical fallacies online, you'll find a whole list of them. It pays to know those things.
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To be able to identify self -refuting statements are important, kind of like identifying fallacies. So, for example, here's a practical one.
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Someone will say, you know, the concept of God is so transcendent and beyond us that even if God did exist, we couldn't know anything about Him.
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And so that's actually a statement itself which has logical problems because if God is so beyond us that we can't know anything about Him, how do you know that about God?
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Namely, that if God did exist, He's the sort of God that we can't know anything about. And so to say that we can't know anything about God is to itself make a statement about God.
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And so that's a logical contradiction. Another fallacy would be, you guys know who
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R .C. Sproul is? R .C. Sproul believes that the Bible is infallible.
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And somebody says, well, he's a Christian. Okay, that's called a genetic fallacy.
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Just because somebody who's a Christian said that the Bible is infallible doesn't mean it's wrong, right?
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So just pointing to the person and saying, well, that so -and -so said that, that's not a reputation of the person's argument.
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You're not addressing his statement. Whether he's a Christian, whether he's an atheist, whether he's a
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Hindu, if he said that the Bible's invalid or inerrant, well, we have to test that.
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We have to test what the actual substance of that premise is, not the person.
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Or if you say something to the effect that Christianity's false because look at all of the evils that have been done in the name of Christianity.
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You know, we can just tip our hat and say, okay, evil has been done in the name of Christianity, therefore
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Jesus didn't rise from the dead, that doesn't logically qualify, right? The misuse of the Christian faith and the abuse of the
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Christian faith has no bearing as to whether the statements of the Christian faith are true. So we're dealing with truth, not pointing out the inadequacies of Christian doctrines.
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So I want to be able to draw those logical distinctions as well. I'm probably going to be here all night because I've got a lot of questions.
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You've got a lot of questions. One of the brief ones. Alright, so the next question.
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I didn't understand about God having any shape and fingers, whatever about Deuteronomy 9, 10,
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Exodus 8 -3. The work of your fingers and about the
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Ten Commandments being written in Exodus. Who wants to go first?
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Sure, yeah. We need to be very careful. I was at a stop and shop once and I had a bunch of bags in my hand and I was walking over to my car and a guy came up to me and said, do you have a moment to talk?
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And I was like, okay. And so I dropped all my bags in the car and I was like, yeah, so what's going on?
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And he says, did you know that just as there is a God the Father, there is also
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God the Mother? Now, of course, he had no idea who he was talking to. I just looked like a regular shopper in my mind.
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I was like, okay, let's go. And so he pointed to passages in Scripture which applied feminine characteristics to God.
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Now, what's going on there? Well, God is not a woman and God is not a man, right? And if we're going to take those passages and descriptions of God literally and at face value, then we're going to have to say that God is also a bird since we hide under the shadows of His wings.
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You see, you have to understand that when you're interpreting the Bible, we have to understand what sort of literature and literary tools that are being used to make a certain point.
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In literary studies, you have something called an anthropomorphism, an anthropomorphism, and that's when you apply human characteristics to say something like God.
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You know, the arm of the Lord is not too short to say. Well, God doesn't have arms, right? He's a spirit,
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John 4, 24. He doesn't have a physical body. You have Genesis 1, 26, where it says that we are made in the image of God.
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And so clearly, we have bodies, and so God has a body because we're made in His image. Not so fast. That assumes that the image in which we are made pertains to the physical.
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In Genesis 2, 7, it says that God formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into him the breath of life, and man became a living soul.
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The image of God is not the forming out of the dust of the ground. The image of God is the breathing into us and becoming a living soul.
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And so the manner in which we are made in the image of God pertains to those spiritual similarities that we have. God is a rational being.
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We are a rational being. God is a spirit. To a lesser degree, we are also spirits as well. So when we see passages like this, we need to be careful and recognize anthropomorphisms and also these ideas where it says
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God is seen in the Old Testament, right? The Lord appeared to Abraham, right? Or God spoke to Moses face to face.
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Or Jacob wrestled the apes when he says, behold, I've seen God and lived. What's going on here? Can you see God? Well, it doesn't look like you can because in 1
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Timothy 6, 16, it says that no man has seen nor can see God. So you have now what seems to be an apparent contradiction in the
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Bible. In the Old Testament, you have people seeing God, and in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul, who knew the
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Old Testament very well, says that no man has nor can they. So what's going on? Well, there's another interesting theological term you want to become familiar with, and that is the term
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Christophany. Christophany or Theophany. These are physical manifestations of God in the
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Old Testament. God often revealed himself in ways that men could see and interact, but that is not the true essence of who
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God is. It is kind of God's attempt to kind of bend down and communicate with his creatures, okay?
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And by the way, the Bible clarifies in John 1 that no man has seen the Father except the only begotten
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God, who is at the Father's right hand. He has made him known. If you know the context of John 1, that's in the beginning was the
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Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. In John 1, 14, the Word became flesh. The Word that's spoken of is
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Jesus. No man has seen the Father except the Word, who is the Son.
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He makes him known. So if no one sees the Father, who are people seeing in the Old Testament?
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I call this when Jesus photobombs the Old Testament. Jesus is the second person of the
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Trinity that functions in the role of making the Father known and appears to people in forms that can be seen.
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Now, that doesn't mean that the second person of the Trinity has a form, but it is the task of the second person of the
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Trinity to actually participate in the revealing because that is what the job of the Son is. No man knows the
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Father except the Son, and so those whom the Son chooses to reveal. That's great.
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Everything we read in the news is filtered, so how do we know that the Bible, too, is not filtered?
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God is not a man that he should lie. All Scripture is God -free and useful for teaching, review, correction, and training in righteousness, that the man of God be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
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Either the Scripture is true or it's not. When you read the Scriptures and you see the outworking of them in life, you see the fulfilled prophecies, you see the inner witness of the
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Holy Spirit testifying and confirming that the Word is true to you, you can trust that Word. There have been people who've tried to prove the
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Bible wrong over and over and over and over, and they're never successful. In fact, lots of them become Christians.
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Lee Strobel, right? J. Warren Wallace. Some of the best apologists in the country today tried to prove the
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Bible false or contradictory. So, when we read the
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Bible, if it is truly God -free, it is divine. It is divine. The problem comes in with human beings who try to interpret
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God's Word. Human beings are flawed. We're sinful at the core. It's our minds that are stained.
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So you might say, well, the Bible is true. How come everybody can't come to the same conclusion? Because we have the problem, not the
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Word of God. The Word of God doesn't change. Man does. So that's why Paul also tells us to be a workman.
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We need not be ashamed. Rightly dividing the Word of truth. So, understanding
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God's Word sometimes takes work. In addition to that work, God has also blessed the
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Body of Christ with pastors and teachers who have special giftings and talents who help interpret the
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Word for us. Now, ultimately, we're going to be held responsible for everything we believe about God in accordance with His Word.
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So don't just automatically take a teacher's Word for it. Go back, test the
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Scriptures, see if what he said is true. Okay? So, either it's impossible for God to lie.
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We all agree with that. If it's impossible for God to lie and he said the Scriptures are
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God -breathed, they're divine, then they're divine. They're without error. There's also an important thing to recognize the logical fallacy in the question.
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Just because the newspapers are filtered, therefore the Bible's filtered? First, what do you mean by filtered? Is filtered mean false?
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So, are we saying everything in the newspaper is false? There are people who say we can't trust the Bible because it's written by man.
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Well, the premise there is that if something comes from man, we can't trust it. So can I trust the validity of whether or not the person who spoke that believes what they say?
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If I can't trust human sources, then I can't trust anything the objector is saying in regards to the point he's trying to make.
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The fact that the Bible is written by men does not logically necessitate this falsehood. A man can write an infallible book.
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You can make a book without any errors in it. That doesn't mean it's inspired by God. But you can.
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You don't need to have divine origin to be infallible. Now, we just happen to believe that the
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Bible is also inspired by God. We don't believe the Bible came out of heaven and dropped out of the clouds onto our laps.
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The assumption is that because man -air and the Bible's written by men, then the
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Bible must air. But what's the assumption? That God is not involved in the process. And that's a presupposition that they're bringing to their objection that you need to challenge.
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If God exists and he has superintended the writing of the Bible, do we have good reason to believe that the
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Bible has been preserved as it was originally written and as we have it now? Without the presupposition of God, then yeah,
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I would agree. Given normal human tendencies, yeah, we can make mistakes and lose the original message. But I don't grant that premise.
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I actually believe God is superintending the process. So you add the presupposition of God that actually helps firm up the idea that we have good grounds to believe that the
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Bible is the Word of God. Now, if the person doesn't accept that, then that's going to be another discussion. Why I think
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God exists and why I think God has had a hand in the process of preserving Scripture and things like that.
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So we want to be able to identify the fallacy in the question. You can't trust that which comes from man. Well, that objection came from man, so I don't trust the question.
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You see the problem? So we have to be able to turn those statements on its head and show the logical fallacy inherent within them.
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How would you answer someone who constantly says the universe meant it to be? The universe is pushing me that way and the universe will work it out.
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Yeah, they're giving personal qualities to an impersonal thing called the universe. And so impersonal things can't mean anything.
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To mean something is to have intention and intentionality is the property of persons. It doesn't make sense to say that my coffee cup intended to, you know, whatever.
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Coffee doesn't intend to anything. Yeah, it's like the coffee spills. Well, I didn't spill it. The coffee intended to spill it, so that's what happened.
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Impersonal things don't have intentionality and what that person is doing is really just equating the universe with a personal entity, which is just what the book of Romans says.
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They're actually worshiping the creature rather than the creator. They're giving personalistic qualities to an immaterial something that's not itself
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God, which is problematic. So when you say the universe made me do this or the universe meant, that's just reflecting a worldview that I think is incoherent because impersonal things don't have intentionality.
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Agreed. And just think of the ramifications. This is called reductio ad absurdum. Take that argument to its logical end.
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I can use that excuse to justify anything that I want to do. The universe made me want to rob that bank.
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The universe made me want to cheat on my test at high school. The universe made me do this. You can use that for anything.
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You can just throw morality out the window because if that's what the universe intended, how am I going to overthrow the universe's intention for my life?
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Follow? So once you start blaming or using that excuse, you can take it to a very, very unhealthy end.
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Couldn't a serial killer use that and say, well, yeah, the universe pushed me in that direction? Why did you kill that woman?
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The universe. Oh, well. The universe pushed me in that direction.
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This is the way the universe arranged my molecules in such a way and my
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DNA in such a way that I'm a serial killer. I can't help it. The universe has these weird intentions.
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What intended the universe itself? We know that the universe didn't always exist. And so what brought the universe into existence?
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And if the universe is not personal, then again, how does it intend anything? It can't be
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God. It can't be equated to God because if the universe began to exist, it lacks the property of being eternal.
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It's created. Where did it come from? And was it created to be personal? Did a personal being create the universe to be personal and intend things for you?
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That has problems with it as well. This next question is a big one.
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So give me that. Why does God allow evil in the world?
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I mean, I would answer it. I mean, I'm just going to quote Scripture because for everything has a purpose, and God's purpose for, you know,
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God allows all things for the purpose of the good, for the good of those who are called according to his purpose.
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So there's purpose in evil itself, and that purpose is ultimately for the good of those who are called.
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And he's doing something through all of it in which he is going to eventually be glorified through.
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That would be my short answer. Now, there's a lot of other answers. We can get into other philosophical answers, but that would be good.
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Yeah, I think there is a mysterious aspect and a non -mysterious aspect to answering that question. On the one hand, there are reasons why
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God has allowed evil for which we don't know. Deuteronomy 29 .29 says that the secret things belong to the
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Lord, and the things that he's revealed belong to us and our children's children. So there's an element as to why God allows particular evils, but ultimately because God is not random.
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When he created the universe, he had a specific purpose in everything that he's created and allowed to occur, and so God has morally sufficient reasons.
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If the evil exists and God is good, then it seems to logically follow that God has good reasons for allowing it, even if you don't know what those reasons are.
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And even if God told you what those reasons are, you might not even understand the answer to your question, since God's purposes involve much more things that extend beyond the specific evils that you yourself are experiencing.
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So there are a couple of ways you could answer this question. For one, what is the sole purpose of man if not to know their creator?
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It might be the case that the only way to fully know our creator is for God to allow evil, because in the allowance of evil, that teaches us something about the perfect, righteous, and holy character of God and his hatred for sin.
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And so, again, that doesn't answer all of the difficult emotional questions, but it does answer the logical question that within an apologetic context often comes up, that if God is all good and there's evil in the world, therefore
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God is not all good, because if he's good, he'd remove the evil. But he hasn't removed the evil. So maybe he's good, but he's not powerful enough to remove it.
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You see, so there is no logical inconsistency with God being good and they're allowing evil, since it could be the case, and I think it is the case, that God has good reasons for allowing it.
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Secondly, you can't even make the objection that there's evil in the world, because without God, how do you know what's evil?
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You need an objective standard. I would say that if evil is a problem,
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I would say that evil actually demonstrates the existence of God, because it presupposes an objective standard of good by which to measure something good or evil.
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If God does not exist, what's evil is your opinion, and little Johnny down the road might have a different opinion than you do.
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How do we know which is which? On an atheistic worldview, there is no good and evil, there's just what happens in nature.
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So anytime the unbeliever brings up the issue of evil and suffering, they're already operating in Christian categories, which give meaning to the very concept of evil.
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So I would say that evil demonstrates the existence of God, and good demonstrates the existence of God, which is what
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I said at the beginning of the talk, that the proof for the existence of God is that without Him, you can't prove anything at all.
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Yeah, I would also say, because you'll hear people say, well, why doesn't God get rid of all the evil in the world? And I say, okay, if God was to get rid of all the evil in the world at 1 .30,
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where would we all be? If God was to rid the world of evil, what we fail to realize is the fact that we've contributed to the evil in the world.
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Our hearts are stained by sin, we are sinners by nature. So the actions, words, thoughts that we bring into the world are evil.
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If we wanted God to get rid of all the evil, we'd be gone. So one of the reasons why God allows evil in the world is because He's merciful.
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He called Adam and Eve, the day they eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, good and evil, you will die. Did they die?
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No. They died spiritually, He left them alive, and then what? He restored them. Okay, so we always, not always, the book of Genesis always talks to us about the beginnings, and it's always a glimpse into what else is to come.
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If God allowed evil in the world, and stood back, idly by, and watched it happen, you might say,
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He's not a loving God. But the God of the Bible did not allow evil into the world and then sit and watch it perish.
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He actually enters into the world to suffer under the very evil that you and I brought into the world, so He comes into the world to suffer with us and for us.
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He actually puts Himself on a cross and God pours His wrath out on Jesus to save people like us who are evil.
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So what does God do? He punches evil in the face and annihilates it and says,
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I am here despite your evil and I'm going to save you even in the midst of us.
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So Jesus suffers with us and for us, and what does He do? He rises from the dead to prove that His payment to the
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Father was acceptable and He's overcome evil. There is a resurrection, you repent, place your faith and trust in Jesus, and the evil of this world will be defeated in Christ.
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He's victorious over evil. Now, when an atheist says, well, I can't believe in God because of all the evil in the world.
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Okay, so let's take God out of the equation. Does evil still exist? You haven't solved the problem, you've just eliminated one possible solution to the problem, right?
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So if you take God out of the equation, like Eli said, now what is your reference point for good and evil?
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It becomes personal preference. You like Rocky Road, I like Butter Pecan. Who's right? I like hugging babies, you like killing babies, or the other way around.
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That just becomes a matter of personal preference because there's no ultimate standard for good and evil. So if you eliminate
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God, you eliminate the standard for good and evil. Second, you eliminate any possible comfort that someone would take in knowing that God allowed this evil for a greater purpose.
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So you now might be taking comfort away from the person. You might also be taking away the possibility of future justice.
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The serial killer who rapes and kills 50 women, and then gets put in jail and dies, is that really justice?
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Ultimately, in a world that God exists in, the world we live in, there is going to be ultimate justice to pay.
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There will be a consequence of that, and everything that was wrong in the world will be made right. Okay, so when you take
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God out of the equations, you may make things very, very worse. You may cause people to despair even more than they are right now.
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Because evil exists in the world, it's a function of the goodness of God, and it points to our depravity.
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But thankfully, He gave us a way out. He put His Son on the cross to bear up under the very evil we brought into the world.
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What greater demonstration of love is that? God demonstrated
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His own love towards us, that while we were sinners. When? While we were sinners, He died for us.
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While we were evil, He died for us. That is the greatest act of love we could ever see.
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And God orchestrated the whole thing. If you read Acts chapter 4, it was Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Jews, and the
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Gentiles, all did what your hand predestined and foreordained to happen. That He put
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Jesus on the cross and crushed Him in our place. When you look at the cross, you see the awfulness of sin and what it deserves.
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At the same point in time, you see the incredible love of a God who would sacrifice what He held most dear to save you and I.
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Evil is not a problem for God, it's a problem for the atheists.
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I remember listening to an interview, I don't remember who the host was, but they were interviewing
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Pastor John MacArthur. And they asked Pastor John MacArthur, why does
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God allow bad things to happen to good people? And I think his response was very telling and emphasized really the proper context in which to understand this question.
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He says, actually, that's the wrong question to ask. You shouldn't ask, why do bad things happen to good people?
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You should really ask, why do good things happen to anyone? You see, the assumption is that we're just these innocent people walking around and a bunch of bad things are happening to us.
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No, the fact that your life is finite is a constant reminder that death is knocking on the door of everyone.
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Because all of us have sinned and all of us deserve death. That's right. What did Jesus say when there were those who approached
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Him about a tragedy that happened in His day when this wall fell upon these people and they died?
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Jesus didn't say, well, you know, they were good people, but it was a shame that that happened. No, listen, unless you repent, you too are going to die in your sins.
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The reality is we need to come to grips with how sinful we are and what our sin deserves and recognize that tomorrow is not promised to you.
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We need to do something with the gospel now. And so I think answering the question in that way really puts things in perspective.
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The allowance of evil and suffering is actually an extension of God's mercy. We know biblically, we've read the back of the book, that God will make all things right.
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But at the same time, if God removes all evil, He might just start with you. What is—
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Or you. Or you. Hey, I'm saved by grace, all right? What is the difference between an axiom and a presupposition?
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An axiom is a fundamental starting point in one's reasoning, and it's not justified.
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It's just a starting point you start with. I'll give you an axiom. I exist. I start there.
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I exist. And then I build my reasoning off that. Okay? An axiom is an intellectual starting point that is not justified by an appeal to something outside of it.
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Okay? So if I were to say, I believe belief A. Well, how do you know A is true? Well, I'll give another argument by appealing to this other belief.
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Well, how do you know that belief is true? Well, then I appeal to something outside of that to demonstrate the truth. And you can't go back forever.
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Because if you go back forever, you'll never demonstrate why you knew the thing to begin with. Follow? So people need stopping points from which you just accept as a bare kind of starting point and then build everything off.
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An axiom is that starting point. And people have different axioms. Axioms are by definition unjustified.
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You do not justify them by appealing to something more authoritative than them. Because if you do, then that's not your axiom.
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This other thing is. A presupposition is similar to an axiom in that it is an elementary starting point in one's reasoning.
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And for the most part, they're sort of like axioms. They're not justified by appealing to something else outside of them.
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But unlike axioms, presuppositions, some of them, can be justified and given a ground by appealing to its own necessity.
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Alright? So axioms are not justified by appealing to something outside of it. But presuppositions can be justified by appealing to its own necessity.
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I'll give you an example. Logic. I presuppose logic. Logic is a presupposition that I have.
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Right? It is, in a sense, axiomatic. I start believing that logic is applicable.
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But I don't think it's just an unjustified starting point. It's justified by its own necessity. Deny it, and you have to affirm it.
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Right? If someone says, I don't believe logic exists. Well, you deny that. You needed logic to even formally make that sentence.
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Okay? So the difference between a presupposition and an axiom is an axiom cannot be justified by definition.
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But a presupposition can be justified by an appeal to its own necessity. Okay? So that's the difference there.
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I'm sorry for speaking in philosophically abstract terms, but, you know, I didn't ask the question. Alright.
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If someone from another religion says that they believe their religion is true by the impossibility of the contrary, how would you respond?
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Go ahead, James. I'll filter in. Right, right. Okay. So my argument for God's existence is that if he did not exist, you couldn't prove anything at all.
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I believe that God's existence is necessitated by the impossibility of the contrary. If you deny
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God's existence, you must actually assume things that only make sense if my God exists. Okay?
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Now, what happens when you come across someone who says, well, my God, I can apply that the same way. Or even an atheist.
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My view is true by the impossibility of the contrary. Alright? What you do at that point is we need to engage in what's called internal worldview critique.
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Are you saying that your worldview is true by necessity and to deny it is to affirm it? Well, let's take the atheist, for example.
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What happens when I deny atheism? Do I shoot myself in the foot logically? No. Because atheism could claim, for example, that it's true by the impossibility of the contrary.
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But that can't be the case if atheism itself is contradictory. If your view are the preconditions for knowledge, then your view must be logically coherent.
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But I would try and show that atheism as a philosophical worldview is logically incoherent. A competing religious perspective.
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Whatever that might be. Mormonism. Okay? If Mormonism is your view and you're going to say that it's true by the impossibility of the contrary, in order for that to be the case, it needs to be logically coherent.
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But if Mormonism is not logically coherent, then it can't be true by the impossibility of the contrary. So what would
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I do at that point? I would try and show that Mormonism as a worldview perspective is actually logically incoherent.
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And it is. For various reasons. One, Mormonism teaches that the
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Bible is true. They believe the Bible. Right? You talk to a Mormon, they'll carry their King James Bible under their arm.
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But on the other hand, they believe in the Doctrine and Covenants, the Book of Mormon, and other various sources. And within the teaching of Mormonism, they believe that Joseph Smith saw
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God the Father. He saw God the Father. God the Father has a human body of flesh and bones.
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God used to be another man on another planet. He had to earn his own godhood. And when he became a god, he became a god of this planet with his goddess wife, who had celestial sex and had spirit babies in which we now are his offspring.
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Okay? That's what Mormonism teaches. Now, the problem with that is, if Mormonism teaches that Joseph Smith saw the
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Father, but they affirmed the Bible, which teaches in 1 Timothy 6 .16, that no man has seen God, nor can they, and that no one can see the
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Father, now you have a conflict between the claim of Mormon teaching and the Bible, which they claim to affirm.
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And so if they're going to be true by the impossibility of the contrary, they can't have these internal contradictions which actually invalidate their own perspective.
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And so you can do that with different perspectives. There's a teaching in Islam, for example, that talks about the transcendence of God.
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And He is so transcendent and beyond us that nothing in human language can rightfully describe Him. Well, if you think that about Allah, and you think that your view is true by the impossibility of the contrary, tell me a little bit more about Allah.
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Where did you learn about Allah? Well, we learned about Allah through the Holy Qur 'an. Okay, and what language was the
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Holy Qur 'an written in? Well, it was written in Aramaic. Is Aramaic a human language? Yes. I thought you just got finished telling me that nothing in human language can rightfully describe
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Allah. If it's true that nothing in human language can rightfully describe Allah, then the Qur 'an does not tell you anything about Allah, because it's written in human language.
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So you have these internal conflicts which actually invalidate the statement that that worldview is true by the impossibility of the contrary.
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And in life fashion, when we claim that the Christian worldview is true by the impossibility of the contrary, at that moment, we need to be knowledgeable enough within our own faith that we're able to explain why a god of scripture can be the preconditions for logic, can be the preconditions for the intelligibility of history, can be the preconditions for the intelligibility of mathematics, and all of the edifice of human knowledge altogether.
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Our god is a god of knowledge, he is coherent, he is rational, and I would argue that these other positions just don't have the meat to hold all of those things under a strong foundation, because they are not built on the rock.
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Yep. In other words, just tell him to prove it. Yes. But you see, the reason why
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I didn't say that is because, here's the thing.
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Someone says, how do you know God exists? And I say, well, he exists by the impossibility of the contrary. You have to be careful that that doesn't make sense as a bare statement.
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I think the person deserves an explanation of what you mean by that. What do you mean
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Christianity is necessarily true? What do you mean Christianity can't ever be falsified, or anything like that?
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We need to actually give them some meat, and engage them in conversation, and allow them to ask the questions, and we have to clarify what we mean by various things.
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We can't just assume that my Bible is correct, and everything else is false, and just stop there.
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At that point, you're just making assertions, and you're not really demonstrating the truth of your perspective, which we're called to do. What do you say to a person that claims animals have the same rights as humans, and they express that animals are oftentimes purer, or better than humans, and so should be treated,
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I guess, better than humans? Well, animals are not created in the image of God.
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We are image bearers. We are image of God. Animals are not.
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It doesn't mean that we get to misuse and mistreat animals in any way, but God has provided animals, and I think it's in Genesis chapter 9.
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He has given us the animals for food. Again, that doesn't mean we can mistreat animals.
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I think there's a line we can cross. However, there's a vast difference between the animal kingdom and humanity.
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Humanity bears the image of God. Therefore, we have a distinct status that the animals don't have.
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We can worship God in spirit and truth. Animals can't. They're instinctual, whereas we have will, intellect, and emotions given to us by God, such that we can exercise that will to worship
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Him or deny Him, right? So, animals don't have that option. Again, that doesn't mean we get to mistreat animals and do whatever we want to them and treat them in inhumane and cruel ways.
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In fact, that would be a reflection of our hearts, not theirs. So, are animals purer than humanity?
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I would say that animals do what they do. Humanity does what it does.
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Animals aren't sinful. Animals don't sin. So, in that sense, yeah, they're pure.
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But neither do plants. If you eat plants, that's a problem, right? So, plants, animals, all that, they don't sin.
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The only creatures on earth that sin is humanity. So, there's a vast difference between the two.
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And again, I just don't think you can treat animals cruelly. I also think… Can you repeat the question again? So, what would you say to someone who claims that animals have the same rights as human beings and that because animals are pure, that they're better than humans, that they should be treated as such?
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By what standard? How do you know? Do you have like this little meter that says, okay, you're pure and you're impure?
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How do you measure the purity of an animal in comparison to a human being, right? In order for one to say that animals are more pure than human beings, you need some kind of standard or measurement.
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And you have to ask the question, which worldview perspective are you coming from? Well, if you're a Christian in claiming that, then that statement is actually in conflict with what the
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Bible teaches, because the Bible says that we're made in the image of God, and there's actually a clear difference. And if you're a non -Christian atheist, then by what standard do you measure who's pure, right?
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It's just your opinion that animals are more pure than human beings. If you say animals have more of a right to live than we do, says who?
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You. You're not appealing to divine authority, so why should I listen to what you have to say in regards to the purity and the superiority of the animals over human beings?
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Again, you're just making the claim at that point. I hope that makes sense. And I can say, well, I think that animals are more valuable than human beings.
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Okay, thank you for your opinion. But how do you know that? How do you know that? You're not getting that from the
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Bible. And if you're not a Christian and you're an atheist, then you're just giving me your opinion. There's no objective standard by which you're actually using to make those judgments.
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And so again, answer the fool, don't answer the fool. Don't borrow those assumptions because they're self -rebuting.
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But then hypothetically grant the truth. Let's suppose I grant like, okay, so let's talk about who's more valuable.
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Well, in a world without objective standards of rules and measurement, how do we even know that an animal's more pure or more worthy of living than a human being?
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That's just your opinion. By the way, in a world without God, what if little Johnny down the road disagrees with you? Who's right? And you're right there.
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You're at the mercy of the opinions of every single person on the earth who disagrees with each other. There is no external standard that lords it over these other multiple standards, giving us this, you know, an absolute standard by which to measure those things.
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I should have added, a question to ask a person who would ask that question is, what is a right?
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What do you mean by right? A right is a just claim to something. And where do rights come from?
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For human beings, rights come from God. And that's very, very important because in this world that believes in evolution and survival of the fittest, if one group of people is stronger than another and overtake them, now those people get their rights from the stronger people.
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The stronger people now say, well, think of what happened to the Jews in Nazi Germany. They deemed that they were animals, that they were not human.
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So it was their right to kill them. So rights, first of all, come from God.
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Second of all, it's a just claim to something. I had something else, another one. Well, people often say, well, animals were here first.
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Here's another one. To which we respond, God gave the Indians the bear. Well, that's true. But again,
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I wouldn't imagine a Christian is suggesting that animals are more valuable than image bearers of God. I would say, if someone were to say, well, animals were here first, here's a brilliant response.
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So what standard says that if you're here first, you have more priority and rights to something?
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If God does not exist and has not created us and imbued us with these values and rights and things like that, who's to say?
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You see what I'm saying? This is what came to mind. Because usually people who are avid animal rights activists just answer the question,
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Are you pro -life when it comes to the issue of abortion? All of a sudden, they're pro -choice when it comes to the issue of abortion or pro -rights when it comes to animals.
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So, wait a second. Here's a clear contradiction in what you're just asking. Don't animals have as much rights as humans?
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Now you're okay with killing human babies in the womb. That's okay with you, but not puppies that are in the mother's womb.
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So you can just highlight the contradiction in their worldview by asking that question. Before we go any further, are you pro -life?
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I think it's an interesting thing, too. The chances are, it's not the Christian who's going to ask that question. If the person's an atheist, look at the interesting thing.
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Most people believe that human beings are animals. So if I'm an animal and the animal in the woods is an animal, we're both animals.
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So if animals have a right to live, you're just saying we all have a right to live. You can't gauge which one's more valuable because we're all animals.
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And it's only the strong survive. That's right. That's evolution. It's very interesting, too. An atheist will often ridicule the
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Christian. You guys believe in a book where there's talking snakes and talking animals. I'm like, dude, you're an evolutionist for the most part.
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They hold evolution. You believe we are animals. And here we are having a rational conversation. Great, great, great, although with a squid.
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The only thing I would say is I think this question, too, does come often from within the field of the church, where you do have
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Christians, too, that will try to use the very same objection and try to somehow root it in Scripture.
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So you have both. And I think what you just said right there, what do you do when there's a conflict between two people and both those people hold the
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Bible to be the ultimate authority? You go to the Bible. And I think you can show clearly that there's a distinction of value between animals and human beings.
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Usually the question is, you know, my pet died. Am I going to see my pet in heaven? Yeah. And I say, if it's a dog, yes.
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If it's a cat, no. I'm kidding.
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I have cats. Yes. Yeah. Can you go back to the eagle question you had before?
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Sure. Because I was thinking, not I was thinking, the Bible says that all good things come from God.
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And then I think evil doesn't come from God. I think the enemy comes, the Bible says the enemy comes to kill and destroy.
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So he's going to, you know, all the bad things are going to happen because of him.
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He's at work. Because when you look at the Revelation 12, it says when the war broke out in heaven, when the
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Bible, the archangel and all the enemy of the dark world, the Bible said, woe to earth, because the enemy is coming down.
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So when he comes down, he's coming to do his work, you know. And then Isaiah also said,
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Isaiah 14, I think 12 or 15, even Luke 10, 17,
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I think 15 or 17 or 18. Then Jesus said, and Luke said,
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I saw the angels fall down from heaven. And Isaiah saw them fall down from heaven.
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So he's going to do his work. And you see they stop and get him. The question, the way that it was worded,
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I think was the right way to word the question. The question was, why does God allow evil?
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So when your references, like in regards to the devil and Satan and stuff like that, I think it's important to recognize the devil is
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God's devil. When you look at, for example, right in the opening of Job, before the devil is allowed to do absolutely anything, we have to seek the commission of God.
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So that's why the question is being worded, why does God allow evil? And there is a distinction between God being, between God allowing it and God being the author of it.
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I think we do make that distinction. So we're not saying God did the evil, but he does permit the evil.
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So I want to direct them to, so if you guys get a chance, I would go to reformworky .com.
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They just did an entire series on Calvinism and the doctrines of grace.
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And there they really kind of work on sovereignty and what free will is and everything else.
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But while we're here, we've got some time. I have one more question here, but we can answer that first.
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You guys want to tackle that real quick and then we'll jump to yours? The Bible says that we're by nature sinners.
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Okay. Any actions that we do because of our nature will be sinful.
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We cannot change our nature. So anything that I do inside of God because of my nature would be sinful.
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Now that doesn't mean that I can't do good things to other people here on earth, but it's a relative good. It's a horizontal good.
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It's not a vertical good. Remember the scripture, I think it's Isaiah 64. It says, all my good works are filthy rags before God.
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So I have nothing to bring to him that's pure or clean. So what has to happen is my nature has to change first.
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Now because my nature comes in, I'm born sinful and my nature is sinful. My desires therefore follow and my desires are sinful.
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So when I look at my choices and I look at the things that I do, that's not the root of the problem.
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That's the outgrowth of the problem.
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The real problem is my heart. My heart needs to be changed. So that's what the gospel is.
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The gospel is God pulling out a hard stone, inserting a hard flesh where his law is written upon them.
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So now I am a new creation. I'm born of God. I have a new heart.
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And when I say heart, I should point to my head like Eli did. It doesn't mean my beating heart.
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It's a new spirit that lives within me with new desires, righteous desires.
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Now I'm given the opportunity to make good choices and bad choices. Now I have the ability to do it.
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And because God's spirit is in me, he convicts me and I start moving in the right direction.
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Now once you're justified, once you're put in right relationship with God and declared righteous, which is a legal term, once you're declared righteous by faith, now the process of sanctification happens, where you're going to live out every single day of your life until you die, and then the glorification part happens.
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Now all of us, Philippians 1 says, he who began a good work in us is faithful to complete it, right?
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We all live between work begun and work complete. We are all in process.
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Nobody has arrived yet. So there are still things in my life that I'm working out, because God is working in me and I'm a
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Christian. When we say that God saves sinners, that's justification, sanctification, and glorification.
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Once I'm put in right relationship with him and he has a spirit inside of me, now what am I? I am a child of God with God's spirit inside of me, and Jesus says
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I'm a slave to righteousness. So whereas first I was a slave to sin, now
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I am a slave to righteousness. But in both cases, I'm a slave, right?
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I want to do these things. So now that I'm a Christian, I want to please Jesus. I want to follow him.
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And as you feed that desire, it grows. So what you feed will lead.
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Now you could be a Christian and a nominal Christian, or you could be a Christian and a strong Christian.
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Why? Because you're pursuing God. You're sitting under the means of grace. You're taking communion. You're going to fellowship.
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You're listening to the preaching of the word. You're reading your Bible. You're studying yourself to be approved. And when you do that, you're showing faith, and God is now going to continue that process and grow you more.
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So either way, you don't have an entirely free will. And I really can prove it.
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How many people want to sin next week? No. How many people will sin next week?
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Everyone. You're not as free as you think. We're not free in an autonomous fashion where we can do whatever we want.
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As much as I want to fly off the roof and flap my arms, I can't do that. I don't have the natural ability to do that.
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In the same way, free will is really a function of moral ability, and we don't have the moral ability to walk perfectly in this life apart from God working in and through us.
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Does that help? Yeah. All right. Is there a difference between soul and spirit?
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And if so, how can we differentiate? I don't want to take an absolute stance on this.
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You have two different views amongst theologians. There is the view known as the trichotomous view and the dichotomous view.
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And I do apologize for the million -dollar words. But the dichotomous view understands that man is made up of two things, essentially, body and soul.
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And the dichotomous view will equate spirit with the soul. So spirit is just another word for soul.
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Where on the trichotomous view, you have the idea that man is composed of a physical body and a spirit and a soul, and they make a distinction between those two.
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So you have those different perspectives that different Christians will kind of debate over those nonessential areas.
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As to the specific differences, say if you are a trichotomous, I'm not sure exactly the differences and distinctions they make.
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Me, personally, I'm a dichotomous. I think man is body and soul, and soul is just another word for spirit.
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I'm aware of those passages which speak about spirit and soul, things we can get into that. But those are the different views there, from my understanding.
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I'm a dichotomous also. All right.
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And then the last question is where can we get the information from today?
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So I'm going to be posting all of the talks from today on my website, which is
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Truth in Life. Truth, the letter N, life .net.
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I had to lock that for a second. Truthinlife .net, so it will be available there. It will also be,
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I'm sure, I'll put links to them. Eli, why don't you give everybody where they can reach you? I'm going to leave these out here.
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These are my cards. Again, I'm the founder of Revealed Apologetics. I have my phone number here, my e -mail.
53:19
The website is still working on, but you can actually e -mail me any of your questions, and I have a podcast that you can download for free on iTunes called
53:27
Revealed Apologetics. And basically, I talk about apologetics, theology, and if you have any questions,
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I'll use your question as the content of my next episode so that you can constantly be listening to things that are relevant to your particular context.
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So if you want, I'll leave these – where should I leave them? Anywhere. Yeah, I'll put them on the table, and you could reach out to me.
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And most of my stuff is on the podcast. You can look me up on Facebook. I do videos covering questions on apologetics and things like that.
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And I think this is a helpful way that if you're not sure how to get into apologetics, watching videos is super helpful.
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Just look going – when you have some free time, watch a 10 -minute video, a 20 -minute video, or an hour conference that's on YouTube or something like that.
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Those are helpful ways to kind of just dip your feet into this topic and really just equip yourself with some tools that you can use in whatever context
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God has placed you in. Anything you want to – sure. Well, you can go to the website, www .NewYorkApologetics
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.com. We've got a blog up there. We've got videos up there. So if you want apologetic materials, you can go there.
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You can also email me, Anthony, at NewYorkApologetics .com. I also host something called the Reform Rookie.
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It's basically reform theology for people who are just new to it or young. So if you wanted to check out our stuff there, that's where we have the conference video that we did two weeks ago.
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So you can check it out, ReformRookie .com or NewYorkApologetics .com. Email ReformRookie at gmail .com
54:57
or NewYorkApologetics at gmail .com. And my email is truthinlife .net
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at gmail. So are there any other questions? Come on,
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Dan. Why don't you guys want to try it? Okay.
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Heavenly Father, we come before you in the name of Jesus, Lord. We just thank you for this morning and this afternoon that we have been able to come together and to talk about this vitally important topic.
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I pray that the people who have come here to learn are encouraged and just motivated to get their hands on resources and just different things that will help them be a better witness in the context in which you've placed them,
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Father. And so I just pray with open hearts and open minds that you transform the hearts of every single person here so that they can affect the culture out there,
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Father, for your glory, Lord. I also pray for Anthony and Ryan as they are engaging in their ministry,
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Lord, that you bless them and expand them and use them in mighty ways to inspire others to be faithful to your word and to the standing upon of the rock solid foundation of your word,
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Lord. We thank you. We love you. We pray that you are with us, each and every one of us. In Jesus name we pray.