Presup Talk with Chris May on God's existence

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00:19

So, tell me, what made you respond to the video that I put up?

00:25

Well, I've been kind of interested in the presuppositional argument.

00:33

I guess that would be the main thing we'll get into. Yeah, I mean,

00:39

I find it interesting. I understand why Christians and apologists use it to a degree.

00:47

I mean, I can see the appeal to it. You know, I think there's some, well,

00:53

I think there's some issues to it. Sure, yeah. No, look, I think every view has issues and needs to be examined.

01:01

And, you know, it's good when people get together and start asking each other questions because that's what helps hone us in and really examine our own view and, you know, work it out better.

01:12

So, would you consider yourself an atheist, agnostic, theist? Where are you on this spectrum?

01:18

I definitely don't consider myself an atheist. I would say

01:25

I'm more of an explorer,

01:31

I would say. I'm open. I'm fairly skeptical.

01:40

But I'm not a materialist. So, I mean,

01:47

I am certainly open to, you know, spiritual.

01:57

It's more so I don't really like classifications and categories.

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And, you know, I'm not one to quickly identify with any ideology or, you know.

02:14

Have you read any of the Old or New Testament? Oh, absolutely.

02:20

Okay. Yep. Yeah, it's one of my main interests. I mean, I love studying the biblical texts.

02:28

In fact, I think, you know, I think the Bible is a great, great piece of literature. You know,

02:34

I mean, I think it's, there's a lot in there that's interesting, just even from a historical perspective or, you know,

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I mean, it's, it also, you know, is kind of the foundation of Western culture.

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So, it's kind of hard to read other literature or anything without understanding, you know, biblical references.

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Even if you didn't have an interest in it, other than that, you know, it would be worth reading and understanding.

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But yeah, I do. I actively read it. Would you consider

03:14

Jesus a historical figure that actually existed? Ah, you know, that's an interesting question.

03:20

I don't, I don't put so much emphasis on even if Jesus is historical or not.

03:29

I think, you know, like any religious figure,

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I think so much gets kind of wrapped around a certain person.

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That it's hard to separate what is the theology versus what is, you know, the historical part.

03:53

So, I don't necessarily deny that a historical person that could be identified somewhat with Jesus of Nazareth, you know, existed.

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I think it's possible. I mean, if you look at all the, you know, different work and research and scholarship,

04:15

I mean, there's as many theories about Jesus as there are. Sure. I mean, obviously, the

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New Testament has, you know, its own perspective. Some of the outside sources are fairly limited.

04:35

Right. Well, in fact, we just celebrated the resurrection. You know, I had done a couple of presentations on that at church and actually in one of my

04:45

Bible studies. And you've heard of Bart Ehrman? Yes. Yeah, Bart Ehrman is a

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New Testament scholar. He professed, you know, to be a Christian at one point in time and then walked away from the faith.

04:57

He says he's agnostic now. And as a New Testament scholar who studied under Bruce Metzger, who was probably the foremost

05:04

New Testament scholar, you know, of our time, he says that it's an absolute historical fact that Jesus existed and died on a

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Roman cross. Yeah, I'm familiar with his book. I don't have a copy of it.

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I've read three parts of it. I know he's very, you know, staunch on the idea that he is a historical figure.

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And I know he really is against the Methodist position. And, you know, he speaks out against that.

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It would be really, really difficult for the movement called Christianity to be in existence without Christ, without Jesus.

05:50

I don't even know how it would have came about in just a mythical sense or a fairy tale story told how people would, you know, actually give their lives up for something like that, especially when they claim to have seen him.

06:09

I'm sorry, go ahead. Especially given the New Testament record, given the fact that it is considered eyewitness evidence, and as far as a piece of history goes, it's attested to by 10 different secular sources that corroborate at least a dozen facts that happened at that time.

06:37

You know, you have Tacitus, you have Pliny the Younger, the

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Jewish Talmud, Suetonius, Josephus, you have all these writings that testify of things that happened during that period of time that the

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New Testament also testifies to. Now, that doesn't mean that the New Testament is true, but when you look at the way, let's say, take for instance

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Luke, how he starts the beginning of his gospel. In the opening five verses, he gives a dozen facts about the period of time.

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He talks about Tiberius Caesar. He talks about Elizabeth and her husband from the tribe of I forget what it is, but he lists 12 different facts.

07:19

It doesn't sound like a story that somebody was making up. It sounds like he was trying to record history that was going on at that time.

07:29

Well, it's definitely rooted in the time of Pontius Pilate, you mentioned, under the reign of Tiberius, which

07:41

John the Baptist is said to have been executed under that time.

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I don't know if you're familiar with Richard Carrier. He would be one of the Methodist type scholars.

07:55

I think Richard Carrier sometimes goes a little bit too far.

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However, I know he roots a lot of his work in the fact that Paul openly admits he never met the historical

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Jesus. I know that's a problem somewhat for establishing a historical

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Jesus in the sense that the earliest writings that most scholars say are attributed to Paul, right?

08:35

About somewhere 20 years after the crucifixion, 25 years, something like that.

08:42

So, you know, when he openly says that he really just encountered Jesus right on the road to Damascus, he wasn't meeting a flesh and bones

08:56

Jesus. There's no indication that he saw Jesus preach or that he really knew any of the disciples at that time period, right?

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I mean, he does talk about that he went and saw Peter, that he went and saw James, that he was part of the

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Jerusalem church and went out and did his evangelization to the

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Gentiles and that kind of stuff. But it seems to be that he's basing it on, and I think this is where Carrier is kind of getting that, you know, that it seems to be kind of a celestial kind of Jesus.

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He's not interested really in anything about Jesus's earthly ministry really.

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It's more of a theological kind of basis where it's not like, you know, he said this, he taught this ethic.

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You know, it's kind of like, hey, this is the savior of mankind.

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I think after, you know, he had the

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Damascus Road experience, his life was radically changed. Obviously, you know, he went and an isolated hands on him, you know, because he lost his sight, he regained his sight and he goes now, instead of persecuting the people who were

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Christians, he now becomes one of them. Something had to radically change his mind to go from being a devout

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Jew, you know, a Pharisee, a Pharisees, teacher of the law, blameless, you know, Hebrew, Hebrews, all those things to now a follower of Jesus.

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And he preaches the same gospel that the apostles did, because when he goes back to Jerusalem to meet with them, they give him the right hand of fellowship because he's preaching the same gospel and say, okay, you go preach to the

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Jews, to the Gentiles. Now Peter's going to go preach to the Jews. So also in the book of Acts, it says twice that he did meet the risen

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Lord. Now, whether you whether you take that as a historical fact or not, it's a different story, but the

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Bible does testify the fact that he met, was it a celestial Jesus, I think it was a

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Jesus in his in his glorified body so that might be a little different. Even the disciples didn't recognize him when he when he rose from the dead, he looked like the gardener and on the road to Emmaus, the two people who were walking with him didn't quite notice him until he started saying certain things.

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So, there, there might have been some ambiguity, ambiguity in how they perceived him, but it was undoubted that it that it was him again.

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They met him. Thomas put his fingers in the holes in this in his hands.

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Okay. They witnessed. There's an empty tomb. You know the question for history has never been was the tomb empty.

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The question has always been, why was the tomb empty. You know the Jews, the Jews wanted

11:59

Jesus dead. So if they stole the body. This would mitigate against their position.

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I mean they they did not think Jesus was the Messiah, and seeing him dead would just prove their point and put an end to the movement immediately.

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The Romans didn't want Jesus dead. I mean, Jesus was tried for the crime of sedition right claiming to be a king.

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When Caesar was the only king, then they crucify him which they were very good at. They put him in a tomb guarded by two

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Roman soldiers. Right, so if Jesus is not in the tomb. Somebody stole the body and got around the

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Roman soldiers, it would be quite embarrassing for them and again, this would lend credibility to the myth that Jesus has risen from the dead and is a king.

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The disciples didn't have motivation to steal the body, unless they they thought a good benefits package would be, you know, getting beaten persecuted thrown out of their homes thrown out of the synagogue.

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You know, basically, exiled from from where they lived.

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So they didn't have motive to to steal the body. So, you know, again, the scripture says, again, from a presuppositional standpoint,

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I believe that that's the Word of God and if it's the Word of God, then it can't be wrong. The Word of God says that Jesus rose from the dead and it fulfills several prophecies in the

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Old Testament. I think I've talked enough. Well, you said a lot.

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Going back to Paul. So, you know, there were There are several different versions of how he saw

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Jesus. There's, you know, he saw A light.

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He heard something. Right. They're kind of hard to Now, you know,

13:57

I don't make a big deal necessarily of things that appear to be contradictions in the

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New Testament. I mean, I don't think, you know, if you read the

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Hebrew scriptures. There's a lot of parallel verses and things that appear to not be

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Telling the same fact or so I think I think it was purposely written in some senses to have multiple

14:29

What's the best word attestations or multiple versions of an event.

14:34

I don't think they were that concerned. So going to like the tomb. You know, and only one gospel.

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I think it's Matthew right where they're it's being guarded by Roman soldiers. So, you know, that's not mentioned in every gospel.

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Each gospel has a different version of kind of what happened. You know, the day of the resurrection.

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So, and it's kind of hard though to really combine them and make them into a coherent whole.

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I mean, I know. People have tried to do that. It's really difficult when you actually look at what said it's hard to make it into some coherent.

15:20

It's not just that one event was reported in one gospel. Another event was reported, but both events could be the same.

15:28

There's some there's some problems. I think, but the way it's reported. But again,

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I don't build a case on that. It's not true because it's hard to reconcile the events that reported right

15:41

Sure, sure. You could have people report events that are not accurate, yet the big picture is accurate, you know.

15:49

True. Yeah, I think if it was reported in every gospel and basically was the same wording each time, people would say, well, they colluded.

16:00

They came up with the story and everybody stuck to it. And that's why it's identical. You know, when a detective goes in and there's a crime committed, they immediately separate the, you know, the witnesses and they asked them each what happened and they all give their version and they're all different with the same basic facts, hopefully, if they all saw the same thing.

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So I think that's, you know, what the New Testament does. I forget which gospel is in, but one account says that there was one angel at the tomb.

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Another account says that there's two angels at the tomb. Right. People like to say, well, that's a contradiction.

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But if, you know, if I was there and I said, Chris, I saw an angel at the tomb. And then another guy comes and says,

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I saw two. It's not a contradiction. It's just a different point of view. I was emphasizing one angel, he was emphasizing two, you know.

16:54

Well, what about though, you know, who did Jesus appear to you first? Those are not the same.

17:02

The Gospels report different locations. Do you have the verse?

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Because I can look it up. Yeah, if you look at the, well, first of all, I mean, Mark doesn't actually report anything.

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In the earliest manuscripts, it actually cuts off. The verses, you know, that were added to Mark were not found in the earliest manuscripts.

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Matthew is kind of really the first gospel that, you know, really reports the full resurrection and then the appearing of Jesus after to the disciples and then

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Luke follows, you know, then obviously John has a reporting, but they contradict in where he appears first.

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If you look at, if you go look at just the locations and things like that, they're hard to reconcile in the sense of, but again,

18:12

I don't make a huge deal of that. I mean, Right. Well, the question is, the question is, does the scripture say

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Jesus first appeared here, let's say, you know, New York, and in another gospel say

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Jesus first appeared in New Jersey. That would be a contradiction. But if I said, you know,

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I met Chris in New Jersey. And then somebody says

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I met Chris in New York. Those aren't two contradictory statements. That's just when they first appeared to to that particular person, it would have to, it would have to directly contradict itself in order to, for what you're saying to be to be true.

18:57

I think the way it's implied, it's saying these were the first disciples to see

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Jesus. Okay. And there's different locations, but I don't want to, you know,

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I don't want to get stuck on that too much. Okay. Because it's just simply. No worries. Did you want to, did you have questions with regards to, like, the presuppositional method?

19:24

Like, did you Not so much the method. So if you remember, the first question

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I asked you is, what God are you presupposing? Right. The God of the

19:36

Old and New Testament, I said. Okay. Yeah, the Triune God. Mm hmm.

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So I think my first, my first contention and big issue would be that I don't see the

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Triune God in the Old Testament, or the Tanakh. And I would say every devout

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Jew, or if we could go back to, you know, an

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Israelite or would not recognize God as a Triune God.

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I think that's a, you can make an argument and say that, you know, they did somehow recognize it or they just didn't understand it fully or.

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But I think that's a really difficult argument to make. And if you speak to any modern day

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Jews, they will absolutely deny that God is Triune.

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They deny the Trinity up and down. They don't accept Jesus as divine.

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They even don't accept Jesus as the Messiah in many cases. Right. And that's being liberal.

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That's, that's assuming that there is something like a messianic Jew who's really not just a

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Christian. Right. Right. I don't know any messianic

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Jew that's really not a Christian. That's just another title for it. Right.

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There are writings from Jews who believed that God was a plurality, a compound unity.

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When, I mean, scripturally, when the scripture says, let us make man in our image.

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Traditionally, Jews say that God could be a compound unity.

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See, so I would say that's God talking to the, he's part of the divine council.

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I don't know if you've read any of Michael Heizer's work. So he goes really in depth in that and make in our image is a plural referring to the fact that God is the head of, right, he's the highest

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God in this sense. And he's speaking to the other gods that are kind of under him.

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That's kind of that, you know, it goes back to the whole, the Canaanite religion.

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All the surrounding Semitic tribes and, you know, nations had similar pantheons where they had gods that were, you know, considered the chief

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God. And then there were the other gods that served in their council. So I think the make in our image is referring to that there were other deities that were associated with Yahweh.

22:40

All right. So now Jews. I don't see any Trinitarian or any way that you can possibly interpret that as.

22:48

Yeah, no, no, I wasn't interpreting that as Trinitarian. I was interpreting that as God Elohim is plural for God.

22:59

Right, or gods. Gods, right. So do you believe there's one God or many gods?

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Well, that gets into defining God and that gets back to my question because I like the word deities because, you know, the ancient

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Near East, they believed in multiple deities and the Israelites believed in multiple deities.

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In fact, the first commandment wouldn't make any sense if they didn't believe in other deities.

23:31

Well, no, the first commandment is I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before you.

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Right. In other words, you should not be accepting any other gods. Right.

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It would be kind of silly for a god to say you should have no other gods, but actually

23:48

I'm the only God. Right. Well, that's in Isaiah. That would be like a wife saying you should have no other wives but me, but I'm the only wife that exists.

23:57

Right. Well, there's there's gods, God, and then there's false gods. In Isaiah, God says there is no

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God besides me. In other words, I am. But when you say false gods, are you just talking about idols?

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Are you just talking about like statues that are not actually gods? All of those things.

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All of those things. Anything that any good thing that someone tries to make an ultimate thing becomes a god to them.

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Right. So money can be a god. Right. Sex can be a god.

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Right. Drugs can be a god. And those things have a pull on the flesh. But those are not

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God. I agree. But I think that became more of a modern interpretation.

24:45

I don't think that's at all does any justice to the ancient Israelite and ancient

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Near East belief system. They believed in multiple deities. They believed in multiple gods.

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They believed in that the divine was full, all about. It wasn't just one god that ruled over everything that.

25:10

I mean, if you think about the whole covenant is making an exclusive pact with that particular god.

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Right. Sure. I mean, again,

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I would I would say there is no other god in the sense that. OK, let me ask you this.

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The other gods that you say that the Jews believed in, were they created or uncreated?

25:38

From a Jewish perspective or from from a Jewish perspective, I think that the ancient

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Israelites were not exclusively monotheistic. I think many of them actually worship multiple gods.

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They worshipped the deities that were in the land that they inhabited. They also took on, you know, kind of like the

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Romans did, the Greeks. They took on multiple deities. Deities served different functions.

26:07

It was kind of like a pagan. I mean, right. It's paganism.

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I mean, I think that's the culture that ancient Israel came from. I think monotheism, as we know it, is something that developed over a long period of time.

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And I think that was kind of like a it was kind of a fight between the priests and those who were exclusive to Yahweh versus just the common people.

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I think the common people were not representative of the priests necessarily, you know.

26:42

OK, so the gods that you're talking about, my question is, were they created by Yahweh or did they exist eternally alongside

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Yahweh? I cannot answer that question because that's assuming

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Yahweh is the creator God. So that would be a hard question to answer. I can't, you know.

27:10

Well, I don't believe Yahweh is the creator

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God of all nations and no. So I don't believe that. But it's hard to say whether Yahweh, you know.

27:24

So, I mean, getting into the idea of a creator God, the creator God didn't even necessarily have to be the highest or the most powerful

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God, right? You have the concept of like the Demiurge, like in Plato, you had a concept of a lower kind of being that just kind of fashioned the materials.

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So, well, the question becomes, what does the scripture say, right? In the beginning,

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God created the heavens and the earth. I think the scripture is kind of,

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I don't think it's entirely consistent. I think there are a lot of characteristics.

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I know you would disagree, but I think there's a lot of characteristics that place

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Yahweh or Elohim or whatever name that they're applying, whichever writer is, you know, calling him by.

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El Elohim, I believe, is one of the, you know, what they're calling him sometimes can also allude to a function of the particular.

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I don't know that there was one Yahweh, quite honestly, because a lot of gods were kind of part of, they ruled over a particular territory.

28:43

So, like Baal, right? You think of Baal as like one

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God, but there were multiple Baals, right? Lords, they were considered, that's what the name

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Baal translates. And they were kind of like over certain areas, but like using

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Baal as an example, if you look at the story, right, between the contest between Yahweh and Baal.

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If Baal didn't exist in the mind of the writers of the scripture, that would kind of be a silly story, wouldn't it, going against something that doesn't exist?

29:21

Well, yes, but I would say that there are other angelic beings that did have interaction with humans.

29:31

You look at Job. I mean, Satan, Satan, the adversary was, you know, given to Job.

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God commissioned that to happen, right? Satan asked him, you know, can I touch Job? Yeah, go ahead. Right, so I think that's a good example of him being part of Yahweh's court or Yahweh's, right?

29:52

He was under Yahweh's command, in a sense. Right, but that doesn't mean he was a god.

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We know that Satan is a god. No, I'm not saying that that was a god. That was part of, he was a functionary aspect, right?

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Yahweh was like the adversary or Satan was the adversary or judge or he was the one who was prosecuting

30:15

Job, right? He's kind of testing him. So that was kind of like the function of that particular.

30:22

Right, but Satan couldn't do anything to Job that God didn't allow him to do.

30:28

The god. Correct, correct. David, not to worry if he's under his control. There has to be one god.

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The term god, if he's universal, absolute, you know, all -powerful, there can't be two all -powerful gods that wouldn't be

30:47

God, right? Well, if you look at, yeah, but if you look at like Zoroastrianism, they actually did propose two equally powerful gods.

31:03

That's a contradiction. They had Ahura Mazda and Ahura and Maanu, right, or Ahriman.

31:11

I'm not too familiar with it, but to me that's a contradiction. Yeah, so it was a dualistic system, you know, whereas one god created all the good,

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Ahriman created all what was considered evil or, you know, chaotic or, you know, so even like certain animals were attributed to Ahriman like snakes and, you know, wolves or whatever.

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Like animals that they feared and that they thought, you know, were not quite normal and things like that.

31:46

Okay, so. I mean that's an example of a dualistic system where there are two gods competing, you know.

31:53

Right, but what I'm saying is that's a contradiction. God by definition is all -powerful.

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By what definition? I would say by the

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Old Testament description of God who says, you know, I am

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God, there is no other. But isn't that just presupposing that the

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Israelite God is and that the Old Testament is accurately recording and there's a lot of presuppositions that go into that to just deny.

32:31

Right. I mean, there's a plethora of other creator gods that existed, right, throughout the world.

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Right. I would say, I would say, again, being consistent with my worldview, in my worldview, there's one

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God, okay, in three persons based on the Old and New Testament scriptures.

32:53

You would say that it could be Zoroastrianism, it could be this, it could be that. What is your basis for that?

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Do you believe that? Do I believe in the

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Zoroastrian worldview? Yes. I don't necessarily believe in it.

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It's a possibility. It's just as open of a possibility to me as the

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Israelite system. I don't see any contradiction. I don't see any metaphysical reason it couldn't exist.

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I don't see any contradictions in the way that the world operates that it isn't possible for it to exist.

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Do I think it's more likely? No. Okay. So what would be... Do I think it's less likely? I don't know.

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In that world, in that worldview, what would be ultimate? There could be an ultimate source of everything.

33:54

A source could have birthed both gods. What is it? Just any absolute source. Well, yeah.

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So you're presupposing an absolute source that gives birth to these two gods. Well, does everything have a source?

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Not everything. That's why I asked you, what is ultimate? So when I'm talking about what is ultimate and fundamental to your metaphysics, to your view of reality, the buck has to stop somewhere.

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You're asking me, do I necessarily reject the

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Zoroastrian worldview? And I'm telling you, I can't reject it because I really don't have evidence for it or evidence against it.

34:38

Okay. So what would you say... But it's equally as plausible, in my view, as other ideas, other theological ideas.

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I mean, it's possible. I don't see anything that contradicts it, in other words. But my question to you...

34:56

Homer supports it. Right. Okay. So my question to you is, what would be ultimate in the

35:02

Zoroastrian worldview? Rather than debating the leaves on the trees, let's go right to the root.

35:10

Let's go to the heart of the matter. Well, in the Zoroastrian worldview, it's an apocalyptic worldview, actually pretty similar to, in some senses, to a

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Christian worldview in the sense that the Ahura Mazda eventually overthrows and is successful in reclaiming the world and, you know, over the

35:34

Ahriman, which is like the demonic, satanic figure, right? Okay. So what...

35:40

So it's kind of like a redemption. That sounds familiar, right? What literature are you getting that from?

35:49

What literature? There's lots of Zoroastrian religion.

35:57

The Persians left a lot of writings and stuff. In fact, the Jews, when they went to Babylonia, there's a lot of evidence that they were highly influenced by Persian writing.

36:11

I mean, it's a dualistic system. It has some similarities.

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I understand what you're describing it as. My question is, why are you trusting these writings that you don't even know?

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I don't trust it. I'm just saying it's another option. I'm not saying it's the truth.

36:32

Just like I would say the Bible is just another option. Okay. So why don't...

36:38

It's all of them until proven to be absolutely true in some way, then all we're left with is just competing options, competing views, and we have to find a way then to sort out which is true and which holds merit, right?

36:58

All right. This is a good segue into why I hold my worldview. What worldview is it that can provide certainty for humanity?

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How can we have certainty in a worldview?

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On my worldview, I believe that we can have certainty because we have an omniscient being,

37:23

God, who knows all things and reveals them to us such that we can know with certainty because we have an omniscient

37:32

God who revealed them to us. If you don't have an omniscient God to reveal facts to you or truth to you, how can you know anything with certainty on a different worldview?

37:46

Well, it could be possible you might not know anything with certainty. It could be possible that that's the case.

37:53

I'm not saying it is. But is that not possible that there could be a world where uncertainty is possible or that we just don't have access to the certainty?

38:05

Not in the world we live in. But you're basing that on, again, the presupposition that...

38:14

I'm basing it on...

38:26

It's an assumption. It's a huge assumption. It's an assumption that the Jews who follow the

38:34

Torah and the Tanakh don't agree with. And to get into it,

38:42

I would argue that you're actually pulling from other worldviews to form your worldview, which is the

38:48

Christian worldview. But that's a separate part of it. Sure. So I believe that Jesus is the incarnation of the one true

38:57

God of the universe who revealed himself to mankind. We have the scriptures that attest to that fact.

39:05

We have Old Testament prophecies fulfilled by Jesus in the New Testament. The scriptures affirm this.

39:11

Even atheistic and agnostic scholars agree that Jesus did exist, did die on a cross.

39:20

Even the agnostic, atheistic scholars say that they recorded that the disciples believed that they saw the risen

39:28

Christ. We have the birth of Christianity in Jerusalem in the very place where Jesus supposedly rose from the dead.

39:36

It could easily have been falsified. All they had to do was show the body. All of the followers of Jesus willingly went to their deaths believing this and proclaiming it.

39:47

And Christianity still exists till today. Now, that is the evidence for my argument.

39:53

But my argument begins with the triune God of the universe existing and the

39:59

Bible being his word. This is the only way we can have certainty in our world.

40:06

Now, you said you would need proof for something, you know, to have concrete, absolute, you know, trust or belief in something.

40:16

I'm asking you, what other worldview aside from the Christian worldview can give you that?

40:26

You could presuppose any of the deities that we talked about and just fill them in in the same sense that you did.

40:34

All I would need to do is find either already written scriptures or all

40:41

I would need to do is create scriptures around it, right? No, no. What I'm saying is you're basing your worldview on scriptures that were created.

40:55

Well, first of all, let's go back to the creation of the scriptures. Were the scriptures written by men or by God?

41:01

They were written by men carried along by the Holy Spirit. Okay, so is that the same

41:07

Holy Spirit that started from Genesis that ended all the way to Revelation? Yes.

41:13

The exact same Holy Spirit? Yes. And every writer was equally inspired by?

41:19

I don't know what you mean by equally. They were inspired by the Holy Spirit to write these things that God wanted to convey to us.

41:30

So I guess my first question is how would we ever know that that was the case?

41:40

Or how could we prove that this writing was divinely inspired by the

41:46

Holy Spirit verse the Koran or pick any other religious text?

41:55

How could you say one was inspired by the Holy Spirit, the other isn't?

42:01

You would have to do an internal critique of my worldview. In other words, you'd have to jump inside my worldview, presuppose everything

42:09

I presuppose, see if it's coherent, okay, and consistent. If it's consistent and coherent, okay, then it's true.

42:19

If you jump into a different worldview, you'd have to see if it's coherent and consistent.

42:26

Is it arbitrary? Does it provide the preconditions of intelligibility? So right off the bat, when

42:34

I look at a triune God versus a monad, you know, a single God, how do you explain the philosophical problem of the one and the many?

42:44

Is everything just one? Or are there particulars that are in the world?

42:54

Which do we hold as ultimate? So you're saying that the major advantage, that might be the wrong word to use, of the triune

43:13

God is that it accounts for one and it accounts for many. Many or variety.

43:21

In other words, As opposed to the monad God of the Jewish people, that is one

43:28

God that creates. Creation, though, accounts for the many. I don't see a problem with.

43:35

Yeah, well, what ties those many together? Okay, how do you have these particulars all unified?

43:43

You know, it's a unity of diversity. That's where we get the word universe from. And again, the triune

43:50

God provides unity in diversity. You have unity in the sense that it's one

43:56

God and diversity in the sense that you have Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Now, on my worldview, you have.

44:03

But they're made of the same substance, aren't they? They're not made. Or created of the same substance.

44:13

They're not created. God exists.

44:18

Deity exists for all time. Deity is being. Right. We exist.

44:24

X means out. Is means being. We exist out of something. Right. We come out of something.

44:31

God never came out of something. So I'm using created purposely in this case because you're again assuming that Yahweh or the triune

44:45

God is the absolute first cause of everything.

44:52

And I don't see that substantiated. So when I say created, we do.

44:58

The Trinity does say that Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Father are all the same substance, right?

45:06

Yes, they're all God. They're one. Okay. In one what?

45:13

Three persons. Three persons. Okay. One God. Of equal stature. Co -equal, co -eternal.

45:22

You know, again, it's a relationship. Right. So it provides the basis for my metaphysic in that there's a unity of diversity.

45:32

And which one is ultimate? It's called equal ultimacy. Both are ultimate.

45:38

Without the triune God of the scriptures, how do you get that from a monistic God? I'm not really seeing the problem.

45:49

I think, again, any monistic God, I don't think that Muslims have that problem.

45:56

I don't think Jews have that problem. The creator God creates and it creates diversity, right?

46:06

But all diversity comes from the same source. So they're all connected in the sense that they're all coming from the same creator.

46:15

Yet they're diverse in the sense that they have different characteristics, different functions.

46:22

I don't see how that solves or causes a problem. Okay. If the

46:28

God that you're talking about of Islam, let's say, isn't a unity.

46:34

Okay. He is a singularity. And now he's going to create a plurality, which does not reflect his nature.

46:43

Okay. So we exist in the nature of God, which is a unity of diversity.

46:51

You can't have that in a monotheistic, when I say monotheistic, a singular person,

46:59

God. So you're saying the

47:04

Trinity creates diversity, yet also unity. Yes. Yes.

47:10

It solves the problem of the one and the many, such that they are equally ultimate. So let's take humanity.

47:16

Is humanity one or is it a plurality? I think that's just a philosophical question.

47:26

I don't really even know that it has any sort of, I mean, it's something that's been discussed in Eastern religions and all kinds of different philosophies, metaphysics.

47:39

It's not really something, if you consider everything coming from the same source, that it all goes back to one source.

47:49

Right? So I would say that there's an absolute source for everything. Is it personal?

47:54

What that source is, I don't know. I don't know. I can't really put a name to it.

47:59

I don't really put characteristics. It doesn't demand worship. It doesn't get angry.

48:06

It doesn't... How do you access truth on your worldview?

48:14

By using logic, by using intelligence, by using the things that all humans have used throughout the passing of time.

48:26

You presuppose that logic can get you to that? That logic can get me to the fact that there's a source for everything?

48:39

Yes. Yes. I think there is a source for everything. I agree that there's a source for everything.

48:46

So we agree on that. But I'm not going to... my worldview grounds the laws of logic.

48:54

You're telling me the source is Yahweh. I'm telling you there's a source. I don't know what the source is.

49:01

Because you just said there is a source for everything. Right, but what you're doing... There has to be.

49:07

I agree with you that there has to be a source. My worldview, based on the scriptures, reveals to me that it's the triune

49:16

God of scripture. And I can know that with certainty on my worldview. How can you have certainty on your worldview?

49:24

How do you ground the laws of logic on your worldview? So this is an interesting question with the presuppositional.

49:35

So one of the things I've heard a lot of presuppositionalists say is, well, like you're saying, you can't account for logic, right?

49:47

Or your logic doesn't have any foundation. Well, let's just say I grant you that.

49:53

Can I still use logic? Oh, certainly. Nobody... So what is really my, what is my detriment or what is my penalty for not granting my logic or grounding my logic in Yahweh, the creator

50:10

God of the Israelites or the Christians? What penalty will

50:16

I suffer for not acknowledging that? Because you're a human being created in the image of God, using the things that God has given you to think and reason while denying his very existence.

50:30

Right, but I disagree that that's the source of it. I'm disagreeing with it, but I do know that logic exists, or at least it exists in some non -material form, right?

50:43

Or we think it exists in some non -material form. I can't stub my toe on logic, but as far as I know, right?

50:51

Right. So, okay. Right. So I can use it. It's a tool. Whether I know where the toolbox came from,

50:58

I can open the toolbox and use logic. I can open the toolbox and use mathematical concepts.

51:05

I can open the toolbox and use...

51:17

No, we're just debating where did the toolbox come from. Right.

51:22

That's all we're debating. And on my worldview, I can ground that because the scriptures reveal that it was

51:30

God who's given us those things. I'm not granting you... I grant that you can use the laws of logic, of course.

51:38

You're a human being created in the image of God. You can't escape that fact. You're just acting inconsistent with the

51:45

God who created you. So let me talk a little bit about...

51:51

So the Christian worldview borrows heavily from, in my view, two main sources.

52:00

The first is quite obviously the Jewish scriptures. That's the whole foundation of Christianity, of course, right?

52:09

It wouldn't exist. Jesus is supposed to be the fulfillment. He's the coming

52:14

Messiah. He is the salvation, right?

52:21

He's the good news. He's all that stuff, okay? So Christianity is built from the

52:27

Jewish scriptures, right? So just to go real quick, there was a guy named

52:35

Marcion, right? You're familiar with Marcion? Okay. So he attempted to jettison the

52:43

Old Testament completely, right? He attempted to get rid of all the

52:50

Jewish scriptures because he felt that Jesus was not the son of the

52:55

Old Testament God. He thought the Old Testament God was similar to how the

53:01

Gnostics viewed him as kind of like a lower, angry God. He was jealous.

53:07

He was judgmental. He was not necessarily evil, but just not the perfect God that Jesus comes from, right?

53:19

So he tried to get rid of the Old Testament scriptures. It didn't really fly because the other church fathers and Christians rightfully understood that they needed to ground the religion in Judaism, right?

53:34

It was going to be pretty hard to say that Jesus was the expected

53:40

Messiah, yet he's not the son of the

53:45

God of the Old Testament, right? So that kind of didn't fly. So Christians have relied on the

53:51

Old Testament as their foundation, right? But I would argue that Christians have reinterpreted and really changed the meaning of the

54:03

Jewish scriptures because Christians read the Jewish scriptures as completely predicting, as completely prophesying, as being foreshadows of Jesus, right?

54:19

Jesus is predicted, according to you or any other Christian, that these prophecies are about Jesus, Isaiah, the suffering servant.

54:30

You have all different passages that Christians go to that seem to predict that Jesus was this fulfilled

54:38

Messiah. But if you talk to a rabbi or you talk to Jews, they're not going to grant you that those scriptures have anything to do with Jesus.

54:48

Those scriptures were read for thousands or hundreds of years, definitely without any sort of...

54:57

I think this is kind of getting off topic in the sense that the first converts to, let's call it

55:08

Christianity, I would call it Judaism fulfilled. The first converts were

55:14

Jews. The Jews were the ones who saw... Some were

55:19

Jews. Some were Jews. All at the beginning were

55:24

Jews. The Christian church was quickly overrun by non -Jews. In fact, it was much more successful with non -Jews than it was

55:33

Jews. No, if you read the book of Acts, it started with the Jews. 3 ,000 on the day of Pentecost came to believe in Jesus, okay?

55:43

Trusted in Jesus as Messiah, okay? It went Judea, Samaria, and then the outer parts of the world.

55:49

Sure, it eventually got to the Gentiles and Peter was surprised that the Holy Spirit was poured out on the

55:54

Gentiles. He thought it was only for Jews, right? Peter was a Jew. Paul was a

56:00

Jew. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Jews, right? They were all Jews. The New Testament was written by Jews.

56:08

So when you say it was Christians, these were Jews who trusted in Jesus as Messiah.

56:15

So the very people who you're saying rejected Jesus as Messiah, there were other

56:23

Jews who received Jesus as Messiah. That's a bona fide fact.

56:28

Well, let me ask you a question. If you read the New Testament and specifically the

56:35

Gospels, who is Jesus condemning throughout the whole

56:42

Gospels? The Pharisees. Who does he condemn? The Pharisees, the scribes, the

56:48

Sadducees, right? The leaders of the Jews who were teachers of the law and should have recognized that he was the

56:59

Messiah. And interestingly, who does he say had the greatest faith?

57:05

What type of people does he say had the greatest faith? He says those who come to me like a child.

57:13

Well, think about the people specifically. The Roman centurion. What about the women?

57:20

The women, and they were not Jewish either. Mary wasn't Jewish? Mary Magdalene wasn't

57:26

Jewish? Elizabeth wasn't Jewish? They were part of the disciple group.

57:31

I'm talking about the ones that he went around to. Who were the Gentile women who

57:36

Jesus says they had faith? So the woman that came and said,

57:42

Master, even the dogs from your table, the

57:48

Phoenician woman. There's also a Canaanite woman. There's actually parallel stories of both of those.

57:56

But there's two centurions. There's one in Acts, right? One in, was it

58:01

Matthew? There's a centurion. The Magi, they're not Jewish. You come to visit, right?

58:10

But, okay. So think about it. It's all non -Jews who are considered to be the ones who understand that Jesus is the

58:19

Messiah. I would disagree with you there, Chris. Only because it was the

58:26

Jews who received the Holy Spirit first at Pentecost, poured out into the streets.

58:33

This was around the Feast of Passover. All the other Jews saw them and said, what is this?

58:39

These men are drunk. They're coming down the street speaking in new tongues, right? So it was a

58:45

Jewish movement at first that Gentiles were grafted into. I mean,

58:51

Paul makes that clear in Romans 9 and 10. It was to the Jew first and then the

58:57

Gentiles. So I agree. It was to the Jew first. However, it was not very successful with the

59:04

Jews. I wouldn't say that it wasn't successful. And if you read the New Testament and you read Acts, if you look at all the persecutions of Paul, it's all from the

59:15

Jews. It's all the synagogues. It's all those groups of people. And who does he go to when he needs protection or when he goes to the

59:24

Romans, right? Can I just say one second? You're talking like Jesus actually existed.

59:36

No, I'm talking from the Scriptures. Like Jesus actually existed. No, we have to talk what the

59:42

Scriptures say. You can't say that it was a mostly Gentile movement without trusting in the

59:49

Scriptures to say that. Based on the Scriptures. Based on what the Scriptures say. Based on the Scriptures, Jesus is the

59:54

Messiah. I'm going by what the

01:00:00

Scriptures say. I could talk about the Iliad or the Odyssey and still talk about it in a sense without taking it as a literal story, right?

01:00:11

You're making your argument. You're making your historical argument from the veracity of the

01:00:18

New Testament Scriptures. Christianity was absolutely historical. There's no question that the movement of Christianity was absolutely historical.

01:00:28

That's not an any question. We're talking about how Christianity developed.

01:00:35

And we're talking about the roots that are portrayed in the Gospel. And I'm telling you that the roots show that Gentiles are the ones who get it.

01:00:45

Who are the ones who kind of understand that Jesus is the Messiah. Look at how the disciples are portrayed.

01:00:53

The disciples aren't clueless in most of the Gospels, right? Paul or Peter doesn't get it.

01:01:02

I know, I know. I've read the New Testament several times. The problem here is this is all my worldview.

01:01:10

Okay, you haven't told me what your worldview is. You're using the Scriptures from my worldview to try to dismantle it.

01:01:21

Hold on, hold on. If you're going to use the New Testament and take it as a historical fact, then you must take the fact that Jesus is a historical figure.

01:01:29

And he actually existed, died on a cross, and was buried. And he rose from the dead. You don't have to believe that, but that's what the

01:01:36

Scriptures say. And you can't pick and choose. You can't say, well, this is true and this part isn't.

01:01:41

I'm going to ask you how you know that. I'm saying how the New Testament is providing information.

01:01:51

It doesn't presuppose that the theological message is true.

01:01:58

You can read the New Testament as a document and decipher what the intention was of the writer without actually taking the message to be true.

01:02:08

That's clear. I mean, all scholars have done that. There's plenty of scholars who are non -believers who analyze the

01:02:15

New Testament for meaning and for the original intent of the authors.

01:02:21

Certainly somebody sat down and wrote those documents, right? And they had an intention behind it.

01:02:28

So what we're talking about is what is the intention of whoever wrote those documents. Of course.

01:02:34

So now here's the point. How could you possibly say that Jesus didn't exist then? I can sit down and at this moment

01:02:45

I could make up a character and write a gospel about him, right?

01:02:51

Chris, you're telling me about my worldview and telling me that it first was caught by the

01:02:57

Gentiles and you're using my scriptures to do it, yet denying the central figure of why those scriptures were written in the first place.

01:03:05

It's entirely inconsistent. I don't see the inconsistency. I'm talking about how the gospels are portraying who is accepting

01:03:15

Jesus's message. So the Gentiles trusted Jesus.

01:03:20

If I talked about a Shakespeare play and I talked about how a certain character reacted to another character, you wouldn't say, well, you're presupposing that the

01:03:37

Shakespeare play is actual historical history, right?

01:03:42

I can talk about components. I can talk about characters. I can talk about setting.

01:03:49

I can talk about intentions. I can talk about those things without presupposing that the whole thing is actually theologically true.

01:03:59

I don't see the... Right, but what you're arguing with me is that it was actually the

01:04:05

Gentiles who historically... The difference between Shakespeare and the

01:04:10

New Testament is one is history, one is a story. You're trying to compare apples and oranges.

01:04:16

When you're quoting to me the New Testament and saying the events that happened in it, you're quoting them to me or describing them to me as if they actually happened.

01:04:25

Did they? I don't know. I don't know that they happened like that.

01:04:31

I know that it's literature and it's telling things. Okay. It doesn't have to be literally true or historically true or historically accurate to be able to analyze it for meaning.

01:04:49

How do you know that's a certain? How do

01:04:54

I know that it doesn't have to be historically true to analyze it for meaning? How do you know if the

01:05:00

New Testament is true or false? What's your criteria for evaluating the

01:05:06

New Testament? I use logic. I use understanding.

01:05:13

I use those tools that are in that toolbox. The same way that you would use to presuppose that it is true.

01:05:20

What? The same worldview you use. The same type of tools you use.

01:05:25

Now, I may not use them as accurately. I may have different perceptions. So when we use logic, when we use mathematical tools, we don't use them perfectly all the time.

01:05:39

And there is a lot of human error in it, which is the whole idea of science with testability, with trying things repeatedly over again, forming hypotheses.

01:05:51

No different than reading a work of fiction, reading a historical account, reading whatever.

01:05:58

You would have to analyze the literature. That's what I'm treating it as right now.

01:06:03

I'm treating it as literature. If it's not true, I'm not saying it is true.

01:06:08

I'm analyzing it as literature. I'm putting that aside right now, whether it's historically true or theologically true.

01:06:18

What I'm looking at. When you say that you don't know whether it's true or false, you're denying the

01:06:27

Christian worldview. The Christian worldview says that the Old and New Testaments are the word of God.

01:06:34

So you've denied the Christian worldview. My question is, what's your evidence for that?

01:06:42

What's my evidence that it's not true? Yes. I don't see any manifestation of it in our world.

01:06:52

Do you see Christians alive today? I see Christians. That's historical.

01:06:57

I think you're blending theology and belief with historical.

01:07:05

You can talk about Christianity in a historical context, which actually is a good point.

01:07:12

When you were mentioning Suetonius and Tacitus and Josephus, most of those references are in a historical sense.

01:07:24

They're not actually talking about any theological view that they believe

01:07:29

Jesus rose from the dead or that they believe Jesus was the Messiah. They're talking about that there were followers.

01:07:36

Let's look at Tacitus. The main point of that is that during Nero's reign, the

01:07:43

Christians were accused of burning down the city. Nero was accused of basically using them as scapegoats.

01:07:53

Then you have the whole thing where they were crucified, that he basically tortured them and things like that.

01:08:01

That's an account from a Roman historian, Tacitus. It's kind of a negative account of Christians.

01:08:11

It's kind of like these people are kind of crazy, but they've been scapegoated.

01:08:23

It's not at all any confirmation, first of all, about a Jesus that existed.

01:08:30

It's saying there were followers of a guy named Jesus. He was crucified under Pontius Pilate in the year 30, the whole spiel.

01:08:40

Who were willing to go to their death. It's just an account.

01:08:46

It was also written in the year 120. It's just a historical account. That's all it is. It was written like 50 years after or 60 years after the supposed crucifixion of Jesus.

01:08:59

That's what I'm saying. You're using one criteria to evaluate. But it's historical. That's not a theological.

01:09:05

That's historical. I understand. Chris, you're using one set of criterion to evaluate what

01:09:12

Tacitus says and take it as true. And then you look at the

01:09:17

New Testament and say, well, it may or may not have happened. I don't know if Tacitus' account is true, honestly.

01:09:25

I don't even know if Tacitus actually wrote that. I mean, there are some scholars who contest that it was a later interpolation in there.

01:09:34

They don't even know because there was actually the word Christus or Christus is something that's kind of like the original documents.

01:09:45

So I don't know. This is my point. When you abandon the Christian worldview, you can have certainty about nothing.

01:09:54

You can't be certain of anything. So in order to critique Christianity, you have to believe in Christianity. No. In order to critique

01:10:01

Christianity, you have to do an internal critique and jump into my worldview and all my presuppositions and see, again, if they're coherent.

01:10:13

Okay. And what was the other one I used? If they comport with the truth, okay, and they're coherent.

01:10:25

So again, the toolbox is laying there. You're saying it belongs to the

01:10:30

Christians. I want to know. And I'm saying I don't see any evidence for it.

01:10:36

I understand. But my question for you is, what is your worldview and how do you ascertain truth on it?

01:10:46

Well, let me ask you this. Are you saying that – You keep – No, because this answers your question.

01:10:53

Are you saying that things like logic and didn't exist prior to where nobody knew the source of these things prior to Christianity being established in the first century?

01:11:11

Not at all. Did I say that? Well, you're saying that you have to presuppose a

01:11:17

Christian worldview to make sense of the use of logic. No, no, no, no, no.

01:11:23

I didn't say you needed the Christian worldview to make sense of the use of logic. Okay.

01:11:28

You need the Christian worldview to understand what the – to ground where logic comes from, where morals come from, where the uniformity of nature come from, where the preconditions of intelligibility come from.

01:11:42

What is your worldview and how do you substantiate those things in your worldview? Well, why do you need the

01:11:50

Christian worldview to ground those things? Because without it, you can't prove anything.

01:11:57

It's the impossibility of the contrary, as Bonson would say. So what does the Christian worldview prove?

01:12:04

I'm trying to get what does the Christian worldview prove or what does it root in that allows me to now make sense of the use of logic?

01:12:16

The Christian worldview gives you the tools necessary to prove something. Without the tools, the preconditions of intelligibility, you don't have the laws of logic.

01:12:25

So you're saying the tools didn't exist prior to the Christian worldview? No, no. I told you

01:12:32

I believe in the Old and New Testaments. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

01:12:37

When he created man in his image, okay, he created that man, flesh and soul, spirit, okay, with the ability to reason.

01:12:48

The software, the hardware is your flesh and your brain. The software is the spirit and the laws of logic are the ways by which we measure if your reasoning is good or not.

01:12:58

I want to know where do the laws of logic come from on your worldview?

01:13:05

Where do the laws of logic come from? The absolute source that everything comes from. And what is that?

01:13:12

I don't know. I don't know what the absolute source is. And sometimes the best answer is

01:13:17

I don't know, rather than it comes from Yahweh, it comes from Jesus, it comes from the writings of Paul, it comes from whatever the

01:13:27

Christian presupposition is. To me, when you say a structured, airtight, convenient source, that doesn't mean that that's the actual source of anything.

01:13:43

Right. All that is, is writings by people trying to make sense of their world, right, and trying to make sense of whatever the divine is, trying to make sense of what is

01:13:55

God, right, and in the case of the Christians, as you said, that they established themselves from a

01:14:02

Jewish worldview, right? No, I didn't quite say that.

01:14:08

What I'm trying to, what I'm trying to explain to you is without the Christian worldview, you have no laws of logic.

01:14:16

OK. So then Jews have no laws of logic? No, no, no, without, no, all human beings are created in the image of God.

01:14:26

Every single human being on this planet was created by God. God defines the world.

01:14:32

He defines his creation. OK. God is a perfect mind.

01:14:38

So the laws of logic are a reflection of the perfect mind of God. Do you agree that the laws of logic are concepts?

01:14:48

Yes. OK. Where do concepts exist? In the mind.

01:14:54

In the mind. Did laws of logic exist before? That's how we perceive them. I don't know that they don't exist in some metaphysical sense.

01:15:04

Well, they do exist. Like for the example of Plato's forms, right? Plato believed that there was some absolute form of everything, right?

01:15:15

That we kind of see. And I think that there's, you know, I think that there is some idea to that that we don't perceive something in its perfect form.

01:15:27

We perceive kind of degrees of everything. Are the laws of logic immaterial? Yes. Are they universal?

01:15:40

Yes. Are they objective? Yes. Well, yes.

01:15:48

So the laws of logic are... Who is the objector? Right. Who is the final source who rules whether they're objective or not?

01:15:55

Well, OK. So if there are laws of logic, these are laws that tell us if our reasoning is correct.

01:16:04

How could laws of logic exist in an impersonal world without a mind, without an...

01:16:15

We have minds. Every human has a mind. No, no, no. Chris, Chris, before humanity existed, did the laws of logic exist?

01:16:28

I don't know. I don't know if humanity started when the universe existed. Before humanity...

01:16:35

Before humanity came... Before humanity... You believe that the universe came into existence?

01:16:43

At some point. OK. So before humanity came into existence, did the laws of logic exist?

01:16:55

Yes, I would say they did. OK, if the laws of logic exist, those are concepts that come from a mind.

01:17:01

There must be a mind behind the creation of the universe, OK, that the laws of logic exist in.

01:17:10

Is there another example of a mind that's disconnected from a body? Is there another

01:17:16

God? But that's... How can we prove...

01:17:25

That gets back to the whole... OK, OK. Again, it's revealed... You're presupposing a mind without a body.

01:17:34

And we have no other example of a mind without a body. There's... OK. There's no other example.

01:17:40

I don't know that it came from a mind. It may have just come from an absolute first cause.

01:17:48

And what is that? Right. You keep saying an absolute... I don't know what the first cause is. It's the first cause.

01:17:55

I think philosophers and theologians and have throughout the history of time speculated on what it is.

01:18:05

Right. Plato called it the good. Right. It really... It doesn't matter what they did.

01:18:12

I'm talking about you. And I believe that you believe that the laws of logic existed prior to humanity.

01:18:19

The laws of logic are concepts. Concepts exist in a mind. There must be a mind prior to humanity that these laws of logic exist in.

01:18:30

They could have though only made sense maybe when human minds came into existence.

01:18:36

It could be they were out there, but they had no meaning until they became infused in a human mind.

01:18:44

That's a possibility. So in other words, they were just concepts that had no meaning because there was nothing to make meaning of them until humans.

01:18:54

That's arbitrary. That's completely arbitrary. It could be completely arbitrary.

01:19:00

Right. So your worldview is arbitrary and inconsistent. That's why I reject it.

01:19:06

I don't see how it's any more inconsistent than your worldview. My worldview is that a

01:19:13

God who you can't prove exists created the laws of logic and not any particular

01:19:19

God. A specific deity rooted with a specific tribe of people that you have a lot to prove to even get to the fact of even then being able to prove that the laws of logic came from the mind of that guy.

01:19:37

Let's talk about this part. OK, you said something that God created the laws of logic.

01:19:42

I never said that. God didn't create the laws of logic. God is an eternal mind.

01:19:49

OK. And the laws of logic reflect perfect thinking. His nature. Right.

01:19:54

So the laws of logic were not created. They existed prior to creation.

01:20:00

OK. And the only way the laws of logic can exist prior to creation is if God is a plurality because you have the law of non -contradiction and the law of identity.

01:20:08

OK. You can't have that in a monistic God. That's number one.

01:20:13

So my my worldview is consistent and coherent.

01:20:20

You say that you don't know what it is. It may be a mind. It may not be a mind, but you don't have a foundation.

01:20:27

You can use logic. You just can't account for it. You can use mathematics. You can't account for it.

01:20:34

And I don't know how you can account for it either. I'm grounding it in the

01:20:39

God of the scriptures. You're creating a God of the scriptures and you're grounding it in that God.

01:20:45

I did not create God. That was revealed to us. It was created by other people. It wasn't created by anyone.

01:20:52

The scriptures say that God created the scriptures. The scriptures say. What are scriptures? The written words, right?

01:20:59

Scriptures are God's word to us. The written words, right? Yes, they are. Yes. OK. So can anybody write words that's able to write?

01:21:10

Certainly. Do you read books? I do. Absolutely. And you read about Plato?

01:21:17

Absolutely. Yeah, but anybody can write about Plato. How do you know that's true? I don't. So then why use it?

01:21:24

I don't form my worldview on the fact that Plato existed or not. Just like Socrates existed or didn't.

01:21:33

It's ideas that are important. It's not who they come from. It could have been someone absolutely that wasn't even

01:21:40

Plato. It could have just been a name attached to ideas. In fact, I think a lot of Greek philosophy gets passed on, reinterpreted.

01:21:50

We don't really know who actually wrote, right? We don't even know, you know, like Socrates, for example.

01:21:59

We think he probably existed. We don't know for sure. But it's the ideas behind it that matter.

01:22:06

It's not necessarily that the person existed. Right. So you're left to sheer skepticism because you cannot know.

01:22:16

And sometimes skepticism is an okay thing. How do you know that?

01:22:22

Instead of just saying that I know for sure and I mount myself onto a worldview, it's okay to say, you know what?

01:22:31

I don't know. I don't know actually who wrote all the works of Plato. I don't know actually who wrote all the books in the

01:22:42

Old Testament. I actually don't know who the authors were at the three synoptic

01:22:49

Gospels, right? That's fine to say those things. But there's a difference between not knowing who wrote them and saying that they're not true.

01:22:59

That they were created by man so you can't trust them. Because you read books written by man that you trust and you use in your argument against me.

01:23:08

But then when I use the Scriptures to argue against you, you say, well, they were written by men. Do you see the...

01:23:14

No, I'm not. My view is not inconsistent because I'm saying the same thing about my view.

01:23:21

I'm saying they could have been only written by men. In fact, I'm quite sure they were written by men.

01:23:27

Right, but do you believe that they were true? I think they are theories.

01:23:34

Greek philosophy is a group of theories. It's people trying to work out their best ideas about things that are beyond their reach.

01:23:45

They're talking about things that are metaphysical, supernatural, philosophical.

01:23:51

I don't think any Greek philosopher ever said this is the absolute truth. In fact, if you read

01:23:57

Plato's work, he contradicts himself at times. He has other views.

01:24:03

He changes his views in later writings. And the same also as Christian theologians.

01:24:09

If you read Augustine and people like that, they change their views too as they go along.

01:24:15

They adapt different views of Scripture. So, Christianity, I mean, let's look at it.

01:24:23

Christianity, if the Scriptures are rooted in a logic, right, then how do we come up with so many different contrasting views on every single major theological issue?

01:24:39

Christians can't agree on almost any aspect of their religion other than the absolute basics and even those are always agreed on.

01:24:48

Give me a second to respond. Because humanity, according to the Christian worldview, is in a fallen nature.

01:24:55

Our minds have been affected by sin such that when we read things, we don't necessarily interpret them correctly.

01:25:02

We're capable of making mistakes. God, on the other hand, isn't. So when

01:25:08

God reveals himself to us, okay, in such a way, the Scripture says, ever since the creation of the world,

01:25:14

God's invisible attributes, his divine nature and eternal power have been clearly seen through what has been made so that man is without excuse.

01:25:22

You can't have a building without a builder. You can't have a painting without a painter. You can't have a creation without a creator.

01:25:29

That presupposes, though, creation. Yeah, absolutely it does. Right? So when you call something creation, then it has to imply a creator.

01:25:40

Right, but you agree that there's an ultimate cause for everything. That would be the creator of the creation.

01:25:47

Well, creator, I think, implies some sort of design. I don't know that it was design, necessarily.

01:25:55

Okay, so your mind isn't design? It's design based on natural, yes,

01:26:03

I mean, it's designed in a natural sense. So why would you trust it? It's the only thing

01:26:12

I have. If your mind is the product of blind random chance over time based on the laws of physics and chemistry, why on earth would you trust your mind,

01:26:23

Chris? Well, how would you trust anything else? Because on my Christian worldview,

01:26:28

I'm a human being created in the image of God. So again, but you have an answer. Why then do Christians, why can they not agree on basic doctrinal issues?

01:26:39

I am listening. And what was my answer then? You say

01:26:45

I cannot account or why would I trust my mind? No, Chris, you said, then why do

01:26:51

Christians have various views? And I answered that. That's what I'm saying. You really are. I didn't hear the answer.

01:26:58

My answer was this. We are fallen human beings. Sin has affected our, but you remember me saying this.

01:27:05

Sin has affected our minds such that we do, we can read something and be mistaken. Okay. There are certain things we can be mistaken about.

01:27:13

There's other things we can be certain about. Could the gospel writers have been mistaken when they were writing the gospels?

01:27:20

Not on my worldview. The scriptures are God breathed. They're guided along by the

01:27:25

Holy Spirit. If there's a God, okay, if the God of the scriptures exists, he can communicate with his creation.

01:27:32

He chooses to do it through human beings through his scriptures. But how do you know they're God breathed?

01:27:38

Because they say they are. But wouldn't a fallen person say they were God breathed?

01:27:44

Wouldn't. If they wanted to manipulate or they wanted to, so that fits exactly your worldview.

01:27:52

If they're fallen, they're depraved, right? And they're fallen and their nature is sinful, then wouldn't they purposely say that their scripture was divine, even though it may not be?

01:28:06

No. Isn't that a possibility? No. The scriptures say that the human beings, men carried alone by the

01:28:14

Holy Spirit wrote these things down to us. God communicated through man to us.

01:28:20

God can use sinful men to communicate to us a perfect truth.

01:28:25

So you're saying a sinful man couldn't tell a lie, essentially. No, I'm saying a sinful man, although sinful, can still tell the truth.

01:28:35

Sure, but they can also tell a lie. Absolutely. Okay. So how do you tell the difference?

01:28:42

Based on what we read in the scriptures. My worldview. But that's the lie.

01:28:47

Hold on. No. It's a circular reasoning. I know that they're inspired because they say they're inspired, yet I also know that they're fallen and sinful and they can lie.

01:29:01

So how do we know what's a lie and what's not a lie based on... Okay. You ready?

01:29:08

The scriptures and God are my ultimate foundation. God is perfect and cannot lie.

01:29:16

He's revealed that to us in the scriptures. And who wrote that? God communicated it to us through men...

01:29:24

Did a human write that, that God cannot lie? Say again? Did a human write, wrote that verse that God cannot lie?

01:29:33

Sure. Okay. So could that person lie that wrote the verse that God cannot lie?

01:29:39

No. I mean, it's been attested to, you know, through the scriptures. But see, on your world...

01:29:45

Couldn't another person keep the same lie that the first person did? Chris, you... See, I'm not trying to purposely be, but if you use what you're saying, you're saying that all humans are fallen, but somehow you're getting a special pleading that the gospel writers were somehow inspired by God and they could not have lied in these particular...

01:30:11

Because they say so. Well, a liar would say so. That's exactly what a liar would say if they wanted to lie.

01:30:18

Right. So, okay. On my worldview, you can know the difference between truth and a lie. But how?

01:30:25

Because we have a standard of truth. What is your standard of truth?

01:30:30

What is your standard of truth? Again, we're back to the toolbox. Okay. What is your standard of truth?

01:30:43

There is not really any one standard of truth. All right. And how do you know that?

01:30:49

How do you know that's true? Your standard of truth is what the people who you say can lie wrote was the standard of truth.

01:30:56

It's consistent with my worldview. What is your standard of truth? What is truth on your worldview?

01:31:09

Truth is what could be comported to conform with reality. That's circular.

01:31:15

How do you know what reality is? Reality is the best we can figure what we're living in right now.

01:31:24

Yeah, but you're a man. This gets the whole, you know, brain in the back stuff. Let me examine your worldview.

01:31:30

It just gets into a circular thing. And then we go down these rabbit holes. No, no, it's not a rabbit trail.

01:31:36

It's not a rabbit trail. Because you're upset that my worldview uses men to communicate to us.

01:31:42

But on your worldview, you don't even know the ultimate metaphysic of reality. And you're using...

01:31:49

It's an absolute source produces everything. How do you know that? I've already given that.

01:31:54

How do you know that? Because you just already admitted that there's a source for everything. On my worldview, there's a source.

01:32:01

No, on my worldview, there's a source for everything. Prove it. And you admitted that there is a source for everything.

01:32:07

So that's all my worldview contends. I don't go into all the other things. You've added a bunch of extra things onto it that you have not proven at all.

01:32:18

You haven't even started proving it. Okay. On my worldview, intelligence, information, communication, and revelation all exist.

01:32:26

Okay. It's communicated to us by a divine source such that we can know it.

01:32:33

How do you know that your ultimate source, whatever that may be... So just the Christian worldview, this exists?

01:32:39

Is that what you're saying? That's on the Christian worldview. On your worldview, how do you know that this exists?

01:32:45

Now, when you say my worldview, you're also talking about every other person who's not a

01:32:51

Christian. Yes. Right. Absolutely. I am. When you negate the worldview, when you negate the

01:32:57

Christian worldview, your worldview is reduced to absurdity because you cannot provide the necessary preconditions of intelligibility.

01:33:05

You cannot provide for the uniformity of nature. You cannot provide for the laws of logic.

01:33:10

You cannot provide for moral law. I have. They come from the same toolbox that you use.

01:33:16

They come from a source. But you're created in the image of God on my worldview. What image are you creating?

01:33:23

That's your worldview. You haven't proven your worldview. So you're asserting your worldview, but you haven't even begun to prove it.

01:33:32

Okay. So you can't believe anything until it's proven to you, correct?

01:33:38

I don't think anything can necessarily be proven to 100 % reliability.

01:33:44

No, I don't demand the things. And in fact, there's a lot of things that we take where we have to operate on the idea that we assume them to be true.

01:33:56

Like when I cross a street, right, and I don't see any cars coming, I have to eventually take that first step and move across that street.

01:34:06

Now, in your Christian worldview, do you know absolutely for sure that no car is coming?

01:34:12

No, of course not. No. So you take that, right? But you don't operate on any different worldview than I do.

01:34:20

No, I operate on a completely different worldview than you do because my worldview provides the foundation for those things and the ability to make reasonable assessments, to look both ways and see if cars are coming.

01:34:34

You can do that, but you can't account for that because your mind, hold on, you're a product of blind random chance over millions of years governed by the laws of physics and chemistry.

01:34:48

You don't even know if you have a soul. And I don't believe you know either.

01:34:59

How do you know that? The only thing you would know is that your scriptures wrote it by the people who you admit could also be wrong, right?

01:35:12

Because they're flawed. They could lie as humans. Again, I don't want to rehash it.

01:35:20

So you don't have anything but written scriptures. There's not any...

01:35:25

I have a risen savior. When you look around the world, there's nothing that differentiates the world from any other where a number of other worldviews.

01:35:36

There's a number of other worldviews that have been proposed that could also account for the same conditions.

01:35:43

Name one. I've been waiting for you to give me... Forget about the number of other worldviews. I want you to account for your worldview, the existence of the laws of logic.

01:35:53

The classic Greek paganism, classic

01:35:58

Roman paganism. How does that account for the laws of logic? Right? Any of those can account for the natural world.

01:36:06

No, no, no. Chris, I don't want to know about any of these other... You're cutting out. I'm sorry.

01:36:11

Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Your audio is cutting out. I can hear you now.

01:36:17

Am I okay now? I can't hear you now. Really? I'm on.

01:36:25

Yeah, I can't hear you. All right.

01:36:30

Well, what I want to do is have you give me an understanding of your worldview.

01:36:37

Not the Greek pagans and any other worldview that you can think of. I want to know specifically what it is you believe and why it is you believe it.

01:36:46

And what is the proof for it? Can you prove to me that there's an ultimate source for everything?

01:36:59

Everything comes from something. Correct? Even you agree to that.

01:37:05

I'm not going to agree to that. I don't know what else to do.

01:37:13

Everything is going correctly. Does it? All right. I'll tell you what.

01:37:20

Why don't we cut this short? Maybe we can pick this up next week or something like that. I really appreciate the time.

01:37:25

Yeah, sure. It was great. I appreciate it. Thank you. I appreciate it, too.

01:37:31

Maybe in a week or two, I can email you again and maybe we can pick up where we left off. Yeah, that sounds good.

01:37:39

All right. Are you okay if I put this up online for people to learn from? I'm absolutely fine with it.

01:37:46

Great. Chris, it was a pleasure to meet you. Thanks again for coming on and doing this discussion with me.

01:37:51

I look forward to our next talk together. Pleasure to meet you. God bless you. Thank you. Bye -bye.