God Made Man and Woman. PERIOD. Then Back to William Lane Craig and Presuppositionalism

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:36

Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. It is Thursday already and July is almost over.

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I only have a little over two weeks before we head off to Birmingham, England, briefly for a debate with Zakir Hussain.

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Sort of put a note out, haven't put on Facebook yet, but put a note out on Twitter this morning. Would love to hear from some folks in the

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Birmingham area. Some Christian folks that are going to be coming out.

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Maybe you can get in touch with you. I don't know anybody in Birmingham, so it'd be nice to have somebody there locally that I'd have some contact with.

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Not gonna be there very long. It's pretty much in and out and then down to... I'm not really sure what the schedule is yet in South Africa.

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We're talking about stuff, but there's going to be stuff in Johannesburg, Potsdam, and Durban.

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And a little more time in Durban this time around at a

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Baptist Church there. Various topics we'll be addressing and right now we're looking at at least two more debates.

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Thought there might be a third, but that one sort of fell through so we'll see. Lots of stuff to be doing and of course your assistance still required, still helpful in being able to get there and do these kinds of things.

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So that's coming up real quick. And then only a matter of weeks home, I think like two weeks home before we head for Germany and the

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Reformation tour. I get to see lots of stuff I haven't seen.

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I'm not a tourist, you know, when I go over there I'm normally teaching, preaching, doing something somewhere.

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I don't really have time to be doing the touristy thing and so that'll be a new thing for me.

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Then come back from that, two trips to Dallas in October, Washington early

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November, Washington DC that is. Haven't been there in ages. Not really looking forward to that one as far as the location is concerned because the last times

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I was there was when I was quite young and I just remember very clearly that my father indicated that whoever laid out the streets in Washington DC was obviously on drugs even back then in those days.

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He was very very frustrated that you can see where you want to go but the roads don't go where you can see.

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So I guess Washington DC roads are somewhat on the frustrating side.

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So anyway, this year is going to finish up so fast.

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It's going to be amazing. So many things are happening so so quickly and before we get back to the

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William Lane Craig stuff yesterday, first thing in the morning we had the presidential tweets.

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I don't know about you. I just sort of sit around and go really?

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This is how we announce things now is on Twitter. It seems fitting

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I guess. But the the tweets concerning what is being called transgendered individuals.

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Now, I just want to start off by saying I do not believe there is such a thing as a transgender individual period. I am well aware having majored in biology in college many years ago.

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I'm well aware of certain genetic abnormalities in a very very small percentage.

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A very very small number of individuals who physically have genetic abnormalities in regards to their sexuality, sex organs.

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These are these are genetic errors. They almost always include other deleterious effects upon the individuals and these are not transgendered individuals.

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These are individuals with a normally severe genetic disease and they really have been pretty much left out in the current sexual revolution.

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They will be referred to in a defensive fashion. But let's just be honest.

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The vast majority of people that are pushing transgender rights things like that as human rights.

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Ms. Magazine came out yesterday or today. Transgender women are true women.

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Transgender feminism is true feminism. Transgenderism is a basic human right.

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Well, basic basic human right. They've pretty much been ignored in all of this.

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Because they're not the ones that people are referring to. Yesterday for some reason just in in regards to the traveling around I was doing while I was in the car.

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And when I got home, I was having lunch. That's right. I was having lunch.

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So I saw something on Fox News, heard two different interviews on radio while I was driving around with individuals who

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I think all three of them were members of the House of Representatives. They're all Democrats.

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And they were all, of course, very angry with President Trump saying that transgendered individuals would not be allowed to serve in the military.

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Now, let me just be straight up front. I am soon to be 55 years of age.

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I come from a different generation. And as such really stand out today.

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And I hope that I'm a self -consciously biblical Christian. I do not believe that there are all sorts of people that should be in the military, including women.

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And I believe women can have certain roles. Obviously, they did in World War I and II and support roles, things like that.

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But I do not believe that a woman needs to be in a foxhole being shot at and being taken captive by the enemy.

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I've never believed that that is appropriate. I think it's I think it's destructive to the fighting effectiveness of a military force because a real man is going to try to protect a woman even at the risk of his own self.

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And you basically have to stop treating them as women. And I just think that's wrong.

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But beyond that, I remember that when

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I was very young, my mom, the Vietnam War was raging. And my mom was very thankful that I have flat feet.

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She assumed that would be enough to keep me out of the draft. That would be an awfully long war if it had kept going that long.

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But just having certain, you know, all

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I got, I wear, you know, had made for me those wonderful orthotic inserts.

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And I can run and ride and do all sorts of stuff like that. But I guess back then, that would have been enough.

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And believe me, back then, being a homosexual or a cross -dresser or whatever else would have been enough, too, to keep you from military service.

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There wasn't a question about it. So I come from an older generation. And of course, the younger generation thinks we're all just a bunch of narrow -minded bigots who haven't thought about anything in our entire lives because that's generally how the younger generation thinks.

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And the reality is, is I listened yesterday to the reasoning of attacking this decision, which

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I just identified on Twitter as simple sanity.

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Because it's so plain to me that the secular totalitarians, the leftists, what they first do is they try to turn a nation's armed forces into a social experimental playground.

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And the result is the destruction of the effectiveness of those fighting forces. This has been plainly seen in the fighting in the

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Middle East, where European peacekeepers and things like that, everybody knows, just worthless.

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They won't fight, have no interest in fighting. If you need to get something done, you send the

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Americans in. Well, that's just not going to be the way it is much longer. Um, when, you know, you go back to World War II and you could take a young man off a farm and give him some training and send him into combat.

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And he was one of the best soldiers in the world. Why? He was shooting at everything under the sun out on the farm. He could pick off a rabbit at 150 yards.

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Um, that's not the case anymore. That just, it just isn't. I mean, if you, if you dare point out that you grew up shooting guns, people will look at you like, oh no, especially people in California.

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And, um, so that kind of, that kind of thing, um, no longer, no longer is going to be the reality in, in a very short period of time.

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But the, the reasoning that these people were presenting just struck me as so utterly given over from a

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Christian perspective to a rebellious, God -rejecting worldview that I'll just be honest with you.

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It was depressing. It's not that I didn't know that people thought that way. I know they do. But, but to hear these people standing there and they're in suits and ties, and they are representatives of the government of the

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United States and the fundamental dishonesty of their way of thought in comparison to just what the world really is.

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They live in a fantasy world. They live in a world that doesn't exist, but they demand that we all live in this fantasy world with them to the destruction of human life, the destruction of society, destruction of everything.

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And it was truly astounding. And I, then I was reading an article today about, written by a conservative.

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He, he made very good points about this transgender movement.

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And he confessed that in his early twenties, he had what he would call gender dysphoria.

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And he pointed out just on a logical basis. I was listening to Michael Medved having a conversation with, this was one of the interviews that I heard.

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And I mean, to me, it is sheer insanity to think that if you're a member of the armed forces and you are a man and you decide that you're a woman, that it's up to me as a taxpayer to pay, to mutilate your body so you can feel better about yourself.

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I find that offensive, disgusting, revolting and absolutely positively insane.

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But that's the world we now live in. We live in an insane world. And these people were defending that.

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They're going, well, I actually, one guy actually said that it would cost the military less to do the transgender surgeries than to provide

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Viagra. And I'm sitting here going, why are they providing Viagra? This is, this is stupidity on a level that is absolutely positively astounding.

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It is astounding to me. That anyway, but as I, as I listened, even to the conservatives,

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Michael Medved was pointing out to this, this individual, the foolishness, again, it was, it was

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Democrat. And he was saying, well, I, I just don't view transgenderism or a transgendered person as having a medical condition.

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And Michael Medved goes, so why are we talking about how much the medical treatment costs to deal with this non -medical condition?

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And the article I was just reading, John Mark from our channel had posted it. Mark Lambrecht had posted it.

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Not from a Christian perspective, but here's a guy. He admits that he experienced what he called gender dysphoria in his twenties, but he's gotten over that as almost everybody does.

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And he pointed out the same thing. And that is that this, this heart tugging argument is made that if we don't, if we don't, if all of us do not change everything in our lives, if not, if the 99 .998

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% of us that know what a man and a woman are and know that we are a man and a woman, depending on which one we are, the 99 .9

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% of us have to fundamentally change everything about our families, our lives, our language and everything. Just so the 0 .001

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% don't off themselves. They don't kill themselves. They don't commit suicide or otherwise it's our fault.

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It's your fault. You say bad things and therefore these people kill themselves instead of going, wow, if people are killing themselves, there's probably something wrong with them.

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There's something wrong fundamentally with them mentally. They have a bad condition.

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They need help. But you're not allowed to say that anymore because the sexual revolution, hey, as long as you say you're something, that's what you are.

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And so it was being pointed out, even the guy in the article was pointing out, if society has to provide hundreds of thousands of dollars to mutilate a healthy body into something that will no longer be healthy, we'll have to constantly be on drugs.

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And if you stop the drugs, we'll revert back to the previous state.

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As far as it can do so, that means that's its natural state. And so the solution is not this stupid artificial division that has been created by pseudoscience between gender and sexuality.

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The idea is, well, you alter the physical to match the mental. No, the intelligent thing, the sane thing, is that you work on the mental to match the physical.

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That's the reality around us. And if your mind isn't working right, then you work on getting your mind working right.

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But the whole idea that people whose minds aren't working right should be put into the military to go fight people, that doesn't make a lick of sense.

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That's why I said there was some sanity in Washington. It won't last. It won't last.

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I mean, I'm glad that that happened, but you and I both know it could change tomorrow.

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It could be reversed tomorrow. Or at least when the next president is elected in just a matter of years, or maybe a few more than that, one way or the other, it can be changed instantly.

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So it doesn't reflect to me some fundamental groundswell of repentance and a regaining of a meaningful sexual and moral ethic and understanding of man in our society.

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I wish it represented that. I would like to think it represented that, but it obviously, to me, doesn't.

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But even today, as I was driving in, whoever was filling in for somebody on one of the stations

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I was listening to on the way in, a guy named Mark Larson, I guess he's a Christian. He even said so.

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He said on, he's from Dallas. And he said on, he was filling in, I think, for Dennis Prager. And he said on the thing,

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I'm an evangelical Christian. And he was talking about how we want to respond to transgenderism in a

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Christian fashion, things like that. And I want to spend a little time talking about that because I don't want,

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I don't think the proper way is to say, well, here's my view and do it the way

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I do it. You know, my response would be this, that, or the other thing. No, what you do is you provide the proper biblical worldview basis.

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And then, you know, if you're Scottish like me, you're going to be a little less nuanced in how you say all kinds of different people.

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And that's okay. And if you're Italian, you'll be using your hands to say everything.

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And I saw a meme recently. It had the alien, you know, thing. It was just about to eat you. And then it said,

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IT alien, Italian. And there are two little hands going, ah. Yeah, that's how it works.

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They got to tie an Italian's hands. You can't talk anymore. Oh, that was terrible.

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You can't even say that anymore. Oh, my goodness. Even though every Italian I know goes, yeah, that's right.

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But anyways. Oh, you get so many emails.

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Yeah, well, what can you say? Oh, yeah. And then the thing about eh from Canada, I said, you mispronounced it.

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You know, it's almost as bad as the Trekkies. I misspoke a few weeks ago about the Tribbles episode.

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And I said, it was Voyager. I know it was DS9. I've got the episode. I've seen it a half dozen times.

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I know what it was. I just misspoke because I was talking too quickly. They can't get over it. They can't let it go.

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Trekkies are weirdos. That's all there is to it. DS9 discrimination.

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That's right. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh, yeah. So you lay a foundation and then each one of us makes application in the way that we need to make application from there.

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And so what you simply have to understand is when we look at this transgender movement, aside from the extremely small number of people who have a genetic issue, there's another extremely small number of people who have a mental, well, gender dysphoria is what it used to be called.

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They are confused as to what they are. There are people who, for example, don't feel that the body they're in is really their body.

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There's a well -known psychological problem where you don't believe that that hand, this is not my hand.

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That is someone else's hand and it is inappropriate for it to be connected to me. And so they want it removed.

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And the question then becomes, well, should you just go ahead and remove people's hands or legs?

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You can't really do remove people's heads, but is there a way? Should we, just because someone in their mind has decided that's not my arm, should you just say, well, not only should that person be allowed to cut their arm off, but that person should be, but we as a society should pay to cut that person's arm off.

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Because if you say we should pay to cut other things off, to make people's minds think that their body now matches what their minds think, why not arms and legs, fingers, toes, maybe a nose, ears, it's not my ear, cut the ear off, you pay for it.

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Um, the reality is that the vast majority, the vast majority of what is called the transgender movement, did you notice how as soon the day after Obergefell, this became the focus.

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There's a reason for this. There is absolutely a reason for this. It was the next step.

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It's all planned. It's all purposeful. The people who want to see the destruction of Western culture know exactly what they're doing and they are following a program.

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The fundamental thing that keeps, that has kept Western culture strong has been the family based upon a male female relationship.

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And the idea that since we are creating the image of God, there are strictures on that relationship.

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And the chipping away at the foundation has now just become blasting away at the foundation.

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And it goes faster and faster and faster. So there's no foundation left and the whole thing falls over.

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And that's exactly what is desired. That's exactly where people want this to go.

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They want to be replaced with something completely different, a secular totalitarian state. That's what they want. That's where they're going.

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And we see it happening. That's where the thought police are coming from the whole, the whole nine yards.

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So anyway, this, the vast majority of this has nothing to do with mental problems or genetic problems.

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It is purely rebellion against God's right to determine how man is to live.

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Nothing more. I would say 98 and a half percent of this quote unquote transgender movement is nothing but sexual perversion.

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It's nothing, but it's nothing, but I want to fulfill my lusts in this way. It is rebellion against God.

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It went when I, when one of these, one of these house representatives, one of these representatives was saying, what about this guy from Navy, the

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Navy SEALs team six? Did you see the pictures? Oh my gosh. Really?

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First of all, this person did not serve in drag. I can guarantee you that person did not jump out of a helicopter wearing a wig or long hair or a bra.

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Okay. This person did not serve as a woman in a male unit.

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Once they retired, they started cross -dressing. But, but when people, when

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Ms. Magazine tells me that I have to look at that guy dressed up as a gal and say, this is truly a woman,

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I refuse to do so because I'm married to a true woman and I know the difference.

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And every guy out there knows the difference. And every woman out there knows the difference.

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And I'm not playing the fantasy game with you. I happen to live in the real world.

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Not going to go there. Can't go there as a Christian. I cannot go there. I don't see how any

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Christian ever could. Because you see, fundamentally at the base of all of this, the only way that you can accept a transgender worldview is if you accept the idea of secular atheism and neo -Darwinian micromutational evolutionary theory.

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There's no other way to do it. If we are designed, if we are intelligently designed by God, then there's males and there's females.

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And that is an absolute genetic scientific fact. We're not the same.

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We are different from one another. And the only way that this wild eyed idea of absolute human autonomy can ever gain traction, can ever be utilized, is if you deny the existence of God, of intelligent design, and of purpose and universe.

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Because the whole thrust is that what a person thinks in their mind determines reality for them.

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Instead of the mind being receptive to reality and dealing with the reality around it, now the mind becomes the creator of reality.

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Because you don't have a creator at all. And so man has to step in where man was never designed to step in.

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And so just as in the redefinition of marriage, what we're being told, and it worked, it worked.

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For a long time, we were able to maintain a statement in society that what we're talking about is redefining marriage.

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And then that stopped. That stopped. It became a justice issue.

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It became an equality issue. It was never about justice.

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It was never about equality. It was about redefinition of marriage. Now we're talking about the redefinition of humanity itself.

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And the only way that that can work is if you have a worldview that has so collapsed and becomes so quite literally foolish that mankind becomes his own creator.

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Once that happens, then you can have people who one day are a female, the next day they're a male, and then the next day they're a camel, and the day after that they're a horse or whatever.

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There's really no limitations to any of this stuff.

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Because it's just fantasy. It's pure fantasy and the mind is capable of coming up with a lot of fantasy.

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And so what we're being asked and what we've been asked all along to do is to deny what we believe.

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That is what is being asked of us, is to deny that there is a

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God, to deny that he is the creator, to deny that he has a purpose in how he's created mankind. We are being told, you must deny that you're

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God's creature. You must deny that Jesus Christ is the creator of all things, that he entered into his own creation, that he taught about the relationship of men and women, he confirmed

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God's law, what is good and right in God's sight, and therefore what's good and right for mankind. You have to deny all of that or we will call you a bigot, we will call you a hateful person.

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And the process, you bring about not only destruction to the individuals, because this is not.

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Every study, and this would be true whether we had studies or not, and eventually in the

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Orwellian world that's coming our way, we won't have these studies. They won't be allowed to be done.

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Mark it down, write it down that in July of 2017, I said that if this keeps going the way it is, we won't have the freedom in a very short period of time to even do studies that would in any way contradict the perspective of the new society and the societal high priests that are running the new society.

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We won't even be able to do it. But at least right now, we can point to studies that demonstrate not only that both homosexuals and transgendered individuals are more susceptible to self -destructive behavior, drugs, alcohol, suicide, massive sexual promiscuity.

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I mean, just look at the standard male homosexual. Thousands and thousands of partners on average.

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It's just astounding. But even when the transgendered individual is provided with auto -mutilation, that's what it is.

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You cannot make a male into a female. You can chop a male body up.

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You can mutilate a male body. You can put a male body on artificial drugs to damage it.

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But that doesn't make a female. And it never will. I don't care how far we advance.

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I don't care how... You can't transition.

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There's no such thing as transitioning. There never will be anything like transitioning. It's just, sorry, it doesn't work that way.

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And it is destructive to even try to do so. So it is destructive to that person's life.

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Every study has demonstrated that even the people who transition are many times more likely to suicide after the surgery than before.

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Why? Because it doesn't accomplish anything. All these hopes they're given, oh,

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I'm going to be so happy. I'm going to be so fulfilled. No, you're not. No, you're not.

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That's the fact. That's the truth. And the political correctness now says you can't tell people that.

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Oh, so you care so much about these people that you can't tell them that it's a big lie.

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And so you're going to let them mutilate their bodies and then find out for themselves it's the big lie.

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And then they will be far more likely to commit suicide then. And this is the loving thing?

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Yeah. For the... Because you got to understand the social engineers who are seeking to destroy

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Western culture don't care about anybody but themselves and their own power over the people.

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They don't care about transgenders. They don't care about homosexual people. It's irrelevant to them. If they commit suicide, they don't care.

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Doesn't matter. As long as their stories can be used to promote their agenda.

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They'll use anyone. They'll destroy anyone. So not only is it destructive to the individual, it's destructive to the society around us.

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Oh, you don't have any of this. Yes, I do. Yes, I do. I know that when I take my granddaughter to Target that I don't take her to the bathroom there.

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That I can't. I have to plan my trip so as to not do those things.

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Because... And it's not just Target anymore. Almost any place. In a number of cities, in public places, and so on and so forth.

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You just don't have the freedom to be able to do things you did before because of the insanity of city councils and people who get into government just simply to promote this sexual revolution.

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It is destructive. There are all sorts of studies, again, that won't be allowed to do this for much longer.

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But studies, again, that demonstrate that confusing little boys and girls about gender fluidity in first grade is child abuse.

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And it is. It's absolute child abuse. So it's not only destructive to the individuals, it's destructive to the society as a whole.

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It's destructive to marriage, it's destructive to the family. And we've known this because of the fact that we know how

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God has designed us to flourish in this world. And we are in open, unquestioned rebellion against it.

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And seeking to persecute and prosecute those who would stand against this revolution.

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They must be punished for not getting with the program.

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We will call them all sorts of names. We will not engage with them in meaningful debate because we can't.

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Our position is, on an intellectual level, absolutely absurd.

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And it can't defend itself. All we can do is yell and scream and just hope that we get to say it enough that people will accept what we have to say.

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So from the Christian perspective, we recognize that God has created his world to function in a particular way and that man will never fully experience life in the way he is intended to experience it until he submits to God's law and to God's way.

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And we have a creator. Therefore, there is purpose. There is intention.

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And we don't have the right to change it. We don't have the rights. That is the fundamental issue.

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Because everyone's saying otherwise that, yes, I do. I have the right to change this. I have the right to rebel against God's created order.

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And if you're talking to people who call themselves Christians, this is a direct rebellion against the authority of Jesus Christ and his teaching.

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And we are being told, you can't follow Jesus in this matter. The social scientists have more authority.

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The social scientists have more insight than any person who lived 2 ,000 years ago in this matter.

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That's what you're being told. They've never risen from the dead and they didn't create the world, but they have more authority.

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They have more authority. That's what we're up against. There can't be compromise here.

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A Christianity that has no creator, has no law, therefore has no message.

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There is no such thing as a secular Christianity. That's a blasphemy.

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It's a dead shell. It's worthless. And we're seeing a lot of that today.

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Obviously, Christianity and liberalism, liberalism which departed from Christianity a long time ago, it's out there promoting all this stuff and thinks it's wonderful because they've got nothing else better to be doing because they don't have a message.

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It's not a divinely revealed faith. And it doesn't challenge the world. It just simply gets told by the world what to do.

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That's why the world has no respect for it either. It's very obvious. The world hates

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Christianity because that's a challenge. The world, Christianity, real Christianity says Jesus Christ is

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Lord. Fake Christianity says the society is Lord and we'll make Jesus look like the society. And that's what we're seeing.

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That's what we're seeing. When you see every one of these churches, it collapses and starts blessing same -sex unions and calling them marriages and doing the transgender thing and, you know,

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God's just made us all however we are, blah, blah, blah, blah. What you're looking at there is a secular society with a religious veneer on it that just comes up with a

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Jesus figure that looks like the most recent social scientist teaching at the local university.

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And it's a blasphemy and it just reminds me that someday

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God will judge. And nobody's willing to say it anymore. No one is willing to look at these judges who judge unjustly and do what the psalmist said.

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Now, how many of the prophets and how many times in the

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Psalms do you have words addressed to judges that remind them that God is the final judge and that they have responsibility to judge in light of what

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God says is true? Nobody says that anymore. No, no, that's threatening. That's hate speech. That's whatever.

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That's how you shut down any kind of conversation these days. And it works for people.

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It works for people. I mean, the people coming out of Caesar's schools reason as Caesar does.

39:25

And it's like Pavlovian stimuli. Ring the bell and I can't think like that.

39:33

I've been taught not to do that. Well, yeah, it takes about 12 years of conditioning, but you can eventually get somebody to respond pretty consistently, very consistently.

39:47

So God made us male and female. It's a good thing. It's a wonderful thing. It's a beautiful thing. It's a gift to mankind to recognize true masculinity and true femininity.

39:57

It's a gift to mankind. And evidently, Western society is no longer worthy of this gift.

40:03

And so the only way that I can look at that picture of that former

40:09

Navy SEAL and understand why people would go, well, there's a good example. That's a true woman.

40:15

The only way I can understand that is in light of Romans chapter one, professing themselves to be wise.

40:22

They became fools. Their foolish hearts are darkened. And God gives them over in the lust of their hearts to the dishonoring of their bodies amongst themselves.

40:32

There it is. That's the only way I can understand it. Somehow Paul knew about this stuff a long time ago.

40:41

So three times yesterday, and it just kept hitting me.

40:49

My goodness, we are so far past the battle on this.

40:55

So what are we supposed to do? Are we just fighting a rearguard action? Are we just in constant retreat?

41:01

Well, the fact is, if you live in a society, in a nation or a broader society, that is under the judgment of God, you are called to be salt and light, and it's not going to be fun.

41:16

And that society is going to try to shut you down. They're going to try to shut us down. I am shocked it hasn't happened yet.

41:25

But the day is going to come when we are going to have to find alternative ways of communicating with the people we're communicating with today.

41:34

There is no way that we are going to be allowed to have the freedom to make an argument.

41:42

Because I've made an argument. I've made an argument that transgenderism is damaging to society and it's damaging to the people who are given the big lie that there's such a thing as transitioning.

41:54

I've made an argument and I've given facts. And it's logical and it's rational.

41:59

The response from the secular totalitarians will not be logical or rational.

42:05

It's just shut up. That's why whenever anybody who has any kind of now counter -cultural message shows up on a university campus, violence breaks out.

42:20

Because you're not allowed to say these things. And the day will come sooner than later when...

42:29

That's why I keep telling folks, if you like the dividing line, you better download it and save a local copy. Because eventually it's all going to disappear.

42:39

It's just going to. I know it's going to. These people do not value freedom.

42:45

They do not value it. They have no basis in their worldview for valuing freedom and liberty.

42:53

They talk about it all the time, but they are the most exclusivistic, narrow -minded totalitarian individuals on the planet.

43:01

Because once you don't have God, once you are stuck with a secular system, there are no other options.

43:10

There are no other options. It's obey or be destroyed. That's it.

43:16

Just get along with us. We're in charge. That's how it works. That's how it works.

43:21

Christian can't go along, but you better know why. Or you're going to say, you know what?

43:27

This isn't a hill to die on. Well, define for me a hill to die on. Because we're talking here about the very existence of God.

43:35

What do you mean existence? If God created man and woman, he defined all this.

43:42

We don't get the option to say, eh, no thanks. I mean, aside from the fact it would result in the end of the species.

43:50

You know, that little tiny thing there. This comes down to, can

43:59

God define what sin is? Can God even define how mankind is supposed to even behave?

44:08

If not, why are we bothering? Why are we bothering? That's truly, truly the question. So as you interact, as you watch what's going on with this transgenderism, it truly does demonstrate that once God gives a people over, it's hard to even recognize.

44:36

It's hard to even recognize the image of God in a person who's been given over, because their mind just becomes so self -absorbed with rebellion that every godly category is just wiped out.

44:49

And the logical thinking that should be there, gone. Just gone.

44:56

It's amazing. Well, anyway, need to get back to William Lane Craig here.

45:02

Shift gears. I, what? Oh, yes. I minimized the channel because the discussions were so completely distracting and stuff that I just,

45:17

I don't know what's going on in there, but it's not helping me any, that's for sure. Maybe nobody in there even knew the program was on because it certainly wasn't a discussion of what was going on.

45:26

Anyway, for those of you who were not with us last time, shame on you.

45:33

No. We are listening to the interaction provided by Dr.

45:42

William Lane Craig to a radio debate between Erika Nandez and Saiten Bruggencate on apologetic methodology.

45:53

Where have we gotten to this point? We've gotten to this point where, A, we are very certain that Dr.

45:59

Craig doesn't take presuppositionalism very seriously because he's plainly never read original sources in the sense of, for example, meaningful scholarly articles that demonstrate the foundational consistency between Calvin's doctrine of the knowledge of God, knowledge of man, and Van Til's eventual codification of these things.

46:23

Certainly hasn't read Van Til, doesn't seem to have read any of the interpreters of Van Til.

46:30

Whether it be Bonson or Frame or K. Scott Oliphant or other people that knew

46:35

Van Til directly and have written concerning his perspective, so on and so forth.

46:46

That has resulted in some oddly inconsistent replies and some somewhat humorous at times responses from Dr.

46:58

Craig to what he's hearing because he's not able to put Saiten Bruggencate's comments into the proper context.

47:05

That's going to happen here in a moment when Sai makes a comment in regards to Elijah and the prophets of Baal.

47:20

And, well, you'll hear what's going to happen. He can't even seem to differentiate between Sai's humor and a serious assertion, but we can blame

47:32

Sai for that. Because he's Canadian and, you know, Canadian comedy.

47:38

But anyway, so let's go back to listening to, we're about halfway through the program here.

47:46

Let's look biblically. You see that when Elijah was talking with the prophets of Baal, he didn't give them priests of apologetics.

47:52

He said, you build an altar, I'll build mine. And whoever God lights it on fire is a real god. Now, let's stop right there. I just don't even see it as a relevant issue.

48:00

These are not atheists, first of all. He's not going to give a transcendental argument.

48:06

These are individuals who have a knowledge of the existence of Yahweh, but are either syncretists or reject the sovereignty of Yahweh.

48:18

This is a direct one -on -one competition between people who thought that the

48:25

Baals had authority over particular areas, even geographically speaking.

48:36

Back then, the idea was your God's authority basically ended at the geographical boundary of your nation or something along those lines.

48:46

And Baal worship was very syncretistic. And so you wouldn't expect that this is an apologetic encounter in the sense of dealing with a secular humanist or an atheist or something like that.

49:03

You're dealing with a pagan theist who knows God exists, has rejected that God's existence, and is promoting another

49:11

God and are seeking to invite and have been invited by the apostate people of God to lead them in syncretistic worship, basically.

49:27

So it's a very, very different context. Very, very different context indeed. So there's an evidence being presented for the existence of which

49:34

God is the real God. But it's not evidence of the existence of Aga. They already believe that God exists.

49:41

It's not like, well, we would like to invite the morally neutral priests of Baal to examine an argument.

49:54

It's not a matter of examining an argument. And this is part of what Sai's response was.

50:02

And this is why, now that I'm listening a little bit more carefully, I fully understand why Sai said what he said and am now even more astounded that William Lane Craig responded the way he did.

50:13

These are idolaters who are going to lose their lives in judgment from God for seeking to mislead the people of God.

50:23

Totally different context. The idea that, well, that they're certainly providing evidences. If you really want to go there.

50:33

I'm not sure what he means by logic belongs to God. I would say logic belongs to God because God created the universe and mankind in a particular fashion.

50:46

It has been well said that when we think logically, we are thinking God's thoughts after him because we are derivative from God and that we never are more human in our thought processes than when we are most disciplined and thinking logically.

51:05

That's a good lesson, I think, for a lot of people today. I'm not trying to say that there is not a place for contemplation of the mysteries of God and meditation upon those things that is not simply following a

51:25

Venn diagram or something like that in symbolic logic or something like that.

51:31

But one of the greatest losses in modern day

51:37

Western civilization is the ability to think logically, to recognize logical categories, to recognize logical errors in argument.

51:47

Because when I listen to the left or the right these days, all I hear are people who have no earthly idea what logical argument is.

51:56

Okay, not all. There are still a few left. But the reality is the more stringent you are in seeking to be logical and to reason and to speak consistently, the less popular you're going to be.

52:13

Because your audience is becoming more and more people that are totally controlled by emotions. So the people that are the most popular today are the people who have learned how to manipulate the emotions of others.

52:25

That's how demagoguery works. And demagoguery is demagoguery, whether it's right -hand demagoguery or left -hand demagoguery.

52:31

It's still demagoguery. And that we can't use them and that we give them to the atheists. Again, God gave us a mind that reflects his and our mind should reflect him.

52:40

As a believer, yes. But here, once again, the issue of anthropology and epistemology in the fallen state must be addressed.

52:54

I think that Mr. Hernandez doesn't do that here. The biblical statement is that a person who is in rebellion against their creator, their dialogue, their reasoning is impacted by that.

53:12

The term is used is darkened. There's a perversion. There's a twistedness.

53:17

You have to recognize this. And therefore, there is suppression of truth and there's twisting of truth.

53:26

That's why you simply cannot approach the lost individual and say, hey, it's up to you. I'm just going to present to you a bunch of arguments here, and I'm just going to have to trust that you're going to do with them what you need to do with them.

53:38

Yeah. If he's lost, he's simply going to suppress them and he's going to twist them. That's the reality.

53:44

To even say that perhaps like maybe he can clarify later, but basically, for example, existence also belongs to God, but existence belongs to me, too.

53:53

I own the property of existing. So yeah, except God has eternally existed and you have not.

53:59

Your existence is derivative. His is not. This is this is sort of really basic theology on a wall, even though so just because God is the ontological grounds for something doesn't in no way mean that I can't use it, especially if he's the one that gave it to me.

54:14

And to even say that logic belongs to God was something that was that is a conclusion that was drawn from logic and reasoning.

54:21

So, yeah, that's actually it's derived from a Christian worldview where if something is true and representative of the truth, it derives from God.

54:31

God has the intention of creating his universe in such a fashion that this is we will be able to know him and he will be able to speak truth to us and we will be able to look at his creation and glorify him in his creation, so on and so forth.

54:49

But man's darkened mind twists these things, and that's what we have to presuppositionally deal with.

54:59

In forming our approach in such a way that God is glorified, his truth is honored, and the messages presented can be used by the

55:08

Holy Spirit of God to draw his elect people unto himself. That's the point of First Corinthians chapter one.

55:15

As far as using evidence or arguments to convert. Well, let's let's pretend I was an atheist and I just heard everything

55:20

I said. And I said, that was a great argument. He is absolutely right. I am now going to become a

55:25

Christian or change my view of apologetics based on size argument. Atheists don't have views of apologetics.

55:31

They're not gonna be changing any of that. And Psy really hasn't presented the primary arguments of a presuppositionalist in regards to the existence of God here.

55:43

Anyways, he's arguing about apologetic methodology. He's not hasn't really presented a specific case for God.

55:52

Well, if Psy said that we didn't use evidence and arguments to persuade or convert, well, then what happens when someone becomes persuaded or converted based on a presupposed argument?

56:00

It would seem self -defeating there. It wasn't a self -defeating statement because Psy was basically stating that the idea of merely presenting evidences is not the issue.

56:13

Yes, we do believe God uses means, but the means is the spirit and the gospel, which is, by the way,

56:20

I didn't really expand upon this last time, but I sensed, I don't know how to describe it, but well, yeah,

56:29

I would. I sensed the exact same attitude in Dr. Craig's statements last time that I sensed the first time

56:39

I attended the Evangelical Theological Society in Florida in 1998. He just thinks that apologetics is preaching.

56:53

It's just preaching. And there's a place for preaching in the church. It's just, you know, and here's where I really, again, emphasize the fact that apologetics cannot exist, from a

57:10

Christian perspective, should not exist as some kind of separate field from gospel proclamation.

57:19

The gospel proclamation is the heads side of the coin. The apologetics is the tails side of the coin, but they're both of the same thing.

57:33

And when we separate them out, I think that's when we get into real danger and we end up with a misunderstanding.

57:40

That makes a good point. I mean, here's my argument and evidence that we don't need argument and evidence.

57:45

Yeah, it's very strange. Very strange. I've just never heard of anything like this before because I don't do original reading in these people.

57:55

Find this sort of dialogue to be really bizarre and frankly, unfruitful.

58:02

Bizarre, strange, unfruitful. Those Calvinists. Don't you remember what I told Christopher Hitchens when he asked me about false

58:08

Christians? The only people I can think of were Calvinists. It's just such a such a bias there.

58:15

Wow. And by the way, all the people who think it's just terrible of me.

58:20

To respond to William Lane Craig, where are you guys jumping all over him for this?

58:26

Do you think referring to presuppositionalists is bizarre and strange and unfruitful?

58:32

And how come nobody ever goes, Oh, Dr. Craig, you should just be more. You should be so much kinder than you are.

58:39

You're just such a meanie. I don't I don't ever see it. You know, maybe it's out there somewhere. No one's ever pointed out to me, but I it seems that he can say this and that's

58:49

OK. But if you respond, you're a Calvinist meanie. I think

58:54

Hernandez emphasized this. Ten Brudenkait seems to confuse having ontological derivation with somehow a guideline to apologetic method that because everything derives from God, such as existence, logic, moral values and everything, because everything is ontologically derived from God, that this somehow dictates how you should reason with people.

59:21

And I don't see any. Yeah, from our perspective, God's nature and existence and revelation is primary and prior to everything else.

59:32

That's true. And that we do not grant to the unbeliever a right of judgment.

59:38

We do not grant to the unbeliever a right to arrogate to himself that which he's actually borrowing from God.

59:43

The whole point is to provide that internal critique, which if Dr. Craig would read original sources, he'd hear about that internal critique of the other person's worldview that demonstrates that they are inconsistently borrowing from the worldview that they deny to prop their own up.

01:00:01

And so if they talk about logic and reason and things like that, they can't give us a reason why this world should function in those ways.

01:00:08

They don't have a creator. They don't have a purpose being fulfilled. That's what Cy was trying to point out.

01:00:14

But, you know. The reason to think that that provides the guideline to apologetics method, of course, everything derives from God.

01:00:23

That's not in dispute. But the question is, how do you effectively present a case for the truth of the

01:00:31

Christian faith? There are a couple of more segments here, Bill, and you come back up. So let's finish out the podcast with these two.

01:00:38

I would say they can't be converted by my argumentation. If they're converted, it's because God has granted them repentance. Now, as far as handing it over to the person.

01:00:45

Okay, now let's stop there again. Again, this is the point that I was making earlier.

01:00:51

To say that they're converted by his argumentation, what we want to say is that God can use the argumentation to convert the person.

01:01:02

He consistently thinks of presenting argument and evidence as doing something that is either in competition with the

01:01:10

Holy Spirit or is apart from the Holy Spirit. I think it's probably why Cy put up that video that we played last time.

01:01:20

Because, once again, when you hear Dr. Craig saying, well, I haven't made an argument for the Christian God, or we're just presenting bare theism, just this idea of bland monotheism, so on and so forth.

01:01:30

So are you saying that God can use bland monotheism to convert to what? To convert to Christianity?

01:01:38

Well, sort of. It's that incremental type thing, I guess. Start with bare theism, monotheism, deism, whatever, and then once you've got personal monotheism, then we can go for the

01:01:51

Trinity or whatever else it might be from that point, I guess. That's probably why he put it up. And that is not at all what

01:01:58

Hernandez is talking about. He's talking about giving arguments and evidence in the power of the

01:02:04

Holy Spirit and trusting God to use those as means to convert or change the person's mind.

01:02:12

Now, I'm really happy when evidentialists bring up the story of — Okay, here we go.

01:02:18

Now, it was Eric Hernandez that brought up the issue of Elijah and the prophets of Baal, and that this was an example of evidentialism.

01:02:30

Okay, so here's Cy's response. With Elijah and the prophets of Baal, because they said, well, we're going to show with evidence which

01:02:37

God is God. So they make this altar, and they cut out this bull, and the prophets of Baal are calling down fire.

01:02:43

Nothing's happening. And they end up cutting themselves. And he says, where's your God? Is he on the toilet? That's what he basically said.

01:02:48

That's the euphemism for, is he away or is he busy? And of course, nothing happens.

01:02:54

And then Elijah says, okay, douse this with water. And he douses it with water, and he calls down fire, consumes the whole thing.

01:03:00

And they say, wow, you've convinced me with evidences that your God is God. And Elijah says,

01:03:05

I sure have. There's our circumcision tent. I want you to line up single file. Now that you're believers, we're going to welcome you into the community.

01:03:14

Welcome aboard. I say, is that what Elijah did? No, he slaughtered them.

01:03:20

He slaughtered them. Why? Because the evidence that was given was not to convince them that God exists. It was judgment for their unbelief.

01:03:26

And I say, look, if William Lane Craig wins a debate, that's fine. He just got to kill his opponent. Now, see,

01:03:40

I'm just going to have to admit that not only would that have never really suggested itself to me, but if it had, unlike Sai, I never would have said it.

01:03:55

It's obviously, it's meant to be humorous, but it's also making a point.

01:04:01

And that is that there is a confusion here. It was,

01:04:06

I think, confusing to make the application in the first place. And if you then want to push it all that way, then yeah, the point is that this was judgment upon these men.

01:04:22

God wasn't trying to go, ah, see, I am the true God. Welcome to my true worshipers.

01:04:28

These individuals were rebels. They were seeking to draw. Look, look at the

01:04:34

Mosaic law. What does the Mosaic law say? If even your husband or your wife, your best friend, your child, secretly attempts to get you to come after the

01:04:48

Baals, the false gods of the peoples, you are to expose them and be the first one to engage in their destruction, in their execution.

01:05:01

That's one of the toughest parts of the law. No one ever wants to preach on that or touch that one with a 10 -foot pole. But it's there.

01:05:10

And if that's the case, then these guys, if doing it secretly brought about that kind of thing, these guys were wide out in the open.

01:05:20

They had been feeding on the people of God for a long time. And so this is a judgment context.

01:05:26

And so if you want to use that as the paradigm, then his point is that William Lane Craig, after the debate, should then call for the destruction of his opponents.

01:05:35

I don't think that Dr. Craig liked that. Oh, gosh. Oh, Bill.

01:05:46

Yeah, I don't even know how to respond to that. I mean, that is just... Let's see here.

01:05:51

And a lot of priests have... I don't even know how to respond to that. Well, okay, fine.

01:05:58

That's probably the best way to respond is to go, let's just move on.

01:06:04

But the point wasn't addressed because I don't think that Bill has the categories to even hear what was being said.

01:06:11

However, I do think context matters. And that is something he didn't want to deal with there.

01:06:17

Oh, no, no, no. Not at all. Oppositionists get it wrong. Instead of arguing six hours about the complexity of the eye, they're arguing six hours about epistemology, which is foolish.

01:06:27

The Bible calls the unbeliever fools. And that's not an intellectual sentence. It's in their willful ignorance of the

01:06:32

God that they know exists. So instead of arguing evidence, like I said, we argue epistemology for six hours.

01:06:38

How ridiculous is that? We have to honor Jesus Christ as Lord when we talk to them and not give up the things that belong to Jesus Christ when we discuss his existence.

01:06:48

Well, I think, if I can gather from what you said, there's a difference here. Satan Brukencate is more interested in preaching and then whatever happens, happens kind of a thing.

01:06:59

Like somehow something mystical is going to happen. Yeah, something mystical. Isn't it

01:07:05

William Lane Craig that's been talking about the Spirit here? That something mystical is the

01:07:12

Spirit of God making the Word of God to come alive in the hearts of his elect people.

01:07:20

Now, I don't think there's anything wrong, by the way, regarding, well,

01:07:27

Cy's point of sitting around and arguing epistemology for six hours, his point is there's only so much that you can talk about.

01:07:36

And given the Christian perspective that the person you're talking to is the creature of God and is in rebellion against God, they will spend every waking moment justifying their rebellion.

01:07:52

And there's no reason for you to spend every waking moment of your life arguing with them about their rebellion.

01:07:59

So everybody has to decide, you know, at what point in time do you say, you know, pearls before swine?

01:08:06

We all have to make that decision. And obviously, from my perspective, there are some people that cut it off way too soon and other people that just go on and on and on forever and ever and ever.

01:08:18

You know, I have to answer before God for where I draw that line. And I think it's easier for us to cut it off too early than too late.

01:08:33

In other words, it's easier for us to be less gracious than more merciful.

01:08:41

But each one of us has to make that decision. And I think for some people, it would have to be earlier on and other people later on, just because of the way

01:08:48

God made us. God made some people more patient than others. There are certain people that can reach others, others can't.

01:08:56

So that's sort of how God made us. And sometimes it does. I mean, God uses preaching.

01:09:02

But it's like, you don't throw in scriptures like a bucket. You read the book of Acts and look at the example of the apostles and Jesus himself.

01:09:10

They weren't at all afraid to present arguments and evidence for the truth of the message they proclaimed, and they trusted the

01:09:18

Holy Spirit to use that to bring people to him. But they never put those individuals on the ground of thinking that by my presentation of evidence,

01:09:32

I am allowing you to maintain your autonomy as if you have the right to judge

01:09:39

God. Their assertion was God will judge you. In Acts chapter 17, when

01:09:45

Paul preaches on Mars Hill, he does not say, I would like to present a series of minimalist facts arguments to you.

01:09:54

He did not argue the way William Lane Craig does. What he did is he specifically said that God is going to judge every man, woman, and child.

01:10:07

And he's going to do that judgment through Jesus Christ, the man Jesus Christ, at the resurrection.

01:10:16

As soon as he said resurrection, they're like, so much for that. If you want absolute proof that what the apostles were talking about was the actual resurrection of the body, there you go.

01:10:29

But that was a proclamation. It wasn't, I'd like to come here and suggest you consider a few of these things.

01:10:35

And there was a proclamation of truth. Certainly did not slay their converts when they converted.

01:10:47

Which shows that Bill didn't get the point. Which is okay. I didn't get the first time through either.

01:10:54

It was only listening carefully, understanding what Hernandez had said, like, oh, well, there you go.

01:11:01

There's where the problems are. So, I just find these arguments that he's giving to be utterly unpersuasive.

01:11:14

Well, but has anybody seen any real evidence that Dr. Craig's really following them?

01:11:20

That he's getting the context? That he's got the background? Or has there been pretty obviously a fair amount of ignorance on his part in regards to what the background is?

01:11:33

And a real strong bias. At least that's what I'm hearing. Darrell Bock They get into certainty a little bit later in the debate.

01:11:41

And Saiten Bruggencate again brings you up that in response to Krauss, he said, are you certain that God exists?

01:11:49

And you said, no. He said that we should have absolute certainty.

01:11:56

And Eric Hernandez says, look, if you were to talk to Dr. Craig about that, he would explain to you what he means.

01:12:02

Let's leave him out of that and get back to the debate. But do you want to talk a little bit about certainty and when it comes to certainty, doing apologetics like with Krauss on stage?

01:12:16

Gary Barnes Well, certainty, I think, is a will of the wisp that is quite irrelevant to faith in Christ.

01:12:25

It's not necessary in order to have faith in Christ. Jesus accepted the man who came to him and said,

01:12:33

Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief. Certainly, rational arguments and evidence are not going to deliver certainty.

01:12:41

What they will deliver is a degree of probability so that the rational man will follow the evidence where it leads and believe in God.

01:12:50

Darrell Bock Wait a minute. So that the rational man or the spirit -led man, are they the same thing?

01:13:01

Is what he's saying, that the spirit will cause an irrational man to be a rational man and therefore follow the arguments to the existence of God, even though at times he's only giving existence for a

01:13:19

God rather than the God? It's really hard to nail down exactly what he means here.

01:13:28

But the rational man will do this? So what is the rational man?

01:13:34

Wouldn't the, from a Christian perspective, isn't the rational man the man who recognizes his creator and the fact that he's made in the image of God?

01:13:40

Doesn't that require regeneration? This is where theology, again, folks, if you're tracking with this, the vast majority of these questions are all theological questions.

01:13:50

They're not methodological, fundamentally. They have, there's methodological impact.

01:13:56

But these are theology questions. Theology determines apologetics.

01:14:03

And we've been saying that for a long, long time. That's been one of our major criticisms of this whole movement and this whole practice of apologetics and the way that it's done is it's not theology that's determining the form of apologetics.

01:14:20

It's apologetics that ends up determining the form of theology. And that's going at it absolutely backwards.

01:14:25

And I see absolutely no reason to think, Kevin, that simply preaching the gospel is going to lead to a greater degree of certainty than that.

01:14:36

In fact, you and I— Now, catch that. So preaching the gospel is placed on the exact same level as presenting arguments.

01:14:45

So the content and nature of the gospel is no different than the Kalam cosmological argument.

01:14:51

If I'm following him, if I'm wrong about that, but it sounds like what he's saying is that you can only have a certain level of confidence in the

01:15:02

Kalam argument and you can only have that same certain level of confidence in the gospel.

01:15:10

Well, obviously, that's a theological statement, isn't it? It's a huge theological statement.

01:15:18

The gospel is like the Kalam cosmological argument. There's no difference. Of course, there's a difference.

01:15:26

The gospel is the power of God and the salvation. The gospel is a supernatural message. The gospel is what's made alive with the

01:15:32

Spirit of God. The gospel is what God's chosen to use to draw his people into himself. This is what happens when you come from the wrong direction.

01:15:42

When you come from the philosophical perspective and form your theology based upon a philosophical approach rather than the opposite.

01:15:55

Or as someone who will not be named in channel because he'd get into a lot of trouble, the

01:16:02

Kalam cosmological argument is the power of God and the salvation. I'll let you guess who said that.

01:16:08

Yeah, I put the channel back up because at least the discussion is now somewhat relevant to the program, whereas it wasn't before.

01:16:16

No, that the testimony of young people raised in Bible -preaching churches is often that they're ridden with doubts, because though they've heard the

01:16:28

Word of God preached, they have doubts about it, and they don't know how to answer them, and there's no one to answer their questions.

01:16:35

Now, that is massively confusing. I'm an unregenerate individual who doesn't understand the gospel with one who does.

01:16:47

I mean, again, this is all theology. This is a synergistic,

01:16:56

Molinistic theology issue that's coming out here. I don't get the feeling that Dr.

01:17:04

Craig really recognizes this because I don't get the feeling he exposes himself to serious interaction with anyone that he just doesn't feel is up to his standards when it comes to scholarship or philosophy or whatever else it might be.

01:17:21

But if he were to do that, then he might recognize just how tight a circle he's spinning here.

01:17:31

And, you know, you talk about these people. Well, there's all these young people who've been raised in churches, and they've heard the message, but they have all these doubts because there's no one like me to answer their questions, or they've been given dumb answers like God created the universe and it didn't just do it through the

01:17:53

Klum method or Big Bang cosmology or all the rest of that kind of fun stuff.

01:17:58

But anyway, the idea being from, again, if you were approaching this from a meaningfully biblical perspective, then we'd be talking about the nature of faith.

01:18:10

We'd be talking about repentance. We'd be talking about the work of the Spirit of God. We'd be talking about election.

01:18:17

We'd be talking about stuff you have to talk about, which you say, why do you have to talk about it?

01:18:22

Because Paul did in 1 Corinthians chapter one. Why is the message of the cross foolishness to someone?

01:18:33

Is it because there aren't enough William Lane Craig's running around in churches to explain the Kalam cosmological argument and to assure you that being a theistic evolutionist is good?

01:18:44

Is that the answer that Paul gives? No. Why is the message of the cross foolishness?

01:18:52

It is foolishness to those who are perishing. Why is it ever the message of the power of God?

01:19:00

It's the message of the power of God to those who are being saved. And the linchpin of Paul's argument in 1

01:19:09

Corinthians chapter one is found when he says, but to those whom

01:19:15

God chooses, to his elect, whether Jew or Gentile, Christ the power of God, the wisdom of God.

01:19:22

It's divine election that will determine the response to the message that is preached and not the wisdom of men.

01:19:32

And I have warned for decades that what I'm hearing when

01:19:38

I listen to Bill Craig speak is a fundamental rejection, not a knowing rejection, but a fundamental rejection of the message of 1

01:19:48

Corinthians chapter one. That's what I hear. That's what I hear. And people, you're just being so mean to him.

01:19:54

Look, there are many people in the church who are given positions of leadership that have cracks in the foundation.

01:20:05

I have never kicked Bill Craig out of the kingdom, but that doesn't change the reality that what

01:20:12

I'm hearing him saying, what you're hearing him saying right now shows, I think, a fundamental misapprehension of the proper relationship between divine revelation, the nature of the gospel and man's philosophies.

01:20:25

Are you seriously going to suggest to me that someone could not become so enamored with philosophy that they would not override biblical parameters?

01:20:38

Some of you are so sold on Bill Craig that you won't even listen to even a very mildly presented criticism.

01:20:51

You consider it to just be terrible and horrible and nasty that anyone would ever do anything like this at all.

01:20:57

And so, I don't see any reason to think that the presuppositional approach delivers greater certainty or psychological confidence in the truth of the gospel than the arguments and evidence do.

01:21:13

In fact, on the contrary, I think sometimes it could actually lead to grave doubts about the truth of the

01:21:19

Christian faith. Now, where I think there would be greater certainty available would be through the witness of the

01:21:25

Holy Spirit. Remember, I said that the fundamental way that we know our faith to be true is not through argument and evidence, but through the ministry of the

01:21:34

Holy Spirit. See, again, theology matters. This is a true statement.

01:21:40

Whether it's consistent with the rest of what he's said or not, what he's missing is that the presuppositionalist is operating on the basis—remember, at the beginning, he rejected the idea of the intimate connection between Reformed theology and presuppositionalism because he just doesn't understand it.

01:21:57

He doesn't understand that it's dependent upon the existence of the elect, the salvation of the elect, the power of the gospel, the power of the

01:22:05

Holy Spirit to bring about regeneration, to use the gospel as his means of so doing, and in the process, likewise, the glorification of God in the condemnation of unbelief and the confirmation of people in unbelief.

01:22:20

That part doesn't—again, that's Romans 9, Romans 1, we don't really like those, we want to sort of push them off to the side, but it's all there.

01:22:27

And he'd already dismissed all of that before, so he's just not understanding, even though he's participated in books on the subject, he's just not understanding what the real presentation is.

01:22:37

And for someone who's filled with the Holy Spirit, walking in the Spirit, living a sinless life in communion with God— Did he just say sinless life?

01:22:46

Sounded like he said sinless life. I doubt he meant—no one's ever told me he believes in sinless perfectionism, so.

01:22:53

He may have very high certainty that his Christian faith is true, but that will be based upon an experience of the

01:23:03

Holy Spirit, not upon arguments and evidence.

01:23:08

May I suggest that actually, there's two things going on here.

01:23:14

First of all, Cy's point is that if Romans—remember when

01:23:20

Bill Craig said earlier, oh, I believe Romans 1 says men know God exists.

01:23:27

You actually interpret that to mean, I believe that Romans 1 says that men have a high probability of acknowledging the existence of God.

01:23:39

No, it says they know that God exists. So if the unbeliever knows, doesn't the believer know? So there's a difference, there's different aspects of what's being discussed here.

01:23:51

And then you have the idea of growth in one's faith and one's certainty of the

01:23:56

Christian faith itself and the content of the Christian proclamation.

01:24:01

And the reality is, that's not just some zap by the Holy Spirit thing.

01:24:07

According to 1 John 5, we can know that we have eternal life, but a lot of people misuse 1

01:24:15

John 5. It says, by these things, which is everything else in 1 John. So it's loving the brother, it's the experience of the

01:24:23

Christian life over years. That's where that kind of intimate confidence of the knowledge of God and the knowledge of Christ comes from.

01:24:33

The knowledge that God exists and then knowing him personally, those two different things.

01:24:42

And that's very frequently where the conversation gets lost. For the truth of Christianity. One of the things that Si Tim Bruckenkait says, heard him say a lot, he says it in this debate as well, and that is, one of the problems with evidentialism and then using any kind of a classical or evidential approach in apologetics is, if evidence can persuade you to come to Christ, then evidence can persuade you away from Christ.

01:25:05

And I've said the same thing. If you simply have the idea that you're approaching a morally neutral individual, arguing them, if I can argue somebody into the kingdom, somebody else can come along and argue them out.

01:25:16

The issue is the necessity of regeneration, the necessity of a new nature. This involves election.

01:25:22

This involves the sovereignty of God. These are theological things. They are for Si. They are for me. The problem is, here you're having a review from someone who just basically does have theological pre -commitments, but thinks that their philosophical commitments are you know, exist in some kind of vacuum outside of their theological ones.

01:25:45

And I would argue their theological pre -commitments have been determined by philosophical pre -commitments that they've made.

01:25:52

Darrell Bock You're vulnerable if it's merely evidence. Robert Chisholm Well, that might be true for the pure evidentialist.

01:25:58

But you see, if you accept this distinction that Hernandez has made between knowing your faith to be true and showing your faith to be true, then that's not the case.

01:26:07

Arguments and evidence are part of showing your faith to be true.

01:26:13

And if those arguments and evidences collapse, that just means you don't have an effective way of showing someone that what you know to be true is true.

01:26:23

So when I talk about evidentialism, or we do in this context, we're talking about an apologetic method.

01:26:30

I'm not an evidentialist. If you're talking about religious epistemology,

01:26:35

I agree with Alvin Plantinga that the fundamental way in which we know the great truths of the

01:26:41

Gospel is through the immediate witness of the Holy Spirit. But our— Paul Jay See, I wouldn't—see, at this point, it gets really confusing.

01:26:54

Because I don't think that he really understands the necessary pre -commitments of that.

01:27:01

And what I mean by that is, again, you know, maybe at some time, a long, long time ago, he read

01:27:13

Calvin's Institutes, Book One or something like that, which addresses so many of these things in such beautiful language.

01:27:19

But the issue is not just simply some kind of spiritual revelation separate from the communication of the core

01:27:28

Gospel truths from Scripture. The Reformers were extremely focused upon the idea of the

01:27:40

Spirit and the Word. The Spirit and the Word. The Spirit and the Word. Not the

01:27:46

Spirit alone. You know, when we go to Germany, I'm going to be spending some time in talking with the folks about the

01:27:54

Zwickau Prophets and the great danger that they presented to the

01:28:00

Reformation and Luther's recognition of that, whether he dealt with it exactly right, is another issue.

01:28:06

But there were people who, you know, at the time of the

01:28:13

Reformation said, well, we need to just go with the Spirit. Just go with the Spirit. We don't need to worry about Scripture. And then, because they were looking at others, they say, see, they've just always stuck with Scripture.

01:28:22

They've stuck with Scripture. They don't really have the Spirit. Well, the

01:28:28

Reformed emphasis was Word and Spirit. The Word becomes a dead letter without the

01:28:36

Spirit. But the Spirit has chosen to give us the Word and to minister the

01:28:43

Word to us. They have to come together. There has to be that balance. And you find that balance in the

01:28:49

New Testament, that the message that is preached is given to us in Scripture. It is, it requires the work of the

01:28:56

Spirit of God for us to see that it is the power of God and the wisdom of God. And what's the origin and source of all that?

01:29:04

Those that are perishing, those are being saved. That goes back to the election of God. And a synergist just,

01:29:11

I can't understand how a synergist will deal with these issues because I'm not a synergist.

01:29:17

Arguments and evidence are useful for showing someone else that what we know to be true is true.

01:29:25

So would you characterize your approach more as classical? That's what I have characterized it as.

01:29:31

As Steve Cowan edited a book a few years ago called Five Views on Apologetics, and he put me under what he called the classical model of apologetics, and I accepted that, so long as one understands it in terms of what

01:29:46

I've just said, that we're not dependent upon arguments and evidence for knowing

01:29:51

Christianity to be true. But when we want to show someone that it's true, then if you're to avoid begging the question and reasoning in a circle, then you have to use good arguments and evidence that will appeal to commonly accepted truths that you and the unbeliever share.

01:30:11

And that's the whole point. There's no biblical epistemology here. There's no biblical anthropology.

01:30:16

There's no recognition of the suppression of the truth. It goes back to the theology that just simply isn't there from a biblical perspective.

01:30:31

And so I'm wondering, is that it? I have a feeling that sounded like that was going to be it.

01:30:38

I didn't hear anything about listen to the next episode, so on and so forth.

01:30:43

So if you were hoping for, finally, we're going to get

01:30:50

Bill Craig to provide this full, wonderful discussion, well, there you go.

01:31:02

Hopefully, we've added something to it by talking about it here a little bit.

01:31:07

But what we've heard is, once again, when it comes to the idol of free will, it remains at the center of this argument.

01:31:24

And what's really strange, I did not hear a word about Molinism. I mean, I had to bring it up, but I didn't hear a word about Molinism.

01:31:31

There would have been plenty of places where it would have been relevant to bring it up. But it's almost like, and again,

01:31:43

I'm going to be criticized for this, so I'm just telling you how, as I listened, it's like, in Bill Craig's thinking, he's got his theology over here, and it's a synergistic theology.

01:31:54

He's got Molinism over here. He's got all his philosophical time theories and Kalam cosmological arguments and everything else over here.

01:32:05

And it's just like putting them together into one consistent whole.

01:32:12

When challenged to do that, even in responding to Sai, I was sort of like, well, that's just silly.

01:32:18

Why would I do something like that? That's what it strikes me as.

01:32:23

So there you go. So there's our review.

01:32:29

We'll be listening to see if there's another section that comes up. If there is, of course, we'll review it.

01:32:37

But I just got the feeling in listening to that, that that was pretty much it. That was pretty much it.

01:32:42

So please continue to pray for the upcoming trip. It's going to be a really busy trip. Lots of quick travel and quick turnarounds and stuff.

01:32:50

And that tends to be rather stressful for me. So obviously pray for health on trips like this.

01:32:57

I mean, we invest a lot of time and money to put them together. And believe me,

01:33:03

I've gotten sick on trips before, and it's not been a lot of fun. So prayers for that.

01:33:08

Very much, very much appreciated. So thanks for listening to the program today. And we will see you next time on The Dividing Line.