The Trinity & Presuppositional Argumentation with (Brant Bosserman)

Revealed Apologetics

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All right, welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Elias Ayala and today

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I am super excited to have Pastor Brent Bosterman with us who is, well, he's a pastor and he's also, folks who are going to be tuning in into today's show know him as the author of the book,

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The Trinity and the Vindication of Christian Paradox, An Interpretation and Refinement of the

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Theological Apologetic of Cornelius Van Til. And so folks who are interested in presuppositionalism are going to find this episode, well,

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I guess you could find our past like seven episodes have been on some application of presuppositionalism, but if you're interested in the relationship between the

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Trinity and transcendental argumentation and presuppositionalism in general, you guys are going to find this episode very, very helpful in that regard.

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So without further ado, I just want to make a couple of announcements real quick. On Saturday at 2 p .m.

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I'm going to be having Dr. James Anderson on to discuss the nature of transcendental arguments and those of you who were disappointed in the fact that the interview with Jeff Durbin fell through, we are in the works of rescheduling that and so we're going to see if we can get him on to discuss the topic of applying presuppositionalism to competing religious perspectives.

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So I want to provide for you guys a wide range of application to show that presuppositionalism is not just this one thing that you use against atheists, it's really a way of thinking that can be applied to all areas of life.

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So without further ado, let me introduce Pastor Brant Bosterman and how would you like me to address you

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Pastor Brant Bosterman? Any one of those works for me, no problem.

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You can just call me Brant if you want. Okay, I'll call you Brant and why don't you take a few moments just to tell people a little bit about yourself, what you do, and then we'll jump right into the discussion.

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Sure, yeah, well I mean I wrote my book Trinity and the

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Vindication of Christian Paradox in the late 2000s into you know 2012.

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I think 2012 I defended my thesis and got it in the process of publication in 2013 and I think it ended up you know getting released in like 2014.

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But for me literally, so I defended my thesis

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I want to say you know April 4th of 2012 and it wasn't four weeks before I was gathering a church plant in the

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Pacific Northwest with without a breath in between you know opening up our house for barbecues and things like that, calling on just everybody we knew from a variety of different relations here in the

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Northwest. I did pretty much all of my academic work in the Seattle area, you know worked at several restaurants, had family out here, and so just jumped straight into pastoral ministry in the planting of Trinitas Presbyterian Church with the

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PCA. And so that's what I've been doing for the last you know really eight years.

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In fact last Sunday, this Sunday the fifth or the third was our seven -year anniversary service from our launch date in May of 2013.

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So I've just had my hands full. You know people sometimes you know get emails and things like that you know asking you about you know whether or not

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I you know I'm writing anything and you know I have projects that I'm working on and I'm pretty guarded about sharing any of it just because I can't make any deadline right now.

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I'd hate to get anyone excited about whatever I'm thinking about because you know the work of pastoral ministry, having four kids under the age of 11, you just can't make any promises.

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It's like it says in Proverbs, you just you can't talk about what's gonna happen tomorrow in this season of life.

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And so you know presuppositionalism it affects my preaching, surely affects you know even my

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Christian counseling. You know J Adams you know classic presuppositionalist highly influenced by Dan Till.

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And it still it still affects my evangelistic encounters. I try to have those as frequently as possible.

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Off -the -cuff conversations with with people whenever I'm out. And so so yeah it has bearing on everything

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I do but unfortunately I haven't had the opportunity or really the time at this point to put together or jump into a debate or something like that.

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But I look forward to a time when I can do more of that again. Yeah and I like the explanation you give just being honest with the fact that you're doing family life and you're doing ministry.

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And even online apologetics is really popular and it's important obviously.

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But a lot of people just want to get down and dirty in these debates and see this person against that person. They forget that apologetics, while very important, it's just one aspect of a broader world and life view which involves things like ministry.

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I mean you're a pastor so you write great material in your dissertation, your book there. You're also living life and you know you know ministering to people.

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And so I want to encourage people who are listening try to have a balanced life and a balanced ministry.

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Don't just be so much engaged in apologetics that you forget that there are other areas of life that need to be attended to.

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And they are all under the category of bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. So you can't tell on the one hand presuppositionalism holds up the

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Word of God and our thoughts are captive to Christ. Yet you are not you know doing that in those other areas of life.

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We're called to be consistent with that in that regard. So yeah. I appreciate that Ellie.

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You know I think about even the time when I was writing Trinity and the

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Vindication of Christian Paradox. It's kind of a mouthful to keep saying. When I was writing that and you know

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I had done a debate with a Unitarian. It wasn't specifically you know a presuppositional tag sort of a thing with an atheist.

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It was obviously quite different. You know that it was more of you know reasoning with the cults and things like that.

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But you know there were opportunities. I did that in like 2006 or 2007.

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I don't recall. But there were opportunities to do things like that when I was writing my thesis.

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You know there were plenty of opportunities to jump into online forums and debates and things like that. And I don't mean to devalue those things at all.

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But part of what I had to do while I was writing was ask you know what is the more important contribution that I can be making here.

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You know engaging every opportunity to do a presuppositional debate you know here there or online.

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Or to really advance you know presuppositional thinking and you know the

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Vantillian system you might say. Which of those two things is gonna be the better use of my time.

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You know I had to weigh those things out. These are plenty of opportunities for me to potentially you know expended a great deal of energy and effort and exactly the sorts of things you're talking about.

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And again I don't mean to devalue that. But we all have to ask ourselves and this is this is part of being a presuppositionalist.

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We all have to ask ourselves what the Lord who is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom and understanding.

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What he would have us do with our time as the most useful contribution to the ends of his kingdom.

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And so I would say my book is the fruit of that sort of pumping of the brake saying you know you can't pursue every opportunity that sits in front of you.

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And I often tell you know younger men you really haven't even found your calling in the ministry yet.

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Probably unless you've turned down point -blank three other opportunities for the ministry that's probably your first clue.

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I mean if there's some you know ministerial caller you know just presents itself too quickly and you're ready to just rush into it it's probably the first clue that there's some more discerning and deciphering of things to be done.

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Well thank you for that. And yeah so just that encouragement balance is important.

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And so I hope that does provide for you other opportunities to hopefully write or engage more.

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I'm just happy I was able to nab you for this little this little nugget which I'm sure folks are going to enjoy and find useful.

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So let's just jump right into the bulk of our discussion. I have a list of questions here that I want to run by you and hopefully your answers will produce some side discussion as well that we might veer off into.

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But these are questions that people have been asking and often bring up within the context of you know presuppositionalism, the transcendental argument, how the

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Trinity relates to that. So let's just start from the top here. First question, what is the summary of Vantill's apologetic in as you see it?

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If you someone were to say summarize Vantill's apologetic, how would you understand that? And then from there we're gonna kind of unfold this and get more into how the

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Trinity relates into into all of this. All right you know maybe I'll summarize it this way.

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Vantill's apologetic has at the heart the question of what is the normal way to think in reason.

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This really sets forth the antithesis between the believer and the unbeliever. The world as we know it carries on as if it's perfectly normal and appropriate when asking questions of epistemology, asking questions about reality, even right and wrong.

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The one must fundamentally start with themselves whether in a rationalist way where they they heed the basic you know laws of logic or whether they start with intuition or whether they start with their experience or overwhelming feeling to gauge and to navigate what's true.

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We are saying as presuppositionalist and Vantill is saying that isn't normal if we allow the biblical scheme to tell us what is the norm or the right or the rule for the appropriate way to think and to reason.

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And in fact not only is it not normal in that sense of you know conforming to a

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God -given norm, it's actually completely vacuous to attempt to build a worldview out of oneself and make sense of the world treating themselves as the starting point.

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By contrast the way we were meant to reason, the way that we were meant to view the world and engage the world is by presupposing

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God, our need for God, his personal communication to us and once we do that it puts all of the other tools of learning and understanding in their proper place.

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And and so we can develop a coherent view of ourselves in the world and not just a coherent and static one but one that's growing ever bigger you know.

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I mean the Spirit is the one who Jesus promises will lead us into all truth. You know once we we are reconciled to God in Christ and we're renewed unto knowledge as you know

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Colossians 310 and Ephesians 424 you know favorite scriptures of Van Til tell us, it's not just that we've got you know a tight closed system of thinking, we actually have a way of reasoning that allows for boundless discovery and better understanding of ourselves,

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God, and the world. And so you have this antithesis, you know the abnormal fallen depraved thinking of mankind that begins with man as an autonomous self -guided unit or even a self -guided society and you know

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God -centered thinking that begins with God's necessary part and his guidance is a necessary part of right reasoning.

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And in the beauty of the Van Tilian apologetic claim is that reasoning by thinking

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God's thoughts after him and beginning with him can be summarily vindicated not just as the right way to think but is the only way in a fashion that is consistent and coherent and you know life -giving.

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Yeah yeah important comment there where you said that our need for God and I want to point out for folks that the need for God is coming from a pastor so the pastor is probably people probably think all the pastors talking about our need for God but I don't think you are necessarily referring to the existential need like we need

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God. I think you would agree with this that epistemologically speaking right epistemologically speaking we need

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God to ground knowledge so it's not just merely this pastoral practical we need

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God that's true but just think properly we need to acknowledge God.

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Now you said something about starting with ourselves in kind of a rationalistic sense in an autonomous sense versus starting with God now there's a big hullabaloo all the time and it's always part of the criticisms of presuppositionalism that people say you have to start with yourself how can you not start with yourself so what does it even mean to start with God you're mixing up epistemology and ontology how would you speak to that?

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Yeah one almost feels like when people raise that criticism especially if they have any acquaintance with presuppositionalism that it's almost a willful lack of understanding at some point

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I understand some people really don't get what we mean when we say that as if like somehow I could jump out of my own consciousness and you know start somewhere else but we're speaking of a different sort of priority for the

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Ventilion and really this is you know for Calvin for John Calvin you know man knows himself as immediately in time as he knows

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God and God as immediately as he knows himself that's strictly unavoidable that you know temporally man has an inherent knowledge of the

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Creator in whose image he is made but when we speak about starting with ourself versus starting with God we're talking about a primacy of place who the highest authority is in guiding your beliefs and guiding the formation of your beliefs and so there's that sort of priority that logical priority that's given to the highest authority in any in any given matter and so that's what we mean as presuppositionalists we're not trying to suggest again that you know we can jump out of our own consciousness and you know be another person or something like that it would virtually imply that we were attempting to you know be

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God if we were to start in that first person existential sense but we but it's to say that yeah we give

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God's guidance and we give his reality the highest place is the most illuminating truth to all other truths that put all other truths in their proper place yeah then that there's an important distinction between what we would call proximate starting points versus ultimate starting points yeah yeah well right

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I mean and that's a distinction that kind of pervades you know again reformed thinking you know we can talk about secondary causes and we can talk about you know the

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God is this you know first cause and you know sovereign providential governor of all things and we have to start with ourselves as a proximate beginning place and what thoughts we articulate about God in the course of time as we you know develop acquaintance with human language is going to be in English or German or Dutch or Spanish or whatever it may be so yes in that sense that proximate starting point is an unavoidable aspect of things but one of the things one of the reasons we can trust that our proximate starting point isn't so perhaps damning or blinding or all -encompassing as to be the most important is precisely because we give the weight to God as the most important light of all of the lights that we might encounter in making sense of the world and in making sense of ourselves and it's the reasons why presuppositionalism is just in you think about the we acknowledge on the one hand the importance of presuppositions and the importance of perspectives and things like that but we don't fall into the trap of the postmodernist who fundamentally says there is no reality outside of the text or outside of the language or language game in which we find ourselves you know that's so magnifying the proximate starting point that I as a man can't transcend my condition as a man or if not that a white man and you know you just take all of the subcategories line and that's why we don't fall into that same trap of again postmodern thinks thinking and you know really in many ways neo -Marxist thinking but going

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I know so let's disagree with you I am amazed

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I was just listening to a lecture by Greg Bonson yeah he addressed this issue why we're not stuck in a postmodern predicament which we don't have to hear but I mean it's amazing how people can read you know read

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Bonson and Van Til and come away with the fact that postmodernism is the inevitable conclusion of such an understanding

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I think it's quite baffling to me but let's go ahead yeah well it is baffling and you know it's one of those things you know sometimes the accusation

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I think you're making pointing out it can be leveled against us by say other apologists of other camps or other schools and the accusation can also get made against us you know that we haven't sufficiently felt the problem from you know those who are entrenched in postmodern thinking and you know our point is really that there's there is this story that that is bigger than my story if there's this story that's bigger than all of our stories and it's frankly more illuminative than all of our stories and I would just have to level the criticism back to the postmodernist who says that we're stuck in some sort of a subjectivist rut you know where we're where we can't transcend our you know again our cultures and subcultures and you name it

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I would just point out you also tell a meta -narrative in a story about every story just happens to be a very very short story there's just universe of colliding you know a galaxies of thinking and thought there's nothing to mediate between them they collide and somehow you smuggle in these ideas of you know a utopian synthesis at the end of all of these you know potentially bloody revolutions or you know suppressive governments and proletariats rise

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I don't know where you get that from but you're still telling a story a very short story about everything and it's just that you know there's this these disparate belief systems and language games that somewhat overlap and inevitably they collide and whoever has strength or power at a given time they you know somehow you smuggle in this notion of justice they deserve to be you know overtaken by some other subversive game but that's still a meta -narrative it's still a story it's just not it's not a particularly interesting one it's not a particularly helpful one if we're trying to ever have anything like meeting the mind right it's a self -refuting whereas it attempts to say there are no meta -narratives by provide by providing a meta -narrative it's painful

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I mean it's the sort of thing I mean it comes out everywhere it comes out and you know Peter Enns is you know hermeneutic where it's like we're supposed to treat you know every pericope every text every story is its own thing and let the conflict be there and not allow the the meta -narrative of Scripture to inform the individual part and again

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I just feel like Peter you're allowing a meta -narrative to affect everything again it's just a very short story it's the short story of colliding stories in the universe that don't perfectly overlap and have different perspectives that don't harmonize and things like I just you're selling a meta -narrative you're selling a whole story where did you get that from Peter did you get that big story about colliding you know unsynthesizable stories you know in the universe from the

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Bible I don't think you did so where did you get it from and that's where you know it's hard not to see again autonomous reasoning at the heart of what he's proposing and really

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I one would think capitulating to well let's jump to our next question our next question here is what role does the

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Trinity play increase up additional apologetics mm -hmm yeah well

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I mean if we sufficiently digest the first point that our thinking gives a certain primacy to God himself as is the most illuminative individual person and speaker in our in our reality then it has to play a really big role who

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God is and obviously God being tripersonal and one being is one of the unique aspects of our doctrine of God and for us as presuppositionalists it answers to and illuminates what is arguably the problem of philosophy which is the problem of the one in the many it confronts us everywhere

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I mean in the most practical this year I think you're and I hope you don't mind kind of conversation why don't you explain for people summarize the one in the many why is it a problem and how does the

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Trinity kind of engage with that and maybe that'll help answer the primary question as to how does the

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Trinity relate to all this yeah yeah you know give you know kind of to two angles on it one more abstract one more practical okay so the problem of the one in the many

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I mean it comes down to the basic problem of predication how can we use any words to accurately describe the external world it's the problem of predication and the problem of truth itself you know but just put it this way there was a time when people thought that you know all swans were swans and that was that and there was some sort of essence or concept of swans that you could refine down from every every particular feature of every swan that you see and this one essence is born by all the swans and there's therefore there something legitimate about this universal concept this you call it an ideal you name it being being ascribed to a multiplicity of swans well of course you know in a

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Darwinian worldview there is no static creature called swans what you're calling a swan now is in the process of becoming potentially something quite different from what it currently is right and that raises the question of you know whether it's ever legitimate to ascribe that one unitary category to the mass of swans out there what are you leaving out when you ascribe the one to the many can the many things in our experience really be categorized and rightly defined and rightly described with the use of universal terms that's kind of the more abstract way to put it

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I mean the more practical way to put it is let's just consider it you know the season of coronavirus how you can make laws that capture all of the circumstances and all of the nuances in the different circumstances how do you get one law in any instance which rightly does justice to everyone and in all circumstances you know we look at these different codes about what can be open and what can't be open over here in Washington State wait you're in California where are you

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Ellie oh by the way I wanted to correct you it's Eli but no since I was little no worries

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I'm in New York okay well there you have it so how do you have a law that says what sorts of businesses are essential of all words and inessential that doesn't do an injustice to certain people and you start criteria together you can always find exceptions to that so the question is how do we have whether it be laws whether it be ideas and words how do we have these things overlap appropriately and perfectly with the things we're attempting to describe and if they don't overlap perfectly you know how can we speak truth about anything how can legislate justly about anything and this is where you know the problem of the one in the many of you know and we encounter it everywhere the most practical of realms in the most and the most abstract of realms and you know to really emphasize the problem you know once you've divided the world we might say into ideas or an ideal realm in a material realm the problem really gets tough what force or power can ensure that things that are ideal accurately make contact with things that are tangible and real you've kind of exhausted all the terms you can talk about ideal things in real things it'd be kind of strange to think that there's like a material giant standing above all of reality forcing the immaterial ideals to mesh with matter that doesn't really work at the same time it's equally challenging to think of an ideal giant who lacks materiality at all who somehow lassoing logic and ideas and numerical properties and tying them down to material reality so the problem of the one in the many is is pretty pretty damning once you're working with just the world as we know it and when we speak of the

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Trinity as being the solution to the one in the many we speak of a personal God who is in himself a perfectly and absolutely overlapping and interpenetrating communion of three persons in one being and he resides above ideal reality as we know it and material existence as we know it he made both neither one of them is ultimate they don't simply collide and accidentally overlap by chance he made the both of them and he's the only one who can as an absolutely self knowing and self sufficient being speak with authority to the effect that the two really make any genuine contact at all yes just so you the problem of philosophical thought on this issue is that they probably they emphasize the one over the many not realizing that one in the many are equally ultimate in creation there's not one that's predominant the other and they are grounded and reflected by the one who is the ultimate one in the many oh that's right this and many nests are equally ultimate there's not one above the other that's right and you know an unbelieving thought you know really what it is it's a pendulum swing between the one and the many those who emphasize that for example reason has you know ultimate bearing power they're emphasizing the one to the point of excluding the many and so you know

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I just went through Spinoza's ethic with two of my philosophy students at Northwest who have since become my congregants and you know kind of the joke of rationalist philosophy is that whenever you really encounter a serious problem you just declare that whatever that thing is or whatever it pertains to just doesn't exist and you you move on I mean how we ever got mistaken to think that it existed if they'll offer certain explanations and Spinoza will do that but you know you name it anything from the concept that man is in any sense free or an original source of decisions and actions and not simply himself the product of an infinite you know causal chain of cause and effect that's just not real for Spinoza we're just gonna get rid of that it's just not gonna work that's the one swallowing up not just the many but some of the things that we love most about life and existence in reality that makes the freshest for us the other the opposite end of that is is the many just taking over and essentially it's the idea that reason itself is just kind of a byproduct of wandering existence and that's that's where you are and you know a postmodern world in many respects that the different language games and the different ways of thinking and you know whatever it may be you're kind of the ethnic cage that I'm in that I can't transcend is a white male things like that the way

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I think is itself tainted by again a passage of history that's either going nowhere or you know strangely going to some sort of utopian synthesis depending on what you emphasize my next question what role the

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Trinity play in the transcendental argument okay now I can couple it with this question here do you think that transcendental argument is a silver bullet argument that successfully demonstrates the

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Christian world do it true by the impossibility of the contrary and if so how does the argument demonstrate the tri unity of God without further argumentation okay transition real quick yeah yeah

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I'm gonna just say one thing about the silver bullet and it's very practical but then I'll talk more about you know the relevance of the

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Trinity I do think one of the dangers practically speaking about how sometimes presuppositional ism is presented is is like as the the shortest distance between two points of encountering an unbeliever and in 30 seconds or less tearing his worldview to shreds and you know bringing him to this point of you know consternation about the brokenness of his belief system and it can be wrong

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I do think there's something about presuppositional ism that it allows one to go to the jugular you might say and immediately go to the presuppositions that someone holds unfortunately

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I feel like practically presuppositional ism is sometimes popularly presented as a mode of apologetics which renders someone completely unconversational you know the in exception to that rule would surely be well there are many exceptions but a very good exception to that would be

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Doug Wilson very capable really the presupposition list should be able to start with and engage almost any thought sure and make their way back to the absolute bearing power and relevance of her

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God there's a way to just keep saying whenever they say you know

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I don't know what you're saying well you just said that you know that you know and then just it just never get out of this loop that you might ever address or touch on anything else under the

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Sun that is interesting and really the opposite ought to be the case and I feel like sometimes when people talk you know describe it as a silver bullet in those terms it's just again it's almost

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I sometimes feel like I'm talking to someone who just has the most in patient desire to wrap the apologetic task which

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I mean really really isn't just a fruit of the spirit of which you know patience is a big part of it because fact is even when you've articulated very well you know one's epistemological reliance on the

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Trinity you can imagine why it would still take a lot of labor for someone who's not acquainted with this sort of thing to understand what you're talking about okay so but let's let's speak specifically to the question if I recall correctly the question asked do

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I believe that that the Trinity is absolutely necessary to the transcendental argument do you want me to repeat the question question yeah it was a little mouthful but I'll do it slowly here because I kind of fused two questions into one what role

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Trinity play in the transcendental argument and do you think transcendental argument is a silver bullet argument that successfully demonstrate the

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Christian worldview is true by the impossibility of the contrary and if so how does the argument demonstrate the triunity of God without further argumentation okay so I suspect the question kind of wants one to to refine down the transcendental argument to the absolutely necessary components and just in to distill out of it the unnecessary components

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I mean it's it's a remarkably classical apologetical sort of way of asking the question and what role does it play well if I'm talking to a

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Muslim it plays a profoundly important role if I'm talking to Joe unbeliever whether I you know delve into the point that the presupposition and the

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God who we must presuppose is the beginning of fear of the fear and the knowledge and wisdom and understanding whether I need to delve into Trinity right then and there with that guy

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I don't know that I do but let me explain the sense in which the Trinity is relevant every time

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I'm talking about the transcendental argument the transcendental argument isn't just that without the

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God of Scripture your worldview is vacuous and all of your beliefs are not only without justification but they can't even bear the status of being true that's not the end of the transcendental argument to get to that point and then say and now you need to presuppose our

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God right the end of the transcendental argument is that once we brought someone to the point that the worldview that they outwardly espouse is empty and vacuous is to bring them to the next step of realizing they've never really lived in that world that they've created for themselves is kind of a house of cards they've always actually known the

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God of Scripture who speaks with authority both in natural revelation and in his word and they have trampled on him they breathed his air without ever praising him and therefore the end of the transcendental argument is that the person with whom we are speaking is profoundly guilty they're guilty in a way that merits you know eternal death eternal suffering that's the position they're in therefore the

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God they need isn't just a profoundly useful presupposition they need the

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God who has an eternal son whom he sent into the world to assume human flesh and to live the life that we have deprived our

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Creator of and and deprived him of the obedience that he so deserves and he died the death in our stead that we so deserve and furthermore not only did he do that but he sent his

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Holy Spirit to open the hearts of people who are his mortal enemies otherwise so that they receive him and believe on him and so without that God at the end of your transcendental argument the one

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I just talked about your transcendental argument is useless it isn't it's no good to anyone without the

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Trinity in the economic economic Trinity who is the Savior of mankind now if I'm talking to someone who

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I you know I sense can you know take in something of the depths of the one who many many problem and I have you know found people like this impromptu many times

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I might have brought to bear the importance of the Trinity to our epistemology at the front end but at the back end of your transcendental argument after we've reduced in unbelievers worldview to Nessie ins we always have to talk about the

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Trinity sure what good would it be we're not people we're not salesmen peddling you know presuppositions that make your puzzle work or apologists bringing people to Christ and we've really gone off the rails and missed what this whole thing is about if we don't understand you know the absolute relevance of the

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Trinity to our transcendental argument and and honestly I do fear that unfortunately that's kind of what transcendental you know argumentation has been treated as is you know some some premise that you know lets me have all my beliefs plus a few it's not that something that drives you to the cross and if if presuppositionalism has not been that for you traditionally and how you're using it and reasoning with people you're not doing with Van Til prescribed doing something else yeah very very good

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I think it brings brings unity to the whole Christian life view because you just brought argument together with the purpose of our being

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Christians and our goal that Christ has sent us out to accomplish not just crushing someone in a discussion and I think

38:13

I like how you emphasize that I also like that you emphasize which which if there are non -christians listening to this they might want to explore this a little more because I wait

38:21

I think I caught him saying that and that's remarkable you said that once you destroy the worldview you point out the fact that they never really lived in that world in other words with their mouth they didn't actually live in those categories you can deny the

38:35

Trinity for example but you can't help but function in one in many categories you can deny

38:41

God but you can't help but function in a world you know you can't help but function in a way that only makes sense if God exists that leads to the issue of the knowledge of God that the unbeliever has which is a very very important aspect of presuppositionalism in Christian theology that I think needs to be hashed out a little more clearly not in this in this show because we have some more questions pertaining to what we were originally going to talk about but the nature of the unbelievers knowledge of God I think is a profoundly important question because I think a lot of people you know unbelievers will say well how dare you tell me that I believe in God I don't believe in God so you know things against presuppositionalist you know you're just an arrogant guy telling me what

39:20

I believe and there there's nuance there and some unfolding of that perhaps you know we can cover that in a later episode you know

39:27

I'll definitely try to cover that material Eli if I can just interject something here you know so I've I've worked in the capacity as a logic professor for you know over 10 years now sure and you know for me the project of you know talking to people about their their knowledge of God despite their lack of acknowledgment of him you know

39:51

I I compare it you know I'm talking to people to the task

39:56

I go through as a logic professor most people don't have names for the way they reason you know you will see your five -year -old reason with you and grasp the significance of what he said and the implications of what he told you when he's trying to tell a lie and get a scared you're using these things always and you know what we're doing in a logic class is it's actually confusing for people sometimes people think maybe if I take a logic class

40:25

I should be better at you know arguments and things like that which is almost never the case at the end of a logic class what you're actually better at is is naming and identifying what you've been doing all along you and me could probably listen to any song that's a popular song and go yeah yeah

40:44

I can tell why that's popular and you know if we're ignoramus is about music we wouldn't know that Michael Jackson's Billie Jean is driven by the bassline you know we but someone who knows music can say that they have a name for it we can go wow that's a really catchy tune and we have this power of recognition of you know of something that in the course of time some will go yeah that's because you know what your ears heard and you liked was this instrument called the bass now you're gonna hear it in every song and you're gonna notice it but that's really what what

41:19

I'm doing in my logic class and that's really what we're doing with the unbeliever and it really is just as simple we're saying to the unbeliever that they know something that neither experience nor logic can tell them if you've taught a logic course you know there is no silver bullet axiom that says logic itself has bearing power on the external world logic can't build a bridge out of itself to reality as you know it could just be you know in some sense you could say that maybe the law of identity is perfectly true in this language of logic but as regards reality as we know it it just isn't that way you also didn't learn logic applies to reality from reality that's kind of the end of or from material reality that's kind of one of the points of David Hume's philosophy you have to always have already been presupposing that your laws and modes of thought make genuine contact with the world outside of you well

42:21

I'm going to tell the unbeliever that fundamental belief that you enter the world with that you never question that right there is what it means to presuppose

42:31

God you believe in something bigger than reason and material reality as you know you always have you've lived and moved and breathed in the air and the atmosphere of his presence but you have scorned him and you've not acknowledged him and it doesn't matter if it's something that you were conscious of it's something that nevertheless you've been taking for granted all the time and you know several different sermons and things

42:57

I've described you know final judgment is like a moment where everyone's had an experience that you know they've been in a room and a fans been going the entire time and there comes you know if it's been on the whole time you just don't hear it it's just this resonant noise and you might even think it was silent but when the fan does go off all of a sudden you go oh

43:19

I've been listening to a fan this whole time well you know the last judgment will be this frightful recognition that you've been living a dance to the music of a

43:33

God singing his loving -kindness to you at all times even in your worst moments but even then you still have this sense that you can you know trust your senses and reality is there and you get up and you walk around on ground as if it's going to be firm and it's gonna be even even more damning then that moment when you realize you've been listening to a fan the whole time you are you are indebted to this this

44:01

God who has been speaking speaking a sort of common grace to you at all times and that common grace will then be the very opposite because you you've you've never turned to him even when it was pointed out to you whether by the presuppositional apologists or by scripture so those are some of the ways

44:21

I like to go about describing you know what we mean when we talk about man's inescapable knowledge of God that was excellent that's it at some point just real quick a tech issue some people are hearing some feedback so some are suggesting that you turn my the volume of me down on your computer a little bit sure and not undermine what you just said that was

44:43

I think that was an excellent explanation half I guess we'll hear from people yeah it's kind of an echoey room and then sorry about that no don't worry it's not terrible it's only when

44:54

I start talking while you're talking it'll a little feedback but I think it should be fine more thing

45:00

I know I'm just going on and on about the same question and I just okay I think there's some valuable things that are worth saying but I think another aspect of the question that I think for us as presuppositional is we have a greater sense of the relevance of one's position in time and space to our apologetic and would say perhaps a classical apologists or someone else and here's what

45:28

I mean about this you know we deliver a presuppositional argument we're delivering it to people at different stages on life's way and you know to people at different stages in covenantal history and here's the thing how much

45:43

I need to tell an individual about the God I'm describing the God of Scripture depends significantly on what stage of life in existence one is at and my big brother left the faith when he was 18 for me when

46:01

I have a presuppositional you know dialogue with him and there have been countless he's my single chief you know partner of discussion he you know is really the one who kind of negatively you might say sent me on the path that I'm on our conversations are they're serious they're never less than three hours they're just never less than three hours and the amount that I bring to bear of the specificity of this

46:27

God my brother has kind of bounced around from different worldviews from you know pure naturalism to Sufism which is a mystical form of Islam he's been all over the map the way

46:43

I have articulated the brief tag to my my brother has been radically different with the same person in terms of what information is necessary to bring to bear and it's not unlike when you think about your kids like do my kids know me their father of course they do they know me to the degree that my two 11 year old daughters need to and my my youngest son five to the degree that he he needs to for me to explain to my youngest son how it is that I'm totally necessary to his world as he knows it it's just a different thing than to explain that to my daughters they could they need to they need to understand more they need to hear more about what it is

47:30

I'm doing all day when I leave the house then my boy does and my five year old what it means for me to provide for him is that I go to a store with this card and I bring food home that after I swipe this card and for all he knows

47:46

I guess I have the magic card that he doesn't it's attached somewhat to the that I've worked but you know making that connection is a very different thing than than for my daughters it's it's similar therefore

47:58

I would just say when we're talking to an unbeliever and we're explaining in the sense in which God is absolutely necessary to putting their worldview right and really even more importantly to actually redeeming them

48:12

I like to just point out to people in general that I think you know what evangelists have been doing from the beginning whether you know we're talking about Billy Graham or we're talking about you know those are the first great awakening you know

48:27

Whitfield and you know men like that I would argue that what they're doing is significantly more like what a presuppositionalist does then surely an evidentialist or a classical apologist what they're doing is they're just summarily crushing a worldview saying you are a sinner you know it you're condemned it implies the whole time that you know that God is and some people are already to the point where they're not so combated in their worldview the

48:56

Spirit has brought them to a point where they're like yeah that's that's all true and now here I come with the medicine here

49:02

I come you know with the God whom you've spurned this whole time and I've good news that he has grace in his son

49:07

Jesus Christ well for where they're at they're ready to step out of their worldview and into another worldview they've lived the contradiction of trying to make sense of things by themselves and yet still being under condemnation and they're ready to walk into you know full -fledged faith in Christ and remarkably those people sometimes are better presuppositionalists than the most well -read presuppositional apologists that I encounter people who just believe utterly what their

49:42

God has spoken to them in Scripture even in ways that sometimes seem utterly naive and you know

49:48

I get worried sometimes with presuppositional apologists who think that Van Tiller Bonson has saved them so that they get to be smart people and Christian they get wise and learned people in Christian they might even get to be smarter than the unbeliever

50:07

I don't care who you are how smart you are there are moments in your walk with Christ where things just don't make sense sure where even the best most articulate articulation of reasonalism is somehow for some reason lost on you because you know what you're just sick and your mind isn't working the way that you want it to you are gonna be that same sort of presuppositionalist that a relatively naive believer is in that moment and you're gonna have to really treat the

50:41

Lord as your only medicine your only hope and your only peace and I'll say in the course of writing my thesis I said this in all sorts of podcasts it just I get to the end of certain weeks and I'd be like I don't see the argument anymore

50:53

I just I don't actually it looks horrible I can't even see what I'm saying I don't even under and I just would have to go this is when

51:02

I'm going to enjoy the weekend with my wife and take a nap and celebrate the life that I have in Christ and that's my medicine a more reading isn't gonna do it right now right all right so go on move on ask another question all right that's all excellent stuff man and I really like again this is a good mix of we're intellectually grappling with stuff and you're kind of explaining and then you're bringing it to that important practical aspect

51:30

I think those are vitally important to have and I think in a very real way that would separate what a lot of apologetic

51:37

YouTube channels do where they just focus on the arguments and they talk hours and hours about the complexity of the human body

51:43

I think these two things need to be brought together and I think you did that very beautifully all right so let's go back to the intellectual questions though because I know people still want to know them okay so next question if the

51:56

Trinity provides the necessary preconditions for intelligibility and knowledge and a philosophical answer to the one in the many problem how did man prior to the

52:06

Bible or to having access to the Bible and the knowledge of the Trinity justify their knowledge claims in other words can one justify claims without can can can one justify claims of knowledge without believing the

52:22

Trinity or yeah well you know forgive me for saying that you know this question really just bleeds together with the first one

52:31

I mean it is it is the same question okay so let's speak more specifically about our knowledge of God and you know what extent of it and how much of it is necessary okay so let's take the scenario of let's let's take the scenario of the

52:47

Old Testament believers I mean I think the question asked specifically before there was he said something like before there was the

52:53

Bible does he say that yeah so let me read the first part again without linking them all together so the question was if the

53:01

Trinity provides the necessary preconditions for intelligibility and knowledge and a philosophical answer to the one in the many how did man prior to the

53:10

Bible or prior to having access to the Bible have knowledge if they did write the

53:16

Trinity they didn't know about the Trinity so how right so first off I mean

53:21

I just I want to say obviously as a covenant you know theologian you know a believer in the

53:27

Reformed faith I wouldn't say there was ever a time in human history where man lacked supernatural revelation and in fact you know how supernatural revelation was preserved prior to Moses it's just not known to us but the idea that man had supernatural revelation not only prior to Moses but even prior to the fall is kind of a staple of mantles pre suppositional argument okay man has always been spoken to by God in some capacity you know he spoke to Adam there was pre redemptive revelation in the form of theophany prophecy and miracle

54:04

Adam is arguably more culpable in the fall because he's actually experienced unlike any other human being an actual miraculous work of God in himself personally his wife was made from his side and he saw it formerly there was no woman and then there was and it was from him and so in that respect we would say that man has always enjoyed a speech from God it would be problematic if we said there was pure silence in human history somehow mankind lapsed into sin in the fall without explicit knowledge of God or any commandments and then all of the sudden now this this

54:45

Creator God is this presupposition who you know we discovered that that wouldn't that wouldn't work in fact the only way that we can discover that the one true

54:55

God is with prior knowledge of him and therefore that's what we have to say that at the end of the day everybody has a sort of natural knowledge of God we go the next part of the question is do we have to know him as a

55:08

Trinity well I'll say this we have to know him as above pure reason and above material reality as those two places you know are kind of the center of you know the one many problem we need a

55:24

God who does not belong to the created sphere he cannot therefore be represented in stones and in wood and in all of the idolatrous means that the world would create and he also cannot be represented as a pure point of philosophy and the distinction between those two that therefore

55:43

God is being kind of a projection of our minds and God being a projection you know or a you know some sort of fetish religion based on material reality so the

55:52

God has got to speak he has to speak and to confront us as a person it's the only way that he can be the brighter light and hence presupposition for us then then the world around about us so once we we have in mind a creator

56:09

God who speaks now we're gonna have to attach him to some actual concrete revelation that's redemptive and you know speaking to us in a redemptive way that's what we would say that the people of God had for all time from the beginning whether it happens to be

56:26

Adam and Eve before and after the fall or the faithful line of Seth as it culminates well first you know dissipates and then you know nevertheless there's the remnant of Noah in his family and then there's the

56:38

Noahic Covenant and then shortly thereafter there's the Abrahamic Covenant and you name it there has to be a creator

56:45

God who transcends the one many problem and who speaks I would say notably given that in the ancient world the alternatives to the creator

56:55

God of whom I'm talking about and who speaks happened to be just that gods who were specifically tied down to natural phenomenon you know again fetish deities of different sorts and therefore it wouldn't have been very hard in that ancient world to distinguish this one true creator speaker

57:15

God who was represented in and by the people of Israel and from the alternatives as utterly vacuous there weren't so far as we know a bunch of other contenders in terms of religion who are both monotheistic and and a

57:34

God who speaks in a concrete revelation that's how we can know God in this positive way where we have justified beliefs and we increase in knowledge and understanding the whole world is condemned by the

57:47

Adamic knowledge that we all have we were all rendered guilty in Adam and we have a vestige of that original knowledge of God in ourselves and so that's how the world can have enough knowledge to know

57:59

God but then they're they're fraught with a contradiction that they immediately as a disposition of their fallen nature deny that same knowledge and fashion you know gods in the image of creatures and notably at this point when you go out to the world that is pre -christian you would say or un -christian as of yet you encounter exactly that a world of again idol worship so that again the uniqueness of what we're saying is rarely lost on a people that we encounter a new the reason why we have you know why we articulate the

58:39

Trinity now in context where we have Unitarians, Deists, Muslims and you name it is because all of those religions are just faux

58:48

Christianity attempting to create a man -made version of this religion while dispensing with parts that pure reason doesn't like and that's why we end up having to articulate a very much more specific

59:01

God in the world that we are currently in and this again brings up the point that the presuppositionalist understands that where we are in space and time makes a difference in terms of how we articulate this argument we're not going to be able to in the same way refine down and be like well here are the eight things that must be mentioned in every presuppositional argument in the same way perhaps that you know

59:28

I find it so here the four things that someone has to have to have natural knowledge of God or something like that go ahead so okay so if we think the transcendental and this is a question that just came to me in light of what you're saying so if the transcendental argument for the

59:42

Christian worldview is biblical it is the way we should argue of course that doesn't exclude other things that we could use

59:49

I mean we definitely can appeal to evidence in various contexts and stuff like that how would you think an

59:56

Old Testament believer should argue with the pagan could a prophet in the

01:00:04

Old Testament say for example unless you presuppose the

01:00:09

God of Israel you're reduced to absurdity now when he refers to the God of Israel does the prophet know of the triunity of God is that even relevant if try you know oneness and multiplicity those are all important you know epistemal for epistemological reasons yeah no

01:00:28

I would say what he knows is that he transcends the one in many problem even if he wouldn't articulate it that way and the fact that he has less revelation or understanding at that point perhaps than we do it is irrelevant especially when your alternative gods that you're encountering in the world round about you manifestly don't transcend the problem sure minute and again you'd say well then that's just an accidental property of the world in which they lived wherein accidentally no one round about them thought of you know articulating something a close akin to you know a more monotheistic worldview well that may very well be the case

01:01:07

I have children I purposely don't expose them to different worldviews and things that they're not ready to combat that that again we're not living in the world of floating premises and and floating arguments that just you know we lassoed down you know no matter where we are in time and space we're living in the covenantal worldview wherein the many of time is made into a continuous whole of development by God's sovereign plan and so again how how the the ancient

01:01:43

Israelite would have argued surely probably would have been significantly different than what it is for us and I would submit this precisely

01:01:53

God you know discloses to us more relevant information about himself in you know the time frame of Scripture in the advance of Scripture that would render our witness the more powerful course of redemptive history and so that's not a problem for me in the same way that it would be a problem for again

01:02:16

I think just like the purely analytic philosopher is trying to figure out how this would be done how there would be just this one way of arguing it all times we can allow for more variation that's part of what it means to believe in a

01:02:28

God who harmonizes the one in the many okay thank you for that all right my next question would be let's see here seems to follow okay so now we're gonna get into the series of questions that I think a lot of people are very very interested in not that they weren't interested in the previous ones but these are the ones that come up a lot here's the question if the

01:02:50

Trinity provides the only necessary precondition for knowledge and intelligibility then it seems to seems to entail that the triunity of God is necessary for knowledge but why think

01:03:00

God's triunity is necessary sure the fact that God is trying to count for the issue of the one in the many but why couldn't

01:03:06

God be a binary or a quadrinity or you could add you know it could be 20 persons in one being you know why my here's the here's the question why must

01:03:17

God be free and how is that connected to epistemological issues like knowledge and having the grounding for it yeah well

01:03:25

I mean and that is the question that you know that my book is about answering you know I it's probably the number one question that I get you know to kind of rephrase it or you know to explain it another way

01:03:36

I actually let me just say what I always sense is kind of the implicit desire that that I get

01:03:43

I think people really maybe they haven't articulated it to themselves but I think they really want okay in a strange sort of way

01:03:51

I think what they're always almost always asking is how could we have deduced the

01:03:56

Trinity from pure reason alone before we found out about it hmm as if the way we could argue that God is is necessarily triune it if he is necessarily trying and then it's an it's a conclusion that we should have been able to come to prior to having the revelation that he is such and hence

01:04:15

I don't think they know they're asking this but via pure reason there should be this purely intuitive set of premises that we should be able to set on the table that would help us arrive at this conclusion and essentially they're going back to the school of st.

01:04:31

Victor you know Hugh and Richard and you know the medievalists who would attempt to offer you know arguments for why

01:04:37

God must be triune you know from from pure reason the first thing I would have put out there is that I would never attempt to even develop a proof for why we know

01:04:46

God must be triune and had scripture not told me that he was and that right there is telling you that what we are doing is we are reasoning within the sphere of a logic and a logic of scripture we're not reasoning within the sphere of pure reason and so I would be very careful to point this out to people

01:05:11

I don't think that you have to know that God is a Trinity to have intelligibility or to have to make sense of the world

01:05:18

I think that you have to know the triune God those are two different things to know that he is a

01:05:25

Trinity is a further disclosure of who he is that we get in the course of redemptive history okay but you know the triune

01:05:33

God without having that depth of knowledge of him how do I know this John the

01:05:38

Baptist knew the triune God you know David can speak of having had trust in the triune

01:05:45

God from his mother's womb or rather in God from his womb surely all of the people listening know that whatever manner of knowledge that David or John the

01:05:56

Baptist had in the womb is something very different than the manner of knowledge that you and me have that's attached to inextricably now a human verbal language you know that that sort of knowing that scripture talks to us about is something remarkably different than having read

01:06:15

Charles Hodges systematic theology and the chapter on the Trinity and they have a real knowledge of God and I would say that child knows the triune

01:06:26

God because whether he is articulating it to himself or not he knows the God who ties his world together the one in many in such a beautiful way that reality is not monotonous not a pure painful exhausting one and not a many that's so chaotic and so insane that you can't even think a thought for a moment he knows immediately the

01:06:49

God who harmonizes those things yeah now turns out in the course of time and in the course of his development of understanding in accordance with God's disclosure of who he is it's very clear that God cannot be other than what he has revealed himself to be once we've discovered he's revealed himself to be that way and and that's where I'm starting from and hence you're the argument that I'm at I'm developing in Trinity and the vindication is that the only way in which

01:07:19

God can be perfectly self -contained as a person is if he's tri -personal okay that is a day every single relationship you can think of happens somewhere

01:07:34

I mean when I try to start from the ground up and talk to people about my argument in Trinity and vindication

01:07:39

I tend to do something like this I go in order to understand the relationship between your present condition or present place in your grandma's house implicitly there's got to be a map that contains the two of you if there's no map where your position is in grandma is if there's no such a map or even conceivably a possible map you don't know the relationship between your house your location grandma's house and you're never gonna find it

01:08:08

I mean there has to be something that contains that facility that relationship it's got to be a context okay so you know okay so what is the context wherein you and I right now are reasoning you know and you know people in the most natural thing to say would be your spatial context like you know

01:08:25

I'm here you're there you're to my left I'm to your right something like that and I would just point out that's not sufficient to give either one of us confidence we're really making contact with one another that context is a lifeless it doesn't make any promises to us it can't assure us that we really are relating to one another for us we'd say as Christians the only thing that can give us genuine confidence that we actually are making contact with the world round about us as a

01:08:53

God in whom we live and move and have our being a person who speaks to us everywhere and at all times that this world is for you you're for this world this person is for you you're for this person that's the context in which you know

01:09:08

Paul says in his sermon you know in the air on the air at the Areopagus that that's where we're in how we really move in and live and move and have our being so then it just pushes the question back though how and through what and where is

01:09:26

God relating to us this is where a problem arises you know when we we start thinking in terms of a

01:09:34

Christian worldview God has to have his relationship to us in some context and again we can't say it's just space we can't say it's the civil government or our culture can't say it's our language game you saw how that's gonna run into a bunch of problems and you know you name it it has to be

01:09:55

God has to himself be related to us through the mediation of nothing less than a divine person and then that pushes the question back even further where is

01:10:05

God's relationship to this other divine person his son and his spirit and the answer must be in the context of another divine person anything else lands us saying

01:10:17

God is either in nothing or he's in material or he's in chance or something other than God himself and once you said that you know why

01:10:25

God can't be a binity that would have God related to the world perhaps through the first person of the

01:10:33

Trinity through the second person of the Trinity but it would just raise the question of where in they are related the

01:10:38

Bible tells in in through the Spirit and that remarkably also informs our worldview that persons must be related to one another through persons and there must be an absolutely personal

01:10:51

God who is related to the various persons of the Trinity themselves through one another but God so you will you that you have the father yeah and the spirit and within the context of the

01:11:04

Trinity there is always an absolute personal context that takes the relationship of the two so right facilitates the relationship of the father and the son is not some impersonal abstraction no an element of impersonality and irrationality that's the context right relationship so having three always provides you have one absolute person another absolute person another absolute person and the relationship of the two is always couched within the context of personality regardless of which persons you're discussing that's right that's that's the argument in that in the argument you know that's that's what we're trying to say you know when you add additional persons to that you either have you know someone left out in the mediation of a relationship which you know renders them a sort of appendage or you have groups of persons you know mediating the relationships between other groups of persons but but a group of persons is not a person it's an abstraction it's something that it is something that as synthetic that's produced out of them or something like that and so no matter what you end up in a situation where pure personality is not the context and and hence you have you have a problem you land yourself back into the realm of the one in the many problem logical implications if you add too many that that affects your epistemology and if you take away one from the three then that has a logical issues yeah three are kind of the magic number so to speak yeah

01:12:42

I mean and of course it's you know even then you know we've emphasized that it's a three unlike any number three that we ever encounter

01:12:49

I mean and that's this is you know kind of one of the whole points we talk about a reason we talk about the

01:12:55

Trinity and one of the issues that we we run into when it comes to the classical or evidentialist apologists is that we're gonna say all of our thinking is analogical all of our ideas all of our principles are analogical to the trying

01:13:09

God himself and it's one of the reasons why his mode of being can resist the sorts of numerical relationships as we know them and even logical relationships as we know them and would apply them in this world that's what we should expect from the being who is responsible for logic and reason as we know it existing and having a fruitful relationship with a material world from which it is so distinct if we're gonna talk about the being who is above and before all of that we ought to expect that we would arrive at these paradoxical places when we try to hold before our mind you know the

01:13:47

Trinity again you know it we give it a three is just always passing you know into the one and the one into the three and it's just that's that's what we ought to expect when we're dealing with the creator of our very intellects in we know it and so I don't know if people understand the layers on which these observations about the

01:14:11

Trinity are confirming a presuppositional this worldview sure first there's the point that how we arrive even at this understanding of God couldn't be done without the successive disclosure of revelation through time so again our our depths of understanding is growing it's consistent there's unity between our knowledge we might say in infancy is a race and relative maturity now there's unity and there's continuity there but there's real difference there's real growth and this should be exactly the sort of exciting thing that we present to the world in a way that the world in any epistemology she has really can't can't supply the same sort of a thing

01:14:58

I would hope people who read this argument would go this gives me some hope that when

01:15:03

I get to heaven there isn't gonna be this day where I've got all the knowledge of God I'll ever have and it's finished and it's done what a depressing thought that would be good grief

01:15:15

I'm done exploring it rather people should have this sense that when I'm in the presence of God I am going to have infinitely greater and infinitely more discoveries about the absolute necessity and relevance of this sort of God to everything every fact

01:15:36

I'm gonna have discovery of him that that I'll go my goodness how how did

01:15:43

I ever live without this knowledge and yet at the same time you're gonna be able to look back and go there was always a vestige of this knowledge even in infancy you're the

01:15:53

God I've always known you're the God I've always known and I can't believe I never made the connection that well yes of course you had to be you know one in three persons but but now it's so clear to me that's that's actually what we're putting out there is is a worldview that allows for genuine growth in knowledge and understanding and awareness of ideas that you never thought before and yet at the same time this sort of ironic uncanny unbelievable sense that in some way you knew it all along hmm and that's

01:16:30

I mean just ask yourself if you know you were one of the people who asked this question when

01:16:35

Jesus comes on the scene as again you know as Isaiah says behold I do a new thing this is the new thing and yet when

01:16:44

Jesus comes on the scene for those who have been faithfully following the Lord and keeping the commandments in faith and says in John 7 they're like yeah you're the one you're the one

01:16:56

I've always been waiting for in one sense you are totally surprising in another sense you are the one that I've always been been looking forward to and that's the wonderful beautiful paradox of what a presuppositional epistemology really affords it's so much more true to I would even just say the wonder of human learning and human experience in the first place and it's our answer to the minnow problem that arises for Plato I mean

01:17:28

Plato has to say essentially we did know absolutely everything in some pre -existent form we just forgot it and learning is just remembering and you wouldn't say that because that actually that actually depreciates the many the fact that there's real development in our understanding there had we had to be whole originally for us it's much more mysterious yeah you know some seed form we've always known this

01:17:55

God in eternity we'll be knowing him more and more profoundly that's let's now we have one more question and then this is where I put the guests in the hot seat before I let them go

01:18:08

I figured a lot of the people some of my list my viewers have been surprised that some of the guests

01:18:13

I've been able to get because they're really hard to get you guys are busy you guys are doing stuff so when I when I kind of lasso someone in so to speak towards the end we just plow through the comments to see if you can take rapid -fire questions and of course if there's one that's kind of like I'm not sure about that we can just skip through but usually

01:18:30

I put you in the hot seat and then you know let you go so so here's the last question on my primary list and then we'll move to the comment section and see if we can pick apart some questions there all right you're doing excellent by the way and so I appreciate your time and your thoughts here's the here's the question why can't a

01:18:49

Unitarian God account for intelligibility and knowledge couldn't the Unitarian appeal to the oneness of God's nature and the multiplicity of his thoughts as a grounding for the one in the many how would

01:19:00

Unitarianism reduced to skepticism with regards to knowledge that's the last question on my list here well

01:19:07

I hope it's painfully evident what the answer would be to that I can't but when

01:19:12

God in all of his thoughts I mean you just what do you even mean when you talk about a

01:19:17

God in all of his his thoughts is his context in conversation partners

01:19:24

I mean sounds like what you did is you took a man you put a magnifying glass over him and made him bigger and stronger and gave him many more thoughts and said why can't he be the solution to the one in the many same reason you can't be the solution to the one in the many your thoughts in reality outside of you see there's this reality that painfully often surprises doesn't submit to contradicts your thoughts that's one of the problems of the one in the many and the question therefore is in what context do persons make genuine contact with a genuine other and the answer is in the context only of persons and so you'd be you know

01:20:06

I you'd be I'd be asking what are these thoughts about are they about what he's about to make okay well then

01:20:15

God is you know dependent on his creation to even engage in the business of thinking is it

01:20:21

Aristotelian you're talking about a Unitarian deity whose thought thinking itself will then least be as consistent as Aristotle and say all you're talking about is in a pure miasmatic idea that doesn't do anything in the world the world just approaches him as a sort of desire it's something to be emulated and is best emulated in the circulation of the stars that really isn't going anywhere doing anything what about Unitarianism of Islam how would you use how would you use what you just said with regards to the

01:20:55

Trinity and critique Unitarianism of Islam kind of just summarize I mean you know

01:21:00

Islam does kind of bite the bullet you know in her own scriptures you know speaking to the fact that you know no one can can comprehend

01:21:08

God in this this negative sense of comprehensibility but you've virtually reduced

01:21:13

God therefore and this is the problem to just pure uncertainty and you see that in you know because there's you can't print it's like Calvin said if you don't know

01:21:24

God as a Trinity nothing but you know the mere name of God flutters about in your brain that's what you have going on when you're denying the

01:21:34

Trinity and opting for this purely sort of Unitarian thing it becomes impossible to say what he is because that involves predication and contrast all you say is that he's not this world and again this is why people go right back to the question well how do people know

01:21:51

God in the Old Testament again will be first of all because he spoke and second of all because he identifies himself as a creator and because there's always the seed of this unspoken multiplicity and unity that's there

01:22:04

I mean it's implicit in calling him powers or Elohim as opposed to simply L but again it's not a full -fledged doctrine of the

01:22:12

Trinity and you know so that's that's where we have the again this this growth and development in knowledge but I would note there's something very different between being a monotheist and being a

01:22:23

Unitarian not persuaded that Old Testament you know believers were Unitarians to be a

01:22:30

Unitarian is to deny the Trinity that I mean that really is what the point of that term is we're talking about someone denying that God is trying it

01:22:39

I think about my son right now the manner in which I provide for him is not fully known to him but he doesn't deny that I am a pastor he doesn't deny that I'm an adjunct professor that would imply that he knew what those things were and then thought to deny them that's the sorry position that Islam is in and it marks a deviation on the road of God's disclosure from himself saying

01:23:05

I you know I'm gonna go this far but you know autonomous reason steps in and says I'm gonna hack off the rest of this revelation and it's really evident in the

01:23:12

Quran that we're talking about a people who misunderstood the Trinity frequently reminding us that God doesn't have a mother that he could you know copulate with so as to produce child you're not talking you're working with a base understanding of the

01:23:28

Christian religion and things like that but yeah I would I would articulate exactly the argument that I articulated in the book about the necessity of God himself being in no context but in the personal context of the persons of the

01:23:42

Trinity hmm all right thank you very much that was excellent now the the comments the questions we're gonna go through them rather quickly you as distinct as you can but of course as fully as you as you think necessary some of the questions may have nothing to do with our conversation make people might know about you in another context and ask a question but you know

01:24:03

I like to encourage people to just because this is a fun part where the thing that can kind of go through a list of you know spitfire responses to some questions that might be on people's minds so the first question because it was with regards to the one of the many and you just you explain that earlier on someone asks here it's up on the screen there theoretically if someone is a

01:24:25

Christian theist and has a modalistic view of the Trinity how does that change how the

01:24:31

Trinity applies to their understanding of priest up if you yeah yeah okay if you understand the question great we'll keep going

01:24:37

I mean to be honest if you're dealing with a person with a modalistic view of the Trinity I mean let's put it this way you can bring in the

01:24:44

Trinity on the front end or you can bring out in it on the back end you bring in the TV on the front end and start talking about the contrast between a

01:24:53

Trinitarian absolute standard and guide and the relevance of the

01:24:58

Trinity from the very get -go to what it means to know and to live and to act ethically in the world or there's the

01:25:05

Trinity on the back end as I had said at the beginning which is the need for the Trinity as the grounds of redemption for the guilt that we've incurred for reasoning out of submission to God so realistically if you're talking to a modalist who already professes to believe in Scripture you know as their standard well you're probably gonna start at that back -end point and say you've destroyed the biblical concept of redemption there is no person to exact a penalty for human sin in distinction from the person who is is dying for human sin there's no divine person to open you know our heart so that our faith is not just our own and our prayers are not just our our own but you know as they are actually are and markedly the fruit of the

01:25:55

Spirit in us and we would talk about the entire problem on on the back end in terms of redemption so you know

01:26:01

I did that a debate with a Unitarian granted not a modalist um but but that that would probably be the more fruitful place to start just because you do have at least the profession of belief in the but there's nothing wrong with talking to a modalist who is who it you might say is more philosophically adept and ready to go into the pure vacuity of the worldview and frankly when

01:26:27

I get Jehovah's Witnesses at the door I do this sort of thing all the time I'll go into you know essentially how their

01:26:34

God is no God at all precisely because of these sorts of Trinitarian matters to be honest with you it's generally more of a straight path to making contact with someone to start with I'd love to talk to Jehovah's Witnesses about how their

01:26:51

God is not loving in and of himself one of the most basic things you can point out seizing upon of course the classic

01:26:58

Augustinian you know analogy of love I mean he just he has no one to love there's no sense in which

01:27:05

God is inherently loving at best you could say he's like you know loving love unactivated until he made another person depends on someone else in order to love he can't he has to create if he wants to love so I love to go into the realm of how you know his personal attributes simply are not there's no sense in which we're talking about a

01:27:27

God who's who's personal and and as a result there's also no sense in which we're talking about a God who's dependable hence you know the the

01:27:35

Jehovah's Witness and the modalist theology is it's perfect marriage is to you know essentially

01:27:41

Pelagian or semi Pelagian satyriologies where your your your fate and your your end is always in question it's always impossible to answer how much and again this is the one in many problem

01:27:57

I mean how many good deeds do I need to do to attain the status as an attribute of righteousness that's the one mini problem again

01:28:08

I mean you don't worship the God who is triune even if you didn't know he was triune as some in the

01:28:14

Old Testament did it you're always going to end up with uncertain theories of salvation that leave you doubting and leave you without assurance hmm very good next question someone asked do you accept the essence energy distinction why or why not

01:28:34

I don't know if you know the context of those terms well I mean I can think of a lot of context where those would apply yeah

01:28:47

I probably I would really want here is it Ian or I his name is why don't you give some more definition to that and maybe we'll see if we can get to it before before the end of this

01:29:00

I mean I appreciate it being short but sometimes it's right okay next question here is dr.

01:29:07

bosserman familiar with the work of James Dallas all and his arguments for the necessity of pre Kantian classical metaphysics etc yeah

01:29:15

I am aware of dollars all I'm primarily aware of his interactions with with things written by all of it and things like that unfortunately

01:29:24

I just I really haven't been able to jump headlong into that discussion I mean I haven't read the specific works in question

01:29:31

I've read several articles but but I couldn't speak directly to unless you mentioned one his arguments for the necessity of pre

01:29:41

Kantian classical metaphysics let me just say this there are perhaps senses in which

01:29:48

I might even agree with dollars all on that front there there are senses in like if if the point is

01:29:54

I would probably maybe I might agree with dollars all in all of his critiques of the problems created by Kantian metaphysics where we would disagree is

01:30:08

I would say that Kant in spite of himself and Hegel in spite of themselves and really every unbelieving worldview in spite of itself always does certain services to the

01:30:18

Christian faith enabling us to consider our biblical metaphysic and our biblical epistemology in new and better lights again that's part of what

01:30:29

I mean when I talk about you know the one many problem in our ability to have better perspectives on things in the course of time so that's probably where we dollars all and I would would part ways but yeah there's certainly things about a pre

01:30:41

Kantian metaphysic not least of which would just be the concept of a god's view of things there is an absolute divine perspective on reality and we can talk about God and without being just in this iron -clad cage of either practical reason or pure or pure reason we're not in in those cages and it's not true that the only way that we can talk about God is a postulate under underlying or ethical beliefs and so in all of those senses

01:31:18

I'd be like yeah that's true but I would be reluctant to ever say that the one thing that we need to do is go backwards in terms of the history of metaphysics and epistemology and if we just maybe frozen time you know medieval metaphysics and you know just for some reason didn't follow you know

01:31:39

Thomas Aquinas down certain lines then we'd all just be better off I'm not persuaded of that at all and it is it's kind of remarkable to me because again

01:31:49

I tend to see things somewhat more holistically you know we live in a worldview where we're talking over the internet and you know you're asking me questions like that and dolezals pumping out you know books by the however many because we live in a world so very different than the medieval world and it's not just that there's this accidental set of philosophies that exist in our world and you know our economy as we know it our capacity you know the ability to to make wealth as we know it the ability to even to invent things as we have well those things are firmly couched in a worldview that isn't driven by medieval metaphysics just is you're gonna have to accept that we're all gonna have to accept that and go well

01:32:34

I'm sure glad that we don't live in a world that is so governed because the air in which we breathe is a little bit different because of the philosophies that came after that of course

01:32:44

I mean on the other side you point out that we live in a world where perhaps advice is able to be pursued and you know exponentially greater numbers too and we'd have to work all of that out but it has it is related to the sorts of philosophies that that prevent had prevailed in the intervening you know five six hundred years since the heyday of medieval philosophy but again these sorts of observations like what

01:33:10

I just said are the sort of things that you wouldn't make if you didn't read people like Hegel and you didn't read people who had a robust sense of you know development in time you know even in terms of the ways that we think and and that's one of the good things that we get touched on I would argue that Hegel leads us in you know just as dangerous a place when we're not dealing with a biblical

01:33:35

Trinity but you know a sort of Hegelian Trinity you get Marxism you get these you know bloodbath philosophies and they're just as much religions as any religion ever were so yeah yeah we're dealing with some negative implications of those worldviews as well hmm very good next question wonderful question how exactly is evidence used with Prisa what evidential argument best complements the transcendental argument yes a lot of these like like what are the one best you know

01:34:09

I feel like I'm constantly saying that Derek you know that's one of the beauties of what we do and it's also one of the reasons why it's like like any sort of discipline it's it's not

01:34:20

I'm not saying anyone can't do apologetics but I mean I think most people get the sense you know when they watch

01:34:27

Doug Wilson have a conversation that they probably couldn't do it quite the way he did and you know the idea is there's there is a whole bunch of it there's a bit of discernment always and about where it's best to begin that that is cultivated through wisdom sometimes actually regressed if you spend too much time talking on blogs and you do better to just read you know ten really hard books but that's me me putting my two cents out there but let's okay so with evidence you know here's the thing man there are some people who by the

01:35:01

Spirit's work have already before you got there begun to deeply question what you might call the conventional wisdom of secularism and unbelief like they're already there man

01:35:15

I don't know what it is maybe they had a few bad experiences at the University they went to and they're just sick and tired of what secular academia says be honest man that person talking about the veracity of Scripture and the fact that no this story that you've been told which is if anything is mythology it's the mythology of the story that we have

01:35:38

Scripture via a game of telephone and you know ten different languages in between and every to just talk about you know the manuscript you know a basis of our

01:35:51

New Testaments today the nearness of different manuscripts to the time in which they were written and just the uniqueness of the

01:35:59

Bible there's some people who are ready that moment to eat that up it's what they needed to hear

01:36:05

I mean I usually have my Greek Bible on hand you know doing Bible and so and just pulling it out being like look look at my

01:36:13

UBS fourth edition you know be you can see where these manuscripts are housed they're not mythology some are in London some are in you know different places all around the world and you're just like there are thousands of them sometimes that's all people really need and you know that's not non presuppositional ism it's the presuppositional is recognizing that God has in his wisdom really done a number on their secular thinking already need the house roof ripped off in the same way you can start right there with those evidences so you know again

01:36:51

I mean sometimes you know people I just think about it as a pastor I've had people whose spouses are not believers but they are they have a baby and this unbelievable evidence of God's hand has been set in front of them and they just need to be told that's what it is part of that's just what it means to believe that everybody actually has a knowledge of God that's inescapable and I'm happy to start there with people a lot of times where presuppositional ism is you know especially valuable is when you you've met that person who they're just in this cage stage unbelief you know just you know they think that that Christians are this unique breed of people who believe things that they can't prove they think they've risen above the fray and here's the thing it may even be the case that with the person who

01:37:48

I meet who just had the baby I have to do some of that deep surgical work of the presuppositional is and start attacking some of that cancerous secular thinking some that cancerous autonomous thinking that's still there and really unravel that and so you've got to see where they're at the man it may be the case that you hit someone with this is you know

01:38:10

God's grace in your life this new baby you had darn well better receive Jesus Christ as your

01:38:15

Savior because you've spurned in your whole life and they're ready you go for it and I think that's important point because a lot of people struggle when they're in the the game of looking at these different methodologies about well

01:38:28

I see the strength of presuppositional ism but man come on the kalam cosmological arguments really good and they kind of think of it as kind of this like it's either or well you think about it from a presupposition perspective everything's evidence for God if a kalam cosmological argument is it can be useful

01:38:43

I've written out the argument on a napkin while being a completely committed presuppositional list so it's not always this either or perspective yeah you know you take something like the kalam cosmological argument

01:38:54

I would just say that you you know what you're doing is you're going there's a naive way of engaging that where you go you know it is just self -evident that every every effect must have a cause and you're breeding you know belief in self -evidence and stuff if I found someone though who was really on about that argument and you know as I do you know as a philosophy professor from time to time you know it engage it with them and if they you know but what

01:39:25

I would do though is I would I would ask I maybe in the course of time I'd be like yeah and by the way how did you know in the first place that every effect must have a cause you know what makes you so sure of that you know we've seen that you know once you once you're starting with that you know it's something we learn from the from the world around about us you know yeah yeah it's pretty compelling to say there's there's an uncaused first cause but but you know

01:39:54

I would begin to probably inculcate you know a more holistic I'd be like yeah you know the truth was you were actually presupposing that uncaused you're not just caused by him as the ground of all your movement but he's actually the light in whom and in which you ever were able to appreciate the relative value of that presupposition or assumption that you in the first place but there certainly is my goodness

01:40:22

I do think that presuppositionalist we do need to be more engaging and of course until even said that we can we can put all of those arguments in in a better presuppositional light we don't have to stomp all over them before we get there with an interested

01:40:38

Christian I think all offense great on things like that in reasons for faith it just excellent you know as he deals with things like oh gosh the free will defense for evil and things like that so you could and you don't always have to use a transcendental argument right off the bat

01:40:57

I mean you could start any that's right and I think what you have to recognize is that when you don't you have to realize that the

01:41:04

Lord himself is the one to use Francis Schaeffer's language who has maybe ripped off the house of their worldview already yeah and they're just need to be fed arguably that's what the people are who come to Christ in the

01:41:16

Gospels who are so desperate the whole point is their worldviews already been crushed they their their sense of dependence on themselves has in God's Providence been crushed and they say son of David have mercy on me

01:41:28

I mean that's that's a presupposition that is a man who is ready to abandon ship of life in the world views as he knows it

01:41:39

I mean and in some sense already has and so I think that that's what we have to call that now

01:41:46

I'll say one last thing Eli you know when it comes to when it comes to like the

01:41:52

Kalam cosmological argument the reason why we would be careful and the reason we pump the brake and we want to say more as presuppositional is because we know about Kant's antinomy of pure reason we know that you run into really strange sorts of things when you talk about an uncaused cause who caused everything else in the first place

01:42:11

I mean because you know there if you if you settle down too much on the certainty of this vision of causation and how things must relate to one another is cause and effect you you end up asking you know okay well what about a cause for that first cause that thing that you're calling a first cause and doesn't the idea of an uncaused cause contradict the whole vision of causation that I started with and that's where we go see you need to this is why you need to be led to reason analogically that you're right our understanding of causation can lead us this far in relationship to this world and of this world as a whole but we're arriving actually at a being who is the source of the very concept of causation and without whom that concept would be useless and at the same time who himself his manner of being transcends cause -and -effect relationships as we know them and that's why why we you know stress the importance of it as well so go ahead sure it's good that it's a doozy because it gives me time to scroll down and find the next one because you got regular like normal comments and people conversing with each other okay so the

01:43:18

Carlos says hello brother brand I want to ask you how would you argue presuppositionally that God is not only the necessary precondition for intelligibility but how exactly human freedom creative self -development our wills and our overall ability to make decisions are not unipersonal in likeness but are multi personal analogous to the

01:43:38

Trinity as its archetype sorry right a long one but well

01:43:44

I suppose if I were to sit down and write more about compatibilism and talk more about freedom you know and and what we mean by that as reformed people obviously it appears in our confessions and we talk about free will and we should be clear about what we do and don't mean about that but it seemed to me that part of the paradox of what a free decision is is that it flows from a person at one point in time as it really flows from that person as they currently are and yet in a sense your decisions can be so radical and so remarkable that they they alter that your very person they change you and yet they're still you you know you so so this is a one -in -many problem your decisions are not like code written in a computer that you know is just doing the same thing as the decisions you make are actually changing your appetites they're actually changing the course before you and they're gonna change your future decisions and so it's an entire it's a microcosm of the one -in -many problem you know how a person can be free so you know

01:44:52

I mean the biggest problem we encounter when we talk about free will and sovereignty is that most of the time people haven't even you know swallowed the pill of how paradoxical free will is

01:45:02

I mean a free will free decisions flow from you as purely random then you're not free you're crazy that's what we would say if your choices there's no reason why you did anything and I hit you for no reason you're that's not an expression of Brant that's insanity so it would seem at the same time we have to believe that there are choices that we can make that can really alter who we are and alter our course

01:45:29

Adam was created upright and he makes the decision and makes himself a sinner that's a radical change in human nature that happens thereafter you know there can be other decisions you know decisions for faith that you know through fruit of regeneration you name it so the reason this is so important is that we would say this is so fundamental this paradox of what it means to be personal and to be able to birth free choices that we cannot explain it in terms of things like cause -and -effect relationships like we find in the material realm it's not like that it's more it's closer akin to the wonderful way that God is and the one thing therefore that we know is the the one and only precondition that can hold persons together as really being persons and not the the fruit of pure randomness or the fruit the fruit of you know pure programming is again an absolutely personal

01:46:29

God above and beyond us as our context who can sustain us as persons likened to himself and that's part of what we're saying we talk about ourselves as being free we're not simple material relationships that's not what our personality is we could be left with Hume thinking that maybe even our consciousness is it's not even a single sustained thing it's not even a single sustained soul and in Hume's worldview potentially it could just be a pure succession of thoughts which in turn produce consciousness as we know it but there's no real unity between them so I know that that's that's rather you know intense to go into that but yeah each one of us is a one -in -many problem and you know if we try to think about ourselves or explain ourselves in terms of material phenomena we depersonalize ourselves and so therefore you know the one thing we do know is that only if we are sustained the creature of an absolute person who is a pure harmony of the one in the many there's no sense in which we are going to be a harmony of it in a finite scalar degree mm -hmm hope that's helpful

01:47:44

Carlos very good very good Jacob has a question do you believe that plurality in the Godhead is known to the unbeliever but not necessarily a

01:47:52

Trinity is known for the census divinitatis Romans 118 yeah I mean

01:47:57

I guess it really hinges on what you mean by known it's kind of like asking me do

01:48:03

I think that my son and knows the logical argument form of modus ponens innocent

01:48:15

I mean he he uses it from time to time I think without even knowing it so we'd be saying that you can know things and implicitly or tacitly perhaps you know

01:48:26

I mean you know Michael Polanyi has some some good stuff to say on things like that without knowing it explicitly or having articulated it to ourselves so in that sense

01:48:37

I guess I would say yeah I think you know knowing a God who produced this reality such that again minds make contact with material in universals with particulars you implicitly know that God is you know is it you know the

01:48:56

Triune God who who is the harmony of those things and you might say the source of that contrast as we know it as its creator in all things bearing the marks of him but it would be a different sort of knowledge then again what you would have after reading the

01:49:13

Trinity and the vindication of Christian paradox or even just after having read the

01:49:18

Nicene Creed it's something that you're always kind of presupposing without necessarily articulating you know

01:49:28

I would just say again it's also why I think it is just so powerful and an evangelist just gets up and belts out the gospel to people it's explanatory power is so profound in the way it meets the way that we were actually made to think from the beginning is so true that it's just this powerful place where the

01:49:51

Spirit operates to regenerate people and to open hearts and minds and and that's why at the front end of things you know just being bold preachers of the gospel might even be where you need to start you know instead of thinking that the unbeliever desperately needs to have you know his world be dismantled in an extremely rational way hitting just developing you know the graceful power to just tell people you are a sinner you're hopeless and you need a

01:50:19

Savior all I know Jesus was apparently able to speak in a way that people said this man speaks as one having authority and in a way that is his words just match we would say this this knowledge of God that people have and it's just they know his voice this just can't emphasize enough you know how important it is that we are real practitioners of our faith if we're going to be apologists for it

01:50:48

I just I don't know how often you people find themselves just daunted by the fact that no matter how clearly they articulated the tag it didn't have an effect

01:50:58

I'll just tell you right now your ability to season your words with salt like Paul says and Colossians it's directly related to you know your your graces in the

01:51:09

Spirit I'm not saying that the Spirit can't use you if you know you're not a person who has made any effort at pursuit of sanctification or you name it but there's a real connection there and it's connected to your ability to be discerning as of what should be said it's also even connected your ability to just lose my goodness you've got to know when to just lose in the sense that people maybe you articulated a beautiful presuppositional argument and people still don't buy it they're even making fun of you get used to just getting made fun of like that's that's our bill that's what we were told by our

01:51:43

Savior what happened tag is not the thing Jesus via Greg Bonson gave to you so you don't ever have to hang your head low it's not what it is drives me nuts drives me nuts

01:51:57

Eli when I encounter presuppositional is again who think that this is you know how we get to be smart and you know it's actually good for the unbeliever maybe even more important for the unbeliever than for you to really drive home the end of tag to see you not answer a fool according to his folly for a moment and to not throw your pearls to the swine as Jesus says because you recognize what nonsense it all is and so I just yeah next question you're doing excellent you're doing excellent okay

01:52:33

Simon has a question here we'll try to keep it a little more succinct you only have a few more you're doing great and so I really do appreciate it

01:52:40

Simon right until rights in the introduction to systematic theology so then though we cannot know why the

01:52:46

Godhead should exist try personally we can understand something of the fact after we are told that God exists as a triune being that the unity and the plurality of this world has back of it a

01:52:56

God in whom unity and the plurality are equally ultimate do you agree with that yeah

01:53:02

I do I mean I think I should quote that like side -by -side in Trinity vindication of Christian paradox next to you know another reference in you know the survey of Christian epistemology where he you know basically says you know why

01:53:15

God must be triune and you know we can be sure of that and so when it says we cannot tell why the

01:53:22

Godhead should exist and try personally let me tell you what I think men till is trying to say um even after we've explained you know in the terms that I have you know my argument for sorry second yeah my for why

01:53:40

God must be three and only three persons we have to be clear on what we mean by that we mean that in order to explain how we've always been knowing things how we've always been understanding things we need the the trying

01:53:56

God and it becomes apparent to us as we engage in reasoning by implication why exactly he must be triune or knowledge and reality and you know ethics and all of those things just simply could not be that's something different than saying that back of God there's this premise that you know by by again you know some logical argument form we're starting with and we can say why

01:54:25

God in himself ought to have been like he is as if there were some set of rules above him there's something profoundly mysterious always as to why

01:54:35

God is the way God is there are no reasons outside of God for why he is and so our argument for God's tri personality is an argument from within the

01:54:46

Christian worldview as we're trying to make things make sense of things and put things together that's what we're arguing from but we wouldn't be so vain or so bold as to say that we have reasons beyond God himself in the ultimate transcendent sense for why

01:55:04

God should be as he is that mystery is always there for us to appeal to something external to God would assume something more ultimate than God which would be is speaking of there and that's why he then in the next breath says we can understand something of the fact and it's that you know after we are told that God exists as triune being then we can see how that fully implicates with all of the other things that he said and now we can go yeah that's been an essential piece all along and you can't take it out that's clear but yeah you know again it's it's not unlike my kids it's like right now my son could not deduce from my clothing how much money

01:55:46

I make what books I have on the shelf he couldn't deduce what sermon

01:55:51

I was going to produce next Sunday or even that I was a pastor and all that it meant to be a pastor well after he finds that out especially if I wore a clerical collar collar today or something like that he'd be able to go oh yeah

01:56:04

I mean okay of course you've got I mean the only way you'd ever be wearing those things or could be or have those books or do those things you'd have to be a pastor but that comes with the further disclosure of you know reality is is he would know it okay

01:56:22

I have there's just a few more questions and then I'm gonna cut it short because you have been super generous with your time and I have been told by many people that they don't mind when it goes close to two hours that's really good okay so if my congregants don't mind when my sermons go over an hour that you know probably well you're pretty engaging so I don't

01:56:43

I wouldn't mind sitting under under your preaching Daniel asks how can the many be ultimate when on your view he's speaking to me because we've had a past conversation exists in the context of the one so I had to express to him that you have a personal context always context thing the other two persons and so more ultimate is it the many got the two persons or the one ultimate context that facilitates that relationship why don't why don't you give a stab at that and depends on if I'm in a good mood or a bad mood if I'm in a good mood the answer is just yes and if I'm in a bad word the answer is bad mood answers is no you either got it totally wrong or totally right um here's the thing

01:57:28

I mean as I believe I expound in the chapter on oh the the the equality and the inherent relations of the

01:57:38

Trinity I want to say it's like the second vindication in the book we're always actually in the context of all three persons

01:57:45

I would say the imminent person of the Trinity is consistently you know the spirit the spirit who hovers on the face of the deep he's given credit for you know giving life to all things in Psalm 104 and this imminent sustaining of things you might say therefore this imminent atmosphere of God in which we live is especially facilitated by the spirit but here's the thing all of reality is related to God especially through you know the logos who upholds all things by the word of his power and so if you were to think about a relationship between man and man

01:58:22

I would say that the spirit is you know especially you know the person of the

01:58:28

Trinity in whom we live and move and have our being if you would think of a relationship between all of creation and God it's especially the son who is meeting well especially after the incarnation and you know he's the one you know the sovereign over all of creation and so that atmosphere is always tripersonal

01:58:48

God is always the one to whom through whom and imminently through whom we're relating to our neighbor so relating we're always relying on all three persons of the

01:59:01

Trinity hence the many not just the many but specifically the three so I suppose if I were to correct the question in any way it would be that we're ultimately always reliant on the three who are one essential

01:59:13

God and hence the created one in the many always has back of it in the absolute triune one in the many so it's always both

01:59:25

I think I think if you after you hear that explanation you read the second vindication in the book you'd be able to see that point more clearly all right very good

01:59:35

Daniel has a follow -up question here what importance does defending the historicity of the Bible have in light of the transcendental argument should it ever be debated well yeah you know as I mentioned earlier

01:59:45

I mean I think I think it can be fantastic for the person who who again even on the front end who just is already maybe by the

01:59:55

Spirit taking an interest in the wonders of the Bible so it's always fantastic and it's fantastic for us too

02:00:02

I mean we're all better off in this room as presuppositionalists knowing just exactly how you know the science of textual criticism you know goes about and you know then then we if we were to talk about the historicity of the

02:00:17

Bible yes on the front end we're already much more happy that the cities mentioned in the

02:00:23

Bible are actually places on planet Earth some of them live cities since biblical times unlike the

02:00:29

Mormon who looks down and says there are no of these none of these cities anywhere I mean yes it is the sort of thing that at least in our worldview we're going we're seeing direct confirmation from the facts for what we believe that's that's awesome and it would be a radically different task for us to be engaged it would be really damning to our worldview

02:00:53

I would say if we believed in the sort of thing that the Mormon does which is almost holistic apostasy and then somehow revival of the faith the only way that we're able to discern and decipher new revelations is from prior faith and prior faithful people relying on the revelation that's been given but when you have a whole worldview where the revelation itself everything it talks about all of its cities all of its people it's just a big blank

02:01:22

I mean and it comes on the scene is this utterly no thing new thing with no continuity in the past I know you're not talking about the

02:01:30

God who is the God who transcends the problem of the one in the many because that God is the

02:01:37

God who produces continuity in time with all of the changes and the differences and you name it that's why he's the

02:01:44

God of biblical redemptive history not the God of mystery Mormon religion with just total disappearance gaps that nothing to bridge you know these things are utterly related and it's the presupposition list job to be adept to those things to be able to see these network of connections and keep setting it before the unbeliever to show how remarkably different in every imaginable way in beautiful and profound in inspiring biblical

02:02:17

Christianity is to every alternative that's excellent this is the last question and I do apologize folks

02:02:23

I'm surprised that Brent has not passed out it's a two minutes into two hours and two minutes over this is the last question

02:02:33

I do apologize if there's some more questions coming in we just I do want to be respectful of pastor

02:02:39

Boston it's time here so here is a big fan of Boston as you can tell the sire he asks what is the connection of God being inherently personal and the grounding of ethics okay yeah well

02:02:54

I mean there's just the basic one many problem that arises there as to how you can have again laws laws are you know a sort of ethical universal that encompasses every situation or sufficiently does to not produce you know radical injustice who who could we trust to make those sorts of laws well frankly only the sort of God who knows the end from the beginning because he is the sovereign who is the great author of it who wrote all of our days down in his books before any one of them came to pass so there's there's that you know how do we have laws that don't do violence to people

02:03:35

I mean that's one angle you could go at it with I mean where you could you go at it just you know simply from the angle of like you know authority if you don't have a

02:03:43

God who is who transcends the one in many problem and he exists in a realm of chaos and a chance like the

02:03:51

Mormon deities do and he's you know the slave of time just like you and me again you know on what basis so you know on what ground can he legislate for anyone it's just that he's more mighty than the others for the time being and who's to say and more mighty deity doesn't displace him it just raises the question of authority it places you right in the realm of Plato's Republic and you know whence arises you know any definition of justice as just and if you don't have an absolutely personal reality there's no answer to that question there's no way to even begin start starting to answer that question if justice is something objective as opposed to again something that's ever -changing and so those are just a couple of ways

02:04:39

I'd say you could go at it hmm well that is it for the questions Brant I am so so appreciative you've given me so much of your time here and it's been a lot and so thank you so much for being on I think you did an excellent job and I've studied this stuff for years and you've given some really gold good golden nuggets that I have to go back and I'm one of those guys that go back and listen to his own shows so I'm gonna go back and listen to it and kind of process a lot of the stuff that you said because there's so many good things that you've mentioned here in this discussion so thank you so much and guys thank you so much for for bearing with us and listening in again if you have any questions related to apologetics or presuppositional apologetics specifically you could email me at revealed apologetics at gmail .com

02:05:24

and if you have not already don't be lame a lame -o go and subscribe to the

02:05:29

YouTube channel revealed apologetics and the podcast this discussion here

02:05:34

I will be using the audio as a podcast episode as well so people can listen to it if they're more of a podcast person all right well that's it for today stay tuned for Saturday at 2 p .m.

02:05:46

Eastern I'll have dr. James Anderson on to talk a little bit about the nature of precept I'm sorry a transcendental arguments that's it for today thank you so much guys before you go can we can we close with a prayer absolutely yes that'd be wonderful I was gonna do that before we ended in the impersonal closed studio but why not do it here well yes you know

02:06:10

I'm always I'm always skeptical at my own own abilities to persuade or to not mean this

02:06:19

I mean you really talk to people who hate the Lord and you know that there's a certain just fundamental weakness that we have as creatures to change people's hearts and minds so I'm just gonna pray the

02:06:33

Lord would bless any listener and anybody who's engaging in presuppositional ism that they'd have the right nuance and sense of what it's all about and maybe even anyone who's listening and who is an unbeliever and found their way here so let's pray thank you mighty

02:06:51

God we are we're weak in our flesh God even when we have minds that you know some philosophers would tell us we're properly functioning

02:07:02

Lord we tire we we are subject to emotions

02:07:08

Lord sometimes we can see the sense of you know brilliant arguments and sometimes it's just lost on us

02:07:15

Lord this isn't surprising you told us that you've made an absolutely compelling and even condemning argument for your your existence in your attributes in your character that every single person who's ever breathed the breath in your creation has been exposed to and look at us look how recalcitrant we are to profess faith in you and even if we've done so to really believe you space especially in the face of anything like a season of trial and in burden and so God I just I lift up to you all of our own hearts and minds

02:07:52

Lord Jesus Christ I pray that we would never mistake presuppositional ism for our

02:07:59

Savior we'd never mistake good arguments for you pray

02:08:04

Lord Jesus Christ it is we study these things and we try to hone our presentation of the faith and Lord even the way that we bring it to unbelievers resistant to it

02:08:15

I pray Lord that we would grow in the graces of your spirit as well Lord that our characters would be conformed to the character of Christ and Lord that we would be able to more immediately in everything see and hear your voice and speaking to us what you would have us do as your spirit recalls this the scriptures to us and brings to bear your special revelation in our encounters with all of the natural revelation round about us every day

02:08:44

God I pray for the many listeners I know a lot of people are interested in presuppositional apologetics and I'm thankful for that Lord God and I pray that it would foster rich faith and not ever diminish it

02:08:56

God I lift up to you the masses who may be listening who simply don't know you Lord God I imagine that so many of the things that we have talked about might seem so foreign some so crazy and God may we never cower to admit that in so many ways it is and we look at this worldview of ours through the lens of unbelieving secular thinking there's just something downright crazy about it

02:09:21

I pray Lord that the witness of a bunch of people sitting around willing to talk about this listen to it you name it and be enthralled with it who would itself be something that your spirit works through to open the hearts and minds of others to have saving faith in Jesus Christ Lord we pray these things for your glory for the good of those who love you in Jesus name by your spirit amen amen thank you so very much for that and once again guys if you could if you want to learn more about pastor

02:09:54

Bosterman there are some I think some other discussions on YouTube as well that you've done and they could purchase your book the

02:10:02

Trinity and the vindication of Christian paradox and interpretation and refinement of theological apologetic of Cornelius van