Apologetics Q & A

Revealed Apologetics

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00:05

Hmm, okay, go live, it's giving me some trouble here.

00:21

All right, it's giving me some trouble. Let me try something real quick. All right,

00:37

I'm gonna exit the room and come back in the room. So it's giving me some technical difficulties.

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One second here. All right,

00:58

I guess it was playing. Sorry about that, folks. We were having some technical difficulties there. Welcome to another episode of Revealed Apologetics.

01:05

I'm your host, Eli Ayala, and I just wanna apologize straight up. Just a little frazzled.

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I had a long day at work and I came home and I had to move my setup to a different location.

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And so I literally just walked in the door and a little disoriented.

01:23

So I'm looking forward to a fun Q &A session. You will know that I actually will have a guest with me today who is unfortunately not

01:34

Dr. Matthew Barrett. I know folks were following Revealed Apologetics on social media.

01:40

I posted it on Instagram and other places as well. I was supposed to have Dr. Matthew Barrett to talk about Sola Scriptura, but he's actually not feeling well today.

01:50

So we had to push back our interview a little further. And so we will, I'm pretty sure there will not be any issues.

01:58

We should be good to go for next Thursday at, I think it's five o 'clock, five o 'clock, 5 .30

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or something like that. I'll post it and share it again. So that's Dr. Matthew Barrett next

02:10

Thursday, all right, September 30th. All right, well, since at last second, my guests kind of fell through for health issues.

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I have invited a friend of mine who is a really awesome guy, a very, very sharp dude.

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And definitely one of those guys that if I have a theological question or an apologetics question, he's one of those guys that he's really good to run things by, he's a very sharp thinker.

02:39

So I think you guys are in for a treat. And we're gonna go casual today. We're gonna open it up to questions and hopefully if we can answer your questions, answers.

02:50

So if you have any questions, this is the time to ask them. I'm gonna wait a couple of minutes for people to start coming in.

02:58

But if you have any questions about theology, apologetics, philosophy, you can go all out and ask all the questions you want and we'll try our best to tackle them.

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If you don't have any questions, then we're just gonna blab about apologetics, theology and hopefully it'll be beneficial for those who are listening.

03:16

So without further ado, I am the revealed apologist. I'd like to introduce you to the reformed apologist.

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Everyone say hello to my good friend, Ron D. Giacomo. I think

03:30

I pronounced that correctly. How's it going, Ron? It's going well, good to be here.

03:37

Well, I'm glad you agreed to come on such short notice because I cannot guarantee the orthodoxy of what will be coming out of my mouth.

03:46

I'm still a little fuzzy. My brain is a little out there right now.

03:51

It's been a crazy day. But I enjoy talking about theology and I know you do too. Well, great,

03:58

I mean, yeah. All right, so why don't you tell folks a little bit about yourself? You go by the name

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Reformed Apologist, is that correct or? Yeah, I should drop the definite article, but yeah.

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I used to blog as under Reformed Apologist. Okay. So I never actually had the definite article there, but others have said that, but no.

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So I used to blog at Blogspot under that handle, reformedapologic .blogspot

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.com. And then I haven't done that in quite a while.

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I started a new blog, philosophical -theology .com. And that's a

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WordPress blog and it's more focused. It's more where my interests are, it's not as broad.

04:48

Sure. Now, I remember the first time seeing your name kind of going around on Dr.

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James Anderson's blog. So folks who know Dr. James Anderson from RTS, Reformed Theological Seminary, he's a noted

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Christian apologist, philosopher. And I've seen you interact with some of his posts and I recognized very quickly that you're very conversant in some of these philosophical issues as they relate to apologetic methodology.

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So I was really taken with some of your comments there. And then I found your blog, which

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I found very helpful. Are you still writing on the blog? I'm writing on philosophical -theology.

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Perhaps my last blog post on Reformed Apologists was a link to my new blog.

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And it's interesting because you wanted me to come on the show. It was well over a year ago and it got held up in the span folder.

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And then, but you and I had spoken a few times after you had made the request, but I didn't know you had made the request.

05:50

So yeah, it was kind of weird. Okay. Well, I'm glad to have actually gotten to meet you, at least on the phone.

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We have, you and I, we've spoken a lot on the phone, but we haven't met each other in person. So hopefully one day that'll happen.

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But all right, well, let's jump in. First, just to let folks know, what specific apologetic methodology do you identify with?

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And perhaps that'll give a framework for people as to how we answer some of the questions that are already coming in.

06:21

The biblical one. The biblical one. I knew it. I would call myself a presuppositionalist.

06:27

Okay. All right. Very good. And what are your apologetic influences? What got you into presuppositionalism?

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Well, I was, at first, when I went into the OPC over 20 years ago,

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I'm in the PCA now, but when I got into the OPC, I started to hear more of this approach to apologetics.

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And I'm actually reluctant to call it Vantillian apologetics, only because there's so much baggage that goes with that term.

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Some baggage is warranted, I think.

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And some I don't think is. So it's a big mess. I don't call myself a covenantal apologist or anything like that.

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I just call myself a presuppositional apologist. If somebody needs a label, and then you've got to distinguish that from even a

07:26

Clarkian presuppositionalist. All right, very good. Now, I know you're throwing around some terms, folks who may not be familiar with some of this language of Clarkianism, Vantillianism, and sometimes we mentioned things like transcendentals and things like that.

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I don't want to give the wrong impression for folks. Ron and myself are used to having apologetic discussions at a pretty high level with some people, and sometimes not as high of a level, depending on who you're talking about.

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But this apologetic methodology can be used by anybody. So why don't you, here's my question for you, and then we'll take some of the questions in the comments, because a bunch of them are coming in.

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How would you explain a presuppositional approach in a very simple way that perhaps a teenager could grasp and say, hey, you know what?

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I think I can use that with my friends. So say I'm 16, 17 years old, and I'm a Christian.

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I know my basic theology. I love the Lord. Ron, I want to learn how to engage my friends in school.

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How might I do that from this presuppositional approach? Yeah, good question.

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I think we should approach apologetics like we approach any discipline, and we should take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

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I mean, we should try to, if there is a way of doing apologetics that's biblical, then we should probably want to search out that way.

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So the context in which I would put apologetics is that every man knows

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God, every woman knows God, every child knows God, and because they know

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God, they are under God's judgment, and they're aware of that. So first, negatively,

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I do not want to approach apologetics with an unbeliever in any way that implicitly says to that person that God has not revealed himself to them in a way that's understood.

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So if I come to him or her with arguments for the existence of God, even if they're sound, am

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I suggesting to that person that they do not know

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God, and if they do not know God, they are not culpable for suppressing him or denying him in conscience, and that God would therefore be unjust for casting them into outer darkness should they not become a

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Christian? Am I suggesting that God would be unjust for judging them according to a knowledge that I'm suggesting they don't have?

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I don't want to approach an apologetic as proving God in that way.

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Sure. Now, I do believe there is an approach about answering the fool, and when the

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Bible calls someone a fool, that God is not just pejoratively naming people things just to be nasty.

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They are a fool. They're dull in their reasoning. So I'm gonna try to,

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I'm not going to answer him according to his presuppositions, according to his autonomous reason, but in another way,

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I am going to answer him according to his presuppositions.

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I am going to take his presuppositions and show how they're internally inconsistent, and then

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I'm gonna show him or her, or hopefully, I will demonstrate that the

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Christian worldview can make sense of their presuppositions.

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Their assumption, the basic assumptions they live by. So it would be a two -step approach.

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Sure, and so how would we unpack this for a teenager? So like, let's take a hypothetical example that a teenager might be struggling with that they're sharing.

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You know, if you're familiar with some of the things that teenagers tend to say, like, hey, man, I don't see

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God, you know? If God exists, why is there evil? Why don't we pick one of those kind of popular things that pop up and maybe apply what you just said there to the specific situation?

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Yeah, okay. Okay, I'm gonna defend the Christian worldview, okay? And there's only one

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Christian worldview. It's whatever God thinks. Right. Okay, and we're trying to press into that Christian worldview.

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I believe that the closest we can come, I mean, the Reformed faith, I believe is the 24 -karat variety of offering that we know in the church.

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Okay, so take the problem of evil you just mentioned. An Arminian's answer is evil because of free will.

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More sophisticated Arminians would say, well, God did have to, he could have chosen a feasible world, not necessarily a possible world for them, but a feasible world where nobody sinned or Adam and Eve didn't sin.

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I mean, I don't know if that feasible world would exist in an Arminian thought. It certainly exists in a

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Reformed thought. So for the 17 -year -old, 15 -year -old, or the mature unbeliever, my answer is there's evil in the world, yes, but God has a morally sufficient reason, evil that he has ordained, that he has not just allowed, but that he has determined according to his wisdom for his glory and the good of the alive.

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Okay, so I've got a different answer even on the problem of evil as that I think an

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Arminian can consistently make. So to say that God has morally sufficient reasons for the evil that he allows, that would alleviate really the assumed contradiction.

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So when someone says, hey, how can there be a God and there be evil in the world? The implicit suggestion is that there is somehow some logical inconsistency with the existence of the

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God that we're speaking of within Christianity and the existence of evil. So he's either not all powerful or he's not all loving.

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Right, so to say that God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting evil is just to show that on the

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Christian worldview, they're not logically incompatible because on the Christian worldview, not only can

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God have morally sufficient reasons, if you look at the biblical story, there are plenty of examples in which God does have morally sufficient reasons for the things that he allows.

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Is that what you're getting at? Yeah, I mean, he has a morally sufficient reason. And if he wants to tell us more about those reasons in eternity, or maybe they're in the scriptures and I don't see them, other than it's for his glory and our good, maybe there's things that he could not have revealed to us on a creaturely level that we would understand or appreciate because redemption is in the context of evil.

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Without evil, there is no redemption. So if God wants to redeem and show his attribute of love and grace that way and display his justice and mercy in one symbol of the cross, then that's his prerogative.

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God is accountable to nobody, but God does not sin. Right. God does not sin. Right. All right, thank you for that.

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Well, those are a nice preliminary conversation. I'm waiting, as I was waiting for more folks to come in.

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So we have a couple of people listening in live and we have some questions. So let's just go through these.

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And if they're specifically addressed to me, I'll try to address it. And if they're kind of generically addressed to any of us,

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I'll throw it over to Ron and we'll unpack some of these. All right. All right. So I don't know if you could see that up on the screen there.

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I know you're using perhaps your phone. It's pretty small, but I'll read it out loud. Isaiah asks, hi,

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Eli. Sorry to ask again. I guess Isaiah has been asking me questions on Facebook.

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But by the way, I'm not ignoring folks who engage me in the comments. I just don't have time to sit and respond.

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And so that's what I love when Ron jumps in in some of my threads and I'm like, all right, yeah, go for it, man.

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I don't have time. But now I'm here. So hopefully I could address some of these. Okay, so what verses make you not a convinced young earth creationist?

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I seriously haven't heard a good response from Exodus 20 verse 11 that clarifies what Moses wrote in Genesis 1 .1.

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Well, Isaiah, I did make a previous video, not the previous one right before this one, but the one before the one before this one, okay?

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In which I lay out a whole host of my own theological beliefs. And I actually confirmed,

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I put a flag down. I said that I lean more towards a young earth creationist perspective because I'm convinced of the straightforward reading.

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And I think that there's a lot of jumping through the hoops that is required to adopt some of these other perspectives.

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Okay, so I would agree with you. Exodus 20 verse 11, I think is a very powerful confirmation of a literal understanding of Genesis 1.

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Now, again, I will admit though, the discussion of interpreting Genesis is a very nuanced discussion.

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It's a very nuanced debate. A lot of different things that are involved in that. So I'm not going to like hand wave what other positions have to offer.

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I don't think that people who reject the young earth position are compromisers necessarily. I do think that there is a valid debate to be had.

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But what about you, Ron? What do you think about Genesis chapters one through 11? Are you a young earth creationist?

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Do you not identify yourself as a particular label? Where are you on that topic? Yeah, I'm a younger, but I try to answer things as if you wouldn't know.

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This question in particular, I think this question has a bias. It presumes an onus of proof.

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Okay, why are you convinced of the young earth creation? Well, who has the burden of proof given the text?

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And so that needs to be established up front. I mean, the people like the framework people

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I know, they are framework because they believe the genre of the text requires it.

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Well, requires a non -literal 24 hours.

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24 hour a day interpretation. So my concern, if I come across a framework or another theory of the age of the earth or creation, my concern is what is behind it?

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What is driving it? And if it is autonomous reasoning, or if it is the science, that's a concern.

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If he's got exegetical, hermeneutical principles in place that move in that direction, that's fine, okay?

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I mean, but the question I have is why is it, I mean, as Paul asked

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Agrippa, I think it was Acts 26, maybe it was 27,

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I think it was 26. Why do you deem it impossible that God raised the dead?

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Well, why do we deem it possible that God creates with apparent age? On day one,

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Adam did not look like an infant. Sure. So could he have sent starlight into the future and have it already there immediately without waiting for the natural time to have elapsed?

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Right. I mean, this isn't something I'm deeply concerned about.

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My comment on the Facebook page the other day is I don't see how it's really relevant.

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If they do it on hermeneutic principles, it doesn't deny the existence of God for the intelligibility of knowledge, reality, ethics, and it doesn't deny the authority of scripture as the justification for those things we know off by our eyes.

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Right. So I don't see it. I mean, it's important to know the truth, but I don't see it as any type of deal breaker for an apologetic.

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And I think for a Christian who's trying to decide on this issue, I was asked the question, and I know you read the post on Facebook, like what amount of evidence would convince you, right?

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Of, I think it was of old earth or something like that. And a lot of these questions come from the perspective as though evidence is worldview independent.

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I mean, if the Bible is the word of God and it actually provides a framework through which we interpret evidence, through which we interpret data, there's no amount of evidence.

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It's not an issue of the amount of evidence, it's an issue of whether I'm interpreting the evidence in a way that is consistent with what

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God has revealed. And so there is a debate between young earth, old earth, and other positions as to what

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God has in fact revealed. What does it mean? But it's never an issue of just, look, you need more evidence, or, hey, can't you see that this is obvious that it's this old or that old?

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I don't think it has much to do with the facts, rather the interpretation of the facts and whether we're interpreting scripture correctly.

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The evidence will never give us an answer to origin. Right. Because God could have created with apparent age.

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So the question, what I always see come up, well, is God trying to deceive us? Well, I could respond to that.

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Well, God said on day one, day two, day three. So I can say, has God said? Who is the deceiver?

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Why, if I can drop in a scenario abductively, and say this scenario does truth to the text, it doesn't deny the text.

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Sure. What denies the text, again, unless you have some really strong case for a hermeneutical principle, but I don't know that that hermeneutical principle will necessarily deny the younger.

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Okay, it might allow for an older, but I don't see how it would therefore deny the younger, unless they are inferring that if they would be using a different type of word or something.

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And again, I'm not studied on it, but what struck me on your Facebook page is somebody said, well, if the

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Bible said it was a flatter, would you believe that? And that struck me, that struck me a little odd, because if the

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Bible in this world said, if a book called the Bible in this world said that, then it wouldn't be the scriptures.

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Okay, the Bible in this world doesn't. If there's a possible world in which that the Bible says that, well, maybe it's true in that possible world that the earth is flat.

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Okay, God could have created a flat earth. Or if it's a possible world in which the world is spherical and the

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Bible in that world says that, well, then is there exegetical or hermeneutical principles that would say we would not interpret it that way.

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We would take the genre as whatever, like apocalyptic literature, we interpret a certain way.

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So we would take it as a different sort of genre. So I'd need to have more facts about the alleged

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Bible that's saying this in some world. Sure, sure. And with the whole is

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God deceiving us? When I, okay, so I said that I lean more towards a young earth creationist perspective, but before I leaned in that direction and I was kind of like, kind of agnostic on this question,

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I never found that point very relevant, because if the young earth interpretation's correct, then

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God isn't deceiving us. He's not saving us. He's saying, I made it day one, day two, day three, and there you go.

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So it's not an issue of deception. It's an issue of whether you're understanding what God seems to be clearly saying.

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So I never found that convincing at all. You're right, you're right. And if we grant, let's assume for argument's sake that the world is y 'all, then the only deceiver would be, has

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God said? Yeah. So I don't think we're gonna settle it on deception.

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All right, yep. This is such a big, big topic. I actually have invited Dr. Jonathan Sephardi on my show, and he's agreed to come on, but we're gonna set up a date.

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So I know he's a, a lot of people suggested him to me as a really strong proponent of the young earth perspective.

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So I'm looking forward to diving into it. I'm still kind of, I'm not new to the topic. I'm just new to giving the topic as much attention, if that makes sense, than I have in the past.

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So definitely love those sorts of, those questions. Thank you so much, Isaiah, for your question. Let's, let's move along.

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All right, Clayton Weaver. Thank you for your question, Clayton. Clayton asks, would you say that there is only one coherent worldview?

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If so, how is Judaism logically incoherent? Would you like me to go on that one, or would you like to take a stab on that one,

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Ron? I mean, I'll take a stab at it. I mean, where Judaism, and any, any revelational worldview that overlaps in its special revelation with the

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Christian worldview, we have to do an internal critique of that worldview and show where it's wrong.

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So the Christian, the Judaism, as an ism is wrong on the gospel.

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Sure. Okay, it's a gospel of works. It's not even a gospel of grace through faith.

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They don't object to not having animal sacrifices for atonement. They've now substituted with that with fair, with prayer.

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So it's an apostate form of biblical Judaism.

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They've fallen away from the roots of Judaism, which are the roots of Christianity.

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And Islam has made the mistake of acknowledging the gospel accounts.

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I mean, they say ours are corrupted, but they, and they acknowledge the

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Torah. So they have, they deny that Abraham was saved by grace through faith.

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So their worldviews are wrong because they deny their own book.

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I mean, if the Quran is the book that Muslims say it is, and I'm morphing into the crown, the fact that you, that it cannot reveal the

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God of the Quran who's transcended only, he's not personal. So the Quran cannot be the book it claims to be, or they claim it to be.

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So Judaism, where it's correct, the faith would be in really aping

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Christianity. They're borrowing from my worldview, but they cannot save themselves really even philosophically or theologically.

27:18

Yeah. Because it's internally inconsistent. Sure. I mean, the prophecies have been fulfilled. I think one of the biggest prophecies that people do not appeal to is the 70 weeks of Daniel.

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I mean, we have a timetable that's set in place for the coming of Messiah. Sure. And that comes at the time of Christ and they should have been looking for it.

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Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I would, with respect to this question, Clayton, I actually agree with what

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Van Til often said that when you really boil down to it, there really are only two worldviews, the

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Christian worldview and the non -Christian worldview. And any worldview that rejects Christ, that rejects the triune

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God is operating from a non -Christian worldview, even though you have some of that overlap, like in Judaism.

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So there was a point in which Judaism was on the right track and then there was a point in which certain

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Jews or a large portion of Jews began to reject God's revelation and in doing so have rejected really the foundations of the genuinely, truly biblical worldview that's grounded in the

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God who has revealed himself as the triune God of scripture. And so I would say that there is only one true worldview.

28:28

I wouldn't, or a coherent worldview, because when you get down to the fundamental foundation of any worldview perspective, we're gonna have to ask the question, and I've repeated this question before and folks have heard this.

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We wanna ask that deep philosophical question. Does the worldview in question provide the necessary preconditions for intelligible experience?

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Does the worldview in question provide a foundation for knowledge, a foundation for ethical norms, a foundation for the universal laws of logic, a foundation for bringing together both unity and plurality?

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And when you really get down to it, a form of Judaism that rejects the triune

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God is going to run into some of the same philosophical problems that other Unitarian groups will run into.

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And those problems will persist even if there is overlap. Because what is

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Judaism? What is true Judaism, if not just Christianity? If you can just say that.

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I mean, Judaism that rejects Christ is not a genuine Judaism, right? It's not a genuine carryover of what the

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God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has given us because what has the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob given us? He's given us a promise of the

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Messiah that would come to deliver us. We see this in the person and work of Christ. So I would say that there is only one coherent worldview and any perspective like Judaism or other overlapping sort of religions that what

29:56

Ron said kind of ape Christianity, I would say that while there are elements there that are consistent with the

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Christian perspective, ultimately they will veer off in areas that really will define them outside a proper quote

30:12

Christian worldview and therefore outside the bounds of a coherent worldview. Now, there are some people who think that there are multiple coherent worldviews.

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I don't think that's necessarily true for a bunch of reasons that we don't have time to go into.

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But when you get to that foundational level, bringing together unity and plurality, things like that, that's going to cancel out those

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Unitarian perspectives, those monistic perspectives in which the grounding, the metaphysical grounding of reality is an ultimate one.

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Any perspective in which the ultimate grounding of reality is an ultimate plurality, you're gonna have problems there.

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And so there might be consistency with another worldviews on the surface level, but when you reach down to more of those foundational levels,

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I think there are gonna be some problems there. So those are my two cents on that question. Yep. You know,

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I'd probably leave that. I mean, and I'm not sure what Clayton Weaver is getting at, but I think the question about coherence, our worldview doesn't just need to be coherent.

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Right, it needs to be true. It needs to be consistent. It needs to be explanatory, okay?

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And so let's say someone says, well, I have consistency in my worldview and we don't do certain things because certain ethical things, not because there's moral absolutes, though they believe in moral absolutes, otherwise they couldn't have moral proxemics could be measured against an absolute.

31:40

But they're thinking in terms of, okay, I don't do this because of convention and it doesn't work well.

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When people do this and if I participate in this, it's gonna be bad for society and ultimately it's gonna be bad for me.

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There's gonna be this systemic problem and I'm not gonna do it. So he says,

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I'm consistent. And I'm like, well, yeah, but you're trying to isolate your metaphysic from your epistemology and your ethics.

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So you're saying it's gonna work badly for me. Well, why? Well, because in the past, these types of things have worked badly.

32:21

Oh, well, then you're reasoning from certain events to other events, which is presupposing some sort of uniformity of nature.

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So you don't really have, you're not bringing together, but you don't have a basis for this uniformity of nature, given your denial of the creature creator distinction and all that entail.

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You're basically chance acting upon matter over time. So they can't even reconcile that thought that what goes around comes around, maybe not in another life, but even in this life.

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They can't reconcile the reason why they believe it'll end badly this time, simply because it ended badly the last time.

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And there's one other thing about the Trinity. I have to say that God is unity and plurality.

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And I believe that he is reflecting that equal ultimacy and that the triune

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God does make sense of the one and the many. And he's reflecting that. That doesn't mean though, that God is not quadrinity.

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And I think more meat needs to be put on the bones there. I think there is something there.

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I think more scholarship needs to go into that. I mean, we have an answer, I think, to Christianity and all that sort of thing.

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It's just counterfactually about the Christian worldview. Yeah. All right.

33:47

If you wanna explore that whole unity and plurality issue with the Trinity, Clayton, you might wanna check out my discussion with Brent Bosserman, who is, this is really a strength area.

33:56

Also, I had an awesome discussion with the Christian apologist, Anthony Rogers. And that episode was entitled,

34:04

Applying Presuppositional Apologetics to Islam. And so we talk a little bit about these issues as well. So you might wanna check that out on the channel.

34:10

Thank you so much for that, Clayton. Let's move along here. Daniel C asks, why is neutrality philosophically impossible?

34:19

Why is neutrality philosophically impossible? You wanna take a stab at that, Ron? Why is neutrality philosophically impossible?

34:28

Well, neutrality according to what? There are no brute facts, okay?

34:38

The facts always have to be interpreted, okay? Take the pandemic.

34:46

The science, let's say we all agree upon the science. When we draw a moral conclusion about what one ought to, we step into an ethical question, a moral question.

35:04

We're no longer talking about purely a metaphysical question. We're not talking about inductive inference.

35:12

So science empiricism is never going to, empiricism cannot really justify itself, okay?

35:22

We have to have certain interpretation of the facts and what they mean.

35:30

How can someone approach matter in motion and draw inferences unless they have universals?

35:38

So they have these universals in their mind. Well, where do they come from? Why do the universals of our mind, our categories of thought, why are they so useful?

35:49

How come they can tell us about the world and what is really happening in the external world as opposed to just psychologizing science in the mind and being the objectivity creator that Kant wanted to be.

36:05

Okay, so we have an answer for that in neutrality. You are either going to oppose the solution that God, the common creator of my mind and the external universe provides that fruitful connection.

36:17

So I can know about not just triangularity or the raw stuff out there, but I can actually know it because God is providing that fruitful connection.

36:31

And I am then believing what God believes. I'm believing what an omniscient

36:38

God believes. So the bias would be, I mean, take ethics.

36:45

We have certain acts that people do. How can we interpret those acts as moral or not moral without a bias?

36:54

Our bias is gonna be informed as a Christian from the word of God. That's what's going to inform our bias.

37:01

So when we get to what I would call common notions, I'm good with that term. When we get to common notions, we share all of these common notions with the unbeliever, memory, sensory experience, certain uniformity of nature, certain laws of morality.

37:21

Now they may deny this in their creed, okay, in order to try to maintain consistency with their creed, but they affirm them in practice.

37:30

And they believe that these things actually exist. Where our point of disagreement is, is on a presupposition that we believe that the 66 books of the

37:41

Bible are authoritative. They're inspired, they're inherent, they're

37:47

God -breathed. And we believe it is our authority for faith and practice. But that unique presupposition, and what is their unique presupposition relative to the

37:58

Christian worldview? It's the denial of that presupposition, the negation of the

38:04

Bible. But the Bible for the believer is what informs and justifies his, what he shares with the unbeliever in principle.

38:18

We share these things in principle, but formally, or excuse me, informally, we share this on a superficial formal basis according to common grace.

38:29

But we're on a collision course with them because they cannot count for these common notions of memory, sensory perception, and morality.

38:44

They cannot account for them given their denial of the creator -creature distinction as revealed to us in nature and in the books of the

38:55

Bible. Okay, so they come with their presupposition. So we speak to them of the resurrection and their presupposition is, people do not rise from the dead.

39:08

I've met many a liar. I've met many a religious fanatic. We've seen religious fanatics fly airplanes in the buildings.

39:17

Okay, so we point to that the apostles turned the world upside down and they were zealous for the

39:23

Lord Jesus Christ and they believed in the resurrection. Well, you go that to the unbeliever, what's his, he's not neutral.

39:30

He's coming according to his naturalistic worldview and he's never seen, and like us, we've never seen a resurrection.

39:40

We've met many a liar. Okay, so we're gonna just look at the evidence that's uninterpreted from the scriptures.

39:49

The most rational thing to believe from the unbelieving worldview is that there is no resurrection.

39:56

And that's why I think it's absolutely foolish to take an evidentialist approach and remove it from the soteriological context in which the

40:06

Bible interprets it. When you place the resurrection of Christ in the context of man's plight before an angry

40:17

God and in the context that God so loves the world, then the resurrection of Christ, which is the vindication, his justification in the spirit, makes perfect sense.

40:31

We satisfy God's justice and we satisfy his wrath in the imputation of our guilt to Christ.

40:41

So what does the unbeliever know by nature? He knows by nature that he's under God's judgment and he knows by nature that God is good, that God is love, and that God is long -suffering and patient with him.

40:56

He knows that by nature. So if we can bring the evidence for the resurrection into that context, well, certainly

41:06

Paul became a zealot for Christ. Of course the apostles went to a martyr's death over the truth.

41:16

Okay, it makes perfect sense in the context of man's condition before God and God's love for humanity.

41:23

But outside of that context, the evidence will never be interpreted or right. God has to exegete the evidence for us.

41:32

All right, very good. What I'm gonna do is I actually have to charge, I was in such a rush,

41:38

I have to charge my laptop. So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to let you answer the next question because you're my wonderful guest and I'm gonna give you the screen for just two minutes while I grab my charge and then

41:49

I'll jump in and tackle this because I wanna talk about this next one here. Oh, here we go, look at this.

41:54

The behind the scenes, my wife is so wonderful. Thank you. Look at this. As I was saying before, folks were just coming in.

42:02

I just came in from work and I was rushing to get this all set up. So I do apologize.

42:09

I didn't have a chance to do that. The kids are locked. There we go. Well, I'm locked in my bedroom right now.

42:15

That's why I don't have my books behind me. So, all right, okay. Okay, good.

42:21

I'm glad we got that. Thank you so much for that question, Daniel. Also, just real quick, Daniel, what would neutrality look like?

42:30

How is it possible to look at a fact or a data point that is completely uninterpreted and then there's a person who could interpret it without literally any bias?

42:43

That's impossible, right? Either facts are God -created facts or they are not.

42:49

And so you either interpret a fact as a God -created fact and that the fact that it's a God -created fact gives it its meaning, or you interpret the fact by imposing meaning upon that fact.

43:00

Either way, it's either God or not God. Either facts are intelligible with God or without God.

43:08

As Ron said before, there are no brute facts. As Van Til once said, he said that brute facts are mute facts.

43:16

There's no way to transcend ourselves and see things from a

43:21

God's eye perspective, given our own finitude, right? Everyone's going to have some sort of bias.

43:27

And ultimately, when you get to the foundation of it all, facts are either God facts or not God facts.

43:33

And we impose meaning. Wherever you start there is going to be a place of bias. The Christian chooses to start with the presupposition that all facts are

43:43

God -created facts. And that's the reason why facts have meaning. That's why there is intelligibility to these things, right?

43:50

So neutrality is philosophically impossible. And the person who says it's not is already non -neutral against positions that say that it is.

44:00

So there you go. Real quick, Eli, what people might be looking for is objectivity.

44:06

We can't, even though we are not presuppositionally neutral, we can press into being objective with a case that's before us.

44:18

Sure. Okay, we try to be objective, but even that is going to fall into the context of certain presuppositions about reality.

44:30

I mean, again, the person, they share a lot of our presuppositions.

44:35

Young believers share a lot. And that is a great point of contact. There's common notions that we have with them.

44:44

Yes, thank you for that. Mawson Hollowell. Mawson Hollowell, or is that a weird form of Mason?

44:52

I'm thinking like, okay, so I think I'm pronouncing that correct. All right, so how can a presuppositionalist refute the idea that Islam can account for the laws of logic?

45:03

I'll take a quick stab at this, and maybe you can give us your thoughts, Ron. If a worldview is going to provide the necessary preconditions for universal conceptual laws, then that precondition, that necessary world, you cannot itself violate those laws, right?

45:22

So you can't have a contradictory necessary precondition for laws of logic, right?

45:28

If it's contradictory, then it can't be the standard, right? It can't be the precondition. So when you engage, for example, in an internal critique in Islam, you will find that on the worldview level,

45:39

Islam contradicts itself on a philosophical level. It contradicts itself given its own assumptions in the text of the

45:45

Quran, and it contradicts itself in that it affirms various aspects of Christianity, in which there are ways to show internally that there are issues there.

45:55

For example, let's take a look at a philosophical problem with respect to Islam. Number one, when you take a look at worldviews in general, worldviews are typically comprised of three fundamental foundations, okay?

46:09

You have metaphysics, there's a theory of reality, epistemology, a theory of knowledge, how we know what we know, and an ethical theory, how should we live our lives?

46:18

And when you have a worldview in which one of those foundations are in conflict with some of the other foundations, right?

46:25

Or if you have a God or a religion that undermines itself, then this is not going to be a good candidate for being a perspective that can provide a coherent account of the laws of logic.

46:38

We have an example in Islam. Allah is able to do something that the Christian God cannot, okay?

46:45

Within scripture, the Bible says God cannot lie. And this is actually epistemologically relevant in that because of the

46:52

Christian world, you posit to God for which it is impossible for him to lie, that actually boils into or kind of touches into the issue that he can be trusted within the

47:00

Christian worldview, right? Someone says, well, how do you know God's, you know, not lying to you right now? Well, if he was lying to me, he wouldn't be the

47:06

Christian God, right? We're not talking about Christianity at that point. It's impossible for God to lie.

47:11

However, in Islam, God is able to lie. It's actually called the greatest of deceivers, okay?

47:19

Now, this is a problem epistemologically because if the metaphysical foundation of your worldview, that metaphysical item that provides the necessary preconditions for everything else can actually give falsehood, then that actually shoots a hole in your epistemology, right?

47:35

Why trust, why trust the words of Allah? Well, he can lie, but he's good and just.

47:40

Maybe that's one of the lies. Once you open that Pandora's box, you run into a whole bunch of philosophical problems and issues with coherency and things like that.

47:51

So if you're going to account for the laws of logic, the worldview that is posited must itself not be logically fallacious.

47:58

And so I think you can pick apart Islam on a number of different issues showing that in fact it is logically incoherent and therefore cannot account for the laws of logic.

48:10

Do you agree, Ron? Yeah, I mean, I'm reading the question.

48:16

Is it up on the screen for everybody? Yep, everyone can read it. Presuppositionist refute the idea.

48:22

Now, I don't know if this person means claim or idea, and I'm not trying to nitpick, but how could a presuppositionist refute the idea that Islam can account for the laws of logic?

48:37

Well, what is the theology and the philosophy of Islam?

48:44

Now, if Islam were true to the Old Testament, then they could account, but they're not true to it.

48:56

Okay, the religion is not true to it. The religion has a transcendent

49:02

God that's not personable. So how can he communicate his attributes, any of his attributes to us whereby we can know things?

49:15

And although we do reason according to the law of non -contradiction, excluding middle and all the rest, we reason this way, that's because the

49:26

Bible is true and the Christian interpretation of the Old Testament and the whole of scriptures is true.

49:35

Okay, but Islam as a philosophical thought, as an ism, they cannot account for the communication of the ideas of the laws of logic.

49:49

Again, we've never tested every law of logic. We don't have universal experience.

49:56

So we've never tested the universality of an abstract entity like logic, nor have we tested the future, but we believe the laws of logic are invariant.

50:09

Okay, so we can believe those things on the justification that God is good, that God has communicated himself to us as his image bearers whereby we think his thoughts after him, although analogically on a creature level.

50:23

Islam has none of that. They have an impersonal transcendent only God who is unknowable.

50:30

He cannot even reveal himself. All right. Yeah. All right, here's another one by Clayton.

50:37

He says, if there are multiple possible worldviews or multiple worldviews that are logically coherent, then what is the standard over the worldviews to determine which is the right one?

50:48

If there are multiple worldviews that are logically coherent, well, that's a statement that I would challenge too.

50:56

I don't believe that there are multiply equally coherent worldviews. As I said before, in a previous question, once you get to the foundation,

51:03

I mean, we can talk about consistency on a surface. I can make up a worldview right now that's quote logically coherent to a certain degree.

51:11

But once you dig down to the foundations, I think that there is only one coherent worldview.

51:17

But what Ron said before, I think is very important. Coherency doesn't equal truth. And so there is an other element that needs to be brought into the picture there.

51:26

So I wouldn't grant that there are multiple coherent worldviews ultimately. And then you said, what is the standard over the worldviews to determine which is the true one?

51:37

I would say the standard is the Christian worldview because the Christian worldview is the only worldview context that can ground truth, that can ground knowledge, that can ground universal invariant conceptual laws.

51:49

And that is the standard. I do not jump out of my worldview, ask the unbeliever to jump out of his worldview where we can float in this worldview independent context and evaluate between the multiplicity of worldviews.

52:02

No one has that God's eye perspective unless Christianity is true. And the one who has the

52:08

God's eye perspective is actually conveying that God's eye perspective to us via revelation. So I would not grant the premise of the question.

52:17

I hope that makes sense, Clayton. I'm gonna, Clayton has another question, but I'm gonna skip his second question, not because I don't think it's important, but I wanna get to some other folks' questions as well because there are a lot of them.

52:28

I wanna see how many we can plow through, okay? Blankman, that's an awesome name,

52:34

Blankman, not a philosophical question, but are you familiar with Mark S. Smith's recent book, "'Since

52:39

It's Getting a Lot of Traction with Lay Atheists', "'How to Deal with Judaism Evolved from Polytheism Matter '?"

52:46

Are you familiar with that, Eran? No, I'm not. No, I'm not. Judaism evolved from polytheism.

52:54

This might actually be related to kind of an evolutionary application of religious studies of which you have kind of this very primitive, animistic, polytheistic perspective that evolved over time from gods of water, sea, the sea, the clouds, the mountains, and then you kind of just get to this other developed religion where it says, eh, we just have one

53:17

God for it all. It might be presupposing that sort of application, but I think there are some good studies that show that that's actually not the case, and monotheism can be traced back pretty far back.

53:29

There is a philosophical paradigm that governs these sorts of ideas.

53:35

Now, I'm not familiar with his book. I'm not sure if that's where he's going, but that kind of sounds like what's going on there.

53:42

All right. All right, let's see here. Clayton asks, what about the worldview where the book of James is not really part of the canon?

53:51

Is that worldview logically possible? I would say that there's nothing logically incoherent if God were to create a world in which he gives us a

54:01

Bible that the book of James is not in it, but that's not the world we live in, right?

54:06

We live in the world in which God has given us the book of James, has given us the history of the Bible, has given us the entire history of canonicity and how all those things are determined, you know, textual criticism and all that stuff.

54:17

So we live in a world in which James is part of the canon and that Christians have a good justification for believing

54:23

James should be in the canon. Do you have anything to add to that, Ron? Well, I think early

54:29

Martin Luther, I think his worldview was still intact and coherent. Right. I mean, he eventually,

54:36

I think, landed on a canon within the canon. I'm not sure. I think that's somewhat familiar, but yeah, someone's just thinking counterfactually about James, but no, but where his worldview will be severely undermined is that when we talk about the canon, how do we know that we have the canon?

55:00

The Westminster Confession talks about how do we know it's the word of God and it's the eternal witness of the spirit, but how do we know that the 66 books of the

55:10

Bible and none other is the word of God? How do we know the Apocrypha is not the word of God?

55:16

How do we know the book of Mormon is not the word of God? Okay. And we have to,

55:22

I think, derive our theology of the canon from the canon.

55:29

And that's the nature of the case. I don't wanna go to the apostles.

55:35

It had to be an apostle because then we've got a problem with James, Luke, Acts, Hebrews, probably.

55:42

I don't wanna go to close association of the apostle because then we have a problem with Barnabas.

55:49

Barnabas wrote an apostle. So I don't wanna leave the scriptures. So I think there is a good, solid polemic for our belief that we have the canon.

56:04

Jesus put his imprimatur upon the law and the prophets. He did not put his imprimatur upon the

56:09

Apocrypha, though he could, but he didn't. He then said he's gonna build his church on the authority of the prophets, the apostles and Christ Jesus being the chief cornerstone.

56:24

Well, it's not their relics. It's not their bones. It's their words. It's their sound pattern of words. We did have the oral tradition, but that has not been preserved.

56:34

So the intention, the divine intention to build the church upon the word of God, the foundation being the word of God, that apostolic message had to be received for Jesus's promise to become fulfilled.

56:54

Now it's a matter of history. We have this edifice called the church, the foundation by the nature of the case had to be received.

57:02

And to bring the point home, I would say even if the apostles wanted to get it wrong, now we know that's not the case.

57:09

Jesus in the upper room, the Holy Spirit, they're gonna guide them in all truth. They received the word of God for what it was.

57:19

They recognized the word of God and they received it as such. The church did not make the word of God, the word of God.

57:27

There's the philosophical distinction of what is the case and what is known to be the case. The word of God, James was always the word of God.

57:33

It just got recognized as the word of God and received. Now, even though the apostles may have had a criteria, many criteria to determine what should be in the canon, that's not our basis.

57:46

We don't look to that criteria. Does it have the gospel message? Does it have the marks of divinity?

57:52

Yes, it has all those things, but our basis for believing that we did, the church indeed received the word of God is the promises that we find within the word of God.

58:02

Who can God swear by other than himself? Genesis 15, he can swear by no other.

58:08

Okay, so the word of God has to testify to it being the word of God. All right, thank you for that.

58:16

Ryan Leach says, politics aside and strictly speaking on logic, is there a logical fallacy within this statement?

58:22

I'm worried about your vaccination status because you could be in danger to my, you could be a danger to my child.

58:29

I'm worried about your vaccination status because you could be a danger to my child. Is there a logical fallacy there?

58:38

I don't see a logical fallacy. I mean, if the virus is a legitimate concern and the vaccinations work the way they're supposed to work and you don't have a vaccination, you could technically be a danger to someone, but not necessarily.

58:57

I mean, wherever you stand on vaccinations and anything like that, I don't see a logical fallacy in the statement. At least I don't recognize one.

59:06

Okay, neither do you, Ron? I don't see one. I don't see it either. All right, Matt Paisley says, how would you respond to someone saying

59:15

God is a narcissist and a cruel God? Why did he create a world full of people who are inclined to evil and then demand their obedience when they can't obey?

59:24

Would you like to take a stab at that and I'll add my two cents or I can take a stab of it and you add your two cents? What would you like to do?

59:30

Well, yeah, I mean, first of all, given the unbelieving worldview, how do you account for evil?

59:36

Discussion over. You have no basis for evil. You only have a basis for evil if there's an ultimate

59:42

God lawgiver. So otherwise, evil is just an arbitrary fact or an arbitrary experience.

59:51

It's not evil. It's just you go into a laboratory and we see chemical reactions. We see chance acting upon matter over time, matter of emotion.

59:59

They're neither moral nor immoral. They just are. So you have no claim on evil, but again,

01:00:05

God has a morally sufficient reason for the evil that he has determined for his glory and for our good, the good of the elect, and he is accountable to nobody.

01:00:15

But God does know evil. Right, Ron, right there. I think, so you dipped into two aspects there that I think are helpful to clarify.

01:00:22

You said, on the unbelieving worldview, where do you get evil from? Well, answer, you don't.

01:00:27

There is no objective evil from an unbelieving worldview, but I think this can be construed along the lines of an internal critique of the

01:00:36

Christian worldview. So suppose I can't account for objective evil from my atheistic perspective.

01:00:42

You know, some atheists think they can. They can't. I've heard various attempts. They're pretty bad, but we're not gonna get there.

01:00:48

Regardless, so suppose the atheist throws up their hands and says, well, I can't account for objective evil, but on your worldview, why is

01:00:54

God such a narcissist? Why is he so cruel, right? Well, if you hypothetically grant the Christian worldview, then you hypothetically grant the whole ball of wax, the entire

01:01:03

Christian worldview. And when you grant the entire Christian worldview, God isn't a narcissist. And given the

01:01:08

Christian worldview, contrary to whatever opinion someone might hold, God isn't cruel. God is just.

01:01:14

To call God cruel is to interpret God's actions a certain way. But you're going to interpret those actions based upon your presuppositions.

01:01:24

If the Christian worldview's true and you're operating on Christian presuppositions, then we don't call God cruel.

01:01:29

We call him righteous. We call him just. And everything he does has a sufficient reason for why he does what he does.

01:01:36

Why did he create a world full of evil people or whatever people who are inclined to evil and then demand their obedience, right?

01:01:44

Well, God has a right to demand obedience because he has a right to call his creatures to that which is the highest good.

01:01:50

If the Christian worldview's true, God is the highest good. If the Christian worldview's true, obeying

01:01:55

God is the highest good that a creature can do. And so God has the right as the creator to demand that from his creatures.

01:02:03

Why does he allow evil in the world? For a morally sufficient reason that's known to himself and partially revealed in scripture, okay?

01:02:11

The unbeliever doesn't have to accept that. They don't have to accept biblical reasons why God permits evil. But if the

01:02:16

Christian worldview's true, that's how it's explained, you know, period. I mean, God does what he does.

01:02:22

He has reasons for why he does it. He gives us those reasons. And in the areas we don't know, we trust him because the scripture also reveals that he is good, that he is right, that he is just, okay?

01:02:32

So that's how I would - What is a narcissist? Kind of someone who's like full of themselves, always, you know, actually, let me actually get the specific definition.

01:02:44

It merely means one who loves themselves. Yeah, let me see.

01:02:49

Let me get the specific definition. In that respect, he is a narcissist. He loves himself. He's perfect.

01:02:57

He loves perfection. It's not an abstraction. Yeah, and you're also equating the negative pejorative connotations of narcissism when applied to human beings who are not perfect.

01:03:11

And we love ourselves in sinful ways. God doesn't do that in that way. So a narcissist is someone who has an excessive interest in or admiration of themselves, okay?

01:03:20

It's when we have an admiration of ourselves, when we think that we are perfect and we're worthy of all these things, there's a problem.

01:03:27

When we think those things, we're wrong. When God thinks those things, he's right. When God says,

01:03:33

I deserve the glory, I'm worthy of worship, he's correct. We're not when we seek those things for ourselves because he is the perfect being.

01:03:42

There's a difference. As you said before, there is a creator -creature distinction. The creator is worthy of those things.

01:03:48

The creation is not, all right? All right, let's move on quickly here.

01:03:53

We're running out of time here. I'm gonna skip and probably grab some of the, let me see if we can bang out some quick ones, okay?

01:04:00

You might like this one, Ron. What doctrines would one need to hold to be a presuppositionalist?

01:04:06

As a classical Arminian, I've been convinced that a presuppositional approach is the most consistent and biblical.

01:04:12

So can an Arminian, let's tackle the question this way. Can an Arminian be a consistent presuppositionalist?

01:04:18

What do you think? That's a tough one.

01:04:25

No, it is a tough one. I mean, the presuppositionalist has to deal with many questions, not the least of which would be the problem of evil.

01:04:37

I'm not sure that even an Arminian or a Molinist on the skill level of William Lane Craig would give an adequate answer.

01:04:49

I would keep pressing on the knowledge of the counterfactuals. He was, and is there a feasible world in his philosophical theology, a feasible world where there is no sin?

01:05:02

So I think God has to deal the cards that he has dealt. And Arminianism out of the chute is very, it's very autonomous in its reasoning.

01:05:15

They deny many things, but I would have, I'd have to give that a bit more thought.

01:05:21

But as a gut feeling, I would say they would have a hard time being a consistent presuppositionalist.

01:05:31

But I'd have to give that some more thought. I would say that it would be inconsistent.

01:05:36

So I would hold perhaps a stronger position there. I don't think that an Arminian can be a consistent presuppositionalist.

01:05:43

Because when you take a look, for example, what was Van Til doing when he was fleshing this out? He was actually trying to flesh out an apologetic that flowed consistently from a reformed understanding of God, understanding of man.

01:05:57

You know, that relates to whole issues of sovereignty. How do you understand sovereignty as God on Arminian theology, the all conditioner?

01:06:05

He is the giver of all. There is no neutral fact. It's impossible to think in neutral and autonomous categories.

01:06:14

I think that presuppositionalism presupposes a reform, the Calvinistic understanding of God's meticulous sovereignty with respect to not only every event that occurs, but every fact that exists.

01:06:25

So that's Arminianism, I'm sorry, presuppositionalism presupposes,

01:06:31

I would argue, a reformed view of God's sovereignty that I don't think, I think is a little too strong for the

01:06:38

Arminian to hold. And I don't mean that to say that the Arminian view of sovereignty is weak, although I think personally,

01:06:44

I believe it is. But I don't think the Arminian can affirm that sort of sovereignty. And this all has metaphysical and epistemological implications.

01:06:52

There was an episode that I had on my show entitled, The Relationship Between Reformed Theology and Presuppositional Apologetics.

01:06:59

Brandon, you might wanna check that one out. Well, one last comment if I may on this one, because it's an intriguing question, because I think the classical

01:07:06

Arminian, they do not have a total depravity that we have.

01:07:13

Okay, there is grace that is offered, but God is not, regeneration does not perceive grace.

01:07:21

There's an antithesis that they have in their common notions and their assumptions, their basic presuppositions that function just fine.

01:07:32

And all they have to do is add more information. And that would be a problem. But what

01:07:37

I'm trying to think through is can they check their Arminianism at the door? And when they step into the philosophical realm, be a presuppositionalist.

01:07:51

Because we all can be happily inconsistent. I don't think it would be consistent with their

01:07:56

Arminianism. But as the question was stated, I think that the Arminian can,

01:08:02

I mean, the Arminian can't, he prays. Well, he shouldn't pray if he's

01:08:08

Arminian. He should go up and talk to somebody, because he's praying,

01:08:16

God watch over me over the road. Well, I'll make you safe, but I'm not gonna invade the free will of the drunk.

01:08:23

Okay, so the Arminian has no basis for his prayer unless, when he gets on his knees and he's praying, and he's asking for God to do something in the heart of somebody.

01:08:35

He's behaving like a Calvinist. What I'm thinking is he can be inconsistent in his apologetic, inconsistent with his, and might not be able to reconcile with his

01:08:46

Arminianism, but can he take a presuppositional approach and just not reconcile it with his

01:08:51

Arminianism? I think he can be inconsistent. He can be happily inconsistent. Okay, thank you for that.

01:09:00

Camus, I get it, there's a cow picture there. Well played. What are the problems with interpreting the

01:09:05

Bible as completely literal? I know someone who thinks like this and was wondering if there was a problem with that way of thinking.

01:09:13

Well, Camus, I think it's a very important, and I'm glad you asked this question. It's actually a very important question to ask with respect to how we interpret the

01:09:21

Bible. When someone asks me, do you interpret the Bible literally? I don't answer yes or no.

01:09:28

I think the appropriate question is, well, what do you mean by literal? Because from an interpretive perspective, to interpret the

01:09:35

Bible literally is to interpret the Bible in accordance with its literature. So if I'm reading a book of the

01:09:42

Bible whose genre is poetry, then that's gonna affect how I interpret that specific portion of scripture.

01:09:49

I want to interpret it literally, namely in accordance with its literature. If it's poetry, I want to interpret it poetically.

01:09:56

If it's a historical narrative, I want to interpret it in a way that is consistent with that particular genre.

01:10:02

So when you say the interpreting the Bible completely literal, if you mean by literal, interpret the entire

01:10:10

Bible in accordance with its literature, then that's what we're supposed to be doing. However, if you're using literal as kind of a wooden literalism, like the trees clap for joy.

01:10:20

And so when the Bible says the trees clap for joy, I'm envisioning trees kind of just clapping and like, woo!

01:10:27

That's what happens when you interpret the Bible in a wooden literal sense. So I would say that it's good that we interpret the

01:10:33

Bible literally as long as we understand what we mean by interpreting the Bible literally.

01:10:39

So I hope that that makes sense, Camu. Thank you for that question. Just real quick,

01:10:45

Eric Anderson says, thank you for going over these things in conversation.

01:10:50

It's really helpful. I've been reading Precept for about a year, mainly Bonson, good to hear it fleshed out. Well, thank you so much for that.

01:10:56

I'm glad that this content is helping you. That's what it's here for. So thank you for that,

01:11:01

Eric. What were you gonna say, Ron? Well, no, I'm sympathetic to Camu because there is a teaching that some people have come under the spell of, and the teaching is, and it's associated with a dispensational hominid.

01:11:14

Wherever you can take it literally, trees clapping, we wouldn't. You should take it literally, okay?

01:11:23

144 ,000 in Revelation, okay? Which is really, when we see a number like 144, and we see numbers by 12 in the same book, we should be thinking 12 square.

01:11:35

There are 666 is right below 777, a number of perfection in the

01:11:41

Bible. So there's certain, most of evangelicalism or evangelical church will probably have that hermeneutic where it can be taken literally, we should.

01:11:56

And that's not doing justice to the type of literature it is. Ron, why don't you take a stab at this next one?

01:12:04

This is from Skyler Fiction. He is a YouTube atheist. I've had some interactions with him in the past.

01:12:11

They weren't that great. He's actually the, I'm sure he'll laugh listening to this, but he's actually the only person

01:12:16

I've actually walked off the show. I mean, it just wasn't productive. So that was quite unfortunate.

01:12:22

But for the most part, the earlier part of our discussion was really good. And I did appreciate some of the questions he asked.

01:12:29

But that said, Skyler does say, he says, God is not a starting point. It's a conclusion you've been taught.

01:12:35

What happens when you're talking with an atheist and you're sharing your view, we have to start with God, these sorts of things.

01:12:41

How would you respond to someone who says, God isn't a starting point. It's a conclusion that you've been taught? This is my question?

01:12:48

Yeah, yeah. How would you respond to that? I think it's a false dilemma. I mean, God is my starting point and he is my conclusion.

01:12:56

And he's Alpha and Omega. So God, look,

01:13:02

God is the precondition for intelligible experience.

01:13:11

So on the blank, causality, truth, laws of logic, abstract entities, the precondition for inductive inference.

01:13:24

And then we also conclude, if we were giving an argument, therefore

01:13:30

God exists. But this might confuse, maybe not this gentleman, but it confuses a lot of people.

01:13:36

We do not know God exists because of cleverly devised proofs. We know that a priori.

01:13:43

We know that in conscience and the created order. We don't come to that through discursive reasoning.

01:13:51

It's immediate knowledge. I've heard people quibble about that. Yes, it's mediated through the brain and the things that are made, but it's an immediate as in not discursive.

01:14:05

We're not coming up to God through a, hopefully, not through a natural theology.

01:14:11

There's natural revelation, but the natural theology is not how we're coming to know God. So God is not our conclusion in that we have to reason ourself to God, but we can prove

01:14:25

God by the impossibility of the contrary. That's not a big deal, but he's our starting point in that he makes everything intelligible, that is intelligible.

01:14:37

Right. And it's interesting, if someone were to disagree with that, well, no, he's not a starting point. Well, that goes to a previous question.

01:14:44

Why is it impossible to be neutral? When someone says, well, he's not a starting point. Oh, yes, he is.

01:14:50

There you go. So both of us are claiming to have a God's eye perspective as to what's an appropriate starting point, right?

01:14:58

So if he doesn't think God is a starting point, then there needs to be some other starting point.

01:15:04

And so is that starting point sufficient to ground things like knowledge, logic, all of these important worldview issues?

01:15:11

So I think that's a kind of an important application to make, all right? And of course, that wasn't a question, it was just a statement, but I think your comments there were sufficient.

01:15:20

Let me skip through a couple of these. Vincent, the sire, asks, what's

01:15:25

Ron's thoughts about Van Til's thoughts? This is a meta thought question, right? What's Ron's thoughts about Van Til's thoughts about the doctrine of God?

01:15:34

That's a very broad question. First of all, the sire, I'm familiar with you, and I appreciate the things you've done for the kingdom.

01:15:46

My thoughts about Van Til's thoughts about the doctrine of God, not a high point.

01:15:58

I think Lane Tipton, whom I respect, he has tried to salvage much of this in bringing

01:16:08

Hodge into the equation. And he puts a lot into perichoresis.

01:16:17

I'm assuming he means one person, three persons. Yes, we think of a person with an essence and because there's one essence, but it's at best a critical to say that God is one person and three person, because we're using person two different ways,

01:16:39

I believe, in such close proximity. It's just asking for trouble. So I would not claim him on that.

01:16:49

I mean, people are willing. I mean, they're free to draw their own conclusions. I believe in three persons, one

01:17:01

God, one nature, one essence, equally ultimate. The essence, and sometimes I read this and I feel like I'm coming up with a quadrinity that we have the

01:17:11

Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit mutually indwelling each other, occupying the same divine space.

01:17:17

And then we've got this fourth person of the essence. Okay. I think there's a lot of confusion around that.

01:17:27

I would rather just abandon it than try to save it. Okay. All right, let's take one more question.

01:17:35

There are questions mixed in with a bunch of comments and I do apologize if I skipped your question. I may go back actually, because I have to start winding things down a bit.

01:17:45

But I wanna go back to the comments and maybe do some independent videos answering some of the questions we missed.

01:17:51

So if your question wasn't asked, that's totally not on purpose. I wish I had all the time in the world, but I don't.

01:17:57

But maybe if you leave them in the comments, I'll visit the comment section, which is a dangerous place on YouTube, but I'll visit the comment section and maybe make some independent videos covering some of these questions because some of them are pretty good.

01:18:10

So let's take this last one here. I think this is a cool one to end here. And by the way, thank you so much for your questions.

01:18:18

Thank you so much for your support. Everyone, whether you're a Christian, maybe a proponent of a different religious perspective or an atheist,

01:18:24

I do appreciate you listening in and contributing to the conversation via your questions and comments. Thank you so much.

01:18:30

All right, here's the final question. JG asks, I have a question for, well, for me,

01:18:36

I suppose. How can Paul account for his writings in Romans 13 verses one through five after recently playing an active part as Saul in a corrupted government that persecuted

01:18:46

Christians? Okay, that's a little weirdly worded. Let me see. So Romans chapter 13 verses one through five says, let every person be subject to the governing authorities for there is no authority except from God.

01:18:59

And those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what

01:19:05

God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For the rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.

01:19:12

Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good and you will receive his approval for he is

01:19:18

God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid for he does not bear the sword in vain for he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out

01:19:27

God's wrath on the wrongdoer. All right, so this is an issue of obeying the government that the government leaders are put there by God in some sense, and so they should be respected on some level.

01:19:38

And so I'm trying to understand this question. Maybe you could help me out, Ron. So how can Paul account for his writings in Romans 13, one through five, after recently playing an active part as Saul in a corrupted government that persecuted

01:19:52

Christians? I mean, is he, I'm not sure what he's asking. Do you wanna, do you? Well, the corrupted government that persecuted

01:20:00

Christians, I think what he's saying is how can he condemn that which he did?

01:20:10

I'm not sure. Well, if he's condemning what he did, I mean, what he did was wrong, so it's easy to condemn that, right?

01:20:17

And just because God institutes governments and leaders doesn't mean that we can't condemn their actions.

01:20:23

That's not what Paul is saying here either. Well, yeah, I think some people, and again,

01:20:28

I'm not quite sure what Jim is getting at, but I think some people feel like, and I've seen this with parents and their children.

01:20:35

Sadly, they're like, well, I can't condemn that because we did that before we were married.

01:20:43

Yeah. In between the line. Well, what you are upholding is not that you are some paragon of moral rectitude throughout your life.

01:20:51

What you are upholding in humility is the law of God, whether we broke it or not, okay?

01:21:00

So we're just sinners showing other sinners where to find bread and what the law is, even though we are transgressors of the law.

01:21:10

Right. I don't know if she feels that's a hypocrisy on Paul's part.

01:21:17

Maybe that's what Jay is getting at. Yeah, I don't see it. I mean, I don't see hypocrisy anywhere. I mean, I think Paul's speaking of like the ideal function of the government.

01:21:26

Generally speaking, we should respect the government. We shouldn't, you know, we need to avoid doing the sorts of behavior that would give us reason to fear, you know, the power of the government.

01:21:37

Assuming, yeah, what this person is assuming is that the government permitted Paul's persecution of the church and that Paul's actions were sinful and he was full steam ahead with that.

01:21:49

And now he's, he's, he's would condemn that sort of thing. Right. And is that inconsistent?

01:21:56

No, because condemning, we're making an assessment based upon the law of God, not about what we did in our past life.

01:22:05

And even with respect to respecting the government, I mean, Paul didn't write this in isolation and nor is he speaking this in isolation from the broader context of scripture.

01:22:14

We are to obey the government. We are to honor those who are in authority over us. But there is a dividing line.

01:22:20

There's a, there's an escape clause to that, right? When the government is, is putting forth ideas that would cause us to sacrifice our commitment to God, then there is, there is room for condemning those sorts of things.

01:22:36

So this is not a universal kind of blanket statement with no caveat. I mean, obviously the

01:22:41

John the Baptist condemned Herod, right, Jesus condemned Herod and the religious leaders, right?

01:22:48

So condemning the, those in authority is not inconsistent with the general principle that we should obey those who are, who are over us.

01:22:56

So I don't see an inconsistency there. I hope I understood the question. That was a kind of a weirdly, it was a good question.

01:23:02

Now I think about that. So thank you so much, Jay. Ron, thank you so much. I know you came at the last minute.

01:23:07

I hope you had a good time. I am, I've been loud and animated.

01:23:12

People can't see it, but I'm so tired. So I have to, I have to give my brain a rest.

01:23:18

It's been a long day, but I appreciate it so much that you were able to come on at the last second,

01:23:23

Ron. Well, it's good. I'm going to go have a glass of wine with my wife and watch this with her.

01:23:29

She is not seeing this. And my kids are at a bleachers concert. So we're going to kick back, but you enjoy your night with your beautiful family.

01:23:39

They look lovely. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. And once again, guys, thank you so much for listening in.

01:23:45

If you like this kind of Q and A format, I don't mind doing this more often. I usually do my show around like 9 p .m.

01:23:52

And so I have more time then, but I gotta go run and get some dinner. So, and next

01:23:58

Thursday, Dr. Matthew Barrett, we're going to be defending the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. Very, very important topic to cover and a very able scholar to have that discussion with.