Apologia Academy - Presuppositional Apologetics and Mormonism

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So my name is Jeff Durbin, and this is actually for us the first Apologia All Access class.

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ApologiaRadio .com is my website, and at ApologiaRadio .com you can get our radio programs where we do a lot in apologetics and evangelism and outreach, and we also have a television program.

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The television program can be accessed at our website, and all of our All Access participants and partners get to get the television shows and the after shows we have, and a lot of the other things we do are available there at the

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All Access at ApologiaRadio .com, and you guys can see Apologia TV on the

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NRB network starting in October twice a week. And so this is the first All Access class, so I'm super excited.

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And we're talking about a subject that is very near and dear to my heart, and that's apologetics. And if you guys have no idea what apologetics is,

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I think a good way to describe it is the art and science, I think, of defending the faith.

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And so this is a really important task for us as Christians because Christianity is a religion, and obviously a relationship with the living

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God, but it is a faith that is very much rooted in objective truth, facts, history, evidence.

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And so Christians, we say that we love the one who's the very embodiment of truth.

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I mean, it's a famous verse. I hope you all know it. It's John 14 6. I am the way and the truth and the life.

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No man comes to the Father but by me. So it's really an amazing thing that we have as Christians, a foundation to talk about knowledge, to talk about evidence, to talk about facts, to desire truth.

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That's something that we get to own. And it's really interesting because we live in a time where there's been an erosion in the

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West of Christian principles and a Christian culture, a culture of Christ, you might say, where early on in our history in the

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West, in America, we were very much Christian in our thinking and in our culture.

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And the Puritans coming over, the Calvinists, the Huguenots, and all that we have as our heritage, a lot of that's been eroded now.

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The history of Christianity is very, very fascinating in terms of Christians being a thinking kind of people, being about education and knowledge and discovery and science.

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And so some of the world's most respected institutions to this day were not started on secularist or atheistic principles.

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They were started really in the very beginning as Christian institutions of learning and expanding knowledge and discovery.

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And so you think about Oxford and you think about Cambridge and Harvard and Yale and Brown University. These are institutions that were started off as really distinctly

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Christian institutions, modern science, as we have it today. You can thank the Christian worldview for your smartphones.

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You can thank the Christian worldview for astronomy and where it's gone today. You can thank the Christian worldview for the advances in virtually every major area of science.

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It was the Christian worldview that gave modern science the pop that it had. And you see some of the greatest intellectual minds and giants in history in the last 2 ,000 years were

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Christians. Christians really ruled in many ways in the world when it came to the advances in art and music and science and architecture.

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We were the leaders. And we live in a day and age today where there's been such an erosion, where Christians are seen in our culture, let's admit it, let's just say it as it is, as the idiots, right?

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As the buffoons. We're the ones that take blind leaps of faith into nothing. We don't prize truth and evidence.

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We are people that are termed blind faith religionists. And so that's where we actually find ourselves today.

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Now, I want to say something here. That is not at all in accord with the facts of the

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Christian worldview or our actual practice. It is, I think, the result of a lack of bold gospel proclamation to the culture.

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And so we find ourselves in an interesting area right now as Christians is that Jesus commands us to love truth.

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And it's interesting because when I quoted that verse to you, John 14, 6, how do we generally quote that text? We quote it often to somebody when we want to lead them to Christ, to point them to Jesus.

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We say that he's the way, he's the truth, he's the life. No one comes to the Father but by him.

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So we don't mince words about the fact that Jesus is the exclusive way to reconciliation and peace with God, right?

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And so we point people to that. Jesus is the only way to be reconciled to God. Apart from Jesus, there is no salvation.

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Peter says so much in the book of Acts when he's proclaiming at Pentecost the glories and excellencies of Jesus.

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What does he say? He says, neither is there salvation in any other for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby you must be saved.

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He's talking about Jesus. And so, by the way, that was an amazing thing. We don't often know our history.

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Peter was actually directly defying Rome when he said that.

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So Christianity is so in your face, so committed to truth that it was willing to actually come against the state of the day.

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That's the kind of bold treatment it was. So you think, for example, when the Christians in the book of Acts are captured, this goes to the bold proclamation of the gospel and a commitment to truth, right?

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And, of course, its consequences. The Christians are actually captured. And what was the charge against the

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Christians in the first century? It was just known and understood what their message was. It was this.

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They say there's another king, Jesus. And that was something that you could not do.

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Think about this in terms of our boldness, that we should really get back to a biblical boldness, a humble boldness.

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Christians were known in the first century in the context of a hostile state for saying,

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Jesus is what? Anyone know? No?

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This is like Ferris Bueller now. Anyone? Anyone? Jesus is

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Lord, right? And what did Rome want to say at the time? They wanted to say, Caesar is

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Lord. He's the ultimate. Caesar is the ultimate. You can have whatever gods you want. Rome said that.

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You can have whatever little gods you want. Didn't really make a difference to Rome. They were a pagan culture. Let's just accept that. You could worship anything.

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They didn't care that you worshiped Jesus. You could have worshiped a rock. They didn't really care. But you got to give just a little pinch of incense to Caesar.

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You got to just give just a little bit. You got to make sure that you see as ultimate and supreme

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Caesar above your God, Jesus. And the Christians were killed, not necessarily because Rome didn't like the idea of Jesus as a

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God you worship, but they were killed because they would not say as an ultimate that Caesar is the ultimate.

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They said Jesus is the ultimate. You might be asking, well, how's this relate to apologetics? It relates in a very, very dramatic way.

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And here's why. When we talk about apologetics, we're talking about a defense of the

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Christian faith. We're talking about defending the Christian faith, not some general form of theism, like perhaps there's a

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God out there, some kind of God. Maybe there's some supreme being, some supreme intelligence.

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Maybe he or it or she is not knowable, but there's something out there. And popular today are,

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I think, apologetic methodologies. Maybe you guys have heard of a man named William Lane Craig.

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He's a very famous Christian apologist, loves Jesus, calls people to faith in Jesus at times, and he does defend the resurrection of Jesus, I think, quite powerfully in a sense of the historical evidences for Jesus.

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But we find ourselves in a conflict when it comes to ultimate commitments, like I was talking about with Christians in Rome.

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Ultimate commitments. Oftentimes Christian apologetics, again today, will be in terms of maybe

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God exists. Anybody see the movie that came out this past year, or maybe it was the year before?

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I forget now, I'm getting old, and you just sort of forget. Amen? Okay, the movie

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God's Not Dead. Hear about that? There were popular memes for all you older people.

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These are things on a thing called the internet. They go around, they're little pictures, and they give little quick messages, okay?

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Okay, just trying to help everybody out, okay? There was a popular meme that was going around when this film came out, and the meme was about the movie, and it was a clip from the movie, and it was popular.

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It was liked like thousands upon thousands of times. That means people approve of the message when you like it on your social media, and the meme, it was a picture from the film

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God's Not Dead, and it's a man standing there at the podium, and he's the Christian defending God's existence, and he says this.

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He says something to the effect of atheists say you cannot prove God exists, and then underneath it, it says, well, that's true.

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Let that hang for a second, and then he says, but you can't prove that he doesn't exist either, and everybody's like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, and it went out everywhere.

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Share, share, share, share, share, share, share. Christians are sharing, sharing. God's Not Dead, God's Not Dead. See? You see, atheists?

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Gotcha. I can't prove God exists, but you can't prove he doesn't.

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Nanny, nanny, boo -boo, like it's this, like this contest of, you know, we all really don't know, and we're all taking a chance here.

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You're taking a risk with maybe he doesn't, but I'm taking a risk, you know, over here, and so we really have to say, you know, what is it?

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50 -50? Is it more 60 -40? God exists, and it's an interesting thing, isn't it?

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Because you do not see that apologetic methodology, that defense of the faith anywhere in the

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Bible. The idea that God maybe doesn't exist, or he's more statistically probable that he exists.

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Now, the Christian faith comes with things like the heavens declare the glory of God. The fool says in his heart there is no

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God. You capture that? Now, I want the meme that goes out like that. It's the Christian at the podium that says, the fool says in his heart there is no

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God. Not that God is a mere possibility, because you see, this is a question about ultimate commitments, because when we talk about Christian apologetics over this course, we're going to talk about basic Christian apologetics, maybe talk about a little more advanced stuff as we're here.

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We'll see where we go, but we're going to talk also about Mormonism and lead that into a discussion of how do we actually reach our

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Mormon neighbors, but this entire series is going to actually assume something, and here's what will be assumed throughout the entire course, and that is that Jesus Christ is the truth, that Jesus Christ is the ultimate authority, that God is the central reference point in all questions of knowledge and truth, and that apart from God, we can't know anything, so we're going to actually argue in this course that the proof of the

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Christian faith is that apart from God, you can't prove anything at all. We're going to prove the

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Christian faith from the impossibility of the contrary, and this is where we need to get right into the charter verse of Christian apologetics.

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You guys got your Bibles? You got to have your Bibles. Turn those pages. It's good for the soul. One of my heroes of the faith,

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Dr. Walter Martin, said we're going to go to the charter verse of Christian apologetics. No course on apologetics would be complete without going to this text, 1

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Peter 3 .15. 1 Peter 3 .15. Some of you guys already know it, right? This is considered the charter verse of Christian apologetics, an important text.

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Now, I want you to have that text in front of you, and I'm going to quote it as it's often quoted today in Christian culture.

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I'm going to let you get to that text, 1 Peter 3 .15, and I'm going to remind you as you get to the text that this is an interesting text to read because of the person who's writing it.

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Now, we know, of course, that 2 Timothy 3 .16, all Scripture is theanoustos.

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It's God breathed. It's God's revelation to us, and that Peter says, holy men of God spoke as they were carried along by the

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Holy Spirit. So, ultimately, give me the t -shirts. I'm going to say it. God is the author of Scripture, right?

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But he uses human authors to do so, and their unique character and qualities, right?

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But when you think about 1 Peter 3 .15 and the commitments that Peter is getting us to, you have to think about the person that's saying it.

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Peter is known for what? In the life of Christ, right? What's his famous event?

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It wasn't good for him. He has a couple of these, right? But it's a famous event in Peter's life with Jesus and his ministry that we all remember him for.

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It was a disastrous thing for Peter, okay? What was it? That's right. We already have the, that's right, right?

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What is it now? He denied Jesus, right? So, the apostle Peter, in his ministry with Jesus, while Jesus is within earshot, essentially, of Peter, at the time where Jesus needs

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Peter the most, Peter denied that he even knew Jesus, and he did so three times, and he did so because of a little servant girl, right?

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Oh, how brave, Peter, right? It was a servant girl. It wasn't some big guy, right?

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Big, muscle -bound, right? With five necks, and, you know, this big dude, this Roman centurion or something.

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This is like a servant girl, and she's like, oh, I thought your accent's giving you away. I know you're with Jesus. You sound like that, and he says,

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I don't know what you're talking about, and he goes away cursing and everything else and displaying that he didn't take his

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Awanas class seriously, right? What comes out of your mouth is from there, okay? But, so, when we get to 1

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Peter 3 -15, we talk about Christian apologetics, the charter verse for all

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Christians to be ready with a reason defense, an apologetic defense of the faith for the hope that's within you, that charter verse comes from the guy that, in the ministry of Jesus, he denies even knowing

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Jesus. That's what makes this text so spectacular, I think, for me, and I'm going to read it to you as it's often read today, and I want you to look down at the text, please.

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1 Peter 3 -15. The apostle

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Peter says, always being ready to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence and respect.

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Always being ready to give a reason defense to everyone who asks of you a reason for the hope that's within you, yet do it with gentleness and with respect.

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Isn't that often how we hear that text? Anybody ever hear it quoted just like that? It's just sort of Christians say, no, you're called by God to give a defense of the faith.

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You need to have a reason to everyone who asks of you. That's a monumental task to everyone who asks of me, the

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Mormon, the Jehovah's Witness, the Muslim, the Christian scientist, the Rosicrucian, the secularist, the agnostic, the atheist, everybody with a reason for everybody.

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Yes, the Bible says every Christian be ready with a reason defense. Now the word there quickly and keep ready in that text there, the word there for defense in the

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Greek is apologia. And that's actually the name of our church. It's the name of our radio program.

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It's the name of our television show. And so we're fond of the word. We like it. Okay. Apologia in the

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Greek is that word that means a reasoned defense, reasoned defense.

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And the word itself is think in terms of courtroom language. Okay. So picture yourself for a moment.

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You're standing before the judge. You're in the dock. The judge is above you. You're in the dock and you are answering, right?

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Now, when you are put before that judge, how do you go in? Do you go in willy nilly kind of cavalier like, hey, judge, like, you know, you should believe me and try to sort of smooth talk the judge.

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Or do you go in before the judge with facts and evidences and eyewitnesses and proof?

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You come in with a reasoned defense, a case before the judge, evidences and truth and facts and eyewitnesses.

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It's all there. That's what you do before the judge. That's the word Peter says. Every Christian be ready with a apologia, a reasoned defense for everyone who asks of you a reason for the hopeless within you.

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Yet do it with what guys? Gentleness and what? Respect. Now, we know what the call is, but there's something

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I left off of that verse. And this comes down to what I was talking about in the very beginning. Make a big circle back again about ultimate commitments.

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The early Christians had ultimate commitments that everybody knew about. These were ultimate commitments that they actually ended up giving their lives for.

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They were some of them beheaded, some of them crucified, some of them flayed, some of them pulled apart, some of them murdered in ugly, ugly ways.

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They died for those commitments. Those were ultimate commitments. And in the task of apologetics and defending the faith, it does come down always to ultimate commitments.

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The unbeliever has ultimate commitments. The Jehovah's Witness has ultimate commitments to the organization, the

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Watchtower. The Mormon has ultimate commitments to Joseph Smith and his revelation as a modern day prophet.

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Everybody has ultimate commitments. They are impossible to avoid because we're creatures. But I left something out of that verse when

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I quoted it. Anybody want to tell me what I left off of the verse? I'll read it again.

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In your hearts, revere Christ, honor Christ as Lord.

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Now watch this. Watch this. This is very critical. You've got to hang on to this. If you get this, you will get virtually everything else in this entire course we're going to do.

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Everything. The issue in apologetics that comes down to ultimately a moral issue for Christians is about ultimate commitments.

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The issue in philosophy that comes down to whether you are actually consistent or not comes down to your ultimate commitments.

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And Peter, in the charter verse of Christian apologetics, when he's calling Christians to be ready with a reason defense to everyone who asks of you, a reason for the hope that's within you, listen, he says this, set

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Christ apart as Lord. In your hearts.

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So for Peter, he says this, in the task of Christian apologetics, what has to occur first, before you go out and defend the faith, before you go out and try to provide reasons for the hopes within you, he says this, you first set

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Jesus apart as Lord. That's an ultimate commitment. And so that's one of the most critical things in this entire course.

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I'm going to point you to a work real fast. This will be part of the course for the all -access.

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I'm going to point you to the work, and that is Dr. Greg Bonson's book Presuppositional Apologetics.

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Presuppositional Apologetics Stated and Defended by Greg Bonson. This is my personal hero of the faith.

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I think a man most responsible for a lot of my thinking as a Christian and as a pastor, as a minister of the gospel,

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Greg Bonson has greatly, dramatically impacted my thinking. And I believe that this work will change your life in the sense that it will point you to Christ and see that Jesus really is

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Lord over everything, including our thinking. And it'll transform your heart and firm up your commitments as a

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Christian. And I want to say this, when we do apologetics, and when we're studying for apologetics, if in our pursuit of a reason defense for our faith, we are not being shaped more as a

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Christian and actually growing in our fondness and love toward Jesus, then we're doing apologetics wrong.

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Because quickly, and this is where, again, this is where the rubber hits the road right now. There are different ideas for Christians as to how we should defend the faith.

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There's classical Christian apologetics, evidentialist apologetics, presuppositional apologetics.

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There's different ways we can defend the faith. And I want to say this, how we go about defending the faith determines whether or not that pursuit is faithful and whether that pursuit actually contains the ability to preach the gospel to the person, to point them to Jesus for life, and whether or not our apologetic is philosophically consistent.

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It's vitally important that we grab hold of the fact that this is about ultimates, ultimate commitments, ultimate standards.

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And so what I'm going to point us to is very first this, the myth of neutrality. So if you're taking notes right now, this is something that Dr.

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Greg Bonson used to say often, and it's this, the myth of neutrality.

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Nobody is neutral. Nobody is neutral towards God. And I'm going to grab hold of a couple of verses right now so that you can have these in your toolbox as foundational in terms of how we actually reach the world with the gospel.

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Because that's what this is all about. Amen? It's not about just gaining more knowledge. It's about how do I lead people to Jesus in an effective and faithful way.

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And so there's no neutrality. And this is what's vitally important to remember here. When we do apologetics, sometimes people say, well, here's what we need to do.

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With the atheist, the hostile militant atheist of the day, what we need to do is grab the dump truck of evidences.

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We need to push the button and release the lever so that it actually just dumps on the unbeliever, and we hope what?

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Something sticks. Right? And here's the thing. When it comes to the evidences for our faith, the transmission of the text of the

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Bible, the evidences for Jesus as the divine Son of God, as God in the flesh, as resurrected from the dead, when we think about all of the intricacies of the universe and the beauty of God's creation, and the fact that there is truly irreducible complexity in the world, meaning that the farther down you go, it is just irreducibly complex.

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In other words, you can't take parts out without destroying the whole thing. Of course, evidence for God everywhere.

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And here's what I'm saying. The unbeliever is left without a reasoned defense, without an apologetic, because there's so much evidence.

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But in terms of defending the faith and the Christian apologetics, we have to ask ourselves the question, are we going to believe what the unbeliever actually says about themselves or what

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God says about them? Whose voice gets first shot?

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The unbeliever who says something like, there's no evidence for God. I don't believe in God. There's not enough evidence for God.

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Or do we believe God when he says in Romans chapter one, verse 18 and onwards, he says this, the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

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For that which is known about God, listen closely, is evident within them for God has shown it to them.

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For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes and eternal power have been clearly, clearly understood.

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Now the Bible says this in Romans one, watch this. The unbeliever is not neutral towards God.

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Think about it in your Bibles, Romans one. It says God's wrath is being revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

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And what does it say? That they don't know God. It says what? For that which is known about God is evident within them for God has made it evident to them.

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So here's what you want to grab hold of at the very beginning of this. When we talk about an antithesis, Christian versus say, militant atheism, okay, anti -theism even today.

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So two completely polar opposites. What does the Bible say about the unbeliever? That he actually or she knows

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God. Now watch this. It says that God has made it evident to them.

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So just think for a moment here about this. If the Bible says that God is the all -powerful God and he has actually given the revelation of himself to every single person in the entire world who's ever lived, then we have to ask the question, is there such a thing as a person who truly doesn't know

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God? According to Romans one, that's not true. You might say this, but wait a minute, Jeff.

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There are lots of people who worship all kinds of other things. There are lots of people that deny that God even exists.

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I've got a few in my family and they're the hardest to deal with, right? Anybody have the token atheist in the family?

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Anybody got anything like that? Okay, all right. Okay, then you know what I'm getting at, right? So you might say, well, Jeff, this doesn't make any sense.

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They say they don't know God. They act like they don't know God. They war against God. They argue against God.

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So what do you mean they know God? The Bible says this. It's not a problem for any of us of a lack of evidence or light about God.

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It says what? That we suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

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So why are there atheists? We suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Why are there people who actually worship other gods?

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Why are people in Mormonism worshiping the Mormon God who was once a man who became a

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God one day and created Jesus and Lucifer as brothers? Why are there

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Jehovah's Witnesses that believe that Jehovah is the eternal God who created Jesus as a second

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God? Why are there Muslims who deny that Jesus Christ is actually God in the flesh and that he died for sins and rose from the dead?

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Why is that? And the Bible says in Romans chapter 1, it says this, that God is so clearly evident to all of us, since the very creation of the world, the creation is preaching to us, that what we do is this.

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We profess to be wise, Romans 1, and we become fools. That our thoughts are futile.

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And watch this. It says we exchange the glory of God for a false

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God, for images. Rather than worshiping the God who created all things, we worship the stuff instead of God.

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And why is that? Because fundamentally, we are sons and daughters of the same mom and pa.

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Mom and dad, same parents. Who are our first parents? Adam and Eve.

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And this is really interesting. It's sad that I have to say that today in Christian context. And the Christians in the West, we have people even actually professing to be believers and denying that there was a real historical

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Adam and Eve, which is an amazing thing. But the Bible says that all of us are sons and daughters of Adam.

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And in Romans chapter 5, watch this. There is no neutrality. It's a myth. In Romans chapter 5, the apostle

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Paul says this, that all of humanity is broken down into one of two representatives.

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We are either Romans 5 in Adam, where there is condemnation and death, or we are in Christ, where there is the gift of eternal life and life.

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Now watch. How does this actually relate to the issue of apologetics? In every single way.

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Because neutrality is a myth. Nobody is neutral. The unbeliever is not neutral in their commitments, and Christians, we shouldn't be.

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Romans chapter 5 says this, everybody is in one of two representatives, Adam or Jesus.

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There is no kind of middle ground. There is either in Adam, related to him, connected to him, in covenant, or Jesus.

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That's how Paul puts it. So watch this. From a biblical perspective, there is no neutrality.

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It's a myth. There is no halfway fallen person. All of us know

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God, Romans 1. But what do we do with that knowledge, guys? We suppress the truth. Now watch this. I need you to come with me on this one.

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It's very, very important. Suppress the truth in unrighteousness. This is the big one that you will discover.

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If you grab hold of this, you will begin to watch the unbeliever as they talk. Very different suppression of truth.

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It says in Romans 1, what? That all of us know God, but we suppress the truth in unrighteousness. And the word there, suppress, very much is the idea of a holding down actively.

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So it says that the unbeliever is actively holding down the knowledge of God, the truth of God, actively holding down.

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And my hero of the faith, Dr. Greg Bonson, used to relate it in this way to if you were in a pool, and you were in a pool, and you had a ball.

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Ever done this? Have a ball in a pool? And you take that ball, and you shove it underwater. Ever done that? You try to sit on it.

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That's fun, right? Usually shoots out from behind you, right? Tosses you forward, right? But what do you have to do, because of the nature of things, to keep that ball underwater?

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What do you have to do? You have to hold it down. And how do you do it?

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It has to be actively done by you. It's not passive. You are actively suppressing.

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And that's what Romans 1 says, that every single person who doesn't know God is ultimately doing with the knowledge of God that he has given.

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They are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. Now watch this. What would happen if you just released your hands from the ball?

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That by very nature, it's going to shoot up, right? And there's another way to describe this.

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I think it's very effective, is that the unbeliever is in a lifelong game of whack -a -mole.

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If you know what I'm talking about, you probably despise the game as much as I do, okay? I think it's a worthless game.

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And when I play it, I cheat. Confession. This is church. We have to be honest with each other, right?

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Transparency is vitally important. But whack -a -mole is the game where all these little moles pop up, and your job is to try to catch them while they pop up, right?

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And I want you to think about apologetics in this way, that there is no neutrality. The unbeliever, according to God, knows him and is suppressing that truth about God and unrighteousness.

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We are either in Adam and fallen, dead spiritually and alienated from God, or in Christ and risen from the dead and redeemed with the gift of eternal life.

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And the unbeliever is imago dei, image of God, inescapably.

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You cannot help being what God created you to be. It's impossible.

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This is God's world. The unbeliever wants to say that they don't know God and that all they are is bipedal protoplasm in a purposeless, unguided universe.

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Their ancestors, according to atheists, were fish. Let that hang for a second. They evolved from highly evolved societies of bacteria.

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This is what the atheists are telling our children in school. And the unbeliever, as much as he wants to pretend he's not image of God, is inescapably image of God.

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You can do your very best to avoid it. You can suppress it all you want. It will be exposed in your life.

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You can pretend to be a fish all you want. You can dive to the bottom of the water.

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And you can actually pretend to swim around and be a fish. And you could think you're a fish. You could desire to be a fish and swim, swim, swim.

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But you will come up for air eventually. And the unbeliever is in a lifelong pursuit of whack -a -mole with the image of God in them.

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They're pushing down the knowledge of God, pushing down that image of God, and then push, push, push, push. But there always is one that pops up.

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And in the task of apologetics, when we're trying to reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ, what we need to look for is not necessarily what the unbeliever says about themselves, but what

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God says about them. And we need to utilize the word of God as our ultimate commitment, so we can actually effectively bring the gospel to that person and call them to faith in Christ and life.

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And so there is no neutrality. Hang on to that for a second. The Bible says there is no neutrality.

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Romans 1, they know God. They're suppressing the truth of God. Romans 5, they are covenantally linked to either

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Adam or Jesus. You're either forgiven and reconciled to God or you're dead and alienated from God.

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And what does Jesus say? It's so easy. It's a famous thing of Jesus.

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Whoever is not with me is... you know it. See? You finish before I finish.

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It's so simple. If you're not with me, Jesus says, you are against me.

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Now, that's critically important for us to actually grapple with as we do apologetics. The foundation for this entire series is about ultimates.

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God is the very reference point. God is the very foundation. We know what we know, and we have certainty about it because God has condescended and he has revealed himself to us.

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And it's vitally important for us to grasp the fact that this is about ultimate commitments.

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Jesus says, you're not with me, you're against me. Now, watch. This might prick a little bit, so don't throw anything at me.

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And I hope that this course is something that actually affects you as a

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Christian. Do you know that as Christians, we think wrong about a lot of things? Being a

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Christian doesn't mean that you're not ever without correction. And we can be Christians for many, many years of our lives and think wrongly about a lot of things.

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And it's important for us at all times and all points of contact of our relationship with Christ to be willing to be corrected by his holy and inspired word.

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Can I get an amen? Okay. Now, let's try this. Jesus says, you are either with me or you are against me.

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No middle ground. No neutrality. With me or against me. Is that true in church that you're either with Christ or against Christ?

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That's an easy one. There's no trick questions. I am not going to hurt you. I will not wound you.

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I will make these very easy. Okay. Is it true? It's true. In church, that's either with Christ or against Christ.

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If some hack job charlatan got behind the pulpit and started preaching things that were directly against the word of God, what is our obligation?

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To say something. Amen. And I hope we do. Right. Don't ever do that on non -essential stuff.

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That's like silly stuff. That's your own preference. Boy, you will cause a lot of trouble. Okay. But if someone came up in the pulpit and they said, you know what guys,

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I got a new revelation now. Jesus actually isn't God. You as a Christian do everything you can to take that person by their underpants and throw them out the door.

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Right. Because you're either with Christ or against Christ. Now another one. Ready? Jesus says, you're either with me or against me.

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No neutrality with Jesus. Is that true in education?

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This is where it starts to cut us. Is there any such thing because of what

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Jesus says, you're either with me or against me. Is there any such thing as a neutral subject in education?

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Is science neutral? The science class? Oh, you know, right?

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That's an easy one, isn't it? If you walk into the average public high school science class today or the average secular university undergraduate program or graduate degree program, is science neutral?

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Yeah. That makes you giggle, doesn't it? Absolutely not. Science talks about origins, right?

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It talks about how we can discover things and know things. And so science is not neutral towards God in the classroom.

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It is either for Christ or it is hostile to Jesus. Now, again, let's do a little bit more digging.

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Is art for Christ or against Christ? Yes, it truly is.

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It's either for Christ or against Christ. It's either going to reflect the glory of God and point to God in some sense.

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It's going to reflect His goodness, His holiness, or it's not. Arts cannot ultimately be done with justification apart from God.

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There's no rationality to it. There's no standard. There's nothing to actually stand on.

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You think, again, down the road, beyond education, or with education, you think about things like mathematics.

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Jesus says, you're either with me or against me. Is that true in the mathematics class, arithmetics? And I hope if you're thinking, how in the world, what does math have to do with God?

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Brothers and sisters, everything. Jesus says, you're either with me or against me.

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Now, is it true that unbelievers can do math? Yep. Do they do math? Yep. One of my favorite

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Christian apologists of all time, Cornelius Van Til, said that unbelievers can count.

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Sometimes they're very good at their counting. Sometimes they're better than Christians, right? But they cannot account for their counting.

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How is it even possible? How do I justify it? How is it law -like? How is it universal and applicable everywhere and all times?

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Do you see? There is no neutrality. Jesus says, you're either with me or you are against me.

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And listen, brothers and sisters, I got to communicate this to you guys. Jesus, in his word, says there's no neutrality.

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Paul says in Romans 1, they know God. They express the truth of God. Paul says in Romans 5, they're either in Adam or in Jesus.

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No neutrality. Hostile towards God or reconciled to God. But in terms of, watch, how the unbeliever actually thinks and reasons, they're not neutral.

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And this should grab, this should grab hold of us tightly. The unbeliever and the

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Christian should look at the world in different ways. Amen? Think about it for a moment.

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When the Christian looks at a tree, this is a basic thing of life, right?

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When the Christian looks at the tree, does the Christian view the tree ultimately differently than the unbeliever?

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Now, both see, ready, tree, right? You've got stump, you've got branches, you've got leaves, you see tree.

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But when you actually dig in and start asking questions beyond what's in front of you, the unbeliever says what about the tree?

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Random result of blind and purposeless forces acting on matter over billions of years of evolutionary processes in a universe that is ungoverned, unguided, and is purposeless, right?

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Now, the Christian looks at the tree in a fundamentally different way. Because you know what we do?

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This is an amazing thing. And this is the craziest thing in the world. And this is what I told you, for Christ or against Christ, even in art and beauty, there is no truth, beauty, goodness, nothing without God.

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Do you know that people actually do this? They go to camera places and they buy expensive $2 ,000 lenses, right?

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To go out to locations to film sunsets, right?

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Glorious sunsets with a tree, right? And you look at that and you go, wow,

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God is an artist, right? There is beauty. There is goodness in it.

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There is an amazing thing in front of me. That tree is purposefully created by God to reflect

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His goodness, to reflect His glory, to reflect His power. I can actually study that tree and investigate it and discover that it's designed to do particular things.

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It has DNA. If you dig down into its language, it actually has a language or blueprint of life.

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It actually has information in it. Information in a tree. It's the craziest thing.

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It's not just stuff randomly put together. It has information behind it. There's a language in it that's spoken into existence.

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The unbeliever is supposed to say, tree works like this. There is no neutrality.

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The unbeliever views the world through a particular lens and the Christian views the world through a particular lens.

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We are creatures in God's world. It is inescapable that we will have ultimate commitments.

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The unbeliever has theirs and Christians, you have yours. The unbeliever is not neutral towards God and Christian, you are not supposed to be either.

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Jesus says, you're either with me or against me. And we need to talk about foundations, the foundation of knowledge, because we're going to talk a lot about claims.

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Talk about a claim of the atheist. He says this about origins or she says that about origins. The Mormon says, well,

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Joseph Smith received revelation from God. He says that this is what happened to the church and he's a modern day prophet and God is actually not like the

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Bible says. God is like this. Those are knowledge claims. And we have to ask a question at the very bottom of apologetics.

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It's about ultimate commitments. It's about knowledge. How do we have justified true belief?

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And we got to ask the question, how do we have knowledge at all? This is what philosophy professors or people who love philosophy would refer to as an epistemological question.

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Now, don't let it throw you and please do not check out because you heard a big word. Okay. Epistemology has to do with the theory of knowledge.

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Now, listen, you do it all the time. You do. How do you know something?

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Now, this is really important because there are so many different people with so many different interpretations of how you can know anything at all.

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But it's a fundamental part of life. All of us adopt things and we believe things.

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We say this is true and that is not because we have some sort of an idea of how we can know things at all.

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And the question of apologetics comes down to a question of knowledge. And here's what

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I want to get across. Is knowledge even possible apart from God?

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You'd be surprised to learn that Christians, well -meaning, but I think wrongly, would actually argue that you can know things with certainty apart from God's revelation, apart from special revelation from God, that you could truly know them.

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And I want to point this to a few texts. Are you guys still with me? Yes. It's not that late, right? Okay. You guys had dinner a long time ago, right?

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Okay. We're all awake now. All right. Here we go. So let's go to some texts in scripture that you should know. Proverbs 1 -7 would be a good starting point.

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And I want you to think about these texts in a different way than you have before. Proverbs 1 -7.

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This is a famous text, often quoted on graduation invitations, right, by Christians.

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I've seen it often. And what does it say? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

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Let me say that again. Ready? Are you ready? And I need you to make sure you ask yourself this question. Have I thought about this text and what the implications actually are?

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Because, brothers and sisters, that is an audacious claim. The fear of the

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Lord is the beginning of knowledge. What does that mean?

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Apart from a reverent submission before God, you're not even starting gaining knowledge.

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The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and correction.

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And if you read the text in Proverbs 2, you'll see that the Bible talks a lot about knowledge and understanding and wisdom.

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And what does it say? It comes from God himself. Move away from God. There is no true knowledge.

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There is no true wisdom. There is no understanding. You can have so -called knowledge, the

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Bible says, but you will not have true knowledge apart from God. I'm going to point you to another text. It's a vitally important text in this discussion.

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And it's in the book of Colossians, or the letter Colossians 2. So go ahead and open your Bibles. I want you to see it with your own eyes.

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It's very important that as we learn things about God and we even have our minds shaped, that we have it shaped because of what

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God's revelation says. Amen? God's Word is the standard always. Amen?

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Stay with me now. It's God's Word that actually dictates for us what we are to believe and what we are to do.

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Colossians chapter 2. Colossians chapter 2. I want you to see this. And these are texts that you really do want to commit to memory if possible, at least to know where it's at.

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And I want you guys to meditate on what we talked about today. Ultimate commitments. The foundation of knowledge.

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How is knowledge possible? Is there such a thing as neutrality? Now here we go. In Colossians chapter 2, watch what it says here.

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It says, in verse 2, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is

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Christ, watch, in whom, that's Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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My fear, brothers and sisters, my fear is that oftentimes as Christians, we read the text of God's Word and we don't actually contemplate the implications of what's being said.

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Paul says here through divine inspiration, that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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You want to know? You want to have true knowledge? You want to have certainty? Apart from Christ, there are no treasures of wisdom and knowledge because in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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And watch this, watch this, because it's vitally important to talk about in terms of our apologetic task in reaching people with the gospel and arguing, yes, arguing for the truthfulness of Christianity and Christ as the

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Savior and Messiah. He says this. Why? He says, I say this, verse 4, in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.

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Why does Paul want you to know that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge? Because he wants you as a

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Christian to go to Christ for knowledge, for wisdom, to go to him to have understanding, to gain certainty, to actually be able to know what is

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God like? What is true in the world? Who am I? What's true in this discussion?

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Paul says this. It's in Christ that are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And I say this so that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.

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Now watch this. He says, verse 6, therefore, as you received Christ, Jesus the

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Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught abounding in thanksgiving.

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See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and listen, and not according to Christ.

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Did you get that? There is a philosophy that is a philosophy that is not according to Christ.

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There is a view of wisdom, a love of wisdom, a love of knowledge that is not according to Christ. And what we should have as Christians, listen closely, is a

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Christian philosophy. Now how do we gain that Christian philosophy? A worldview, a view of life and wisdom and truth.

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How do we gain it? Well, we don't gain it by going this direction. Let's develop a philosophy over here that seems to work.

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And then let's move over here to theology. That's reverse what the Bible says to us. What does the Bible say?

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It's Christ first, set apart as Lord. It's in him where all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found.

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And you are to be established in Christ as the foundation. Paul says it, so you will be not be deluded by clever sounding arguments and not be moved away and swayed by philosophies that are not according to Christ.

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So watch this. How do we have a truly coherent philosophy and worldview?

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It's by starting with God. I told you at the very beginning, if you got the ultimate commitment part, you will understand everything this course is about.

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And let me just say this to you also. At the very beginning, what did I say to you? The apostle Peter says what?

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He says this, that we are called, every one of us, to be ready with a reasoned defense.

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To what? To whom? Everyone who asks of us. And you might be thinking, that's crazy. Seriously? Are you kidding?

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Do you know how busy I am, Peter? Right? I got a lot going on. Like I don't have time to read all this like Islam and I got to read the

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Quran. Like I If you have a commitment to Christ as Lord, first, that presents you to the world as an effective minister for Christ in reaching people with the gospel.

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If you don't stand on Christ and His word as the foundation of all your knowledge, then the task of apologetics becomes very, very difficult.

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You have to memorize all that you can about the canon of the text of the Bible and the transmission of the text of Scripture.

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You have to memorize everything you possibly can about evidences here or there and astronomy and all the newest stuff and DNA research.

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And I want to say this, if you start with Christ as the foundation, not only do you get all that stuff, but you are an effective tool in God's hand to reach people with the gospel.

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And so let's do this. Let's go to our next point. And this is just, by the way, we're not going to dig into this deeply right now, but it's something maybe to write down and think about.

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And you may like to cut your cake differently, right? But this is how I sort of lay it out. People do approach knowledge.

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How do we know things, God's existence, the origin of the world? Is this right to do or no?

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Should I love my neighbor or eat my neighbor, right? That's a knowledge claim. You know that, right?

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You should love your neighbor and not eat your neighbor, right? That's a claim to knowledge. I know what you ought to do and ought not to do.

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See that? And I hope you guys are all answering that in the correct way. That's an easy one for tonight's class, right?

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Okay, but that's a knowledge claim. That's a knowledge claim. And people have different views of how you gain knowledge.

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And I'm just going to, again, we're not going to spend a lot of time on these right now, but this is, again, how I'm cutting it and simplifying it.

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You could be the person that says rationalism. They hold to something called rationalism. And that is that we gain justified true belief.

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We gain knowledge through our reasoning, right? That sounds a lot like people today in our society, right?

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Is it factual? Is it logical? Is it consistent in the way that it's actually put together? Watch this. Nobody's dissing that things should be logical.

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Apart from God, you can't make sense of logic. But the system of rationalism says apart from God, we can reason to gain truth and understanding.

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There's a school of thought called empiricism. How do we know things? Well, we observe it.

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We actually observe it. We have to actually use our senses and observe it and test it.

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And that's, I think, what oftentimes we think in terms of our current culture and society. Empiricism is a popular way of thinking.

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And sometimes people blend these theories of knowledge. How do you know? You have to reason through it and experience it. You've got to test it.

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There's also a school of thought called fideism. And that word fide comes from the, it's a

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Latin word that means what? Who knows? Fide. Oh boy, come on. You got to know. It's one of the principles of the

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Reformation. Sola fide. Faith alone.

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We are justified through faith in Christ alone. Sola fide.

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Faith alone. And fideism has that word faith in it. And so people will say, well, we know things through faith.

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That's because I have faith. It's just faith, right? It's just, I just believe,

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I trust it. I just, I accept it by faith. There's also pragmatism, whether or not something works or not.

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Hey, it works for me, so it must be true. And then there is, I think, the biblical view of how we know things.

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It is also the most philosophically consistent way of expressing how you can know things. And it's this, revelational epistemology.

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We know things because, are you ready? Now, you might want to take a breath, get your pens ready, because this is going to get very, very detailed and difficult.

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So I need you just to stay with me now. Okay. Revelational epistemology. How do we know what we know?

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God told us. Wow. That's profound, right? Because God says so.

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Now watch this. Brothers and sisters, that's how we operate always in the context of the Christian community, right?

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If you want words from God, if you want to know, what do you do? You open your Bible and you let

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God speak. And that's how we operate all the time. How do I know this is true? So again, the question of whether I should eat my neighbor or love my neighbor is actually answered by Jesus.

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What does Jesus say? You shall what? Eat your neighbor? You shall love your neighbor as what?

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You love yourself. Now watch this. Is that a certain claim? Yes. A hundred percent?

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Beyond a shadow of a doubt. Anybody here that's struggling with this, stay away from my kids, okay?

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Okay. It's a certain claim. Jesus, who is God in the flesh, John chapter 1, verse 1, in the beginning was the

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Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

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Jesus is God in the flesh. Isaiah 9, verse 6 says, Wonderful Counselor, El Gabor, the

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Mighty God, the Father of Eternity. This is God in the flesh, condescended. And what does He say?

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You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself. There are two great commandments in the law, Jesus says.

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He says, the first one is Shema Yisrael, Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh Echad. Hear, O Israel, the

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Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength.

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And Jesus says, the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself. Now, watch this.

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That's a claim to knowledge. And here's the question. Is that a certain claim to knowledge?

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Absolutely. How do you know that it's true you should love your neighbor and not eat your neighbor? Ready? It's so profound because Jesus says.

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God has spoken. That shouldn't be something Christians ever shy away from.

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How do I know? Because God says. Now, come against God's revelation and God says you become a fool.

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That your thoughts are futile and you collapse. But Christians believe in a revelational epistemology.

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And brothers and sisters, listen closely here because this is vitally important. All of us have a worldview.

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Mormonism is a worldview. Jehovah's Witnesses have a worldview.

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Muslims have a worldview. Atheists have a worldview. Agnostics have a worldview.

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There is no, what? Neutrality. Everybody is either hostile towards God or at peace with God.

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And everybody has a worldview that is either for Christ or what? Against Christ.

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Everyone has a worldview. Now, watch here. I'll try to simplify it as much as possible. Everybody has a basic view.

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Ready? A metaphysic. An ontology. A basic idea of what is reality.

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It's called the doctrine of being. It's what is this? The doctrine of what is the nature or substance of this?

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It's a view of reality. Everybody has a view of reality. A metaphysic. An ontology. Now, again, it's not important that you memorize those words.

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For those of you guys, for those of you that want to argue at the highest level, you need to know Christianity is intellectually rigorous and can engage in the highest academic level.

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But it's very simple. Everyone has an idea of, well, what is this? What's the nature of all of this? Everyone has a view of knowledge.

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How do you know what you know? We talked about a few, right? Rationalism. Well, it has to be reasonable. Empiricism.

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I got to test it. I got to experience it and see it operate. Or faith. I just accept it by faith.

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Or, hey, it works for me. Or we have a revelation of theory of knowledge, revelational epistemology that says we know things based upon God's revelation to us.

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Either in general creation or general revelation or special revelation.

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Now, everyone has a world view, right? So watch this. This is why the chairs are here. Some of you guys are wondering, do we have another teacher? Another speaker?

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Nope. It's just me. Okay. Just me. Now, the chairs I like to use here because I think it simplifies the whole discussion.

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The chairs are going to represent two different foundations and two different opposing world views.

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Now, for the purposes of tonight's class, I'm going to use two polar opposite world and life views.

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We're going to establish this first over here as Christianity. It's the Christian world view based upon revelation.

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How do I know? God says. And the world view over here is going to be hostile to the

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Christian faith. It's the antithesis of the Christian faith. No special creation, no purpose, no meaning, no order.

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It is blind and pitiless indifference as Richard Dawkins says. We're going to call this radical unbelief or atheism.

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So two different world views. Everybody has a world view. There is no what?

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Neutrality. No neutrality. And you're either with Christ or what? Against Christ. And how do we know what we know as Christians?

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Revelational epistemology. God has spoken and revealed himself and that's how

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I know with certainty. So let's think over here for a moment. We're going to stand on this foundation, Christianity, the

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Christian world view. Now, I want you to think in your minds to Matthew's gospel. It's a famous passage.

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Matthew, I believe it's chapter 7. Okay. It's been a long day. So Matthew chapter 7. You know it though because you sing the songs.

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Jesus says there are two different foundations, two types of people, two destinations.

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One foundation is a rock and one foundation is sand.

01:00:04

One person is wise. One person is foolish. One person makes it through the storm and the other one ends in desolation.

01:00:14

So two foundations, two types of people, two destinations. And what does

01:00:19

Jesus say? He asks for no one's approval. No one's.

01:00:27

Jesus says this. The person who builds their house, their life, upon the rock makes it through the storm and the one who does not build their house upon the rock ends in desolation.

01:00:42

And Jesus says the person who builds their house upon the rock is the one who builds their house upon his word.

01:00:49

Now watch this. When Jesus walks away from that conversation, read the text in Matthew, they say what?

01:00:57

They say he speaks as one with authority. Isn't that crazy?

01:01:05

Can you think about that for a second? Seriously. Are we good here? Yes. Did you hear that? Jesus said this.

01:01:12

You're either a fool or a wise person. You're either on the rock or sand.

01:01:18

You're either going to make it through or you're going to end in desolation. And if you're the person over here that makes it through, you're the one that builds your life upon my word.

01:01:26

Did you catch that? That's amazing. And they said, when he said that, they said what? They said he speaks as one who has authority.

01:01:34

Yeah. That was big time, right? You think about it. The scribes of the day, the rabbis, they would always say, well, it's because Rabbi Shmuley says, right?

01:01:46

Or it's because Rabbi Such -and -Such. And they would always attach there. And the Mishnah is like that. They would always attach what they taught on, on another rabbi.

01:01:55

It's like a priesthood of scholars, right? It's because Rabbi Such -and -Such says. Rabbi Such -and -Such says. And so they're teaching based upon rabbi, rabbi, rabbi.

01:02:03

And Jesus comes in and says this. Nope. Two people, two destinations. You're either on my word or you end in desolation and you are a fool.

01:02:11

And they go, he speaks as one having authority. Yeah. Jesus doesn't ask for anybody's stamp of approval.

01:02:20

He's not asking for anybody to sign his papers. He doesn't have people come to him and say, well,

01:02:27

Jesus, I'd like you to give me some, some proof of that, some evidences. And Jesus goes, well, okay, what do you need from me?

01:02:33

What can I, what can I show you? You want to do a little trick? You want to do a little miracle? Do this, do that. I'm gonna show you some evidence over here.

01:02:39

What do you need from me? Jesus is the ultimate authority. Watch this. And the very nature of an ultimate authority is ultimate.

01:02:48

And it requires no corroboration. Does that mean it is without other evidences?

01:02:55

No. It means that it's by very nature ultimate. And the Christian worldview is based upon the rock of God's word.

01:03:02

Now watch this. Christians view the world a certain way. We view knowledge a certain way. We view ethics a certain way, how we should live.

01:03:09

A worldview consists of, generally speaking, a metaphysic, an epistemology, and an ethic.

01:03:16

How should we live? How do I know? How should I live? And what is this? Okay. Now the unbeliever also has a worldview, right?

01:03:25

They have a worldview. What's this? How did it get here? How do I know what I know? How should

01:03:30

I live my life? Oh boy, we're in conflict now, aren't we? Think about it.

01:03:35

This is the substance of life right now, isn't it? You think about that? You watch the news, brothers and sisters, lately?

01:03:43

We're in a storm of conflict. And what is it? It's a storm of conflict based upon worldviews and ultimate commitments.

01:03:54

That's what's going on right now with the Supreme Court declaring that marriage is this and not that.

01:04:05

The woman right now in Kentucky who is standing her ground, trying to help her state not sin while trying not to sin herself, is standing on what?

01:04:18

A worldview. How should we live our lives? Everybody has a worldview.

01:04:24

The unbeliever has a worldview. Music is preaching a worldview. Think about it. What's that famous song that came out?

01:04:30

Don't feel bad because you heard it. It was playing over and over and over again. It was a song by Macklemore and it was about Same Love.

01:04:39

Remember that song? Anybody hear that song, Same Love? It was a song, very popular, called Same Love.

01:04:44

I encourage you guys to maybe go listen to it. Listen to what you're up against, the unbelieving worldview. Go to YouTube, listen to Same Love by Macklemore.

01:04:52

That song is preaching about what? That all sexuality is the same.

01:04:58

It's the same love. And the song's hook goes like this. I can't change even if I wanted to, even if I tried.

01:05:08

I can't change. This is who I am. And it's such a catchy song too. It is.

01:05:14

Very talented. Good singer. It's a great hook. It's an awesome song and it's preaching a worldview.

01:05:20

It's preaching an ethic. So we have an option. We can either stand on one of two foundations, the rock or sand.

01:05:30

We can either stand on God and His word as the ultimate or we could try to abandon God and think autonomously and end up in radical unbelief over here.

01:05:39

But we're going to stand on something. We're going to have some ultimate commitment. So the Christian has a worldview. What do we say about the world?

01:05:45

The world is personally governed and guided by God. God is the sovereign. He created with special creation and created

01:05:53

His image in the garden and He loves His image bearers and He gave to them life and they were created with a purpose and there's value and dignity and beauty.

01:06:04

There's inherent meaning and purpose because we reflect the glory of God Himself.

01:06:11

God governs the universe. Hebrews chapter 1, it says that Jesus upholds everything by the word of His power which means

01:06:18

He carries the universe along to its intended destination. We believe that the universe is not chaos.

01:06:24

It's not time and chance acting on matter. That God governs the universe. Romans 8 28 says what?

01:06:31

I know you know this one. Romans 8 28. God causes all things to work together for good to those who love

01:06:39

God and are called according to what? His purpose. Christians know that there is nothing in the universe that was that that is without purpose that God sovereignly wields the universe in such a way to bring about our good and His glory.

01:06:54

Amen? That's the truth. And so what do we believe as Christians? The universe is not just matter in motion.

01:07:01

It's not just a bunch of molecules banging around. We are not just bipedal protoplasm in a purposeless universe.

01:07:09

And what do we know as Christians about ethics? Watch. How should we live our lives?

01:07:15

Well we're image of God and so we should reflect the character and holiness of our God. Sin is ultimately a violation of the character of God.

01:07:25

All falling short is a violation of the character of God. And so when we say how should we live? We say well we should live because God says this in His law.

01:07:34

His law reflects His character. So there's our worldview. Got it? Okay. Or we can stand over here.

01:07:40

The unbeliever has a worldview. Not neutral. And what does the unbeliever, he or she, say about the world?

01:07:46

Well there was such a thing as the Big Bang. And the Big Bang occurred. See what there was is there was nothing.

01:07:52

Follow me. There was nothing. Follow me. There was nothing. And then something.

01:08:00

You get a really stretch for a moment here. Okay. Ready? There was no thing. No thing.

01:08:06

And out of no thing. No thing. There was something. And there was this unpurposed and unguided explosion many atheists believe.

01:08:18

And there was a random time and chance universe that is just matter in motion. If you are a naturalistic materialist, that means that you believe that all that exists is matter and that there is no special spiritual divine governance of the universe, naturalistic materialism, that all there is is matter in motion.

01:08:37

There's nothing spiritual or transcendent. It's just, ready? Stuff. Stuff moving around.

01:08:45

Bing -banging on the surface of the cosmos. You and I, according to atheism, are bags of biological stuff just floating around in the universe.

01:08:55

There is no purposeful creation. You are ultimately meaningless and purposeless.

01:09:02

Nothing had you in mind. You happened in a universe that does not care.

01:09:09

There is nothing above you but sky. No justice ahead of you. There are no ultimate oughts.

01:09:15

I'll give you William Provine. He is the biology professor at Cornell or was the biology professor at Cornell.

01:09:21

Not sure of the current status. He says this with his principles and his presuppositions.

01:09:27

He says the universe that we have now, he says there is no imminent morality. Know what that means?

01:09:34

Morality is an illusion. There are no oughts.

01:09:40

You can't say this but not that. There are no real oughts.

01:09:46

There's no real morality. He says you live, you die, and you're gone. You're absolutely gone when you die.

01:09:52

Richard Dawkins, professor Richard Dawkins, one of the most famous atheists on the planet today, not because he's intellectually rigorous but because he's militant and hostile.

01:10:01

Richard Dawkins says this in River Out of Eden. He says the universe that we have today displays this. There is no good, no evil, only blind and pitiless indifference.

01:10:14

So how's that for the atheistic ethic, right? You might go so far as to say some of the things that atheists have said in the past, and that's it.

01:10:21

You might as well kerosene the whole anthill. Who cares, right? Now watch this. Do atheists live consistently with their presuppositions and worldview?

01:10:31

Thank God no, right? Why? Because their image of God.

01:10:38

They can't help being what God created them to be. But the unbeliever has a worldview.

01:10:45

Is it neutral towards God, brothers and sisters? It is hostile towards God.

01:10:52

Jesus says, you're either what? With me or what? Against me. So we have two choices here. A revelational epistemology that says,

01:10:58

I know what I know based upon God's revelation ultimately, and God as the reference point.

01:11:04

Or we have, say, a system of belief over here, a worldview that say radical unbelief. Now watch how this works.

01:11:12

As a Christian, I say this, and I want you guys to help me here. Is what

01:11:17

I'm saying consistent with what I'm standing on? Is what I'm saying consistent with my worldview?

01:11:24

You be the judge, okay? You must love your neighbor and not eat your neighbor.

01:11:33

Is that consistent with what I'm standing on, my worldview, what

01:11:40

God says? It is? Amen. Ready? It is an absolute standard.

01:11:51

Absolutely. You ought to love your neighbor and not eat your neighbor on atheistic principles.

01:11:59

What I'm saying is not consistent with what I'm standing on, is it? The unbeliever reaches into their worldview and cannot live consistently with it in God's world, can they?

01:12:11

The Christian says this about, say, science. Ready? The universe can be clocked.

01:12:18

It's law -like. You can depend upon it. The future will be like the past, and we can do experiments and send people into space, and we can fly airplanes, because the laws of physics hold.

01:12:33

Isn't that amazing? And I can brush my teeth in the morning without floating away to the ceiling. It's amazing, right?

01:12:40

And I know I got to drink water every day, because if I don't drink something, I'll what? I'll die.

01:12:46

Because you guys answered that right away, because this is Arizona, and you know. You know here that holds true all the time.

01:12:53

Nothing's changing. But the Christian says this. The universe, I can trust induction, the inductive principle, that the future will be like the past.

01:13:03

Nature is uniform, that uniformity in nature, the future will be like the past. I can depend upon it.

01:13:09

It holds together. The universe is governed, is what I'm saying, consistent with what

01:13:15

I'm standing on. Easy enough, right? It's as simple as a child can understand.

01:13:23

Why do I know this? Because God has spoken. He is the creator of all things, and he sustains all things.

01:13:30

He governs the universe, and Hebrews 1 says about Jesus that he carries the universe along to its intended destination.

01:13:36

Now watch. Let's step over here to the unbelievers' ultimate commitments, their worldview, their presuppositions.

01:13:43

What do they say about the world? It is time and chance acting on matter.

01:13:49

It's not governed. All we are is bipedal protoplasm in a purposeless universe. Our thoughts are just the result of brain gas, just chemical reactions firing in the brain.

01:14:03

You can't help thinking the way you're thinking because your brain is just firing biochemical responses. You're just sort of happening on atheistic presuppositions.

01:14:13

Now you're ready? The unbeliever says the universe was nothing, then there was something. Inorganic matter became organic.

01:14:23

Non -living matter became living. Wow. It's a miracle. I digress.

01:14:29

Okay. The unbeliever, ready? On their presuppositions, their ultimate commitments, their worldview where they're not neutral.

01:14:37

Are you ready? Is what I'm saying consistent with what I'm standing on. Ready? Watch this. The universe can be clocked.

01:14:46

It is law -like. It is dependable. We can depend upon the future being like the past. Do you see it?

01:14:53

Did you get it now? Science isn't even possible apart from God.

01:15:00

If you don't start with Christ as the foundation of all knowledge and wisdom, you can't know anything.

01:15:06

You have no justification for science, no justification for logic, you have no justification for ethics.

01:15:13

You are lost in a sea of foolishness apart from God. So a couple things here.

01:15:18

Ready? The myth of neutrality. They're not neutral and what? We're not supposed to be.

01:15:25

Nobody's neutral. We are either hostile towards God or we are at peace with God.

01:15:31

Everybody has a worldview, ultimate commitments, a way through which they see the world.

01:15:37

Right? Now I want you guys to go home with these texts. Digest them. Study them.

01:15:45

Read the text that I gave to you. Think about what it means to be in the image of God.

01:15:51

Think about what it means that someone knows God and they're suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. Think about what it means as a

01:15:57

Christian where Jesus says, you're either with me or against me. You're either the fool or the wise man.

01:16:03

Think about what that means in terms of apologetics where God says this to you, set Jesus apart as Lord in your hearts.

01:16:10

Always be ready to give a reasoned defense to everyone who asks you with gentleness and with reverence.

01:16:18

Again, the text for our class is presuppositional apologetics as a foundation.

01:16:24

I want to highly encourage this work to you guys. Brothers and sisters, if you have any time now to read a book, read this book.

01:16:33

It will transform so much of your thinking. Not because Greg Bonson is just such a spectacular

01:16:38

Bible teacher, although he is. By the way, he's with the Lord now. But Greg Bonson pointing you to the text of God's word will change your life.

01:16:47

And I want to do this. Before we leave today, I'm going to do something for fun. I want to play to you guys.

01:16:53

I want to make this thing a little bit more easy to get flesh on it. I'm going to play for you guys an actual conversation

01:16:59

I had with an agnostic ASU college student while we were out doing evangelism at an abortion mill.

01:17:08

Just as an encouragement to you guys to be thinking about this. Two years ago, our church went out to abortion clinics to bring the gospel there.

01:17:17

And we've saved through God's power and grace over 40 babies since starting that ministry.

01:17:23

But we were out. So you're going to hear some activity. You're going to hear cars driving by and activity in the background. We were able to run into an agnostic outside the abortion clinic who approached us.

01:17:33

And I'm going to let you hear the conversation. And here's what I want you to think about. In everything you learned in this first class, and there's four of them,

01:17:40

I want you to think about ultimate commitments. I want you to think about a suppression of truth. I want you to think about an apologetic that allows for you to bring the gospel into the conversation.

01:17:51

I want you to think about an apologetic that shows no neutrality, ultimate commitments to Christ. Okay?

01:17:57

So I'm going to go ahead and play this for you guys now. It's about 10 minutes long, and that'll put flesh, I think, on everything you've heard in this first class.

01:18:04

Sound good? Okay. So... Why would the Jonestown people sit there and, you know, commit mass suicide?

01:18:09

They were dying for what they thought was true. But the disciples, the true or not.

01:18:16

Right. It's one thing to be sincerely wrong. It's another thing to know that you're wrong and then die for that.

01:18:22

But not to be too contrary to you guys. Like, I've been saying, I know. Like, reasserting what you're, like, you're very happy to know, no offense or whatnot, doesn't really, isn't really evidence in and of itself.

01:18:32

So you're like, oh, like, they didn't know. We know. And we believe, we believe them. So, like, I agree with them.

01:18:38

Like, I really feel like that isn't really a statement in and of itself. It isn't really, like, a...

01:18:44

Do you mind if I say? I'm Jeff, by the way. How are you, Eli? Nice to meet you. I would,

01:18:49

I think I would start at the bottom. And, you know, you're talking a lot about evidence, talk a lot about proof, and yet you profess to not believe in God.

01:18:58

I profess that I'm not an atheist and I'm not, like, I'm not, like, I'm not a Christian. I was raised Baptist and whatnot. I wasn't really given enough evidence to sit there and, you know, fully go towards, you know, believing in any kind of deity, whether it be, like, you know, an impersonal one, like Ben Franklin believed in, or, like, an actual personal deity.

01:19:13

So I don't believe anything in that sense. But I'm also, you know, not, like, so, like, like, my hatred of, like, all things religion does not sit there and make me say there is no

01:19:21

God and therefore I can make the claim that, you know, that an atheist does, that there is nothing and I know there's nothing. So you're more of an agnostic?

01:19:27

Yes. Okay. Okay. So here's what I would say to you. God says that he's so clearly known, he's shown himself to all of us that we're without excuse for denying him.

01:19:38

So God's claim is that you do know him, but your problem isn't a lack of light or evidence.

01:19:44

It's like me before Christ and all of us, our sin before God causes us to suppress that truth. And if I could just sort of, like, ask you to think through something for a second?

01:19:52

Sure. You bring up all this, uh, these, these comments about, uh, evidence and proof, but evidence and proof would necessitate at its bottom, um, a dependence upon the uniformity in nature, laws of logic being necessary, being universal and absolute ultimately and, uh, unchanging.

01:20:16

It would necessitate when you're asked for proof, the, the moral requirement that I'm honest with you and I have integrity to present the truth, right?

01:20:25

Now, all those things with your rejection of God, um, are irrelevant and not necessary.

01:20:32

In other words, we can't depend upon the uniformity in nature. We have no certainty. The future would be like the past.

01:20:38

Oh, um, I feel like this is a bit of a left turn from what you're going from and whatnot, like, but rather than sit there and like, you know, stay on the rhetoric of, you know, like absolutism,

01:20:46

I feel like if we're going to sit there and, you know, kind of like try to refute

01:20:51

Christianity, I'll go from like you, the infallibility of the Bible. I go, you know, go from this idea that, you know,

01:20:57

God like exists beyond our plane, like he, like his logic is beyond ours. Like, you know, you sit there and go like, why this, why that is to sit there and, you know, uh, futilely try to understand the logic of God.

01:21:07

And like, you know, God is just beyond us. He's smarter than all of us. All of that. Why? I would say like, like, I, I feel like I, that, that's, that's a hard stretch for me.

01:21:15

Like to sit there and like even lose anything about the apostles, like the apostles and like, oh, the book that's talking about them is, well, flawed and like the historicity of it.

01:21:26

Well, that's, that's, that's merely a claim that I would reject. I would,

01:21:31

I would fully reject, but I would, I would point out to you that you, you just avoided the challenge

01:21:37

I presented to you that would even allow you to speak about flaws and inconsistencies. In other words, your rejection of God has led you to a place where flaws and inconsistencies are irrelevant.

01:21:48

If you don't have God, you don't have a basis for logic as a necessary thing. You don't have a basis for the uniformity of nature, nature to appeal to evidence.

01:21:57

So you're saying rational thought never existed before God? No, I'm saying that God is in himself the standard of all consistent thinking and truth.

01:22:08

And apart from him, you can't make any, any... Oh, okay. So it's pretty much up there with the logic of like, oh, okay.

01:22:13

Like this doctor sit there and like prescribe this medicine for this, but thank God for creating medicine. No, you're, you're, you're, no, you're not understanding what

01:22:20

I'm saying to you is this, is that your rejection of God has led you to a place where you have no basis to make any appeal to evidence, laws of logic, or even integrity right now in this discussion.

01:22:31

Your rejection of God has led you to a place the Bible calls foolishness, because you're going to sit here and argue for appeals to evidence and for logic and everything else, but you have absolutely no basis for it because you've rejected your creator.

01:22:44

And that's a problem of our sin. It's not a problem of light and evidence for you. It's a problem of our sin. That's why Jesus came to die for sinners and rose from the dead.

01:22:52

So we might have forgiveness in life, be reconciled to God. And I'd say just like, not to like, you know, insult you or anything, but I'd say that's a very convenient way of like, you know, dismissing everything.

01:22:59

No, I'm just... No, no, no, no. It may seem convenient to you because you don't have an answer for it, but you haven't, you haven't provided even an attempt to respond.

01:23:07

Because like, how do I put it? I don't, I don't like to respond to like, you know, double binds here.

01:23:14

You know what I mean? It's kind of like... I'm asking you a very simple question. Give me a rational justification, something that provides the preconditions for intelligibility, for even the uniformity in nature that the future be like the past.

01:23:27

This whole question here about proof and evidence depends upon uniformity. Like, I don't think anybody's ever like, you know, made the claim that, you know, the future is going to be like the past, that there is this consistency in nature.

01:23:37

Well, you're assuming it right now and asking for proof. Okay, then don't ask for proof. If you're not assuming it, don't ask for proof.

01:23:43

Proof depends upon induction, the future uniformity in nature. So you didn't mean like, you know, the progression of like, you know, the change of like organisms over time.

01:23:51

Right now you're standing here. I'll point out to you what I mean. And do you know what induction means? Induction is the future be like the past.

01:23:57

That past experience, the future experience will be congruent with the past experience. And listen, right now...

01:24:03

I understand what you mean. It's like, it's like to sit there and like, you know, sit there and use, like, you know, like gravity is like a...

01:24:10

Not just gravity. Or anything. Like, I'm just using gravity because that's one of the things that like, like every scientist is there and say is like, is like a consistent...

01:24:18

Yeah. Governing principle that has been there since the dawn of time, you know, like gravity. You sit there and say like, you know, gravity... Well, number one, they don't know that.

01:24:24

Number two, they can't depend upon it in the future because they live apart from God in a universe that's... Okay, okay, okay.

01:24:30

I have a response to that. Let me finish. Okay, sure. Time and chance acting on matter, apart from a sovereign God governing the universe, giving personal order to it, time and chance acting on matter does not...

01:24:42

I feel like... Uniformity in nature, a dependence upon it. So, what's your... Uniformity in nature. Uniformity in nature is the absolute basis of everything we're doing right now.

01:24:51

Now, I want you to give me a justification with your rejection of God. No personal order, no sovereign

01:24:57

God governing all things. Give me a basis for certainty the future be like the past. Oh, okay.

01:25:02

So, you're saying that like, you know, without God, we can't rely on the laws of matter? Absolutely. You can't...

01:25:08

You have no certainty the future be like the past. Oh, okay. So, we can't sit there and like rely on like scientific absolutes because God created these scientific absolutes to begin with?

01:25:15

No, you're... No, no. You're... No, no. It's a category error. I'm saying, very simply, you're asking for proof and evidence.

01:25:22

You're depending upon uniformity in nature, but your rejection of God has led you to a place where that is an absolutely irrelevant thing to be challenging on.

01:25:31

Now, with me as a Christian, I have a basis for asking for proof. I have a basis for asking for evidence. I have a basis for objective truth.

01:25:38

You've rejected God. You have none. You've given it up. You already gave it up. Wow. And once again,

01:25:44

I come back to the point that I think that's convenient that you can sit there and ignore everything I say just because... No, I'm not. I'm not ignoring you. I'm actually...

01:25:50

You feel like I'm in the realm of foolishness because, you know, I don't accept your God. You reject your creator, and so you've been reduced to foolishness.

01:25:58

And listen, can I offer you a challenge? No, not stupid. I didn't know. Foolish, like, it's a biblical way of saying, like, oh, you know nothing because you don't know

01:26:07

God. No, I didn't say... No, actually, you do know God, but you're suppressing the truth about Him. You know Him, and your problem isn't a lack of light or evidence.

01:26:14

It's your sin. Like me and like everyone out here, we're all sinners before God. Everybody previous to the birth of Christ, you know, like, what was there, you know.

01:26:22

They were all sinners too, all born to the same parents. And none of them given like, you know, the chance to sit there and redeem themselves through Christ.

01:26:28

Okay, well, you're changing the subject now away from the point we're talking about, but those are sinners who... I thought like God's love was always consistent, you know.

01:26:35

Well, God is loving and everything. God has always been loving, and He's loving to you right now even with your dependence upon Him.

01:26:41

Even though God is calling for genocide and said, go forth Ezekiel and kill all... You don't have any problem with genocide.

01:26:46

No, you don't. You've rejected God. You don't have any basis for being morally indignant about anything.

01:26:52

You've rejected your Creator. Oh, okay, okay. So seeing as that is the ultimate, like, you know, display of like arrogance here, nothing else

01:26:59

I say really has credibility. No, I'm showing you, I'm pointing out to you that your rejection of God has led you to absolute absurdity.

01:27:04

You need to choose God or absurdity, and it's your sin that's in the way. And if you turn to Christ...

01:27:10

I feel like I'm being given a false choice here. Like, you know, my choices are heaven, hell, and that's it.

01:27:16

No, it's God or your sin. No, you need to put it in a different category. God or your sin.

01:27:22

It's God or nothing is basically what it is. No, it's God or your sin. And I would point out to you that... God or this world.

01:27:28

I would point out to you that you haven't even attempted an answer to justify even the most basic things of life right now.

01:27:35

The most basic things of life. Laws of logic, rationality, truthfulness in discussion, integrity, and uniformity in nature.

01:27:43

That's where your rejection of God has left you. You're saying that an absolute, you know, i .e. God is needed to sit there and understand anything in this world.

01:27:49

I'm saying the true and living God is the very basis and foundation for all that you're doing right now.

01:27:55

And... It sounds like you're making more of an absolutist argument more than you're making like a Jesus Christ is the...

01:28:01

No, I'm telling you about there is only one God. And yes, Jesus is God. I'm not coming to you from some sort of theistic, there's something out there.

01:28:11

I'm coming to you with the message of the true and living God, the God that you do know. And listen, you and I have the same problem.

01:28:18

I'm not different than you. I'm under God's grace. Okay. I'm not better than you, smarter than you, nothing.

01:28:23

We're all sinners. And it's our sin that gets us into a position, my friend, to where we would actually live in God's world according to God's truth, but deny it with our profession.

01:28:35

You're living like a Christian right now, depending upon laws of logic that are universal and unchanging and necessary.

01:28:41

You're living like a Christian in your dependence upon uniformity in nature. You're living like a Christian and you're decrying moral atrocities, right?

01:28:49

You're acting like those are image bearers of God, but you've rejected God. You've already given that up. Well, I don't know if I'm going to insist that they're in, you know, really give like a good argument as to, you know, why

01:29:07

I feel like I don't... I'm not absurd just because I reject God. Like, I've had a good time discussing with you, if that makes any sense.

01:29:14

Like, I actually do have to get back. Okay, well, let me just encourage you. My name is Jeff. I'm Eli. Eli Johnson. Right on.

01:29:19

Good name, man. My brother's Joshua and my younger brother's Paul. Listen, I wanted to say one last thing to you.

01:29:26

I care very deeply for you. Thank you. And I want you to know that my being out here today, even talking to you, I consider a privilege and an honor.

01:29:32

And I want you to just think about something. You're going to walk down that street right now. You're going to depend upon uniformity in nature, laws of logic, integrity.

01:29:39

You're going to live like a Christian. But it's not a lack of evidence, my friend. It's all of us are sinners.

01:29:45

God is love. He died for sinners and rose from the dead. You can come to Him for life. Okay. Bless you, man.

01:29:51

Thank you. All right, man. Have a good one. There is hopefully a helpful starting point example.

01:29:58

And we're going to do some videos, too. You actually get to watch stuff next time, as well, of us actually engaging atheists at the

01:30:04

Reason Rally in Washington, D .C., one of the largest events, they say, in history, largest gathering of secularists and unbelievers in history.

01:30:13

So we'll watch some of that stuff and do some more discussions. But I hope what you heard in that video is sort of the unbelievers' attempt to begin attacking

01:30:25

Scripture, the integrity of the Bible, and those sorts of things. And we can answer all those questions.

01:30:31

I can answer all those questions with Scripture, with evidences, and all those different things. And we can get there.

01:30:37

But watch this. It's only the Christian framework and mindset that allows for questions at all.

01:30:44

Because apart from God, there's no basis to complain about inconsistencies, is there? There's no basis to decry moral atrocities.

01:30:52

Did you hear him throw it in to sort of like just for good measure? He said, oh, what about the genocide in the Bible? And what do most

01:30:57

Christians try to do? They try to say, oh, yeah, there's a lot. It's awful. The people died.

01:31:03

They're in the image of God. And God created the world good. And it does hurt. What are you thinking like when you're thinking that way?

01:31:08

Like a Christian. Guess who gets to care about death as a bad thing? You do.

01:31:15

But the unbeliever, when they challenge you with genocide and death, what are they doing? They're acting like a

01:31:21

Christian, aren't they? They're acting like they're in the image of God and that those are image bearers of God dying. But wait a second.

01:31:28

What just happened? The unbeliever borrowed from your worldview in order to argue against your worldview.

01:31:34

Douglas Wilson, in arguing against Christopher Hitchens in the film Collision, when he was debating him publicly,

01:31:40

Christopher Hitchens was decrying all these immoral things as an atheist. He believes the universe is just a cosmic accident.

01:31:46

There's no purpose, no meaning, no nothing. But Christopher Hitchens is arguing about all these evil things and all these things. And how can

01:31:51

God exist if this happens? And it's all it's so yucky and icky and everything else. And Douglas Wilson said what

01:31:58

Christopher Hitchens has done is essentially hijack the Christian car so he can crash it into a ditch.

01:32:06

That's the unbeliever arguing with the Christian. They need to borrow from you in order to argue with you.

01:32:14

And this is one last thing I'm going to say, and this is what we're done with here. Cornelius Van Til has a famous picture that he gives in terms of how the unbeliever argues against God.

01:32:24

He said that the unbeliever is very much like the small child who smacks his father in the face.

01:32:32

He's dependent upon his father to hold him in a lap, otherwise he can't reach. And when the unbeliever tries to smack

01:32:39

God in his face, he has to first depend upon God to do it. And this course, the four weeks we're going to be together,

01:32:47

I want to try to lay down before you some foundations. What does the Bible say about this?

01:32:53

How do we reason in a way that glorifies God and is effective? And then I want to put some legs on it as well, let you guys ask questions and interact, and then we'll finally end up on Mormonism, and how do we actually now engage with the

01:33:04

Mormon in a way that's effective, that can lead him to Christ? Okay, you all in?

01:33:11

Yep, say next week, same time, same place, same channel, yes? Presuppositional Apologetics by Greg Bonson.

01:33:20

Get that book, put it in your library. Okay, let's pray. Greg Bonson, B -A -H -N -S -E -N.

01:33:26

Let's pray together before we leave. Father, I pray, Lord, that of all that I gave today, I pray that you would allow us to digest it, put it into our hearts and minds, transform us with these truths, cause them to take root in our hearts, and allow these truths to cause us to love you deeply, to pursue you, to obey you, and I pray,

01:33:48

God, that it would lead to the transformation of the world through your gospel, because you've changed us. In Jesus' name,