Presuppositional Apologitics with Sye Ten Bruggencate

Well, welcome back to the Striving for Eternity Academy.

We appreciate you coming back during our summer school.

And we're going to be having, be joined with a special guest tonight as we've been doing during our summer school.

We have been having interviews to allow you to get to know some other people

and get to learn about other ministries and what's happening.

And so today we have someone that if you're familiar with the Striving for Eternity Academy,

you have heard us joke and mention this individual's name.

And we're going to bring him on.

But yes, since I'm seeing in the chat room, there's comments about a clean face.

Our guest would like you to think it is because of him.

It is not.

It is because I love my wife more.

But we're going to bring on and introduce to you now Sy Tembrud and Kate

of his website is proof that God exists dot org.

Sy, welcome.

Sy would like to see if he could give me a heart attack and make sure that the sound didn't work.

The question, the first question that I have for those in the chat room is whose shirt looks better?

The one that has the if you see on the on your screen, the one on the right that has the

Molson, the beer manufacturer or the real better shirt.

Yeah, see the advantage is that Sy cannot see what I'm wearing.

So we're just going to have fun.

Sy is.

Wearing his Chinese shirt again.

So the question is, Sy, for those that may not be able to guess, Sy is from Canada.

Can you spell that out for us, Sy?

It's C -A -N -A -D -A.

Yeah, now for those who don't get that, A is spelled E -H, not the letter A.

But some people may not get that.

Someone says that Sy looks like a hockey uniform.

That is.

Where I look like I belong on the Olympic team.

Captain.

Captain.

I belong on the Olympic team.

I like that.

So for those who are not in the chat room, we'd encourage you to go into the chat room for today's show because

we're going to be answering questions from the chat room.

And so, Sy, first thing I'd like to do is talk about your website, proofthatgodexists

.org.

Because that it really is your, you're going to need to hold it closer than that.

Oh, you can see the sign over my shoulder.

You had that one of your shows with Mike Stockwell and Chris Siegel.

That's right.

You know, that's funny you bring that up.

As some know that I was on vacation in California

and being that my son really wanted to go to Huntington Beach, I decided we'd go on Saturday.

So at least my wife and I, who don't do the beach, would get to go and see

some open -air preaching with Ray.

And so we saw fish from Trish.

Trisha Ramos was there with her husband, Emilio, and they actually had,

Trish had said that she watched that show that you just mentioned with your

sign in the background.

So we know who that other person was that watched it.

If you're looking at me, it was me.

Graciously, I stopped in between.

Oh, really?

See, you're becoming a big well -known name out there now, Cy.

So tell us, your degree is that you're what?

I'm a DWAW.

Yeah, and what's a DWAW?

That's a dude with a website.

A dude with a website.

And the website is proofthatgodexists .org.

So I want to start by asking for you to tell us about the website, how that came about.

And you know, how you started that and I guess also a little bit of

a trick to ask people you know, where,

how to get through the website.

Okay, in the chat.

Yeah, I'm trying to work on that now.

Okay, okay.

Well, I've always been interested in apologetics as long as I can remember and I think that I've been gifted

with being able to take these difficult arguments and difficult concepts and dump them down to a level that I

can understand them.

And I've done that with the typical arguments that everybody hears, the teleological argument, the cosmological argument.

And I was working on a website introducing all these arguments and I'd written them out and I'd shared among my Christian friends and

they loved it.

This is fantastic.

This is going to be great.

So I would take these arguments and I would try them online with unbelievers and I'd try them, you know, I'd just use these arguments with my

unbelieving friends at work.

And they went nowhere.

It fell flat and it was very frustrating.

My faith was never affected, but my desire to do apologetics was deeply affected and I actually

shelved the project to do a website for a number of years.

And then I finally heard, I still was interested in listening to debates.

Mostly I'd listen to debates like William Lane Craig and I used to really love them.

Still love William Lane Craig, but not so crazy about the debates anymore.

But then I listened to a debate called the Bonson -Stein debate between Greg Bonson and Gordon Stein.

And it was like nothing I'd ever heard before.

The first time that I heard that debate, I didn't actually realize what was going on.

But you could tell that the crowd was going, it was something completely different.

Then after I listened to that debate, I was introduced to what was known as presuppositional apologetics.

And through that I found a podcast up in California called The Narrow Mind, hosted by Gene Cook Jr.

And I listened to that faithfully for a number of years and I was a guest on that, I think, I believe four times.

And he was a real impact in teaching me this apologetic.

And one of the frequent callers to that show was a fellow named Dustin Sears, which many of the watchers will be familiar with.

And he's also helped me greatly with this apologetic.

And if you go to my website, the Multimedia page, you'll see a number of debates that I've done with Dustin.

One of them is on video and there's a few on audio that I've done with.

Now you're, to get through the website, it's not exactly,

you don't go right to your website directly.

Well, you can, but explain the layout of your website.

Because some people think that's, some people have argued with you that you got an error in your website, haven't they?

Yeah, if you go to the front page of my website, it asks you, what do you believe?

And it's a question about absolute truth.

And it says absolute truth exists, absolute truth does not exist.

I don't know if absolute truth exists and I don't care if absolute truth exists.

And just to get into the website, you have to pick one of those.

Actually, that was the only option on the website.

But people, so many people complained that they couldn't get through the quiz, even Christians, that I ended up putting some contact information on the

front page as well.

Because there's enough links out there that people are linking further into the site.

But anyhow, you have to select one of those.

And if you click on the option, like a lot of unbelievers will click the first thing and say, well, absolute truth does not exist.

And the next page says, absolute truth does not exist.

And it asks you if that's absolutely true or false.

And no matter which one you click, it takes you back to the front page.

Because to say that you don't, that absolute truth does not exist is to make an absolute truth claim.

And if you listen to some of my debates, people say just that.

And you can see how ridiculous they sound by by objecting to absolute truth, saying it doesn't

exist and saying that that's an absolute truth.

Okay.

Now, hold on.

Hold on with that.

Because I want to ask first is defined for the audience.

What do you mean by absolute truth?

Well, something that is true for all people at all times everywhere.

Okay.

And so they would deny that there are things that are true for all people everywhere.

Right.

They would say absolute does not exist.

But that in itself is an absolute truth claim.

And it used to take people back to the first page of the website.

But then you'd be surprised how many emails I got that said there's something wrong with your website.

So now if you do that, then it goes back to a page where it says, it looks exactly like the front page, except that it says in

brackets underneath, this is not a glitch.

And I urge people to think about the choice.

So at that point, then they say, well, I guess I don't know if absolute truth exists.

And a lot of times they'll click on, I don't know if absolute truth exists.

And the next page says, I don't know if absolute truth exists, absolute true or false.

Even to say that you don't know that absolute truth exists is to make an absolute truth claim.

And at that point, some of them become frustrated and they click on, I don't care if absolute truth exists.

And I think you know where that takes you.

If you click on, I don't care that absolute truth exists, it takes you to the Disney website.

Now you're not necessarily promoting Disney.

No, no, but you'd be surprised how much grief I get from Christians over that.

They say, it's not very nice.

You're mocking unbelievers by sending them to Disney.

And I say, you know, this is actually a biblical argument.

I mean, it is a joke.

I'm having some fun with these people.

But the thing is, if Disney was around at the time of Apostle Paul, he might have said, you know, if what we believe is not true,

you might as well go to Disney for tomorrow we die.

But he said, you know, eat, drink, be married for tomorrow we die.

But it's a biblical argument that if you're going to deny absolute truth, if you're going to say these things don't exist, you might as well fund what you still can.

There's no sense arguing with somebody who denies absolute truth.

So even, you know, that you have to, that absolute truth exists just to get into the website, because there's no sense discussing anything

with anybody who denies that absolute truth.

Because part of what you're doing in that is really exposing that they make truth claims when they don't

even recognize that the claim they make is a truth claim.

That's right.

Truth and knowledge claims.

Absolutely.

And that's, well, I know we're going to get into that a little bit later on, but it's very easy to show in scripture that the fear

of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

Proverbs 1 verse 7.

All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ.

That's Colossians 2 verse 2 and 3.

It's very easy to show from scripture that you need to start with God in order to know anything.

So that's where I start with the unbeliever.

I say, since you deny God, how do you know anything?

And it usually doesn't get past there.

Now this gets us into one of the questions, which is you're an evidential apologist, right?

That's right, yeah.

No, those who are watching are going to see the difference.

I want you to define both evidential apologetics and what you believe, which

would be presuppositional apologetics, which I would hold to.

What are they?

What are the differences between those two?

Well, I used to be what you would call an evidentialist, and that would be somebody who uses evidences to try and prove

the existence of God to the unbeliever.

He gives evidence.

The unbeliever says, I don't believe in God.

And they say, here's some evidence.

Look at the complexity of the eye.

Look at this.

Look at this.

Look at this.

Therefore, God must exist, or some generic deity must exist.

And now from there, we're going to get to which God that is.

And when I became a presuppositionalist, I'll define that for you before I talk about the differences.

But what I say is we all get the same evidences.

Everybody gets the same evidences.

But we're going to interpret that evidence subject to what we already believe, subject to the beliefs that we have before we

get to the evidence.

And of course, before is pre, and the suppositions, the beliefs we have before are the suppositions, the

presuppositions.

So I don't discuss evidences with people.

I discuss the beliefs, the presuppositions by which we can make sense of the evidence.

And I expose the fact that the unbeliever can't make sense of them.

But one of the best arguments that I talk with Christians when I tell them the difference of how to defend the

faith is where I say, where do you hear evidences most often in the secular world?

And if you could answer that for me, Andrew, where do you hear evidence?

Well, you hear it in a courtroom.

In the courtroom, right.

And who do you give evidence to in court?

Well, you give it to the judge and jury.

That's right.

You give it to the judge and the jury.

So when you're giving evidence for the existence of God to the unbeliever, you're saying that they are the judge and the jury.

And who's on trial?

Well, in that case, God is on trial.

God is on trial.

Do not put the Lord your God to the test.

And that's exactly what we're doing.

And, you know, people say, well, we don't put God to the test.

And we don't really do that.

But look at our church signs.

Our church signs say, try Jesus.

Give God a chance.

And we don't try the Lord of glory.

We submit to Him.

So rather than give evidence just to prove that God exists, and Scripture says that everybody knows that God exists.

So rather than believe the unbeliever, I believe Scripture when it says that everybody knows that God exists.

And I expose the fact that they do know that God exists.

Now, I don't know if you want to get into it at all or not now.

But some people say, well, what about those people in the deepest, darkest jungles of South America?

Do they know that God exists?

Well, there's a verse for that.

Yeah, that's right.

Well, we're talking about Romans 1.

But I expose the fact that these people believe it, even though they doubt it in their question.

I say, why do we send missionaries to these people?

We send missionaries to tell them about Christ, that they can know about salvation.

Now, if these people don't know that God exists and aren't responsible, aren't, and if they have an excuse for their sin,

sending missionaries would be the worst thing we could do for them.

Because now we're telling them about Christ, now they have an opportunity to reject Him, and now they can go to hell forever.

So if they really didn't know that God exists, and if they weren't accountable for their sin, then sending missionaries would be the worst thing we

could do.

Rather than send missionaries, we should build walls around those communities and prevent missionaries from getting in.

But we know that they're without excuse.

That's why we send missionaries to tell them about Christ.

So now you often, I've heard you in the open air preaching, because you are an open

air preacher too, sometimes.

It's not my forte, but I have been worse than doing it on a number of occasions.

Are you going to be coming back to Super Bowl outreach this year?

Maybe if that sponsor sent you those three nice cameras, or cameras that is listening, then

yeah, I'd love to go back.

You know, there is an unsized web page, there's a donate button, if anyone wants to donate to send

them to the Super Bowl outreach.

I think actually if you go to Super Bowl outreach, they have a thing there where you can sponsor an

individual.

So you could do it either way.

That's part of the problem for me.

Like I said, I was in industry four and a half years ago.

I was a stationary engineer,.

And I was making pretty good money.

So wait, you were engineering how stationary should be on the desk?

Yeah, that's exactly right.

No, actually they're called power.

I think in the States they're called power engineers.

But they look after the heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and actually my trade is in the steam and steam boilers.

And I was making great money, and I went to an evangelism conference at the church I was attending at the time, and I

disagreed with 95 of what the speaker said.

I said, something has to be done about this.

So that week I quit my job, and I'm not much of a business person.

So I never really paid attention to that.

And I'm going on savings now, which is fine until I get my book out.

I know that was one of the questions.

When is this book going to come out that you quit so you can write a book?

Well, the sad thing is since I quit, I've discovered I'm not a writer.

And I remember I was listening to some of the video where we met back in California, and you were shouting in the

background to read his book.

That was what, two years ago now?

I hope to get it out, and I hope to have some more time to do that.

I'm going to be going on a tour of the Ivy League schools this fall, starting in October, and then I have

that conference in Orlando, which I won't mention because it's the same day as the conference that you have.

I won't talk about the conference in Orlando on October 12th and 13th.

Because everyone should go to Greensville.

I need a flyer for Greensville to hold up.

You can have.

We can, well, he's a real ham, so it's okay.

But yeah, both of us will be speaking that weekend in two different states, both Florida and South

Carolina.

So if you can't make it all the way to Florida, you know.

Unless you're down there already.

Yeah, well, then you may want to take a drive and come north.

But, you know, so when you're open air preaching, you have raised

or brought up the verse of Romans 1 in the open air, and you start with that sometimes.

So why do you start with that verse, and give us the significance of that verse with presuppositional

apologetics?

Well, you'll see that most people, when they gauge unbelievers, who say that they don't believe in God, they believe them

rather than believe in God.

And I start with the truth of Scripture, that everybody knows that God exists without excuse for their suppression.

And it's remarkable some of the responses I get.

You've probably heard the story a number of times, but I was having dinner with a friend of mine, and he said, Si, the thing that I hate most

about you is how certain you are that God exists.

This is a friend of mine, because I hate this about you, that you're so certain.

He said, Si, how are you so certain that God exists?

And I said to him, the same way you are.

But I'm not following him, and you're not.

And this fellow, we had already been to the restroom.

We'd only sat down for a few minutes.

He got up, and he looked at his hands as if he was going to go to wash them.

And he got up from the table, and he walked away because he was crying.

And this is somebody, you know, when they say, how do you know that God exists?

And somebody could have got archaeological evidence, you know, the theological, all these different evidences.

And it would have been a debate back and forth.

But I just answered him according to the truth of Scripture, that he knows that God exists.

And there's another instance.

I mean, this has happened to me a number of times when I was out in California.

And we were doing that.

You were at the Ambassador's Academy as well.

And we got off the bus.

I think it was, it wasn't First Street Promenade.

What was that?

No, that was Newport Beach.

Newport Beach, that's right.

We went to Newport Beach, and I got off the bus quick because I'm not really crazy about crowds.

And I walked away from the crowd.

And this guy comes up to me on his bicycle.

He's in his 50s.

And he says, what's going on here?

I said, oh, a bunch of crazy Christians are doing some preaching.

And he laughs, and he said, I'm one of them.

So he said to me, he got really serious.

And he said, two of my brothers committed suicide.

And he said, I swore at God.

I hated God.

He says, no God would allow that to happen to my family.

And he happened to have a book on Hinduism in his bicycle.

And he showed it to me.

He picked it up a few days before at the Dollar Store.

And it was underlined and dog -eared.

And he said, this Hinduism, I could get into this.

This Brahman, this oneness of being.

He says, I like this.

I like this Brahman.

And I said, then tell me, is that the God you're mad at when your brother was committing suicide?

And he said to me, nothing.

Now, I could have tried to refute his belief in Brahman.

I could have tried to refute Hinduism.

But rather, I went to the truth of Scripture that he knows that God exists.

And that doesn't mean that everybody is going to break down in tears.

There are some people that are really heartened.

But it's better to honor God and answer according to the truth of Scripture than lie about God and

talk about some probability and accept the unbeliever's claim that he doesn't know that God exists.

But we have to do it with gentleness and respect.

Because we're destroying worldviews.

We're not talking about the complexity of the eye.

When we argue presuppositionally, we're going to the foundations of what they believe.

And this is the analogy that I give.

When you're talking with an unbeliever and you're destroying their worldview, you're showing that they can't account for anything unless they start with God.

It's like shooting holes into their airplane.

And that airplane is coming down.

And if you don't provide a safe landing strip for that airplane to land on, then they're not coming to you for the

gospel.

If you're a jerk about it, they're not coming to you.

And this is such a powerful argument and people become jerks about it because they're so used to having, you know, atheists

hammer them with their arguments.

And finally, they have a powerful argument and they want to return the favor.

But the thing is, if you're a jerk about it, they're not coming to you for the gospel.

They're ditching it like Hindu or they're ditching it like Scientology.

They're not coming to you.

So that's why it's very important that when you do this, you do with gentleness and respect.

Now, you know, it's interesting you bring that up.

I was going to bring this up later.

But since you mentioned about the respect, when you do debates

and people see your debates, and then they get to know you, and it's like they think they're two different people.

What is the purpose of a debate?

And how is that then different than when you're talking one on one?

Well, I think the debates that I engage in normally is with hardened atheists.

Because if you go to my channel, I actually just recently uploaded it.

I have a conversation with an atheist.

He's a very kind young man, not a hardened atheist.

He hadn't been an atheist for that long.

Well, you know, I would argue that he'd been one all his life.

But anyhow, he was not a hardened atheist.

And we had a very good conversation.

He actually gave up atheism in the second call.

And that is on my website.

But when I engage in debates, I engage with hardened atheists.

And that's different than just a casual conversation with your friend.

And I engage it differently.

So, you know, what I do is I try to expose the folly of their worldview.

And it does come across a little bit different.

It comes across a little bit harsher.

And I also have people, you know, to tell me if that's the case, if I am being too harsh.

Because that is a danger when you're doing any kind of apologetics.

You know, especially when you're right and you know it, it can come across as arrogance.

But, you know, sometimes it's just being right.

Yeah, and, you know, there is something to be said.

When you tell an atheist, which I do when I'm in the open air, is I'll tell an atheist or

someone that professes to be an atheist, because there is no such thing as atheism.

It's impossible.

Yeah, you know, I'll tell them, you know, God exists.

And it's amazing how upset they get.

But yet they can't deny it without appealing to me trying to prove, you know,

that my point, they'll sit there and just say, well, no, I don't.

Either you're lying or God's lying.

It's one or the other.

You had a great thing that you did, though, with an agnostic.

If you remember, you mentioned Newport Beach.

Which one was that, Chad?

With Chad.

Agnostic Chad versus our brother, Chad.

That's right.

But usually if somebody says to me they're an agnostic, I mean, it's a very serious thing.

But I like to be lighthearted with them, too.

Because if somebody tells me they're agnostic, the first question I say is, what church do you go to?

They say, I just told you I'm agnostic.

I said, yeah, what church do you go to?

They say, I don't go to church.

I said, well, if you're an agnostic, shouldn't you be in church half the time?

And YouTube's a chuckle about that.

But they say they're agnostics, but they live like atheists.

Yeah.

But yeah, with Chad at Newport Beach, I got on the box there.

And I declared to the audience at the time, I said, Scripture says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

And I challenged this person here who denies that God exists to tell me one thing that he knows and how he's able to know it.

And you can see it went on for about 10 minutes.

And he never offered even one knowledge claim because he knew that I would be able to

shut it down scripturally to show that he really can't know anything unless he starts with God.

So it was quite an interesting exchange that he couldn't get off the box faster.

He said that he had to put money in a parking meter.

So he ended up taking off.

Well, he did attempt to prove that he knew something for sure.

That's right.

I think he was going to drop his keys.

He was going to drop his set of keys.

He just didn't realize that the other individual besides me that was filming that day

happened to be a Navy SEAL and was fast enough.

And so for those who have not seen that video, agnostic Chad says, I'm going to

drop these keys and they're going to hit the ground.

And Chad Williams, brother in Christ, dove and grabbed the keys before

they hit the ground.

But his sunglasses fell off his head onto the ground.

And the guy heard the noise and without looking down turned to you and said, look, the

keys are on the ground.

And then Chad was sitting there holding them and just shaking them in the guy's face.

And the guy had to get down and shakes Chad's hand and couldn't believe it.

And then quickly grabbed the keys and threw him to the ground.

And you said even that you didn't know for sure.

Yeah.

But the thing is, it's a flamboyant argument to say that he knows that they're going to hit the ground.

He says, watch, because he didn't know they were going to hit the ground.

That's right.

He had no idea what they were going to do unless he assumes uniformity, which he cannot account for without God.

Unless he assumes that the future is going to be like the past.

So he had no idea what they were going to do.

But the thing is, he did know that they would drop when he let them go because he knows that God exists, but he's suppressing the

truth and unrighteousness.

He knows that he lives in a uniform world and he can't account for without God.

Okay.

So let's get into a discussion.

And I always fear doing this with you because you'll quickly back me up into a

wall if I try being the atheist.

Oh, we're not talking about baptism?

No, there's some of us that believe rightly in baptism.

I believe in baptism.

Yeah, of little babies that can't believe.

Actually, you know, it is good for the folks to see that.

I mean, these issues that you and I disagree with, like baptism and others, that we still love one another.

We can disagree and understand where one another comes to, how we come to one another's

views.

And yet I accept that you're wrong and that's not a problem for us.

I appreciate that.

I'm able to use my skills in debating with atheists when I talk to you.

No, you see, we do have a lot of fun.

I think that some people don't realize that when I get into chat and I poke fun at you, that we both give

and take equally.

And for me and my family, I grew up in a family with seven kids.

And for us, this was sport.

And we enjoyed it.

We loved it.

I remember I started working at a new place, at a new factory, an automotive factory.

And working, there were five guys that I used to work with.

And these guys were ripping into me at shift change like you wouldn't believe.

And the boss didn't know of our previous relationship.

And he comes in, he says, look, take it easy on Sai.

I mean, this isn't very nice to you guys.

And I said to him, are you kidding?

This is my favorite time of day.

I loved it.

So I really enjoy doing it.

And I hope people realize that when I'm in chat poking fun at you.

Yeah.

I mean, you're usually, in the very first class that we had when we were doing the Biblical

Harmonetics, you almost got booted by the first moderator because he didn't know who you were and

didn't realize the jabs that you were having.

You also didn't realize I couldn't see them.

But that's all right.

I do have chat up now.

So if people do, I should say, if people do have questions for Sai, post them up there.

We do have a couple that we're going to ask you.

But I want to go through a scenario, though, of how you get into a conversation.

What does a conversation or dialogue look like?

So you come to someone that claims they're an atheist.

Well, the thing is, I do not like debate and switch.

I don't like talking about other things and saying, oh, guess what?

I got the gospel for you.

You know, I almost liken that to your doctor saying I had a big screen TV before he called me into the doctor's

office and says, guess what?

You got cancer.

You know, so I like to be right up front with the person when I talk with them.

I say, look, I'm a Christian.

I'm here talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And then I tell them what Scripture says.

I said that Scripture says, oh, Dustin just came online here.

I wonder if he's watching.

Anyhow, I say Scripture says that everybody knows that God exists.

And I say that if you deny God, you know, I'm going to show it to you that you cannot account for anything you claim to know,

because Scripture also says that you know that God exists.

And, you know, I trust Scripture wholly in saying that, but I'm also going to demonstrate it to you that you cannot account for

anything you claim to know.

And first of all, I ask them if it's impossible for God to exist.

And if they're intellectually honest, they'll have to say, no, it's not impossible, because they would have to know everything.

They would have to be God in order to say that it's impossible for God to exist.

Sometimes they do say that, but they say it's not impossible for God to exist.

Which is also an argument on why we do not have atheists, right?

I mean, it's the same logic.

Well, the logic is that Scripture says that there's no such thing.

Well, yeah, but to claim to that there is no God means you must know everything that there is

to know in the universe.

Right.

But the thing is, then you end up in agnosticism.

Okay.

You just say, I don't know.

So that's why I don't even use that argument.

And so when they claim agnosticism, how would you go from there then?

I say that's not what the Bible says.

The Bible says that you do know that God exists.

Well, then what they'll say is, well, I don't believe the Bible.

I don't believe the Bible's written by men.

So you don't believe the Bible's true?

No.

I would do some role play for them.

Now we're doing role play, and I'm going to get in trouble real fast, but fine.

You don't believe the Bible's true?

No.

But you do believe in truth, though?

Sure.

Okay, so some things have to be true in order to say that my Bible's false.

What is truth in your world?

What is truth about God?

Truth is everything we see around us.

Okay, so you determine what is truth through your senses and your reasoning.

You have basically a correspondence theory of truth.

People don't have to realize this, but a lot of people don't even realize what theory of truth they have, but they say truth is that

which corresponds to reality.

So you have a correspondence theory of truth.

You're saying truth is what you sense through your senses and reasoning.

So, Mr. Unbeliever, how do you know your senses and reasoning are valid?

Well, I would say that they're testable.

They're observable.

They're testable in laboratories of observational science.

I just saw somebody in the chat say that I'm going to lead you to the Lord.

So you'd have to know the Lord first, Cy.

When you do these scientific experiments where you test them, are you employing your senses and your reasoning?

Of course.

So you're assuming that they're valid before you do these experiments?

Yes.

Okay, so don't you see a problem there?

That you're using your senses to prove your senses.

Well, if I'm going to be the atheist or agnostic, I would say no.

It's not a problem there.

I'm using my senses that I can verify.

Okay, so I'm going to give you a new proof that God exists then.

God exists because God exists.

Do you have a problem with that?

Well, as an agnostic, I'm going to claim that that is circular logic.

That's right.

But when you say that your senses and reasoning are valid because your senses and reasoning are valid, that's a vicious circle.

But that's why very early on, I asked them if it's impossible for God to exist.

And when they concede that it's not impossible, I say, look, you've already granted me an avenue to certainty.

Because what I used to ask people, I say, is it impossible for God to reveal things such that we can know them for certain?

I don't even do that anymore.

Now I say, is it impossible for God to exist?

And if they say, no, it's not impossible.

I say, well, the God of scripture reveals things to us such that we can know them for certain.

I say, not only to me, he reveals them to you too.

That's why you're without excuse, because you know for certain that God exists.

So you've already conceded to me an avenue to certainty through revelation from God.

And I'm exposing that you have a viciously circular argument, that you are trusting your senses and reasoning based on your senses

and reasoning.

So basically, when they go to prove their senses and reasoning, they're making a faith claim.

They're opening their Bible, and they're reading their Bible.

But the problem is they wrote their own Bible, and that's the difference.

Okay, now I want to break, I wanted to do this and now break it down because there are some people, and even someone in

the chat room is saying the first time you went through this with them, that really hurt their head or messed with their head.

Although there's also someone in the chat room saying that after you lead me to the Lord, I'm going to lead you to baptism, to believer's baptism.

I believe in...

But, okay, so you get somebody and they're saying that

they're talking the difference of circular reasoning.

I want you first to explain why the difference between the two types of circular reasoning, because we both accepted

circular, correct?

Right, right, absolutely.

And the thing is, the funny thing is that the unbeliever will never admit their circularity or very rarely will admit their circularity.

They'll point out what they see is a circle in our view.

Of course, we appeal to God to prove God.

We must.

You have to appeal to your highest authority to prove your highest authority.

That's true with any work.

Because if there's something higher than your highest authority, then it's not your highest authority anymore.

If there was something that we could use to prove God, then God wouldn't be our highest authority.

But the question is, can God reveal himself such that we can own him for certain?

And of course he can do that.

It's not impossible for God to exist.

God can do that.

So that's what you call a virtuous circle, which saves reason, because God can and has revealed to us such that we can know

things, not only to us, to the unbeliever as well.

And then you look at their world, you can see that there's a vicious circle, because they're saying, I reason that my reasoning is valid.

I sense that my sense is valid.

And they have no escape from that circle.

Okay.

So someone's asking in the chat room, what is a, not the,

well, I think the spelling may be off, not the viciously circular, but.

A vicious circle is one that destroys reason.

It's vicious, as opposed to a virtuous one that saves reason.

Reason is only possible when you start with God.

And the thing is, everybody reasons, and that exposes the fact that they know that God exists.

So you get into, you know, and most of the time they're not realizing, but you're

trying to expose to them that they're trusting in reasoning and

senses and things that, to even observe stuff.

But they first must accept reasoning to use the reasoning, correct?

That's right.

Well, the thing is, they can't do anything.

They can't reason.

They can't think.

Even if they don't open their mouths, the thoughts in their head, when these unbelievers are thinking thoughts, they're thinking words in

their head.

And my question to them was, would be, how do you know that the words that you're thinking mean the same thing they did five seconds ago?

See, as an unbeliever, you can't even think without assuming God.

And we're here trying to prove God through the complexity of the eye.

We're saying, no, everything that shows that God exists.

You want evidence that God exists, the very concept of evidence, evidence that God exists, because you couldn't reason about it

unless you started with him.

That's the God that I believe in.

You know, I believe in the God that from him, through him, and to him are all things, not only for the believer, but for the

unbeliever as well.

That's the God I believe in, not some nebulous being that I have to prove with these intellectual arguments.

See, if God is at the end of an intellectual argument, then you didn't need him to get there.

And it wouldn't be the God of scripture.

God is not at the end of an intellectual argument.

God is a necessary starting point for any argument.

That's the God I believe in.

Okay, so someone's asking, why is logic the coherence of God?

I have no idea what they're asking.

Yeah, so I was hoping you would.

Well, logic is basically a reflection of the way God thinks.

You know, people say, is God subject to logical laws?

Well, in a sense, he's not.

He's not subject to some laws that are outside of him.

The logic is a reflection of the thinking of God, just like morality is a reflection of God's being.

Morality is God doesn't adhere to some laws that are above him.

Morality is the character and nature of God.

Same as logic.

Logic is the way God thinks.

So that's why God is necessary for logic.

Logic is not like he created these laws.

God could not have created logic to be different, because then God would be different and God cannot change.

So logic is a reflection of the way God thinks.

And the unbeliever cannot account for logic apart from God.

Usually, I don't get this deep into the argument with unbelievers anymore.

I used to teach this argument, and I'd get into the characteristics of logic, that it was universal, abstract,

and invariant, and that God is universal, abstract, and invariant, and that these type of things make sense in the Christian

world, and the guys would be loving it.

Their eyes would be wide open.

Oh, give me more, give me more.

And the women in the audience, they'd be just glazed over, and they wouldn't be interested.

Actually, you know that look from your sermons.

No, usually people, the look I see in my sermons are people's head back, their eyes closed, mouth wide open.

Revelling in their dreams, maybe, as they're sound asleep.

But the more I taught this, I realized I was teaching it wrong.

It's not about, you know, these intellectual, because what happens is the unbeliever is starting to dupe the Christian

into having these long, drawn -out arguments when Scripture says that they're fools.

And we don't have to call them fools, but we have to recognize what Scripture says and meet them on that level.

So now I realize that it's not an intellectual argument.

It's a relational argument.

It's about who God is.

And when I teach it that way, now the women are loving it.

They say, yes, this is the God that I believe in.

And the guys are saying, give me more, give me more questions, give me more questions.

And now I realize it's the women who are understanding this argument better.

And the guys are saying, well, what do you ask?

What do you say?

What do you do?

And the women are saying, no, once you know that God has revealed himself perfectly, that everybody knows that God exists, you are a

presuppositionalist.

Just when you defend your faith, don't lie about God.

Don't talk about a probable God.

You know, in Scripture, it says the heavens declare the glory of God.

It doesn't say the heavens might declare your glory if you exist.

But then we go out into the world and we defend a probable God.

And we have to stop doing that.

Yeah.

I mean, when we look at, you know, the evidence, which can

help believers be encouraged at the Scriptures.

Absolutely.

Evidence, I want people to make that clear.

Evidence is a wonderful gift from God.

There are people who say that I'm against evidence.

Of course not.

Evidences are a wonderful gift from God, but they're not used to put God on trial.

That's the big difference.

Because, you know, we have wonderful evidence.

We can acquit God.

But if you acquit God, the unbeliever is still the judge.

Now, God, I want to, you know, for people in the chat, I want people to watch this later.

There might be many people out there who became Christians because of the evidence.

And I'm not saying that you're not Christians.

God can use evidence as God can strike a straight blow with a bent stick.

He can use evidence to get people to truly submit to Him.

But my fear is that there's many Christians out there who claim to be Christians solely based on the evidence.

And therefore, if they see evidence that might contradict the existence of God, let's say, you know, they see a terrible crime or a

terrible tragedy, they say, well, there's evidence that there is no God.

And then all of a sudden, they're not Christians anymore.

It's like putting evidence on one side of the scale and on the other side of the scale, and they're tipping back and forth.

But the problem is the unbeliever is holding the scale.

And that's why I think it's very dangerous to only use evidences in defending your faith without attacking,

without getting at the presupposition to expose, you know, the truth that the unbeliever really does know that God exists and

is without excuse for denying Him, for their sin against Him.

And one thing, you know, you'd be surprised at the unbeliever, at how little resistance you get to that claim.

Because, you know, you said before that people say, I don't know that God exists.

But you'd be surprised at how many people just get quiet when you say that.

Like I say, some of them break down in tears.

No, you do know that God exists.

And then you see that the power of this argument, when you just speak scripturally, that's our ultimate authority.

Scripture says, my sheep hear my voice.

It doesn't say, my sheep hear Si's really good presuppositional argument.

It says, my sheep hear my voice.

So we can use that argument, you know, to break down barriers.

But we have to talk to them with our ultimate authority, with the words of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, because

that's what His sheep hear.

Yeah, I mean, one of the things, and I often say this to people that I'm speaking to, unbelievers,

and I'll explain to them that their issue is not one of evidence.

They'll say, well, just give me evidence.

The reality is, for many of them, it doesn't matter how much evidence we give them, they're not going to be convinced,

because their issue is not an evidence one.

It's a spiritual one.

Absolutely.

I was in a park just last Friday, witnessing, and this fellow came up to me.

And I was talking to him.

And the question I said to him, I said, tell me, do you want this to be true?

Do you know what he said?

No.

Yeah.

At least he was being honest.

That's right.

And other people that Eric, Eric Holman and I, we've done some debates, and we've asked these people, if you could be convinced on your terms

that God exists, would you worship Him?

And they say, absolutely not.

And they call him a murderer.

They say all these terrible things that God had supposedly done.

And then the next thing they say is, give me evidence for God.

Yeah.

I think so.

Why would I give you evidence for God?

Would you hate Him?

I think Eric actually put together just a bunch of clips of different people that he'd ask a

couple of questions.

And there was like, if this, if God existed, and I could prove it to you, would you, you

know, would you worship Him?

And they'd be like, no, no, no, you know.

But, but the thing is not one of us trying to give

tons of evidence to overwhelm them with evidence.

But a presuppositional apologetic is the knowledge that

everyone knows God exists.

I always say it this way, that I hold to two presuppositions.

God exists, and He has written, or He has spoken.

And those are the two things.

And where people get into problems, and I think you agree, is where we put aside the

Bible, which is exactly what they want.

The atheist or agnostic would love for us to put the Bible aside, because what we do in doing that is

get rid of our only truth.

And now we're on the same shaky world that they are.

And they want us to then try to argue, where your way of arguing is to first show them that they're

already accepting our worldview.

Right, I mean, yeah.

Jason Lyle makes that point.

And the first thing that the person does is says, give me your gun.

And you say, okay, here you go.

Yeah.

Jason Lyle makes that point in his book, The Ultimate Proof of Creation, where he points out

the fact that they, as unbelievers, are starting with our worldview

because they accept reasoning and logic to even deny reasoning and logic.

That's right.

And the evidence, I once had a guy on the boardwalk that said, just give me evidence.

I said, what kind of evidence would you accept?

Because that's the issue.

Let them define it.

What evidence would you accept?

He says, if God put a hamburger in my hand right now.

I said, what if God put the money for a hamburger in your hand right now?

He said, that'd be a miracle.

I said, okay.

I got off my box.

I put $5, boom, dropped it in his hand.

I said, there you go.

Bow your knee.

Worship God.

He said, that's not a miracle.

You did that.

See, I told you, you'd explain it away.

I said to the crowd, I said, a Christian giving away money, that's not a miracle.

And they laughed and enjoyed it.

But I pointed out that I let him define the miracle.

I let him define the evidence.

And he still wasn't going to accept it.

I did the same thing with the guy that said, make a water bottle lift off an inch off the box.

So I walked over and did it.

I said, so God used me as the vessel.

The reality is, is that their issue is not one of evidence.

It's a spiritual one.

There was a fellow when we were at Princeton, I think it was, I think you went out to Princeton all the time that Mike Stahl got the ticket.

But I've been teaching the apologetic to some people.

And so they were talking with this fellow from Princeton.

He was, I think he was a philosophy student at Princeton.

And he told these two that he denied the laws of logic.

He did not believe in logic.

And they were having a hard time, you know, talking with him.

And they saw me, they spied me out of the corner of their eye and called me over.

And they said, this guy here, he denies logic.

Yeah, that was me that brought you over.

Okay.

But he said, he said, I said to this fellow, so you deny logic?

And he said, yes, I do.

I said, then you don't.

And he stuck out, he smiled, he stuck out his hand to shake my hand.

He says, I like you.

Because if you deny logic, you deny the law of non -contradiction, then I can contradict you.

And then you can immediately expose the foolishness about you.

So I want a full discussion after that.

I want to go, usually the Academy shows are about 15 minutes.

I want to go a little bit longer because we've got two really good questions that came in the chat room that I want to go into.

One is to ask you, Sy, how you transition from the apologetics into the

gospel.

And I want you to also explain, someone in the air said, you know, where's Sy when I'm doing this?

So I want you to explain, I want you to go through it.

I know you do this and it takes some people a hard time to understand.

I want you to go through it and explain how you transition.

Well, one thing I've discovered the more I teach this is that, you know, I've been teaching it wrong in the past as well.

If you have to ask the question, how do you transition to the gospel?

Then you're too far from the gospel.

So the more and more I teach this, the more I stay closer to the gospel.

I say, look, the fear of the Lord is the being of knowledge.

And then they have a lot of trouble answering how they can know anything.

I said, the reason that you can answer these questions is because you're not saved.

You know, Jesus Christ didn't only die to save souls for eternity.

He died to save reasoning now.

He died to save relationships now.

And that's why you're having trouble with this reason because you're not saved.

And that's why you need the blood of Jesus Christ who died to pay for our sins.

You know, and so if you're very far away from the gospel, like when you're talking about the complexity of the eye, I have no idea how you get from

that to the gospel.

And that's why I say stick very close.

It's really a gospel presentation because you're exposing the fact that unless they start with God, you can't know anything.

So you're actually within the gospel at that point.

You're pointing out their sin for denying the God they know exists.

When you say the only answer for that is salvation in Jesus Christ.

All right.

Now the person is one person was clarifying.

They were saying, where's Si when he's doing that?

They meant, where is Si when I'm giving away money?

And so the answer to that is when Si is looking for money, he

looks inside his shoes, but he doesn't find out about that till he's back in Canada, eh?

I thought the left hand wasn't supposed to know what the right hand is doing.

I didn't say.

You didn't know.

The left hand didn't know until you got back to Canada, eh?

You wouldn't take the money.

I'll put it in the chat room and everybody on the internet knows.

But I appreciate it, Andrew.

Thank you.

But no, Si, we still rib each other.

We still got each other.

But, you know, when we, and we're going to, you and I and Jason Lyle and Chad Williams actually

are all going to be getting together this next summer.

Looking forward to that.

Yeah, the second weekend in July, you guys are all coming to speak at Jersey Fire.

So we're going to get a lot of presuppositional apologetics on that day.

And you and I are, you know, one of the things someone asked is, when is your class going to start?

And I think that one of the things you and I still have to plan is we're talking about doing, you know, a DVD

together to get you to, we were trying to do it for Jersey Fire, but the

timing didn't work.

I always get out of it somehow.

I know, I know.

I think what it is, is you're afraid that we're going to be on DVD and I'm going to start talking baptism.

You're just not going to have the answers.

No, I got a better face for audio.

Yeah, but, you know, I have a better shirt right now for video.

I'm looking forward to seeing the video because don't be in chat with telling me what you're wearing.

Well, I'm sorry, before we go quickly, I just, I don't want to leave people hang with this.

But if you ask an unbeliever, if I could prove God exists, would you worship Him?

And they'll say no.

Sometimes they say yes.

And your answer to that is, you know, you probably would because it would be a God that you made up.

Because any God that needs me to prove it isn't God at all.

So just in case they answer the other way, I want people to prepare for that as well.

Yeah, and it is a thing that people get into

not understanding that reasoning, to reason, they first rely on God.

Absolutely.

And I commanded in Isaiah 118, come let us reason together, says the Lord.

I had a guy actually at this year's Jersey Fire.

We were just, we just got done at Jersey Fire.

And someone needed to figure out how to get to the roadway to go back home.

And I had Melissa in the car there and some others when we're talking.

And we get to, we pull to the corner and we're waiting for this other car.

And this guy's standing there.

I go to give him a gospel track.

And he says, I already saw one of those.

Already got one of those.

I said, did you read it?

Oh, yeah.

And I said, I start talking with him.

And I asked him, he denies God.

But then he realized he can't explain or account for reasoning without God.

And I said, then let me ask you a question.

If I'm, I may be confused here.

But it sounds like you're using your God given reasoning to deny the

God that gave you reasoning.

And he just sat there and said, hey, do you have another one of those things?

And I handed him the gospel track.

And I then gave him a Bible.

We gave him some DVDs and CDs.

Gave him the most important message you could ever hear CD that we give away.

And he just was like, what got him was he thought he had was on firm foundation.

Because he thought reasoning and science proved his points.

And yet he did it.

For the person that chatted with Luke 21 15.

That's the question.

What's the verse that says that we have an argument?

We can't lose.

It doesn't really say that.

If Jesus says, for I will give you words and wisdom that your adversaries will not be able to resist or contradict.

That was for the person that chatted.

Sorry.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean, but the thing is, you know, people don't realize that they're first relying on God.

To deny the God that gave them the reasoning.

You know, and so, yeah, I mean, that's that.

It's it is a very good way of arguing, not really in a sense of arguing.

Because when we go out, we are not denying the God of the Bible.

So like people aren't necessarily going to drop down and follow you into church now.

But at least now when you defend your faith, you're honoring God.

Yes, that's a different because we cannot even make one convert.

But now at least you're speaking the truth about the God that we adore.

If I can argue and convince someone with all of the logic.

And all of the evidence without using the Bible.

Then I really haven't convinced them of the God of the Bible.

And this was one of the questions someone had asked earlier in the chat room was.

You know, then someone could just posit another God.

Absolutely.

Because that's what they say.

Now you've gotten to a God.

Now which God is it?

And you're using their autonomous reason being a law to themselves to reason to a God.

And if you can reason without God, the God you reason to, like you said, is not God.

Yes.

So now I'm going to say this real quick.

Because there may be some people in there like myself who would say I came to Christ.

Not so well, in my case, not so much by evidence, but people who the evidence is something that they listen to.

In my case, it was really what got me to accept the New Testament was fulfilled prophecy.

The mathematics of fulfilled prophecy.

But there's people that hear evidence and they say, well, that got them started.

But is it the evidence that saved them?

Absolutely not.

Because I think if they are Christian because of the evidence, then it would follow that they could be non -Christian because of the evidence,

that there might be contradictory evidence.

Of course, there isn't because it's true.

However, they might perceive something as evidence that doesn't support the existence of God.

And they're still being the judge.

Now, of course, God can use evidence to bring people to a true submission.

But like I say, it's a danger that they might still be Lord of the evidence rather than submit to the

Lord of the evidence.

Yeah.

And so, you know, then you get into questions like can, you know, and you can help me out with this question.

So you wanted the answer to this.

Can a can a elect abortionist?

How's that question go that you wanted to ask, Tony?

Hey, you're getting out of time, man.

I'll leave it up to you.

So the question was, because I believe I've heard on some of the videos that, well, we won't get into

it.

All right.

Let me ask you this one.

While we were yet sinners.

One question that he sent his son to die for us.

But anyhow, go on.

So does light have mass?

Depends if it's acting as a particle or as a wave.

Now, the joke behind that is that when we were at the academy together, whenever people asked if there was a question, I would stand up

right shut up and say, does light have mass?

Because I don't think that answer that question has been answered.

Yes.

And you were asking that last week of Tony.

So that's right.

But it was a pleasure having you on.

I appreciate it.

Again, let me just post for those.

Your website is proof that God exists dot org.

I want to encourage you guys to go out there and check that out.

Because, you know, on that site, you're going to there's a lot of good information that you

you'll get out there.

I just want to also encourage you guys with as we do each week

on the academy every week, we look to have a new person that we want to encourage you to go

encourage.

Now, why do we do that?

We do that because we've discovered many of us realize that there's times where we

don't encourage people enough.

We don't encourage we speak all these encouraging things about people after they die.

And it's good to to encourage.

And so I know that this we have had people who continually

go and encourage the people that we ask you to go and encourage not only that week, but afterwards.

And the people have contacted me and told me how much that that means to them.

And so I'm going to ask this week, if you go to to the website there, we want the brother of the week that

we're going to talk about is Bobby McCurry.

It's to the end of the earth dot org is his website.

And you can go there and get in touch with him.

I think he's on Facebook as well.

And he has just go out and email him through his his website and read his blog.

This brother is I was had the opportunity to preach with him over in London,

a great knowledge of scripture and great use of it in the open air and

just really putting it out there for the Lord.

He's he is a team leader at the Super Bowl outreach and just

really is an excellent leader and an excellent brother.

And someone who is trying to continue being full time at

the gospel.

So he is trying to be a full time missionary here in the United States.

And we do need those missionaries.

And so we asked you to go out and encourage Bobby McCray this week.

McCurry.

Did I what I say?

McCurry.

I was wrong.

Thank you.

So Bobby McCurry.

And that's why we need brothers and sisters to be encouraging.

I was going to help you out with some other stuff, but we'll just stick with that.

And so, you know, it's a it's been a pleasure having Cyon.

For those who are not that familiar with the academy, we're going to be starting up

in a couple of weeks soon as we get the syllabus done.

We will start the School of Systematic Theology.

I'm sure that in the chat room, Cy will be fired up and he will be shooting a lot of things, especially when we

get to, you know, if we can get to things like baptism and, you know, covenant theology versus true, you know,

interpretation of the Bible.

Yeah.

And when we get to those things, but we're going to start the School of Systematic Theology.

We do these shows because of the fact that there are many people around the world who do not have access to the

education that we have in America and in Canada.

And, you know, we're wanting to put that out.

And if you want to help support us, you can do so by going to our website, strivingforeternity .org.

There's an academy page on there.

And from there, you'll get all the information if you want to be a student of the academy.

With that, you get the the syllabuses that we have.

We have a school that's already done, the School of Biblical Hermeneutics.

That's complete.

We're going to start Systematic Theology.

We'll probably be in that for maybe close to a year with the amount of material that we have.

And then we'll move on to another one from there.

But we will continue one of the other advantages.

And Cy, if you have the time, I'm going to, I'll shoot you the

information for the Q &A.

And for those who are students, you can join and ask questions.

In this case of Cy or whoever is the instructors for the classes.

And you will be able to ask them in a conference call that we do right after the show.

And that's something that as students of the academy, you get that opportunity.

So I encourage you to consider joining and maybe supporting

us, helping us do what we do.

And it would be great to see you as students.

We're going to be doing a lot more for students in the future.

As far as some emails and different things.

We're redesigning our web page.

I'm going to give, hopefully, a special section just for students.

So we thank you for being with us.

Cy, again, we thank you for being with us.

Thanks for having me.

And just, if you get a chance to go to Cy's web page, I'm going to

just post this one more time for you.

Because on that web page, what you're going to see is, there's a lot of links.

If this was, hey, this was too much all at one time.

We're going to post this up on YouTube later tonight.

But you'll see on the web page many different debates.

And you'll see the style and the explanation several different times.

So it would be good to go through that.

But I think, as Tony said last week, that Cy is probably one of the premier

apologists of our time.

And I've taken Cy's camera down.

So you cannot see him shaking his head no.

I'm going to be on Tony's show on Sunday.

That's right.

Sunday evening on Cross Encounters.

So I'm going to disabuse Tony of that myth.

Yes, you will be on Cross Encounters radio Sunday night.

So I encourage you guys to get on to that.

Tony was on our show last week.

And so Tony and I both agree that Cy is a

great apologist who can really explain well the argument.

So I thank you for being on.

I look forward to seeing you all next week.

And remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.