Last DL for Two Weeks: Disastrous Papacy, Licona/Dillahunty Debate

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A one hour quick episode on my way to the airport, heading to South Africa and London. Discussed the evolving story of the obvious fact that Pope Francis is, well, a bit to the left of center on things, and then spent most of the time looking at the debate between Matt Dillahunty and Mike Licona, allegedly on the resurrection. Important issues!

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Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. It is a Friday afternoon. It is six o 'clock in the east, four o 'clock here in the
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Mountain West, three o 'clock in the Pacific Time Zone. And I have a flight to catch flying to Heathrow from Heathrow down to Johannesburg, headed out to Potsdam, the location of Northwest University, formerly
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Potsdam University, where I'll be teaching next week. And then the next weekend,
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Antioch Bible Church and the conference there, flying back through London.
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In London, we have a number of things going on. At least one encounter that I can tell you about right now on Friday night at Kensington Temple with Abdullah Al -Andalusi.
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Hopefully a second the next night, but we don't have the location of that set up quite yet. We'll be speaking hopefully twice on Sunday.
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We'll try to let folks know about those things if you're in London. Your prayers definitely appreciated.
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Remind you to continue to pray for use of books. Also others that we'll be encountering there in South Africa.
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Bisher Varnia, who we're going to be doing a debate at the mosque in Linasia. I think
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I'm going to be doing something with Ahmed Pandor. Certainly pray for Rudolf Buschhoff, who has to put up with me for all this time.
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And I hope if you have appreciated any of the things that we've done down in South Africa, Rudolf is, you know, makes it so much easier to go down to South Africa when you've got someone on the ground that absolutely takes care of everything and is such a good friend, good brother.
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So pray for Rudolf, for the folks at Antioch Bible Church, Tim Cantrell and the elders there.
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So pray for the time there, obviously. Appreciate your prayers for health. 20 hours in plane, not including layovers and stuff like that between now and the time
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I get there. So that's probably what, 500 to 600 different people that will all be breathing the same air.
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Woohoo! So, prayers that I get there in one piece. And then of course flying back, prayers for Abdullah Al -Andalusi,
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Anand Rashid, everybody involved with all the stuff that's going on there in London, that I find my way to where I need to go, so on and so forth.
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So prayers for the upcoming trip, very much appreciated. Your support for the trip, very much appreciated.
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There's a travel link on the website if you'd like to help. In Wittenberg, a couple hours north of Prague, did
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I tell you about that? Yeah, a couple hours north of Prague and Kiev. So I like keeping him in the dark and giving him stink eye and things like that.
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Excuse me while I take a little sip here. Ah, yes, from my, yes, yes, just thought
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I'd mention the Babylon Bee. I don't know how, you know, if I were that guy,
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I would only put out like one, he puts out like three in a day. It's like, don't you remember what happened to Larson in the far side?
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Burned out, man. You know, eventually nothing was funny anymore, you know, and he just went off and lived in the woods someplace.
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So there you go. But yes, thank you for my Babylon Bee mug.
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And some people are going to think that the program today came from the Babylon Bee. Anyway, so two things
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I need to get to today. I'm going to be quick. I'm going to have to be quick on both of these because I have a flight to catch. So unlike most of our programs where,
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Hey, if I want to go for two hours, I can go. Not going to happen today. Oh, before I, a fellow walks up to me,
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Nick Ranieri walks up to me at the
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TMAI symposium in Southern California. And he gives me this book and wanted to talk afterwards.
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I didn't, there's a lot of folks that want to talk afterwards, unfortunately, and it's difficult to do that. But The Great Elephant, an
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Illustrated Allegory. And so it's a kid's book. And I'm looking at the illustrations.
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I'm like, man, this is really good. You did the illustrations? Yeah. Wrote it and did the illustrations.
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He worked for Disney for years. So you've seen his work in other places, probably not in the live version of Beauty and the
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Beast. That's a whole other issue we won't get into today. But an
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Illustrated Allegory. So what I did on Wednesday night is
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I had Kelly read it to me as we drove to church. And so I got all the way through it.
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And it's sort of like a very quick version of Pilgrim's Progress.
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For kids with animals that they'll like because, you know. So I wanted to say thanks for that.
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My girls, obviously, Clementine and January will be getting that in a short period of time.
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And I wanted to thank Nick for that. And it's a good little book if you want to get something for the kids.
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Okay. LifeSite News is sort of a, it used to,
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I don't know, it used to be just all about abortion. And it seems to be heavily Roman Catholic these days.
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Maybe it always has been, but it's heavily Roman Catholic now. There is an article posted yesterday
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I want to try to get through as quickly as possible by Phil Lawler called
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This Disastrous Papacy. This Disastrous Papacy. Something snapped last
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Friday when Pope Francis used the day's gospel reading as one more opportunity to promote his own view on divorce and remarriage.
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Could you show that book one more time and the author's name? Nick Ranieri.
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It's published by Redemption Press and it's called The Great Elephant, an Illustrated Allegory.
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So there you go. When Pope Francis used the day's gospel reading as one more opportunity to promote his own view on divorce and remarriage, condemning hypocrisy and the logic of,
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I hate this word, casustry, the pontiff said that Jesus rejects the approach of legal scholars.
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True enough, but in his rebuke of the Pharisees, what does Jesus say about marriage? So they are no longer two but one flesh, but therefore
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God has joined together, let no man put asunder, and whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her wife and marries another, she commits adultery.
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Day after day in his homilies at morning mass in Vatican's St. Martha residence,
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Pope Francis denounces the doctors of the law and the rigid application of Catholic moral doctrine. Sometimes his interpretation of the day's scripture readings is forced.
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Often his characterization of tradition -minded Catholics is insulting. But in this case, the Pope turned the gospel reading completely upside down.
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Reading the Vatican radio account of his astonishing homily, I could no longer pretend that Pope Francis is merely offering a novel interpretation of Catholic doctrine.
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No, it is more than that. He is engaged in a deliberate effort to change what the Church teaches.
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For over 20 years now, writing daily about the news in the Vatican, I have tried to be honest in my assessment, but I don't know why
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I did that, in my assessment of papal statements and gestures. I sometimes criticized
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St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI when I thought that their actions were imprudent. But never did it cross my mind that either of those popes posed any danger to the integrity of the
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Catholic faith. Looking back much farther across Church history, I realize that there have been bad popes, men whose personal actions were motivated by greed and jealousy and lust for power and just plain lust.
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I stop for a moment just to point out more than that. Read about the pornography sometime.
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But has there ever been a Roman pontiff who showed such disdain for what the
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Church has always taught and believed and practiced on such bedrock issues as the nature of marriage and of the Eucharist? I stop again.
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Yes, many times. At the time of the Reformation, for example, when the guy is riding around Rome on a horse in armor, he probably didn't care much about any of these things.
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Pope Francis has sparked controversy from the day he was elected as St. Peter's successor, which he's not.
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But in the past several months, the controversy has become so intense, confusion among the faithful so widespread, administration of the
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Vatican so arbitrary, and the pope's diatribes against his real or imagined foes so manic that today the
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Universal Church is rushing toward a crisis. In a large family, how should a son behave when he realizes that his father's pathological behavior threatens the welfare of the whole household?
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He should certainly continue to show respect for his father, but he cannot indefinitely deny the danger. Eventually, a dysfunctional family needs an intervention.
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In the worldwide family that is the Catholic Church, the best means of intervention is always prayer. Intense prayer for the
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Holy Father would be a particularly apt project for the season of Lent. But intervention also requires honesty, a candid recognition that we have a serious problem.
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Hi there, Siri. I don't know why. Hey, oh, serious problem.
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Get it? Serious problem. I forgot to turn it upside down. So sorry about that. Thanks, Siri.
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It was the right setup. Turn it upside down. It doesn't do that. Anyway, serious problem. See, now she won't talk to me.
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Recognizing the problem can also provide a sort of relief, a relaxation of accumulating tensions. When I tell friends that I consider this papacy a disaster,
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I notice that more often than not, they feel oddly reassured. They can relax a bit, knowing that their own misgivings are not irrational, that others share their fears about the future of the faith, that they need not continue a fruitless search for ways to reconcile the irreconcilable.
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Moreover, having given the problem a proper name, they can recognize what the crisis of Catholicism is not.
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Pope Francis is not an antipope, much less the Antichrist. The See of Peter is not vacant, and Benedict is not the real pontiff.
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Well, that is interesting that there would be a lot of people that would be thinking that Benedict's the real pontiff and Francis is an antipope or not a pope at all.
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Francis is our pope, for better or worse. And if it is for worse, as I sadly conclude it is, the
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Church has survived bad popes in the past. We Catholics have been spoiled for decades, enjoying a succession of outstanding
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Vatican leaders, pontiffs who were gifted teachers and saintly men. We have grown accustomed to looking to Rome for guidance.
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Now, we cannot. I do not mean to imply that Pope Francis has forfeited the charism of infallibility.
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I do not mean to imply that Pope Francis has forfeited the charism of infallibility.
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If he issues an ex cathedra statement in union with the world's bishops, we can be sure that he is fulfilling his duty to pass on what the
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Lord gave to St. Peter, the deposit of faith. But this pope has chosen not to speak with authority.
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On the contrary, he has adamantly refused to clarify his most provocative teaching document. I hope you hear what the problem is here and how very frustrating it must be for the believing
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Roman Catholic, who on the one hand says, well, we have the pope, we don't need sola scriptura, and then to go, but we really can't trust what he says, unless he does the infallible thing and no one really knows when he does that.
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But we'll limit it so much that this one never does it. So he never teaches authority. So how can you know anything right now?
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And if he does change Roman Catholic moral teaching, who are you to disagree? He's the pope.
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He gets to teach whatever he wants. Anyway. But if we cannot count on clear directions from Rome, where can we turn?
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First, Catholics can rely on the constant teaching of the church, the doctrines that are now too often called into question.
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But wait, wait, that sounds like private interpretation. Doesn't the pope get to interpret those things?
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Oh, but only when he does something infallible. So in his teaching, his regular teaching office as a bishop of Rome, that you think you're wiser than him?
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Hmm. If the pope is confusing, the catechism of the Catholic church is not. But who gets to define the catechism of the
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Catholic church when it is confusing? Oh, oh, the problems of having living infallible authority.
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Second, we can and should ask our own diocesan bishops to set up and shoulder their own proper responsibilities.
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Bishops, too, have spent years referring to tough questions to Rome. Now, if necessary, they must provide their own clear, decisive affirmations of Catholic doctrine.
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But he's the bishop of bishops. They can't give an opinion other than his, can they?
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Hmm. Maybe Pope Francis will prove me wrong and emerge as a great Catholic teacher. I hope and pray he does.
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Maybe my entire argument is wrongheaded. I have been wrong before and will no doubt be wrong again. One more mistaken view is of no great consequence.
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But if I am right and the current pope's leadership has become a danger to the faith, then other
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Catholics, and especially ordained church leaders, must decide how to respond. And if I am right, as surely, as I surely am, that confusion about fundamental church teachings has become widespread, then the bishops as primary teachers of faith cannot neglect their duty to intervene.
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You know what that is? That's called conciliarism. There have been times in the history of the
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Roman Catholic Church where the papacy could not be healed.
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The Great Schism, the Babylonian captivity of the church, Council of Constance, beginning of the 15th century. And a council had to be called to piece things back together again.
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And for a while, conciliarism thrived because it was in recent memory, but everyone can remember that the papacy was hopelessly split and a council had to step in and act.
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But it didn't take long for that to be called a heresy once you had strong pontiffs in place again.
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And so, well, we need the bishops to act. We need this person to act. We need that person to act. You're overthrowing your system.
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The very things that we are taught by Roman Catholics about the infallibility of the pope, you can't do that.
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You're cutting yourself off. And it's sad to listen to it because the fact is too obvious that Francis is way out in left field someplace.
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He does not believe the same things that his predecessors did. Well, but it's not changing the deposit of faith.
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He gets to define the deposit of faith. He gets to define what is and what is not in the deposit of faith. You're stuck with it.
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That's what happens when you overthrow biblical teaching as to the nature of the church, authority, and of course, the supremacy of scripture.
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All right. Well, the main thing that I wanted to get to this with you today before I head out.
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How did I even see this? Maybe somebody on Twitter sent me a link.
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Yeah, I think it was on Twitter and said, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. A lot of people send me things. They'd love to hear my thoughts on this that I don't click on.
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But I clicked on this because I was about to get on the bike inside. And I thought, you know, this would be something.
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I'll watch this while I'm riding. It was a two hour and 45 minute ride. So fairly long, tough ride.
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And so it'd be good to have something to listen to, or in this case, even watch. This debate took place
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February 25th. So fairly recently. I fired up.
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It's a debate between Dr. Mike Lycona and Matt Dillahunty, who is an atheist.
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I have seen him in various contexts before with Si Ten Bruggen Kate and things like that.
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He's fairly well known. And the first voice
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I hear freaks me out. I'm like, did I click on the wrong thing? Because the debate took place down in Austin, Texas.
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And it was moderated by none other than Leighton Flowers. Which made it intriguing.
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Leighton Flowers has nothing to do with what I'm going to be saying today at all.
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So that's the last we're going to mention Leighton Flowers because he didn't have anything to do with this other than moderating the debate.
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Did a fine job moderating the debate, though the question he asked at the end was a little bit weird. But we'll leave that to the side. Actually, the statement he made.
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The subject was, did Jesus rise from the dead? Okay. I can see why
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Mike Lycona does debates on the resurrection. He wrote a big long book on the subject. I don't even know how to express my feelings about this debate.
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I was simply left stunned. I was stunned.
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There was more Bible in Matt Dillahunty's comments than in Mike Lycona's.
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I mean, just listen to it. There was. The presentation on Mike Lycona's part was, well, he starts off by saying, by allegedly presenting four lines of evidence regarding the existence of the supernatural.
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And he bases this upon literally collections of near -death experiences, stories about a guy who's at a bar across the street from a hospital where his mom's dying.
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And he looks up and here's his mom walking toward him in the bar.
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And then some people walk between and she's gone. And the woman wakes up in the hospital and says,
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I just had a dream that I was in a bar and I saw my son and she dies that night.
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And the doctor affirms it. And this is primary evidence from Mike Lycona for the existence of the supernatural.
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Now, you see, I have heard so many stories about, you know, from every kind of religious group on the planet about how more missionaries and the supernatural experiences they've had that demonstrate the
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Book of Mormon history. I've told you a story about the young lady on outreach where she tells us a story of seeing these beings during baptism for the dead.
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This proves baptism of the dead is established by God. And I saw it myself. This can't be a question about.
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And so he actually spends quite some time on a story from 23 years ago where some people were playing with a
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Ouija board and the lid on a metal trash can comes up and flies across the room and sticks on the wall and then slides down and spins.
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And this is central argumentation for the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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And then he goes into the standard stuff you get from this particular school of apologetics about probability and Paul and even at one point says he's convinced, not convinced, but believes that Paul met
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Jesus. Not on the Damascus Road either, during Jesus's ministry, which
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I find very odd. But the presentation of the evidence for the existence of God, I was just stunned at the direction it took and its content and its nature.
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I was stunned. And if you listen, and I linked to it,
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I said to folks, hey, listen to this yourself and consider what's being said here and how it's being said and what's being presented.
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Now, Matt Dillahunty, Matt's an apostate. He claims to have been a
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Christian. It's painfully obvious he was a very ignorant Christian, did not know the faith well at all.
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Certainly his comments about the Bible are bad along those lines. I think
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I may have even played some of his comments once in the past about the canon and demonstrated that they were in error.
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But anyway, he's a good speaker. He seems to be comfortable speaking to audiences.
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And so he makes your standard naturalistic presentation, science has to have these presuppositions and all the rest of that stuff.
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When Laicona gets back up, these two people are arguing on the exact same foundation.
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Nowhere in this debate was there ever, ever any challenge to Matt Dillahunty's creatureliness.
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The very idea, it was a granted thing that Matt Dillahunty has the right to judge
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God, to sit in judgment of God. There's no challenge to that.
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There was a tremendous amount of worldview agreement between these two.
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And once they got into the discussion, at times it was hard to even realize that the topic of the resurrection was the topic of the debate.
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At times, I just could not believe what
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I was listening to. It was truly amazing.
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It really was. I want to play you some sections. We've got just enough time to hopefully get through a couple of them.
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And let's just listen. Let's start with Matt here. You got it ready to go?
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All right, make sure the plug's all the way in there. Here we go. This question of whether or not
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Jesus rose from the dead has to be the single most important fact within Christianity.
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I agree with Paul. I agree with my apologist friends. Has to be the most important thing. Why is it even a subject for potential debate?
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And why is it that we cannot— if the supernatural is an explanation, why didn't God make it so that you could actually confirm the supernatural?
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If this is the most important fact, why do we end up with over a thousand denominations of Christians who disagree on every single point of doctrine you can imagine, including whether or not
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Jesus was even real at some point, which, by the way, I'm not a mythicist, not an advocate. Now, I just thought for a moment, if someone doesn't believe
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Jesus is real, why do you include them as a Christian denomination? I mean, seriously? I'm like, why would you even make a statement like that?
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Someone who doesn't believe Jesus is real isn't a Christian. A denomination that doesn't believe Jesus is real should not be included in the list of denominations.
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And, you know, this is not all that—at least you only said a thousand denominations. At least it's not like the Roman Catholics that are up to about, you know, four billion or whatever it is they're saying these days, 38 ,000 or whatever.
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Why isn't this the most obvious, clear, non -debatable fact in existence, if it's the most important one?
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Now, think about that. How would you respond to that? How do you respond to that assertion?
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And given that he has been granted the grounds by Dr.
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Licona and by the entire approach of the evidentialist apologetic community, they've given him the grounds to make this statement.
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They can't come back and say, you don't have the right to make such determinations. You are a creature.
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You have not even given us a basis for why we should accept your reasoning.
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Even to the point of demonstrating the suppression of truth that is a part of your argument.
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He can't go there. Now, all the evidentialists eventually, later on in their debates, start talking about some worldview things, but it's too late.
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Especially because of their theology, they can't make a meaningful argument against where the person's coming from.
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So with that assertion being made, how do you respond to the idea that this should be the clearest fact?
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There should be no room for debating this. Take apart the assumptions of that.
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What is the assumption that will not be challenged by Mike Licona? Think about it for a second.
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In fact, keep thinking about what we listened to a little bit more, and I'll come back to it. Because I want you to think about it.
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How is it that there could be a God who could have important information to convey to you, and utterly and repeatedly fail?
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God is not the author of confusion. Well, then I'd argue that God is not the author of the
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Bible. Because there's a lot of confusion that's been sown from that. Well, that's our fault. That's our fault.
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We are fallen beings who cannot possibly understand. Yes, that may be your argument for this.
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Now, obviously he's heard something about fallen human beings in the past, but thinking about the statement, what is the assumption lying behind the objection that's being made right now?
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That it is God's, that God cannot have a purpose that he is working out in the salvation of a particular people.
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You see, if you accept, as the moderator of the debate, and as Dr. Licona, if you accept that God is simply equally trying to save all people, theology matters and theology determines apologetic.
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And this argument is only relevant to people who do not have particular redemption, no election, no purpose that God's working out, nothing like that.
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Because 1 Corinthians chapter 1 talks about the preaching of the cross.
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And it is foolishness. To whom? To those that are perishing.
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But to those who are being saved. Not who are saving themselves. Not who choose to be saved of themselves.
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When Paul defines the categories of those who are perishing and those being saved, later on in the section, he identifies those being saved as the elect of God.
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It's God's election that makes the difference. And so, without that, it's a relevant argument to the person who does not have a biblical theology that they're defending, and does not allow that biblical theology to define the apologetic methodology that you should be using.
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There's the issue. But isn't that also God's responsibility? Oh, well, he gave us free will.
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Okay, well, we're not going to do a free will debate here tonight. But in the end, if there's a
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God who created everything, and he had options about what kind of universe he could create, and he knew what was going to happen at the end of these, which is what you would need in order to be able to make predictions and prophecies and say, hey, you know,
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I'm coming back, and this is going to happen, and this is going to happen, you need to have some control over this. If there was a God who created the universe, had decisions about what kind of universe he wanted to make...
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Sounds like Molinism here, doesn't it? Maybe he's been running into some Molinists. ...created this one specifically, then didn't
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God specifically choose the universe in which I would lose my faith and become an atheist? Well, Mr.
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Molinist apologist, sir? Well, how do you respond to that?
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You might say, well, how do you respond to that? The reality, once again, is that we are held accountable for acting upon...
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See, I don't believe that God looked at all sorts of universes and said, well, this is the best one I can come up with. The universe that God created glorifies him in the way he desired to be glorified.
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And in that universe, there is the existence of sin. And the amount of sin was not forced upon God by the cosmic card dealer either.
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And no one is going to stand before God someday. Now, this is a valid argument there, but it's not a valid argument against our position.
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No one's going to be able to stand before God someday and say, well, you actualized a universe in which
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I lose my faith and become an atheist. Well, first of all, in standing before the judgment bar of God, it will be very, very clear that he never had saving faith and that it is not a matter of having once been saved and lost his salvation or anything else.
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But the reality is that here is a young man at about age 25... Maybe a little bit later.
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I couldn't... He says he was a Southern Baptist for 25 years. Does that mean he was born into it? I don't think you...
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I don't think that works. But anyway, before he's 30, evidently, chooses to follow the desires of his heart and engage in rebellion against at least what he knew of the
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Christian faith, whether he had been given much in the way of a deep faith or anything else.
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I haven't been given any evidence of that from what I've listened to what he's said. He is held accountable for acting upon the desires of his heart.
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There will be no excuse standing before God saying, I want to do the right thing, you forced me to do the wrong thing. Never can happen, never will happen.
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That will never be an excuse. Now, when you come to the Molinist, different issue.
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Different issue at that point. Didn't God choose the universe in which we don't have access to confirm, rationally, reasonably, the supernatural?
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Didn't God pick the universe where the single most important facet of his message is not clearly evidenced?
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See, not clearly evidenced. Now, what's the biblical response to this? Well, it's the same biblical response that was given to him by Psy when they debated.
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And that is, you have to challenge the assumptions that he's making in regards to epistemology. Biblically, the assertion of Romans 1 is, it is clearly evidenced.
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And clearly evidenced to him. Now, I have to wonder what Leighton Flowers would do listening to this, given the mess he's made of Romans 1 to try to fit his synergism into Scripture.
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But Romans 1 says that he is suppressing the knowledge of God. That he knows that God exists, he's suppressing that, and that suppression takes all sorts of different forms, and all sorts of different categories of expression.
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And it can be knowledgeable, willful suppression.
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In most people, it is suppression based upon love of things of the world, whether it be religious authority over others, or lust, or money, or sports, whatever it is.
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There's all sorts of ways of suppressing the knowledge of God.
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But this is a direct denial of the biblical statement, that they are unapologetus, they are without an apologetic.
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It has been clearly manifested through what has been created.
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But when we come to the issue of the resurrection, how did the apostles present the resurrection?
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Did they argue that it was a probable thing?
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Or did they argue that it was an absolutely established thing, on a worldview that would be consistent with the existence of God, but not based upon a worldview defined by a rebel sinner?
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There really is the issue. And unless you address that, unless you address those, yes, presuppositions, those worldview issues, you're never going to get anywhere in this conversation at all.
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But there were some other statements that were made in this debate that were even more troubling to me.
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And let me get us to where we need to go here.
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This is good enough. We know that that could not happen by natural causes. At that point, based on our understanding of natural law, we are right to infer a supernatural cause, especially when you have
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Jesus claiming that he's God's uniquely divine Son, and predicts his resurrection from the dead.
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We are well within our epistemic rights to say this is probably what happened, that Jesus rose and it was because God raised him from the dead.
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Now, I just want you to hear the language. Did you catch that? When Paul stands on Mars Hill and proclaims the resurrection, there are no probables, maybes, it is direct assertion.
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It happened. But I want you to hear again. This is good enough. We know that that could not happen by natural causes.
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At that point, based on our understanding of natural law, we are right to infer a supernatural cause, especially when you have
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Jesus claiming that he's God's uniquely divine Son, and predicts his resurrection from the dead.
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We are well within our epistemic rights to say this is probably what happened. Probably. This is probably what happened.
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But it gets worse. Jesus rose and it was because God raised him from the dead. I can't, as a historian, verify that it was
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God, but I certainly could say, as a historian, it appears that God was probably the best candidate for the event.
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Okay, I just got stink eye from the other side. Okay, I just want whoever complained about that last time.
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It was more like shock eye from the other side of the window. I just wanted to mention that. You know, a lot of people are saying, with what you announced in Channel, that we definitely need a rich cam for this upcoming cool thing.
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You've got 17 days to work on it. You know how to do the lights now, and there you go.
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Not going to happen. Did you catch that? Now, as a historian, you want to hear that again?
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You don't really want to hear that again. It hurts. But, yeah, here we go.
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Jesus rose and it was because God raised him from the dead. I can't, as a historian, verify that it was
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God, but I certainly could say, as a historian, it appears that God was probably the best candidate for the event.
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God was the best candidate for the event. I would like to know who else was in the running.
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Space aliens? No, no, seriously. This all came up, man. I'm sorry. This all came up.
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Space aliens, other things like that. There was an extended discussion. Are we going
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Battlestar Galactica here? There was an extended discussion of what would happen if Mike Licona was beheaded on the stage, and everybody left the room, and then he came walking out with his head back in place with scars on his neck.
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Well, that would be enough to prove the existence of Supernatural for Matt Dillahunty.
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And I don't even know how long that conversation went. But there was a discussion of space aliens, and Mike Licona said that he would be open to the existence of space aliens.
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He just doesn't believe they exist. And he even mentioned a book by somebody about little green men.
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So, yes, that did come up. So this was the Art Bell debate? No. No, not really, but it wandered everywhere.
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Coast to coast. It was a coast to coast styled debate, yeah. It wandered everywhere. But as – now, where have you heard this before?
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As a historian, I cannot prove it was God. Years ago, years ago, may have been a decade now,
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I played a debate between Mike Licona and Bart Ehrman.
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And one of the issues, one of the primary issues that came up in that discussion was
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Ehrman's insistence that history must be done naturalistically, that there is no such thing as Christian history, in the sense that you simply cannot do history from a
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Christian perspective. You have to do it from a naturalistic, materialistic perspective. And once again,
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I completely rejected that. I'm like, how can a
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Christian accept this? Because if the beginning of knowledge and wisdom is the fear of the
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Lord, if you have to bow the knee to him in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, which
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I would imagine includes history, are hidden, and that's Jesus Christ, how then can a
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Christian apologist embrace a naturalistic, materialistic understanding of how to do history?
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And if you do it that way, I guess that's why you end up using trash can lids as one of your strongest arguments for the resurrection.
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But how does this work? I'm just...
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Wow. He says that I would have to assume that God existed and wanted to raise Jesus.
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No, I wouldn't. Nowhere in my argument did I assume that God existed or wanted to raise Jesus. Like I said, you look at the data, you let the data speak for themselves.
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Okay, I just stopped right there and said, that's impossible. Absolutely impossible. He's eschewing any meaningful worldview foundation that would make the resurrection a meaningful thing in the first place.
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I'm just looking at the data. No, you're not. No, you're not. You cannot ignore the worldview issues that give sense to any of these things.
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Yes, you would have to presuppose that God exists and he wants to raise Jesus from the dead. Yes, Matt Dillahunty was exactly right.
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And if you don't challenge his self -proclaimed authority to stand in judgment over the existence of God, you're never going to get anywhere.
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You end up with what we just saw in that debate, which was a disaster. It was a debacle.
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People sitting around having the wildest, weirdest conversations about space aliens and beheaded people and just, wow, amazing.
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Yes, sir? I'm sorry, this reminds me of conversations I used to have when I was in seventh grade. Well, it got...
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The sci -fi imagination just goes crazy. Well, it does go crazy, but it really didn't...
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I wouldn't say it was infantile. It was sophistry.
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And the wheels really fell off for Dr. Lycona when they got into conversation with Matt Dillahunty.
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Dillahunty recognizes that he has granted the ground to him, and he just runs away with it.
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And there were a couple places where Dillahunty just scored huge, face -plant -type scores.
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And what was extremely troubling to me is, here the very centrality and certainty of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is being likened to bridge hands and near -death experiences and all this kind of stuff.
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And Dillahunty is just knocking this stuff out of the park. And I can't imagine how anybody seeing that audience, if they actually accepted
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Lycona's argumentation, would not walk out of there with tremendous questions about whether the resurrection ever took place.
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Like they say, rule number one in debate, you've got to make the very most of your time and bring your very best argument.
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So this is the very best argument? Yes, yes. And of course his opponent takes advantage of this kind of reasoning, and who wouldn't run away with it?
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If I have time, I'm going to look at what the real problem here is with all this.
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But I want to get to one other thing before I look at it. Presuppositions. I mean, that's what a good historian is going to do.
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It's going to allow the data to challenge our presuppositions, to challenge our current worldview.
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The danger in not doing that is very clear. Bad philosophy corrupts good history.
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And so we have to allow the data to challenge our presuppositions. And of course, from the
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Christian perspective, epistemologically, there are certain presuppositions that are required for there to even be such a thing as data.
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He says, well, people don't think God exists will reject this. Well, I understand that. But again, you've got to allow the data to challenge our presuppositions.
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He says, well, finally, he says, well, why is this not the most— Okay, now you heard my response to what
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Matt Dillahunty said at this point. Compare and contrast with the response you're about to hear. The clear fact.
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You know, why isn't this the most clear thing, the resurrection of Jesus? Why is there confusion in the
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Bible? This is God's responsibility, one could say. Well, I guess you could say that. Or you could say, as he suggested, you know, we are human.
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We are flawed. We are fallible. And of course, we're going to interpret things differently, even within theological things.
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God even allowed Paul and James to disagree on certain things, as we find in the
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New Testament. So— Did you catch that? I didn't catch that the first time through.
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I actually listened to this twice. I listened to it again this morning on another ride. Because I just wanted to have it fresh in my mind.
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Did you catch what was just said? Of course,
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God allows for disagreement. He even allowed Paul and James to disagree in the New Testament.
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What's he talking about? You don't know? Oh, it's— The only place where Paul and James are alleged to have disagreed is in regards to how we are justified, whether it's by faith alone or not.
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That's what he's referring to. You see, once you join the mere
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Christianity crowd, you can sit back and say, yeah, Paul and James disagreed on justification by faith.
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And that's how I respond to Matt Dillahunty's argument. Now, I was just left stunned.
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There was no gospel anywhere in this debate.
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Nowhere. Nothing. The meaning of the resurrection, purpose, connection to atonement, connection to redemption.
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Nothing. It is merely a historical assertion.
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No gospel. But then when I heard him actually affirm that he agrees, that James and Paul were in contradiction with one another,
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I was just— Please, would some— Dr.
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Lykona, please stop saying you believe in inerrancy. You do not. You do not.
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It is plain as can be. And I know the argumentation is used on this subject very, very well.
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Well, you know, you can't harmonize, you know, you can't look to—
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Look, here's the reality. I have yet to have anyone from any perspective refute what
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I wrote in The God Who Justifies, in the chapter on James chapter 2, in regards to the perfect harmony between Paul and James.
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I've never had anybody do it. And I challenge you to do it. The reality is, it is the surface -level interpreter that sees a contradiction.
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The deeper you go, the greater the harmony. Not the other way around.
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And yet in so much of academia, harmonization just isn't allowed. That's just straining of things and blah, blah, blah, blah.
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Well, we've heard that before about the Gospel of Mark from Dr. Lykona just recently, didn't we? And now we see it here.
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So in the midst of a debate that was supposed to be on the resurrection of Christ, you have capitulation on the harmony of the apostles of Jesus Christ in regards to the very nature of the
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Gospel itself. Now, folks, this is what happens.
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This is what happens when you do not allow
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Scripture to have the ultimate authority in your apologetics.
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Let me remind you one last time. The Word of the
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Cross is foolishness, on the one hand, to those who are perishing, to the perishing ones.
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And on the other hand, to the being saved ones, us, the being saved ones, it is the power of God.
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Why? For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, the understanding or the cleverness of the clever
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I will set aside. Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age?
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Has not God made moronic? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
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Well, I just stop and say, I don't think the evidentialists answer that question the way
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I do. Because if you are going to depend upon the wisdom of the world as the means of your communication, then you don't believe that God has made the wisdom of the world foolish.
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For since in the wisdom of God, the world by its wisdom did not come to know
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God. God was pleased through the foolishness of the
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Karigma, the message preached to save the believing ones. God does not save his people through the utilization of the wisdom of the world.
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That's a fact. If you are trying to avoid as an apologist being called foolish by the world, stop.
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You don't understand what you're talking about. You don't understand what you're doing. You will be called foolish by the world.
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Because it's not your arguments and it's not your wisdom and it's not your philosophy that's going to save anybody.
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It is the preaching of the message. I am not saying that you should not engage these folks in meaningful dialogue, but you cannot give them the ground.
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You cannot pretend that there's neutral ground to stand on. For indeed, verse 22, the
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Jews seek after signs, the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we proclaim
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Christ crucified. To the Jews, indeed, a scandal.
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To the nations, the Gentiles, indeed, foolishness, but to those who are the called.
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And I wish most translations put the article there. It may not flow as smoothly, but there is such thing as the called.
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But to those who are the called. Because especially using our toys, the fact that the article is there only emphasizes this.
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But to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
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What makes the difference? Our arguments? Our wisdom?
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Showing how good you are using the arguments of the world and the wisdom of the world?
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No. The only thing that makes any difference here is the redeeming grace of God.
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That's why so many times people say, Oh, I love your apologetic stuff, but I just don't get that Calvinism part.
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My entire apologetic is reformed. I don't understand how. I've never gotten that.
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I'll never understand that. I mean, the confidence that I have in going down to South Africa.
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Going into the mosque in London. Is that I have the truth of God.
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And God's going to honor that truth. And that truth is either going to be used by him to the salvation of his people.
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Or it's going to be called foolishness. Or, I guess there is the middle ground. God will use it to be tilling the ground and to be working toward his eventual salvation of his people.
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But it's going to have a response. And it's not up to me to somehow try to help it out.
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I just got to try to stay out of the way. Don't be a jerk. Speak it in love. That takes such a tremendous pressure off of you.
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You can just love what you're doing. Make the proclamation. Love the people you're proclaiming it to.
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You don't have to try to trick them. And you don't have to embrace the wisdom of the world.
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God's grace is enough. God's spirit is enough. That's in the wisdom of God.
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The world through its wisdom did not come to know God. Do you believe that?
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I submit to you that certain apologetic methodologies do not believe that.
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I just saw something on Twitter. As we close the program out for quite some time,
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I get back on the 20th, maybe 21st, 22nd of March, we'll be back again. But my lovely daughter
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Clementine is listening. And what did she get from all of what I was just saying? Punkle is telling them all something.
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There you go. I'm trying, Clementine. I really am. I'm trying to tell folks something.
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And you just pray that the Lord will use those words for the people that they're intended for. And I'm going to miss you, honey.
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I won't see you for a couple weeks, but we'll try to FaceTime and say hello from down in South Africa and from over in London and stuff like that.
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So you'll be good for mommy while we're gone. All right. Anyway, there you go.
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I linked to the debate. Watch it yourself. Watch it yourself.
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And ask yourself the question. Is this what the apostles intended us to have?
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Is this all we've got to present to the world? Is flying trash can lids and near -death experiences and probability arguments?
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Is that what we have? If you don't believe
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God has spoken His word, you'll never believe Reformed theology. If you do not hold the highest view of Scripture, you will never believe
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Reformed theology. Once you have the highest view of Scripture, you have Reformed theology, and you have the confidence to proclaim that truth and trust that God will make it to come alive in the hearts and minds of His people.
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That's what we're doing around here. Pray for us as we travel, head down to South Africa and London. Thank you so much for listening.