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Trinity in Depth, Nature of God, Matt Slick
Fan on. All right, so we are live and I notice the people waiting right now. I just want to make sure you can hear me, so just tell me you can type it in. So make sure everything's fine before I get started.
I'm going to have to make sure the audio is working. It should be fine and then we'll get going. The notes, incidentally, are on the, you know, on karma .org forward slash calendar and so you can just go to get these and we're going to be going through these now in a second.
As soon as I can verify that people can hear me, which I'm not hearing. I'm not seeing anything say right about now they should be saying yes, they can hear me. Laura, there we go. Hello from Karm Pan.
Can you guys hear me? Can you hear me? Hi Matt. Hi Matt. Bill's watching and Chris says yes. Finally someone goes yes. All right, so they can hear me. Good. All right, I can hear you. Good. Bill says good.
You know, it's going to be hard to insult him when he's not here. He's right there. Bill's in a bad place. It's pretty bad. Here's why he's smiling for, but so bad. I'm reaching. That's all right. I don't mind reaching.
All right, let's pray. Let's get started. We'll just get into the nature of God. All right. Lord, we ask that you would bless us and bless this time. I ask the Lord Jesus for your grace upon us that the words spoken would be your words and that they'd be your words of truth and that people would hear and we would learn you and about you more and be more impressed, be more knowledgeable, and more in awe with your greatness.
We give you thanks, Jesus, and we ask it in your precious name. Amen. All right, so this, the nature of God, it's a big paragraph right there. We're not going to read the whole thing. We're going to go through step by step, and if any of you are watching, that means you have gotten here a number of different ways, but if you want these notes and you want to follow along online, all you have to do is go to karm .org forward slash calendar, and you'll see tonight's listing there for the 12th, and then it'll say, underneath there's just the notes or whatever it is, the stuff.
You just click on it, it'll put up a web page, and you can then go down to where it says nature of God, and it says the exact same thing. So here we go. All right, so speaking of God, he is spiritual in nature and exists as a trinity consisting of three divine simultaneous and distinct persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
All right, now, it took three nights before we finally got into the very nature of God in a Trinitarian form, but when we say that he is spiritual in nature, John 4 .24 says, as you can read it, God is spirit, and those who worship him and worship him in spirit and truth.
Now, he was talking to the woman at the well, and I just have to brag, I've drank out of that very well. I'm sorry, it's a shameless plug, but there you go. And Luke 24 .39, you see my hands and my feet, that it is I myself, touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bone, as you see I have.
And so we know what spirit is not. We don't know what spirit is. So it's a hard thing to say. People will call me up on the radio or I'll be in discussion rooms, can you define what spirit is, Matt? And I say, no, I can't, except to say some incorporeal substance that is what we are, and that spirit can leave and move.
It could be apart from the body, 2 Corinthians 5 .8, to be absent from the body is to be home with the Lord, 2 Corinthians 12 .2 -4 talks about the man who went to heaven, the third level of heaven, the third heaven, where God is, and so on, incomprehensible thing.
So into the body or out of the body, I do not know. So we would say spirit, soul interchangeably. Now, some will say that the soul and the spirit are different, or body, soul, and spirit. That's called trichotomy.
Dichotomy is that soul and spirit are used interchangeably because they are, and then there's the body. But when we talk about this in relationship to God, he is spiritual in nature, it means that he's non-corporeal in his essence.
And this makes sense because nothing existed until he created it. So the eternal creation, I mean, God existing eternally did not exist in a material sense. And then he became flesh in the person of Jesus.
He exists as a trinity. So the trinity is properly defined as three divine simultaneous distinct persons. So we could say three divine simultaneous co-eternal persons. We can get a little bit more into it.
But the idea is that the three divine simultaneous and distinct persons, they are what God is and has always been. So we see the verses for that in Philippians 1, 2, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
So God, the Father's called God. Obviously the Son is called God. Jesus is called God. John 1, 1, verse 14, Colossians 2, 9, all these verses that we've gone over and others have gone over and stuff like that.
And also the Holy Spirit is called God in Acts 5, 3 -4. But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back some of the price of the land while it remained unsold?
Did you not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control? Why is it you conceive this deed in your heart? You've not lied to men, but to God. So he lied to the Holy Spirit. He lied to God.
And 829, then the Spirit said to Philip, go, join this chariot. There's the attributes of the personhood of the Spirit. He can speak, has a will, and things like that. So in the trinity, we would say that the God exists eternally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Now I could go into quite a bit here on the issue of, well, we'll just do that later. We'll save it for later, the economic and ontological trinity. We're going to talk about that a little bit. So let's just move on to the second part.
The trinity, this is important, is not comprised of parts. That would be called partialism, but is one simple divine being. It's called divine simplicity. So what I tell people when they ask me about this, how can God be one thing and three persons?
And I say, well, first of all, I don't know how, but not knowing how does not mean it's not true. There are certain aspects of God's actuality, his existence, his substance, his essence, that I cannot understand.
Nobody can understand. God just does not reveal them to us. How is it that God can be one God, but three persons? I don't know. Now there's nothing illogical about them. If it's illogical and contradictory, then it cannot be true.
People have said to me, well, they can prove the trinity is false. And I say, how? And they say, by showing a contradiction. I said, great, please do. And they never do. Because what they'll often do is make a conflation of terms.
They'll say, well, one God, three persons. See, that's a contradiction. Say, how is it a contradiction? Well, it's obvious. It's right there. It's a contradiction. No, it's not a contradiction. Show me how it's a contradiction.
Because saying God is one and yet also three persons, it's not saying God is one God and also three gods. It's not saying he's one person, but he's also three persons. That would be contradictory. It's where the one term is used and said, it's this case, but it's also not the case.
That's a contradiction. So you can't, the law of non-contradiction law, LNC, has different forms of being used and described, but it cannot be the case that I'm talking to you. And it's also not the case that I'm talking to you.
That's a contradiction to say both are true in the same sense, in the same way, at the same time. So what we have here in the issue of the doctrine of the trinity is not a contradiction. It's not. It can be paradoxical.
It can be an enigma, but it's not a contradiction. And when people tell me that if they can't comprehend it, it's not true. And I get this too. Well, I can't comprehend it, so I can't believe it. Well, how are your thoughts generated in your physical brain?
Can you comprehend that? No. Can you comprehend that the eagles MC squared? No. You comprehend how you might list something else out? No. But yet you believe them true. I thought the same thing. People don't know how to think critically across the board.
They don't know what it means to think critically and objectively. What happens a lot is people will send upon the issue their own machinations and their own faulty logic, lack of critical thinking, and say, this is the truth because I decided it is.
And when I expose them, not expose them in a malicious way, but say, no, it's just not true. I forgot the exact verse, but yesterday, I think it was Judges 29 or something like that, a guy, I was discussing something in a room about Roman Catholicism in a chat room, and this is a good example of something.
And he said that you can prove that people in the afterlife can hear our prayers. I said, really? Like it's from scripture? He goes, yeah. He went to where, of all things, where Elijah's bones were in the grave and they lowered a dead man down in and he was revived.
Did see, there you go. Okay, please explain the connection there. And it's an example of bad logic. And he said, well, you see, Elijah resurrected him, made him alive. That means Elijah's in the afterlife and he knew what was going on.
You see, Matt? And I said, where does it say in the text that Elijah did the action of reviving him? It was his bones. So touching his bones didn't mean Elijah did it, but it means that God did it. And someone came into the room and said, hey man, I think it's Psalm 78, 12, where God does all the miracles by himself.
I remember, memorized that one. I went, oh, thanks. Hey, another arrow in the quiver. But the point I'm trying to make is that this gentleman, and it took about 15 minutes and finally he admitted it didn't say what he thought it said, but I had to really work with him very patiently.
Does it say that Elijah was performing the action? No, it just says he was revived. It doesn't say who did the reviving, right? So you can't use that for that verse. And it took a while for me to convince him, but it was a good example of what not to do.
A good example of mistaken thinking and logic. People so often will impose on a text something they automatically think is true. Two men in a field, one has taken, one has left. That's the rapture. No, it's not.
The rapture curse, they'll replace it, but that's not it. And so it's very critical that we understand that when people come to us and they deny the doctrine of the Trinity and I ask them why, and they say, logical, I know right away that they are not going to be able to demonstrate that it's not logical.
They can certainly demonstrate a paradox, but that's not a contradictory issue. And so all I have to do is just explore their thinking a little bit and I show, well, that's not correct. That's not correct.
And this does not mean that's impossible, et cetera. So this is how the doctrine of the Trinity is, and it was well thought out throughout the history. So when we say that God is not comprised of parts, but as one divine substance, and yet in that substance are three persons.
What I like to say is that God, who is the one thing, reveals himself as three persons. I've had someone recently say, so you believe in divine simplicity? Yes. Well, how could God be a Trinity if divine simplicity is true?
The implication is he's saying divine simplicity means a dynamic oneness, or what's called an absolute oneness that there can be no plurality within it of persons. And I said, well, so what's the problem?
Because I'll often do is just say, you tell me what the problem is, I'm going to hang you with your answer. And I'll often tell them that you give me the answer and I'm going to show you why your answer isn't correct.
I don't care what it is because I just know that you're not answering, you don't understand the issue. And so they'll say divine simplicity means God is one thing. And so they said, how can God be divinely simple as well as Trinitarian?
Now he says, I just say, I don't know. And that derails their argument and their criticism right away. It's not me just avoiding the answer. The truth is, I don't know. I know that the Bible says God is one and Deuteronomy 6 .4, here, O Israel, the Lord God is one.
And the word one is echad, which means composite unity. That's the word used, not echid, which means a singularity. And so how is that possible? It's like one bundle of pages is echad, one sheet is echid, but God is one.
That's how it's spoken of in the Hebrew. Divine simplicity simply says that God is one thing. And so what I'll do is I'll illustrate this. I'll say, let's take a carbon sphere. Let's say it's a foot diameter, or I'll say 10 centimeters in diameter.
It doesn't make any difference. If it's carbon 12, carbon 13, carbon 14, doesn't make a difference. It's one thing. Try to say carbon 12, carbon 14, let's say, which has a half-life of 5 ,730 years, at any rate.
So it's one substance. And that one substance is the three divine persons. That's what I'll say to them. And they don't know what to do with that. And what I'm doing, I'm just saying, just what it says, just what it says.
But we need to understand that God is not comprised of parts. He's not part sun, part Holy Spirit, and part Father. We tend to think of that that way. That's a problem. Sometimes people call me up on the radio and say, how do I explain the Trinity to my five-year-old?
Well, then you're going to imply the idea of parts, because they don't have generally the conceptual capacity to understand the blending of ontos. We won't get into all this stuff, right? So I just say, it's okay, just do that, and then explain more later on better.
And so God is one simple divine being, not parts. As you can see, I already quoted Deuteronomy 6, 4, Mark 12, 29, Jesus answered, Hero Israel, the Lord our God is one. John 1, 5, this is the message we have heard from him and announced to you that God is light and in him there is no darkness.
Just saying he is light, he is this one thing, he's just something, and that's what it is. We have to make sure that we don't impose a value on God's very nature and essence that the scripture does not necessitate, or that logic does not necessitate.
One of the things that I've started to do about 15 years ago is start speaking logically to a lot of atheists. They were not accustomed to a Christian using logic, and I was told that many times. I said, we have never encountered anybody who uses logic like you do.
And I'm not saying I'm the great logician, I'm just saying, well, that's bad if you haven't encountered any Christians, because there are Christians out there who are very logical. John Frame, Cornelius Van Till, we had R .C. Spruill, and there's a lot of brilliant people out there.
I said, you just haven't heard of them? They said, well, I'm the only one. That's not good. You should be expanding your circles. But the point is that they weren't used to it, and they're still not used to it.
I was telling Nick a couple of days ago, I was invited into an atheist philosophy room, and a different forum altogether, and they were very polite, and PhDs in philosophy. One guy's working on his PhD, the other one's something else, PhD.
And they were nice guys, and they were talking about morals. And I said, well, if you're not a Christian Trinitarian, your most logical position to hold is moral anti-realism, which is there are no moral actualities or truth statements that have any bearing in actuality, because there's no universal mind.
And I said, if the Trinitarian God did not exist, I would be a moral anti-realist. That's the only other option, logical option. You can't say that morality exists between these two pages or under that rock or within an action or intention, because intentionality, you have to determine a universal aspect of it.
Anyway, I said to these guys, I said, so you see this logic, and I said, so you guys are talking about what's moral. And I said, how do you decide what is moral? What standard do you have? Because each one of you is different, and you might disagree on what is moral.
So you have different opinions about what it is, but you have to have a universal standard by which you can say what is moral, what is not moral. You can't find it under a rock. You can't find it inside of book pages or whatever it is.
You can't do that. It's not materially based. The only way to justify it is a universal mind who has the quality and nature of absolute moral character, which is revealed to us. And then moral anti-realism is not true.
And then we can understand God and we can understand why something is morally right or wrong. And I said, and if you don't presuppose a Trinitarian God, which is necessary precondition of moral intelligibility, you must necessarily be a moral anti-realist.
And if that's the case, your PhD in philosophy and moral ethics is useless. And this guy goes, whoa, you know, and it came out better that time actually. And they weren't used to, they were not accustomed to a Christian talking like this.
Now there are lots of Christians who talk like this, but they're just not used to it. And logic is something that's very important. Particularly, we come to the issue of the doctrine of the Trinity, which we're going to get to later on how it works with the Trinity chart that I got there.
It's just really simple. And that's on page three, we'll get to that. I don't know if that's in the, I think it is in the notes on line two, it should be. Okay, having wasted a lot of time on that, let's get going.
Now here's an important concept. Neither person of the Trinity derives his substance from either or both of the others. Now that's logically necessary. If God eternally exists as one thing, then the derivation of essence of one person can't be because of another.
How is it derived or working out of? Now some might come back and say, well, you could have that if it was eternally generated, eternally derived, but how do you have an eternal situation of derivation?
And so we get into these conundrums and these issues. Neither person of the Trinity derives his substance from either or both of the others. Now remember, we've had this discussion before about the nature of the substance of God in personhood.
There's God that we know as a person, and the word person in the context of theological construct deals with the idea of self-awareness, awareness of others can think, can be rational, can say you and yours, me and mine, can love, can hate, things like that.
These are the attributes that God expresses as a singular person. We recognize this. God says, I am who I am. He's speaking in the singular. God said, let there be light. And then God talked and said, why did you disobey me?
And things like this, God speaks in the singular. And so the essence of God is eternally the same. This is Malachi 3 .6, that for I the Lord do not change, therefore, O sons of Jacob are not consumed.
So he does not change. This is called the immutability of God. He does not change. He is eternal. And therefore, the persons cannot be eternally generated in the sense where their derivation of essence is from either or both of the others.
The implication is that there was a beginning. If we say there's no beginning out of derivation, we have a paradox at the very least, and it may be an illogical contradiction. So these are the kinds of discussions I will get in with some people, and sometimes with atheists as well, who will entertain the Trinitarian concept.
What I found myself doing recently with some atheists is saying to them, guys, and very respectfully say, look, guys, I don't think you have a good grasp on the Trinity. And I'd be willing to just open up a room with you guys and just teach you what it is so that you know what the Christian perspective of the Trinity is.
Not that you have to agree with it, but if you're going to argue against it, you should know what it is. Just like when I argue, so to speak, with atheists, and they give me terms, what is contingency?
What is propositional logic? What is moral anti-realism? What is moral realism? What is moral imperative? So I said, I don't know these things. I have a document of about 30 pages of terms you guys have introduced to me, and I go look them up, and I teach them.
I mean, I've tried to memorize them, but I have them all memorized. I say, I need to learn what it is you say. And accurately, I have references from Stanford philosophical online school of philosophy.
I go to these guys, and I'll read them to you. I said, why won't you guys do the same thing when it comes to Trinitarian theology that you're going to attack? And they'll say, that's a good point. We should do that.
That's fair. I've offered to teach them, they've not taken me up on it. And I've even said that only the Trinity provides the necessary preconditions for all intelligibility, that universal background for the transcendental laws of logic, and all universals in particular, which gets into the one and many issue, which you guys I know got that.
So, that was easy? That was nothing? I need more pineapple than you have for that. Okay, you guys will get this stuff. When you get this stuff, you get it more and more. As you're reading through scriptures, you go, oh, I get that now.
And then unfortunately, you listen to sermon occasionally, you'll go, say it, say it. Oh, no. You'll say, drat, Matt, for teaching me this. That's what happens. All right, so neither person of the Trinity derives his substance from either or both of the others.
They are eternally the one being, the divine simplistic, divinely simple being who's eternally existed as three separate persons, okay? Now, the fourth one here, or the next point, the three persons share the same divine essence known as the ontological trinity, but express different functions in creation known as the economic trinity.
So, the ontological trinity deals with the ontos, being, nature, essence. Being, nature, essence. God is three persons who all are the one divine being in totality. If you were to take away any person, God is no longer God, but you can't separate.
It's like the carbon -14 sphere. You take part of it away. Well, it's still, it's not a sphere at that point. This isn't directly analogous, but the essence is not altered in this context, but taken away.
But in the Trinity, it would be, because by definition, in the divine essence, what God is, he's three persons. And when you say three persons, does that just simplify? Is it three entities? We never say entity.
Person has a specific theological meaning in relationship. So, it's considered person? Yes. Personhood, the word in Latin, persona, was the mask used by actors. They'd play the persona of Julius Caesar.
Persona, a brute, or whatever. They had two brute. They had different characters. They would take a different mask, a different face. It's called a persona. I read this. Okay. The theologians took that phrase, that term, let's apply it to the Trinity.
They were seen as one God. That's clearly taught in scripture, Isaiah 43, 44, 45, for example. But they were seen, the Father was called God, the Son's called God, the Holy Spirit's called God. But they were communicating with each other, and they were exhibiting these characteristics, like speech, saying you and yours and me and mine.
They're recognizing those things in themselves, knowing that they were made from God's image. So, the theologians got together and said, he's three persons. Person was the word used to describe this conglomeration of characteristics, awareness, self-awareness, awareness of others, fellowship, love, hate, reason, things like that.
And it became that term. Not necessarily aspects of God, but person. Aspects, and this is why precision of terms is very important here. And so, if someone says, well, that means three entities. By definition, an entity is a being by itself.
A being, you know, I'm a being, you're a being. That's two beings, two entities. But God is not three entities, that's three gods. So, we don't say, we never say three entities. We never say three personages.
That's another, we don't do that, that's Mormon. Three personages, we don't say three beings, we say one God, three persons. And I tell Christians all the time, always say it this way, one God, three persons, one God, three simultaneous, distinct, co-eternal, divine persons, you know, three persons.
And I'll say this to people online, and they'll say, oh, so you believe in three gods. Let's go over this again. I'm patient. Look, that's not what I said. You need to listen, please. One God in three simultaneous, distinct persons.
Well, how is that possible? I don't know. And the analogy I will give is to say time is one substance, time. But it has the aspect, and I'll use the word aspect in this context, it's my analogy, past, present, and future.
But the past is not the exact same thing as the future, which is not the exact same thing as the past, and et cetera. There's not three things we call time, three separate time natures. But there's only one thing that has three, I'll say aspect, three parts.
I want to be careful because it's not a direct analogy to God, but three aspects. And so all three of these have the same nature, time, but we see differentiation among them. And so I think time is a good analogy.
It's the best analogy I know of to relate. I get it. I get what you're saying. One substance, divinity, three separate persons. One thing, time, three, so to speak, manifestations of time, past, present, and future.
At least towards middlemenarchianism, Sabellianism, oneness theology, and maybe even Unitarianism. But analogies are not meant to explain everything. They're meant to explain usually one point, and then we move on and clarify it from there.
So God, each of these three persons shares the same divine essence. This means that the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Now, technically, I'm going to say the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, because in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God.
In verse 14, the Word became flesh. So the Word is a second person of the Trinity who is the eternal Son. So we're going to say the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, or the Father, and the Word. But each of these, the Word, and the Father, and the Spirit, all eternally are of the exact same identical nature, divinity.
There's no increase or decrease in either of them in the nature, because they're divinely simple. There is no, well, he's mostly divine over there, and lesser divine with this one. That's kind of average divine.
Nope. Divinity means a certain characteristic with certain attributes that belong or necessary with the essence. So anything that exists necessarily has properties. This glass of water, like the glass, if we exclude the water that's in it, the glass has properties.
So I'm tapping it, you can hear sound. This one is translucent. It has certain density, has certain shape, characteristics. And so what we can do is we can say that anything that exists has properties.
This chair, my shirt, this paper. And we recognize the essence of something by the properties that are related to the essence. We recognize a bowling ball because it's spherical, heavy, three holes, right?
And particularly it resides in a bowling alley. It's a bowling ball. But a small, look at this, a small ball on a pool table, a white one, a cue ball, is not a bowling ball. But yet it has the exact same shape, except for the three holes.
And so purpose, okay, so we'll get back on track. So the ontological trinity means that each of the three persons shares the same divine essence. The economic trinity, the oikonomia, and we get this word economy from that.
The economic trinity. Now let's go back to, so we know that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each called God. And that's Philippians 1 .2, Colossians 2 .9, and Acts 5 .3 -4, respectively. The economic trinity is that each individual or each person in the Godhead has a different function.
Now we're not saying they all have different functions, but there are different functions among them. And I'm not saying, I'm going to rephrase that first part. It's not that one person doesn't have any of the same functions as another person.
We couldn't say that, but we can say that we know, for example, the Father sent the Son. It's not the case that the Son sent the Father. We know the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit, John 14 .26, John 15 .26.
It's not the case that the Holy Spirit sends the Father or the Son. Only the Son became incarnate, not the Father or the Holy Spirit. So we see a difference of function among them. And only the Son became sin, 2 Corinthians 5 .21.
And then we see, however, if you go to Ephesians 1 .4 -6, just as He, that's the Father, chose us, that's the elect, in Him, that's the Son or the pre-incarnate Christ, the Word, before the foundation of the world, that we will be holy and blameless before Him.
In love, He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed in the Beloved.
Now, I would like to have seen in this pericope a mention of the Spirit, by the work of the Spirit. It would have been great to see that because it would fit my theology a little bit better to have that particular verse include that.
Now, the theological perspective is true. The Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin and righteousness and judgment, and He indwells us and things like that. There's the functions He expresses. But what we see here is something that not many people know about.
Why is it the Holy Spirit does not really appear that much, do much? The reason is because His job is to bear witness of Christ, to bear witness of Christ. We could say that the Holy Spirit is the most humble of the three.
Of course, that's a dumb statement. But what we're seeing is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit's humility in that He does not bear witness of Himself, but of the Son, which is interesting. But nevertheless, we do see two functions, the Father and the Son doing election.
Now, this is interesting because election, the choosing of the redeemed, cannot occur with only one person because the choosing for election must be in the one who represents, because only in Him, federal headship, Jesus is the representative of us.
We died with Him, Romans 6 .8, we're crucified with Him, Romans 6 .6, Colossians 3, 1 through 5, we died with Him. But we died with Him, we were crucified with Him 2 ,000 years ago when He was crucified when He died.
So we can see the now and the not yet. We didn't even live, yet we died with Him. And we were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. Before the universe existed, election was already placed, already accomplished, because God, who knows all things eternally, chose who would be saved and who would not.
It's not arbitrary. We could get into this quite a bit about God's elective work. I could do a teaching on predestination election, and ordination, and causation, and how they interrelate. But what we're seeing here is that He chose us in Him.
Choosing could not be done apart from Christ. The choosing cannot be done apart from the Father. And ultimately, without the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit applies the redemptive work, the Trinity is necessary for our redemption.
It's necessary for several reasons, because it's the most efficient, minimal necessity of God's existence. We talked about the uniqueness of God, personhood, and one person, two persons, three persons, four, things like that.
So we can review that sometime if you guys want. So the choosing is also involved with Him predestining. So God chooses, that's election. Predestined, that's causation. That's arranging. It's bringing into fruition the choice that He has made.
But the choice that He's made, the Father, is before the foundation of the world, but it's in Christ. So it can only be simultaneously done, not sequentially, in that the eternal nature of the Son has always been in that place, with the eternal nature of the Holy Spirit always in the place to apply the redemptive work.
But the Father elected and gives them to the Son, John 6 .37, all the Father gives me will come to me. Not all that come to me, the Father will give to me. But no, all the Father gives me, they are the ones who are going to come to me.
There's a group called the All, all that the Father gives me, that the Father gives to the Son, and the Son will not lose any. That's the will of the Father, that He not lose any, John 6 .37, 38, 39, 40.
So this is all reflected here in Ephesians 1, 4 through 6. He chose us and Him before the foundation of the world. The Trinity provides for us the foundation of redemption, eternal nature and redemption.
In a Unitarian sense, if God's one person, there could be no election in Christ, because there is no Christ. There is no oneness. There is no necessity of federal headship. Not in the eternal sense. You see?
Making sense? Interesting? And he's going, yes, yes. And Rich is going, and Bill's going, I could tell what Bill's doing right now. He's watching this. Bill's going, I got everything except for the part after, hi, everyone.
Hey, Bill. I hope Bill's in a good place. He's smiling. I know he's smiling right now. Can you hear me say that? He's smiling. That's what he does when I insult him. You know, we need him here. I need to insult people.
Dave Brock over there is doing this and pointing to somebody else. All right. All right. All right. Okay. All right. Hopefully that was interesting. Good? Informative? See, I could go even more on this and go back and forth, but it's like, wow, and guess where I learned all this stuff from?
Debating it, teaching it, defending it, writing notes, looking at the scriptures, seeing what commentaries say, reading the experts. Wow, this is good stuff. Yeah, it's pretty slick. Okay. The three persons inter-indwell each other, which is called the perichoresis.
As a result, there's one will. So this was an issue I was concerned about a while back. Logically, if there's three persons, there must be three wills. How is it then in the Godhead there's three wills, yet there's a one will?
That approaches a contradiction, because how can you have one will that's also three wills? Now we've got an issue. The problem is solved when we recognize that the one will is the total manifestation of all three.
Well, how can that be? Because it was called perichoresis. Perichoresis means that each of the three indwell each other. So if we were to have water, and we'll just say this water is a medium that's going to represent the blending, and I take a red drop of dye, a green drop, and a yellow drop, and I put them all in there, they come out to whatever color will come out, but they're all infused into this water.
They're there. But there's only now one thing. We could say that there's a subdivision of different colors, but are there anymore? What happened to the molecules? They blended into each other and blah, blah, blah.
Okay, the analogies always fall apart when you really go too far. But the point I'm trying to make is this, that God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, they all inter-indwell. I just say inter-dwell.
Inter-indwell each other so that the substance of each one is identical to the other, but yet they retain their personhood, yet all thoughts of each are eternally known of all of the others, because that's how it has to be, because of perichoresis, the mutual inter-dwelling of God, of the persons.
Therefore, they can possess a will each, but also because of the perichoresis, it's one will. It works, right? Let me go over that again. I think Dave just went into shock. I think his brain gave out.
Well, look at the fruit. You have three sections there. Three sections of fruit. They're not fruit. Yeah. But the purpose, they don't think of anything. Right. The purpose is to feed people, and it's fruit.
They're all fruit.
Yes. They're all together. Right. That's not a bad idea, actually, because fruit, if you think of fruit as a category, it's one category, and there's subdivisions of the category. Every analogy ultimately falls apart, but sometimes you get little truths inside of each analogy.
Oh, I can see that part. Sometimes the light clicks on for others, and it doesn't, but yeah, that's not bad. Fruitness. Even in books, you have a spine,.
You have the cover, and you have the pages in between.
Now, that's a little towards partialism, but I get you.
That's bullshit. Stop blowing your head.
Why would you slap me on the head? Well, that's what happens when Nephilim get in there, and they start talking, and they start doing this, so I definitely feel like that's an old something. Okay. No, but you're right.
No, what you're doing is thinking it through and trying to work it through. It's exactly right. I've thought these kind of things. How do we say this? Well, the more you know these details, you're going to go, that won't work because of this, but that's okay.
We're working through them, but that's actually not a bad idea. I like the idea of fruit is a single substance that has subdivisions. I like that. Subdivisions. Yeah. That's what it is in that book. Yeah.
That's what it is, that fruit, which makes me want to get some pineapple. Pineapple is good. All right. Dipped in chocolate. Dipped in chocolate? Yeah, dipped in chocolate. Oh, why'd you say that for?
Now I want pineapple dipped in chocolate. There goes the study. All right, let's keep going. So if they mutually interdwell each other, then no thought, we'll talk about it this way, no thought is independent or hidden from the other.
Therefore, all the thoughts are known simultaneously, eternally, and they all manifest as one will because they can't be contradictory because God is one thing. Now, this is a little bit of a circular logic.
The only reason we can know what non-contradiction is and what facts are is because they emanate out of the character and mind of God. But the character and the mind of God is what is in place in order to know the logic.
So we can know the logic, and then we can conclude, yeah, that's consistent with God. But we have to presuppose God there in order for the logic, and we get this kind of a circle going. But that's necessary because we have to have a starting point, and the starting point, obviously, or the terminus, I'd like to say, is God.
Okay. Erasmus is saying, hey, Laura, thanks for all you're doing to help. Yeah, Laura's great. She is. All right. Now, so the perichoresis is the mutual indwelling of the members of the Godhead, interdwelling each other.
Therefore, though they can have distinct wills, they are the one being who has one will by definition. And this is how it works. Now, someone say, explain it in more detail. I really can't. It's just as far as we can go.
And that's okay. All right. Now, yet in the fullness of scripture, God expresses himself in three distinct and simultaneous persons. So we have the functions, the economic trinity, the single nature of God, the ontological trinity.
Yet in the fullness of scripture, God expresses himself in three distinct simultaneous persons, and there is how the trinity is arrived at. There's a bigger chart on my website. Okay. You can see the nature of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
It's really simple. So people will tell me, they'll say, the trinity is false. And I'll say, okay, why is it false? Because the Bible says God is one. That doesn't contradict the trinity. No, it says he's one, not three.
One what? And three what? These are the questions you have to ask. And ultimately what I'll do is somebody else will say, do you know how the doctrine of the trinity is arrived at? And they'll say, yeah, but I'm taking things out of context by not being logical.
They'll say, no. Do you know how the doctrine of the trinity is arrived at? And it gets to the point where they'll say, well, what'd you tell me? A lot of people are snotty just like that because they, you know, anyway, they're snotty.
And they'll ask questions like, well, did Jesus teach the trinity? Did Moses teach the trinity? And they're failing to understand how the trinity is derived at. This is their problem. So the trinity is arrived at systematically, not by looking at a verse.
It's not arrived at by looking at one verse. Therefore it's not refuted by one verse. Well, technically it could be if the Bible said something like God is one person, not three, then it would be refuted.
But the doctrine of the trinity wouldn't exist ever in light of a statement like that. But the statement's not there. How's the doctrine of the trinity arrived at? Simply by looking at the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, who are each called God, each are all-knowing, each we can have fellowship with, each has a will, each loves, each speaks.
These are the attributes of what we call personhood. They're all called God. There's only one God, so it's perfectly logical. One God, three persons. It's not hard. That's how the trinity is arrived at, systematically and logically.
So I tell people, I say the trinity's false if the system, the approach, the logic used to arrive at it is false. And I'll tell them, so how's it arrived at? They don't know. Even though a lot of times I show them this chart, I'll tell them, go look on QARM.
I have a big one on QARM, bigger one than this. And still, they don't get it. People who are critics don't like to think very deeply. They don't like to think very deeply. But I'm finding that more and more people want deeper thinking things.
Not with every single detail, but there's certain topics like this. Let's get down, let's really talk about it because it's important. And there's not too many who will do this. And there needs to be more.
So these are the verses used to arrive at the doctrine of the trinity. Among others, that God is only one God, we'd already know that. But each of them is called God. Each knows and has fellowship, will, and love and speak.
Those are the attributes of personhood. Three persons, simple. One God, three persons. Not hard, not illogical. It's very logical. That's why when people say to me, the trinity is not logical, I kind of smile internally because they don't know how it's arrived at just using logic.
All right. Now let's get to the communicable attributes. God's incommunicable attributes stress His transcendence, and His communicable attributes stress His imminence. All right. Now this is a little bit, it's going to take a little bit of definitions.
What I'm thinking about doing is actually going through this stuff I have and actually putting paragraphs in explaining some of the terms and expanding on logic inside of each one of those. And then you see the scriptures of support.
I'm thinking about doing that because there's a lot. Yes, that's true. Yeah. So I'm going to work on that. And I'm actually thinking about, well, something else. All right. So the incommunicable attributes cannot be communicated to us.
We cannot experience them. God is immutable. He's unchanging. We're not. He's omniscient. We're not. He's omnipotent. We're not. He's omnipresent. We're not. We cannot participate. We cannot experience those attributes of God.
They remain as image, but those don't belong to us. We do not understand them. We cannot enjoy them. We cannot experience them. They are not communicated to us. They're incommunicable. The communicable attributes are communicated to us.
We can experience them. God loves, we can love. God reasons, we can reason. God is kind, we can be kind. These are attributes. God's self-aware, we can be self-aware. I could expand it quite a bit. These are the communicable attributes.
So the incommunicable attributes belong to God alone. We can't enjoy them. We can't participate in them. We cannot experience them. The communicable attributes of God can be communicated to us and we can experience them, though not perfectly.
Now when we talk about transcendence and eminence, transcendence deals with beyond and not dependent on creation. Eminence deals with being in creation, affected by it, kind of opposites, but they're not.
The incommunicable attributes demonstrate God's transcendent nature. He's not dependent upon creation. He's not controlled by it. His immutability, his omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, these are not affected by the created order.
They aren't determined by the created order. Now when we go to the communicable attributes, they stress his eminence. That means in creation, because in creation we can participate in those attributes and he participates with us with those attributes in the world.
He loves us and we can experience his love. He has fellowship with us. We can experience that fellowship. I don't know if you heard the radio today. A guy called up today and said he thinks he had a dream or a vision from God.
And I don't have any problem with that possibility. I went through the scriptures and said, I believe it's possible. And he said, I want one of it's from God or not. What do I do? And I gave him some advice.
We talked about it. But the thing is that a dream or something from God is a revelation of some sort and some type that would come from God. And it deals with eminence in relationship to us in this time, this place.
And so this is what this is. The communicable attributes are in us. Hence they reflect God's eminence and his existence in this world, relationship in this world and providence in this world and things like that.
Okay. A lot of people have no idea that these are talking about God. I didn't even go into the issue of the impassibility of God from earlier. That's another topic we should get into, which I'm going to have to add, because that's something I want to go back and forth and think some more about, impassibility of God.
But at any rate, there's lots about God. I'll be expanding this and probably teach it on again in another year or two. Who knows? But it's just growing in the nature of God. It's revealed in scripture.
It's amazing. The Bible's amazing. And think about this. Don't look at me and go, wow, Matt's smart. No, no, no, no. There are people, the smart people in history, they're the ones who thought these things out.
They've written them down in books and commentaries. They've thought through these things. And then great theologians who've read these and understand them will bring them together, put them into a coalesce and teach them.
And they get disseminated. And so I'm the beneficiary of their teaching. I didn't know what communicable and incommunicable were. I had to learn it. I didn't know what transcendence was or imminence. I had to learn it.
What's the ontological trinity? I wasn't born with that knowledge. I had to learn it. And so we learn it from those who are before us, but God has anointed those people, those great minds to communicate truths.
I feel like Solieri and Mozart. You saw the movie Solieri? Mozart was so great. Solieri was really good, but he knew what real good was. I know enough to know what real smart is, and I'm not it. And there are guys out there, whoa.
But I'm able to understand a lot of what they say. I can bring it down. And that's what I want to do is help people understand some of the bigger concepts. So I'm learning from them. Okay. Now, so God possesses infinite knowledge, wisdom.
Ooh, I misspelled that word. What was that word? Oh, presence. Yeah, just presence. That's right. I was thinking precense and there's something else, but presence and power that manifests out of his good and holy nature.
Now there's going to be some redundancy here. Remember, I told you that's going to happen. So he possesses infinite knowledge, which means he knows all things actual as well as potential, all things that do exist and might exist.
Now, but remember before the universe was created by him, everything to him, as far as we're concerned, was potentiality, not actuality. The only thing actual before the universe existed was God himself.
And he knew all things in his own existence, perichoresis, trinity, ontological necessity, transcendence, et cetera. All these things were known in him. And so he had infinite knowledge, which means there's no sense or condition in which God's knowledge increases or decreases.
It's always eternally known. That's 1 John 3 .20. He knows all things. He has all wisdom. It's called omnisapience. He cannot increase in wisdom because if he has all knowledge, then he has to have all wisdom because if he didn't know how to do something properly, the right way to act, then he wouldn't know it.
Hence, knowledge and wisdom go together. And presence, he's everywhere. It's just omnipresence, right? So he has infinite knowledge, infinite wisdom, and infinite presence. Now what we're saying is that he exists everywhere.
Now that's a problem. What is everywhere? Define it. Define everywhere. The opposite of nowhere. You walked into that one. So I like watching science. So Nicanelle Staple will watch TV and then she goes to bed next day for an hour, hour and a half.
And I like to watch science stuff. I'm watching on telescopes. And one of the things I've been enjoying watching is how big is the universe and different theories of its size, 93 billion light years across.
Well, how can that be if it's only 14 billion, 14 .3 billion years old? And you get into the expansive issue of the Big Bang and the clusters of galaxies. I'm going, yeah, feed me some more. Taking notes.
That's, me, that's a good time at midnight, one o 'clock in the morning. Oh yeah, galaxy clusters, super clusters. And so me, that's a good time. I don't yell at guys going to football. I don't care. So everywhere we could say is the encompassing of the universe.
Now here's a mind blowing thing. What's beyond the universe? Beyond my comprehension. There you go. Now is God there? So how far out does out go? Is there a condition in which out there is no longer existing because of something?
I don't know. I have no clue. I don't know. God does. Putting him on camera so they can see how big he is. Look at this cat. He's like huge. And so, and he has all power, which means that he can do whatever he desires to do.
He can get up there, but just on the other counter. Okay. So he can, God can do, whatever he desires to do, he can do. Whatever we desire to do, we can't do. Okay. So that's okay. You just let him go.
Cause yeah, it's fine. Cause that's what it is. So he has all power, which means he can do anything he desires, anything he wants to do, he can do. Now, could you imagine that? Because what he desires will be consistent with his nature and with his ultimate plan and his knowledge.
He's not going to desire something that's foolish, but he'll only desire which is consistent with his holiness and his righteousness and his goodness, which means he desired to create the universe. Kabam.
Now I saw recently, for example, on TV, I could watch these documentaries and stuff. They had a picture of a sun they've recently discovered, S-U-N, out in the galaxies, like this big. Okay. And our sun was like this big next to it.
It's like, what is that? And it's their words, our sun. And this arc of the sun is there, you can't even see it. In order to keep, in order to be able to see the sun, they had to zoom in on the arc. And this is one of the sun.
That's just part of one of the areas near the edge of our galaxy, which is a small galaxy. And when you take a telescope and you aim it out at any, basically any place in space, there's some, they're called voids, but anyway, basically any place in space.
And if it's like a, like, I'm serious, like a thumbnail size, as far out as your arm can see, in there, there's like a million galaxies, like everywhere you go. And that's all they can count because they don't know how much light, far back and what, and their instruments aren't sensitive enough.
It's ridiculous. It's mind blowing. And God said, I'm going to create all that. He could do that. And he did do it. That's amazing. It's amazing to me. That's who he is. And people wonder, well, is he in control of your life?
Yeah, he knows what he's doing. This is what it means for him to have all power. And all of these attributes of him, they manifest out of his good and holy nature. Now his goal, his good nature, holy, but he's also just, we could go on with other attributes, but his good and holy nature, his creative work and his extant knowledge and ability are related to his goodness and his holiness.
We would not know what good was if God hadn't revealed it to us. There's no universal good out there. There's no, that's why it had to be moral anti-real, anti-realism is that there's no, because good is moral.
Well, there is no good. If there is no universal mind, no universal God, who is determinist by which you can determine what good is. When atheists say, how do you know God is good? They don't realize they're asking the wrong question.
I have to teach them. You're asking the wrong question. No, we're not. How do you know that God is good? What standard do you have by which you judge God? That's what they're asking me. And I go, you don't understand the Christian trinity, do you?
You can't do that. And I had to teach them. People presuppose certain things. I have to show them that there's an underlying principle that they're assuming. I don't realize it's irrational to make the assumption to begin with.
What's your universal standard by which you can judge what is good, et cetera. So he is a standard of what is right and stuff. So God has all knowledge, all wisdom, all presence, and I have the scriptures there.
And let's get to the last part of this section here. Whatever, now this is a logic thing that's necessary. We'll talk about this a little bit, because this is a fun part. I learned this within the past two years.
Someone made a statement and went, oh, that's true. Whatever attribute God possesses means he cannot possess its opposite. Therefore, God is good and cannot not be good. If God is good, he cannot be evil.
So one of the things, in fact, recently this past week, I released it. Someone, an atheist proposed what's called the Cartesian scenario, Descartes. A Cartesian scenario on the issue of how do you know if things are knowable or true or whatever.
How do you know you're not being deceived, for example, they actually use the word demon, by an evil demon who makes you think that you believe things that are true and it's not really true. So this is a Cartesian scenario.
How do you know your mind isn't in a vat run by a mean scientist who's deceiving you and putting impulses in your brain to make you think things? Lately, I've come up with something that I stumbled on when I asked somebody something about this, and I'm expanding on it a little bit.
It's, okay, what must be in place in order for that to be true? So what must be in place in order for there to be an evil demon who can deceive us? What must be the condition that makes that valid? So I started exploring that, and I wrote an article and released it, and there's problems with this scenario.
This relates to how you know God is good, and he cannot not be good, therefore he can't be a deceiver. That's by the Christian worldview. By definition, God can't be a deceiver, therefore God is telling us the truth.
How do you know he's not tricking you about that? Let's go over this again. Whatever attribute he possesses, he doesn't possess its opposite. If he's a deceiver, he can't be good. But if he's a deceiver, that's self-contradictory.
How could he have a self-contradictory nature? How could he be eternal? What must be in place in order for that to be the case? Because then the deceiving demon would have to have the ability to deceive all people simultaneously.
All over the place, he has to have a transcendent quality and ubiquity. How is that possible in a transcendent demon? What qualities are you giving to this demon by which you can have this ability to deceive all people?
Then I start realizing they can't defend their own idea. They just posit something that has no actuality and doesn't make any sense to posit. Then I say, so if you cannot hypothetically, logically defend your position as being possible, then shouldn't we just reject it?
Yes. So then the Cartesian scenario doesn't work, does it? Simple to me. But the fact is that whatever attribute God possesses means he cannot possess its opposite. Titus 1 says, God cannot lie. He says, be holy for I'm holy.
He cannot be non-holy. How would you know if he's not holy? You have to have a universal standard. How would you know if you're being deceived? You have to have a universal standard. So there's no way to know if a demon is deceiving you because you have no universal standard by which you can know what deception is.
So ultimately the whole scenario implodes on itself because you have to have a transcendental nature of deception or truth by which you can then declare it. But if he's a deceiver, there has to be a quality outside of himself by which we can compare and say he's a deceiver.
That necessitates a universal quality. How do you get that in your scenario? You see? Logic is so valuable, particularly when doing this kind of stuff in apologetics. And this one guy who's proposing all this stuff, the Cartesian scenarios, was destroying Christians.
And he was out-arguing them. And so I said, give me the argument. I'm going to analyze it. And this is what I wrote, what I came up with, and I released it and haven't talked with the guy. But we'll see what happens.
Because when he does, I'm going to go through the argument again. I keep adding stuff to it and polishing it like that. I'm going to say, well, what must be the case in order for that to occur? And remember, there's a principle.
Facts never exist independent of other facts. No fact exists in a solitary sense. Period. Except God, who can be the only self-existing fact of his own existence. We get into the nature of that. But we who are independent of the created order, and a deceiving demon in our world means that this deceptive angel, the demon, either is eternal or it's not the case that he's eternal.
If he's eternal, is he transcendent? If he's transcendent, how can he be self-refuting? How does this work? And these are the questions I don't think they're going to answer. And this is one of the ways of showing people's illogic.
And the atheists spent a lot of time thinking up ways to trip up Christians and come up with them. I have a section on karma, my atheism section, I don't know, 10, 12, I don't know, articles where they said, proof God doesn't exist.
Send it to me. And then I'd write responses to it. I don't hear from them again. And I'm not saying, hey, look at me. It's just like, that's not that hard. Let's think about it. And there's another tool, is what must be in place in order for your criticism to be valid?
What must be the condition by which your statement has validity? Simple. Another truth thing I like to work with is, if God possesses one attribute, he cannot also possess its opposite. If God is good, he can also not be good or possess the quality of opposite of it.
How can he have both negative negating characteristics in the same nature? Since the properties emanate out of the essence, how could he have opposite properties? It makes no sense. So therefore, a deceiving being cannot be a good being.
But then, how would you know it's deceptive? Because you'd have to have a universal standard of deception. If it was its own universal standard, then that is self-refuting. You couldn't use that as a universal standard.
The whole thing collapsed. It doesn't make any sense. So these are the questions I'm going to ask this guy. Can you please defend that? Won't be able to. And then what I'll do sometimes in a room when we go through something like this, I'll say, you see the problem?
There's a pause for five seconds. I'll go, next. I want them to think. And we're done with the study, just so you know. But I'm going to talk about something that happened last night a little bit. You can stick around if you want.
We're done. But next week, we're going to get into some really interesting stuff with the one in the mini. I'm going to be expanding on that. What verse?
I just came across this the other day. Okay, verse.
Hey, there's a lot of verses I don't know. First John. First John 5. 570. 570. Oh, I know about that. I don't know. What is it? You mean, First John 5 .7 is called the Common Gehannium and it's found in the older manuscripts.
There's three that bear witness. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, these three are one. That's called the Common Gehannium. Yeah, I know about it. First John 5 .7, yes. I don't use it because it's debatable.
Oh, okay. I was just wondering, like, wow, that really says a lot.
It's not bad. Well, we could also go to 2 Corinthians 13, 14, and it talks about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and things like that. There's also the Great Commission. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are mentioned there.
That Baptism of Jesus, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are there. And there's other verses. I have a list of them. Yeah, yeah. It's called the Common Gehannium. That's what it's called. Okay. All right.
Yeah. Common Gehannium. All right. Now, so I talked about, thanks, Matt, Charlie, and Nick for her hospitality chat room saints. That's the word. It was like the chat room saints. That's a great term.
If you guys have questions about all this, ask me or just put them in the text and I'll try and tackle them. And I'm going to tell you what happened last night. Not a big deal, but I was in a discussion room on Clubhouse for four and a half hours discussing Catholicism at different discussions.
And it moved into a discussion with one guy. Oh, and by the way, over 600 people came into the room and it was at least 75 people at a time listening. So it's a good witnessing opportunity, right? And so what I did with this, there's different ways of exposing error.
And one of the ways is not just to call it error, but just let it stand and I'll show you what I mean. And so this guy is very polite and I'm not mocking him. He's a hardcore Catholic. And he was great.
I would just ask a question. He didn't pontificate for eight days as some people do. What's two plus two? Well, you got to understand because the principle of, you know, four, thank you. This guy had asked him a question.
Do you affirm this or deny it? It was my affirmative statement. It was a great conversation. I wasn't antagonistic and I would say things to him. I'd say things, you know, in some discussions, I'd say to people, what I want to do now is set you up for a fail.
I want you to know, and ahead of time, I'm trying to trap you and show you a problem in your position. Is that okay? And he'll go, okay, go ahead. I say, you know, I'm not trying to hurt you. You know, I care about you.
I'm just being upfront and honest, right? This is how I'm witnessing now. I'm learning all kinds of stuff and it works great and people appreciate it. Atheists and Catholics alike. So I'm in this discussion and you're at a wrapping paper, Randall, use paper bags.
And so I said, in paragraph 972 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it says, we can find no better way after considering the church, its origin, mission, and destiny, we can find no better way than to conclude that by looking to Mary.
And I said, is that true? He said, yes, it's true. So I said, let's go read the context, went to the Catholic Catechism and read it. Okay. Or Pope Pius and Ephebelus Deus, he said that Mary's the one who crushed the serpent's head, even though the scripture says Jesus did.
And I read ought, fundamentals of Catholic dogma, page 213. Mary, by her entering into the divine sacrifice of her son, made atonement for our sins. I said, is that true? He says, yes, it is. So I didn't have to refute them.
I just let him stand. Is this what you believe? Yes. Let's go to the next one. Do you believe this? Yes. Do you believe this? Yes. Do you believe this? Yes. And you know that there are people going, what?
Are you kidding me? That's another way of witnessing, not a very common one, where you just let them, their answers, so to speak, to show the ridiculousness of their position. Okay. What's this? Let's see.
Why do atheists spend so much time trying to refute the God of the Bible that they deny exists? Because they are filled with hatred for him. They deny the true living God. God's given them over to the path of their heart and their mind.
They don't want to be held accountable by the true God who exists. They want to be able to be their own little gods. That's why. So this conversation went for four and a half hours, not just with him.
That was about two and a half, three hours. And then afterwards, people come in. He had to go. He goes, hey, look, I enjoyed the conversation. I got to go. And I said, thank you very much. And I said, I want to just thank you for being polite.
He said, you were very polite too. And he would say it. He's just offering his position. If someone were to say to me, Matt, do you believe Jesus died for everybody who ever lived? No. Okay. Do you believe in limited atonement?
Yes, I do. You know, simple answers. That's what I do a lot with people. They'll ask me these questions. Sometimes in debates, I do this. People cross-examine me. So do you really believe the Trinity is true?
Yes. Can you tell what the Trinity is? One God and three distinct simultaneous persons. And they're not used to someone giving them simple, direct answers and it trips them up. I'm not just doing it to trip them up, but let's keep going.
Let's keep going because I know where you're going to go, or I suspect, I think I know where you're going to go. I want to see how far down you're going to get. And then when we get further down the road, I'm going to show you your problems.
Now, this is not arrogance. This is a lot of experience. They are denying the true living God. And if you deny the true living God, it's just a matter of time before your error is exposed. That's it. I'm just waiting.
Let's find, oh, well then let me explain that now we can talk. That's not right. And here's why. And there's different ways of doing that. And so that's what I do. Okay, let's see. Why do atheists that?
They suppress the truth. They suppress the truth. That's right. Frank Hayes, please never use that terrible analogy again, whatever that was. Hey, truth defenders, how you doing, buddy? And Randall, I love to hear Matt teach, but sometimes I think he's cornbread ain't done in the middle.
Sometimes that guy's cornbread's not done in the middle. I'm going to use that one. That's good. Or I like this. I've actually said this before. See if you guys get this one. His meniscus is not viscous.
You guys get that one? So you have a test tube, right? A test tube, and then you put water in it. You see how it adheres to the side. It doesn't just go straight across. It adheres. And that's called the meniscus.
That curve is called the meniscus. The reason that it exists is because of adhesion of the molecules to the glass. And then it sticks together because of viscosity. So the liquid has viscosity. It adheres to itself, but it also will adhere to the wall.
So the meniscus isn't viscous. But no one knows that one. Or I said, it's quantum tunneling isn't. And I said that in one room, one guy goes, oh, that's good. He got it. He goes, I like that one. You got the good, yeah.
I mean, quantum tunneling has to do with particles that go into a place that's not supposed to be able to be there and some stuff. And there's some weird things on the other side. Yeah. So it's cornbread or he doesn't have all his paws in a litter box, which is my favorite.
That's a good one. That's right. That monkey can't peel a banana, you know? So I love those. I wish I knew what the word for those words was. Cornbread isn't done in the middle. Man. All right. Let's see.
Half-baked, in other words. Thanks, Charlie. Charlie, just call me half-baked, okay? All right. That was a good insult to you, Matt. Bill. And Bill's going, dang, I'm at home. I wasn't there to experience it more fully and completely.
Isn't that right, Bill? All right. The multiple levels of extreme complexities of life prove there must be a creator. That's true. God, teach me to pray your word. That's right. That's what he said. Matt, do you ever use this against atheists and empiricists?
Yes, I do. Empiricism is really interesting because you have empiricists teach that you gain knowledge through your experience and your senses. That presupposes induction, presupposes uniformitarianism, and presupposes that your senses can give you an accurate representation of actuality.
So how do you verify the truth of empiricism? With your senses? I use my senses to validate my senses, is what you're doing. And so ultimately, empiricism leads to skepticism because you can't know for sure if what you're observing is actually true because you can't observe the on-toss of something and thereby know the essence of something.
So empiricism ultimately fails. Tulsa, okay, you're watching. All right, Steve Cantrell. Matt, do you ever use this against atheists all the time? Yes, I do. My meniscus is torn in my knee. A different meniscus.
Yeah, my meniscus is not viscous. That's a good one. Cornbread, you guys like the cornbread. Matt, those are intellectual jokes. Laugh it down. That's right. That's right. I could argue with both cerebellums tied behind my back.
It's like, oh no, both frontal lobes. That'd be frontal lobes are used in cognition. I could be you with both frontal lobes tied behind my back. I said that to some guy before and done stuff like that.
I was talking to a guy before, but I could tell you. Truth Defenders, thanks for your rude, useless opinion of my analogy that Trinity Above relating it to water. Well, I could talk about why water is not the best.
It works on one level, but there are better levels because water, H2O, is actually comprised of parts. Two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen, H2O. Two hydrogen and one oxygen atom. So it's three things, actually it's two.
Anyway, Matt, what would you say about a person using the word manifestations referring to God? Depends on the context. Did God manifest in the Old Testament? Yes, he did. Exodus 6, 2 and 3, Numbers 12, 6 through 8, Exodus 24, 9 through 11, Genesis 17, 1, 18, 1.
Yep. Don't use it personally, but what do you think about it? Words mean what they mean in context. If someone says, God is three manifestations, I'm going to say, well, what do you mean by that? I'm still going to say, what do you mean?
Because sometimes I've learned that sometimes what people will do is they will use a term, but they're misusing it. But they still think the right thing, they're just not applying the right term to what their concept is.
So I want to find out what their concept is. And then say, well, we don't use that term in this concept. I've done that many times. We say, you know, like personage. We don't say personage or entity or being when talking to three persons.
We say persons. And on more than one occasion, I've had to say, no, use the word person. And people go back to their habit. Well, three beings, no, no, no. And I'm mad. No, no, no. You've got to say the word person.
Thanks for reminding me again. Thank you. And I teach them why it's necessary, because otherwise they'll teach error. Precision is important when you do this level of theology. Now, the thing is, I believe it's necessary when preaching.
I believe it's necessary when you're preaching. You should have a good theological understanding. Unfortunately, some seminaries have just gone off the deep end and are teaching liberal crap. And so the non-denominational churches will say, we don't go to cemeteries.
And they're arrogant because they say, we can discern the truth for ourselves. We don't need that. But seminaries can be very useful, particularly, for example, the one I went to, extremely godly, very good, highly intelligent people who are very godly and biblically centered.
And I had the great privilege of studying under some great people. And I learned a great deal. And I'm serious. Now, if they go south in 20 years, it doesn't mean my education is not valid. There's a good seminary.
There's good people there. Remember, a lot of good men there. There really were. And there's some godly people. I remember being in seminary in class, Mark Futado, for example. And he's a Hebrew professor, Old Testament professor.
You know, you're taking notes, right? It's an intellectual aspect. You got to do this. And I'd be sitting there and then realize for 20 minutes, he's just preaching through the text. And like, I missed a whole bunch of notes.
That was so good. He's just going, you know, just wonderful. And you would just, you'd hear these men just say wonderful things and truths and with humility before God. And it was awesome. So, you know, precision is necessary.
And I believe that pastors should be as theologically trained as possible. I could train them in certain nuances of theological stuff. I could do it in six months. I mean, that long in order to get them to understand it and be able to repeat it, not have all the verses memorized.
Don't need that. But they need to be able to articulate why these doctrines interrelate and how they interrelate into the doctrine of Trinity, hypothetic union, the person who worked with the Holy Spirit, how that relates soteriologically, the doctrine of salvation, because these are all super interrelated and very essential, very necessary.
Eschatology is out there, out there. It's important, but it's not as important as these cores. And so many people miss them and they get the basics, but they don't get, they don't see the interconnectedness of the intricacy of these doctrines.
So that when you're preaching and you come across a verse and you're reaching into that verse and you go, oh, that relates to this verse over here. Do I tell them or not? Is it worth it in the sermon?
Or is it, will it digress or will it help? You have to decide sometimes on the spot. And sometimes I'll take a digression. I'll say, I'm going to digress for a minute and I'm going to teach you something over here.
And sometimes I've actually gone over there and go, you know what? It wasn't as quite, turned out quite as pristinely good as I thought it would, but that's okay. You'll learn something anyway. Let's get back to the text.
And that's okay with people, but they want to learn. They want to be related. They want to see how things relate. Okay. Jimmy, Matt has an article on a topic. Will we see the Trinity in heaven? I don't believe so.
Now, okay. What was the term Matt used for the one will and three wills? It's not one will and three wills, but the term perichoresis is probably what you're talking about. The perichoresis just means the interdwelling of the persons.
I can totally get the Trinity, one God, three persons. I cannot understand how it works, but I know that that's what the word teaches systematically. Randall, give yourself a high five. Let's see. Hey y 'all at Bible study.
Who do you think that is? Hey, how's your toe, Joanne? Ask Matt how you properly pronounce his name. Why are you closing the door? Are you cold? Okay. All right. Hi, y 'all Bible study. Ask Matt how you properly pronounce his name in the North Carolina way.
Oh, it's easy. Matt. Matt. Matt. Matt. All right. Okay. So you got, oh, we're up to, we had 50 people in there for a sec. You got any more comments or questions? You can ask me all kinds of stuff. Oh, he's got a question.
So the communication between the Father and the Son. We know the Son asks... Wait, you mean in the incarnation? In the incarnation? The state of the incarnation? Yeah. Okay. So when you pray, and he says, he's praying and he says, God's Father, forgive them.
But they don't know what they do. John 19. So we know that the Son communicates. To the Father. To the Father. And the Father, you know, we basically know he communicates to the Son. And how does the communication in the Holy Spirit?
Is that... We don't see it manifested. We don't see it. We don't see the... I don't know of any scripture that says the Father speaks to the Holy Spirit or the Holy Spirit speaks to the Father or to the Son, which is interesting.
I remember always being taught, Holy Spirit points to the Son, the Son points to the Father.
Yeah. But the Father actually bears witness of the Son. Right. Right. And the scriptures bear witness of Jesus. John 5 .39. The prophets bear witness. John Acts 10 .43. The prophets, also a prophet scripture.
But yeah, I have a whole thing, a hundred truths about Jesus. So the Father and Son interact with each other, but the Holy Spirit's on the sidelines, bearing witness of the Son in humility, supporting him and bringing the will of the Father to fruition in relationship to the Son.
So I think it's interesting that the Father, I don't know of any other verse, if anybody does know anything where they can find it, that's great, where it says the Father speaks to the Holy Spirit or the Holy Spirit speaks to the Father or the Son, or the Son speaks to the Spirit.
I don't know. But they speak of the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send. John 14 .26, John 15 .26, Jesus says, whom I will send. So there's a differentiation, a distinction between them. The Holy Spirit speaks in John Acts 13 .2.
So we see a differentiation, but the Holy Spirit's also called God in Acts 5 .3 -4. So they conclude this. But others have noticed, why is it the Holy Spirit does not speak much or do much? Because he's convicting the world and he's there.
And here's a question I don't have an answer to. John 14, Jesus says, unless I leave, Holy Spirit won't come. Why? My question makes me wonder, is there something in the Trinitarian essence and the relationship to the universe that means that only one could, so to speak, be here at a time?
I'm not saying it is the case, but that's where the thing goes. Is that what it's saying? If I don't go, he can't be here. Is there something that must be in place in the Trinitarian Godhead? And I have no clue.
What's that?
That was the purpose that was set up. That was the purpose when Jesus came. Now it's the Holy.
Spirit to be here and work. Or it could be along those lines that the ministry of the Holy Spirit has to begin when his ends. And then that's a sense, right? Yeah. I think that's a possibility too. But he says he can't come unless I go.
Now there's different senses of which can't can mean. Can't because of necessity of the Trinitarian essence, or can't because the plan's been laid out the next step here. I can't do it until we're gone.
Here's a question for you. The man who nailed the nail into Jesus' wrist, could he have not done it? Could he have not done it? Because it's a good question, and the answer is a good, it's an answer worth discussing to teach us ourselves something.
Not a big deal, just a bit of thought and thinking. So could he have not done it? And the answer next week, or send me $20, and I will give you the answer and mail it back to you. There's two different senses in which the answer can be proposed.
Yeah, he could have not done it. He's free. He could have hit over there and said, I'm not going to do this, but he's free. He's not a robot. In that sense, yeah, he could have avoided it. He could have not done it.
On the other hand, God ordained the ultimate cause and the proximate cause. So if God had ordained that that particular person would do it, can he arrange circumstances so that he will do exactly what God wants that particular individual to do freely?
And the answer is yes. So the man is free, but also he had to do what God said, but he was free not to do it, but he could only do what God ordained him to do. Watch this. Look at this guy. This is Flopper.
Say hi to everybody. Yeah, there you go. I was thinking about what you're saying about that question, the guy saying that, how do you know that you're not controlled by demons? And for me, when he said that, it triggered me because I see that's what's going on in our world right now.
It is happening. How do you know? Well, you know, because if you're not believing in half faith and have that truth and know what is good, then you're believing the demons. And that is part of our problem in our world is they're believing man and the men they're believing in are basically fakeness.
And they're believing in that versus believing in God and truth, right? Trusting in God, have faith in that. And we'd see this division and grip in our societies in the world right now. And then we see a rush that I see of people going to God and it's being covered up by our media and the people that control the bullhorn.
But yet we see the truth of CNN collapsing and nobody's watching it. It's a farce. Yeah. CNN stands for Communist News Network, I think. The Democratic Party and their actual truth ministry. That's out of 1984, Aldous Huxley.
You know, the truth ministry. So, you made a good point. CNN's the only company that has more employees than viewers. Ah, that's good. Okay, let's see. Sandra says, wowzer, beautiful cat. Joanne says, hi, hey flopper.
Okay. And that's what we have. So, no one else, any comments? Okay, guys, any comments or questions? Stacia Hannaway. Hey, Stacia. Hope you get better. Nick says, hi, if you say he has free will, he can choose not to, but God arranged it to take place.
Well said. That's right. I asked my Muslim sister, how can Allah be intervention and in the form of the Quran at the same time? She said, I know where you're going. Muslims say that God is one. I hope she thinks about it.
I'm not sure what you said, but okay. When we get next week, we're going to get into the issue of the one in the many, universals and particulars, and we're going to spend a lot of time on it. We've already gone over it, but we're going to go over it again.
And what I'm going to do is relate it to Unitarian God concepts like Islam and oneness theology. And you'll see how there's kind of an esoteric, esoteric means understood by just a few. It's kind of an esoteric approach to things, but it's necessary because it provides another layer of truth about the Unitarian concept of God.
And it provides also a better understanding of the world that we're in because our world is comprised of objects, but the objects relate to each other here. Chairs, cookies, which I wish I had some, and papers, they relate to each other.
What is it that is the cause or the condition of the thing that makes them relate to each other? Simple question. And people have asked that question and pondered it. And with Christian Trinitarianism, it's God who is the ultimate being who knows all these concepts and they are extant in his mind and he's everywhere.
And he provides somehow, some way, the blending of them into actuality, just as mathematics works in actuality. Mathematics occurs here, not in a jar. How then does mathematics relate to actuality? Why does it?
Why is it we can take trigonometry, go out and measure something and get exact measurements and be dead on accurate? When I felled a tree back in the day, back when I lived with my mom and dad, I used trig to figure out the exact height of a tree and given the variables of how the tree will fall and wind and stuff like that, it was like 63 feet tall and I got it within two feet of where it would exactly land.
Because trig works. Why does it work? Why is it the concepts of math work in the real world? Why? Why is it that truth values relate to the real world? What is the nature of truth as it relates to the real world?
Truth is an abstract concept. Mathematics is abstraction, transcendentals. Something about transcendentals that relate to the real world. What's the connection between them? This is serious questions.
And people talk about these. People who are trained in thought and philosophy and terms, and then they graduate to a certain level and they'll go, let's just talk about these things. And they use shorthand terms and stuff like that.
I'm still trying to get there. But they will talk like this and it's, you know, they know. Because these are serious things. So how is it and why is it, for example, that mathematics relates to actuality?
Simple. I used to have a job where I used trigonometry and algebra all the time. And I would get this. I was a mechanical draftsman. I worked at a big factory and I would go out and make measurements.
And they said, oh, you can get this big thing, go up high and get a tape measure. I'm not going up there. Just all I need is the angle and the distance. That's all I need. And I'll figure out exactly how high something is.
You can't do that. Yeah, I can. And I'll do it. And I would then take what I saw from math and then in a three-dimensional realm, put it in two-dimensional paper and then do my calculations like this and tell them, build it this high, this long, this, do that, this much, this much, get the parts, get to like that.
There you go. They'd build it, worked every time. Why is it it all works together? Because there's a relationship between the transcendental actualities of mathematics and logic principles and actuality.
Therefore, we can ask the question, what is it that relates chairs to each other? What's behind the scene that relates them? Well, we're just, if you impose a relationship in your own mind, then you're saying you have access to a universal chair-ness.
Is it originating in your mind? If it is, then your concept of chair-ness might be different than mine. We might not say that's a chair, but I'd say it is a chair. Now what do we do? We're recognizing something that already exists, a transcendental.
What must be in place for the transcendentals to be in place? Now we talk about the characteristics of transcendentals. Transcendentals occur here. They don't occur here. I'm not sitting on a transcendental.
I'm sitting on a manifestation or a particular manifestation of the transcendental thing called chair-ness, a particular, just as you are and you are sitting in particular manifestations of them. The transcendentals are abstract concepts.
Well, then what must be in place for universal abstract concepts? The implication is a universal mind. So I can talk to anybody and say anything you say and do and think and sit on and walk into or prove God exists, the Trinitarian God, everything.
Because what you're doing is, there's different ways. Where does chair come from? Where's the ultimate cause of what caused that to cause that to cause that? How back far do you go? I can get into that and talk about necessary and sufficient conditions and disjunctive syllogistic scenarios if you're interested.
But I can also say, well, how do you know the concept that you're even alluding to are actual and what gives them validity? Because if you're going to argue with me about logic, you're presupposing the universality of logic.
If you argue with me about any, with any concept, you're presupposing the universal truth value of the concept. What must be in place for any of your argumentation to be valid? If you argue with me at all, you're presupposing transcendentals.
Transcendental necessity of language and meanings and identity of concepts that we assign verbal cues to. Chair-ness, that's chair-ness. Sentia, in Spanish, the thing is of chair, right? It's a different pronunciation, but the concept is there.
Different pronunciations and syllables can still describe the same essence, what we're talking about, but they're observed. So they're not dependent upon linguistic constructs or where we are or what we are.
The transcendental necessities exist independently of us, but transcendentals are of the mind, hence a universal transcendental mind. I don't care what you say, your logic leads ultimately to God. Otherwise you have incoherence.
Now you see, that's why these things are useful because I'll talk about these in my circles. It's useful. I could just see you going, the guy walks in, hey, you got a stereo, transcendental? You want a transcendental necessity of stereo-ness?
Because let me talk to you. Where are you going? Probably what would happen.
Probably. What would happen. My wife's in the office studying.
Quantum theory. Yeah, that's right. You're reading quantum theory? Oh, yeah. It's interesting. It is. Now you'll get it when you study a little more. Your quantum tunneling isn't. Quantum physics. Quantum superpositioning is good, too.
We're all atoms. Who's Eve, then? Everything's F. Who's Eve? ATOMS. But what are atoms constructed of? They're smaller particles of atoms. Quarks, they get gluons, they get things. Why is it that protons, which are positively charged in a net nucleus, which repel each other, stay together?
What's the reason? Yeah, why does the electron, the lost one's one? Yields all things together by the exertion of his will. Right, 117, cluster 117, that's right. Yeah, why does the electron revolve around the nucleus?
Because of God went and started explaining. They can't explain. I've had conversations with these people. Really? They can't explain. Where'd the big bang come from? Can't explain that. Can't explain it.
So there's no argument.
I mean, you can't say there's no God. No, no, but their argument is your God. Because we're all made of, he's everywhere. So we're all atoms, we're all together.
So you're divine. And here's the branches.
You know what? That's just wrong. That was a big stretch.
Okay, let's see what the people are saying here. Let's see. Oh, look at that. This can be explained for the article. Jesus humbled. Okay, whatever. Frank, he's got to run. I'll watch later to see if it addresses your analogy directly.
Not sure what that is about. Could have not done it. Stacia, you might like to explore versus showing identity. Matt, you're so much better than Anique. She's listened to everything you say. Wow, that's really good.
That is really something. Man, man, that was good. See, math, geometry, algebra, trigonometry, calculus were all courses I took in high school and college. They opened my mind, really. Yep. I loved trig and algebra.
I remember my dad, once he was trying to build something in the garage, a shelf and some volume and stuff. And I'm going, well, what are you trying to do? He goes, well, I got to do this, but I can't figure out how long.
I go, oh, here, let me do it for you. And I measured tink, tink, tink. And I did some algebra, tink, tink, tink. It's this long. Took like a minute. He goes, how'd you do that? I said, it's not a big deal.
It sounds impressive, but it's just a little bit of a formula. When you know it, you just work it. In fact, that reminds me when I was on that job using trigonometry at that factory, this guy goes, how do you do all this stuff?
I said, trigonometry. He goes, oh, that's right. You're one of the smart guys. And I said, no. I said, you could do it. He says, no, I can't. I said, yes, you can. He goes, no, I can't. I says, yes, you can.
I'll teach you trigonometry in 20 minutes. He says, you cannot. And I says, I will. I taught him in 20 minutes. And he started using it from then on. He goes, this is easy. I told you. All you have to do is build a solve.
A equals B over C. That's all you got to do. Learn how to solve for that. And you got 90 of trig down. Now maybe 80. Okay, no one's going to believe I said that, Matt. Yeah, Stacia. She said that. So what she's referring to is that Neek should not be making me sandwiches.
But that's not true. She should be. Stacia doesn't say that. That's right. So why do people not believe me about stuff? I don't know what's up with that. They should believe me. They should believe me because, you know.
All right. You guys enjoy this? We're down to 35 people. Got any comments or questions? And I can close it out. All right. Unless anybody wants to come into the chat room thing. I don't know what that thing is right there.
Why is that there? My computer's wigging a little bit. So do you guys enjoy this? Well, you don't hear this kind of stuff very often, do you? Matt, if you draw a triangle in a large field, the angles do not add up to 90 degrees.
180, not 90. Given the curvature of the Earth, that's correct. They exceed 180 degrees. That's right. Right. This triangle, all the angles are always 180. But when you have it over a sphere, because it expands and the angles change.
So that when I do navigation, I have to take into account spherical geometry. Right. All right. Jimmy says, I'm 180. Duh. That's right, Randall. That's OK. You were thinking broader than a 90. What's acute and obtuse?
Nick's cute, but I'm obtuse. Acute, less than 90 degrees. Obtuse, greater than 90 degrees. So it's a little pun there, a little joke fun. I remember once, I got to tell you this story. So I'm in geometry in high school.
And OK, I had a reputation for giving answers or having answers. Not that I would give them out, let's just say. But it's all the time. You did that all the time? No, you did it. Yeah. And yeah. And so I got threatened.
I got help with answers and stuff like that. I had bodyguards in high school. So this one guy, one guy, you know, I said because he wanted me to help him cheat during it. You know, so I'm like, I'm not going to cheat.
I don't help people cheat. You learn it yourself. I can't get this. And he goes, look, I want the answer. What's the answer? You know, and I said, OK, I'll help you this one time. And the answer was like, I forgot what it was.
It was like 2A plus 5B equals C or something, you know, whatever it was. 2A plus 5B plus 4L minus 17 plus 2H minus 3T. But you had to squared, open parenthesis. And I went on like this for two minutes.
And the guy goes, man, this is a long answer. And I'm like, dude, I'm making it up as I go. You come on. Study. Oh, yeah, I said I had bodyguards because the people would beat me up when I try to beat me up because I wouldn't help him cheat.
And so I got this bodyguard. And I said to him, and I said, look, he's the second biggest guy on the campus. And my buddy Dave had the biggest guy as his bodyguard. I don't know how we ended up with it like this.
So the second biggest is just as good. And they were the biggest. The second biggest were friends. So there was no problem. And this guy goes, OK, so I said, I'll help you with your homework. I'll help you.
You know, I'll get you to pass. But you got to be my bodyguard. That's what it is. I won't help you cheat, but you got to be my bodyguard. Deal. We got to talk about particulars here. If somebody hassles me, I don't want you to pound their head in.
OK, and I want you to kill them. But if something happens and there's a situation going on, I just look at you and nod. You have to be there. I nod. Just convince him without doing too much damage unless it's necessary.
He goes, my pleasure. And so I come out of chemistry class once. Right. And come out of chemistry, this guy goes, man, stupid, you got to help me. And if you don't help me, I'm going to kick you like that.
I'm looking at my bodyguard. He's like this. And just wait for me to go, go, you know, second is waiting. And he's looking at me because that was our deal. Right. And this guy's pushing me and he's got me up against the wall.
And I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm small compared to these guys. And we had 117 pounds. I think I'm a good day, you know. And so the bodyguard guy's going. But, you know, like just a dog, just a junkyard dog on a chain, you know, and I went.
And there was this movement. These heads come out and grab this guy by the shoulders and he lifts him up, sets him down, turns him around, shuts him against the wall, holds his hand on the guy's chest, takes a fist back.
They go, have you ever touch him again?
I'm gonna bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep. I think I'd like. And he looks over at me, I go, my bodyguard, you got that? No one ever bothered me again. Period. Ever. Just took that one time because I knew don't mess with him.
That guy come find you and mess you up. That's right. So I had a bodyguard. But my stories, you know, that's right. Have you heard the objection that Paul did not write the pastoral letters and they were forgeries?
Yes, I've heard that. And then the response is stupid. Where's the evidence? Okay, Matt pulls that one on me from time to time. I don't know what that one is, but I got stories like that. And I remember once, poor guy, first day of school after summer.
And I would go in, I got a Coke. I had a quarter and I got a Coca-Cola and an open cup. And I would drink it before the class, before the bell rang. Gotta be in class, right? And I go, hey, Bob, how you doing?
And this guy in front of me had stooped down to tie his shoe. Hey, Bob. School was just now starting. First day. And the Coke went down his pants and it was underwear and everything. That was the beginning of his day.
I'm like, sorry, dude. What are you going to do? I'm out of here. So I walk away. I'm like, poor guy.
I remember that. Poor guy. And then I'll tell you a funny story too on me. So Debbie Avery, oh, she was hot. I thought Debbie Avery was it. Okay. And so I'm number one on the tennis team. I mean, I met and I got to serve like mega blasto, you know, bazooka level serve.
I did. I had a really good serve. And I was playing a guy named Jeff. Jeff technically knew what a racket was and occasionally would connect a racket with a ball. And it was not exactly that good. So, but I arranged to play with Jeff at the, at after school, right next to the place where Debbie Avery would come walking out.
So I had this plan. I'm going to, I'm going to demonstrate my prowess and ability in tennis. Cause I was number one varsity. And I said, I'm going to just show how great I am. And when she comes up, I'm going to give a mega blasto serve.
I'm going to poke a hole through his chest, you know, and with this serve, right? So here she comes. I'm waiting. I'm waiting. I'm waiting. She comes right now. She's going to, she glances over up, goes the ball.
I mean, it, what you didn't need, you know, a hundred frames per second, slow-mo to see this thing arcing up over the net and just coming at his hit perfect placement. I mean, we had rockets on this ball and Jeff goes.
And barely connects with it. And the ball just goes back over the net barely. Well, she's watching this. So I had to get to that ball because I cannot let him outdo me even by accident. So I leaned forward and I bolted as fast as I could to get to that ball because it's up to me, you know, this is it.
I planned this all out. I can still to this second. Remember my confusion as I remember thinking, why is this cement so close?
And I go sliding forward.
Okay. On my chest, the ball's bouncing behind me. My rack is going out to the side. I glance up and yeah, she was impressed. Very impressed. I remember that. Yeah. Jeff, I can't believe he actually thought he was going to get that ball.
Yeah.
How could you. Possibly, it was too good. And I know that.
Yeah. And the ball, there's some weird thing coming back. Like it was looping through a different universe. What's like, and then it, you know, and I just look like a complete moron out there. I got stories like that.
You know, it was, it was not a good day. A date at infamy. That's what it was. A date at infamy. That's about it. Oh yeah. It was, you know, what are you going to do? What are you going to do? You know, this guy and what an idiot probably right now, he was a skinny little dweeb.
You know, he couldn't do anything. He's falling all over the place. Yeah. Well, you know, stories. So high school. All right. Okay. Well, I guess that's it, huh? I can tell you more stories, but whatever.
Stories. Okay. So you guys enjoyed it, right? Good. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to end this. Let's say good night, you guys. We'll just stay and talk or whatever for a little bit. Okay. Okay. That's really good, man.
Oh, thank you. See ya.