(Debate): Is Christianity True? Eli Ayala (Presuppositionalist) vs. Negation of P

Hey everybody, today we are debating whether or not Christianity is true, and we are starting right now.

Ladies and gentlemen, thrilled to have you here, this is going to be a lot of fun, believe me, the most fun.

So we have two guys who have had prior debate experience, they've been in different places and different channels, and this is going to be a really interesting discussion, not only because we really, we've done a lot of Does God Exist, but it's been a while since we've done a

Is Christianity in Particular True discussion, and I'm not joking,

I think this is the first time that we've ever had a presuppositionalist, so that's also a really special thing.

I'm very excited to have a presupper, that's how the kids say it nowadays, a presupper,

I don't know. So anyway, they are both linked in the description, if you enjoy what you're hearing, if you're like, hmm, yeah,

I like that, I want to hear more from either speaker, they are both in the description, so that you can click on their links, reach out to them, hear more of their content, we would welcome you to,

I can tell you, I've gotten in a chat with these guys, and very pleasant people, I think this is actually going to be a really, like, just a really pleasant conversation, so, with that, we're not going to spare, we're not going to take any time, but we are going to jump right into it, so,

I want to say, right before that, I always forget, if this is your first time here, consider hitting that subscribe button, because we have a lot more debates coming up, in fact, we've got a really big one we're excited about,

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Christian, Atheist, Republican, Democrat, Jedi, or even

Sith, we are glad that you are here, we are trying to build an eclectic community of different people, so, with that,

Eli, we'll give you a chance to make your kind of opening statement for why you would say yes to the question of whether or not

Christianity is true. Thanks for being here, gentlemen. All right. Well, first, when

I talk about these issues, I like to lay out the groundwork as I see the nature of the debate, okay? And, of course, negation of P is going to be familiar with some of the buzzwords and things like that, but we're not reinventing the wheel, we're discussing issues that people have debated over and over again, so I'm just going to lay out the situation as I see it, and the situation as I see it is that we have the situation of worldview versus worldview perspective.

Why is there a difference between the Christian and the non -Christian? It's really because we are wearing different worldview lenses, so to speak, and you and I are wearing glasses.

If our worldview was a set of intellectual glasses, everything in human experience is filtered through those lenses, okay?

And so, if I'm wearing red lens glasses, everything I'm going to look at is red. If I'm wearing blue lens glasses, everything that I'm going to look at is blue.

That is necessarily the case. I do not believe that we can float in a neutral ground of a worldview -independent situation in which we can make sense out of specific facts and things like that.

We are both coming to this discussion from a worldview perspective, different systems of thought, okay?

That being said, I do also believe that there is no neutrality in this sort of discussion, so that it's often understood that the

Christian is the one who's making the positive claim, and so oftentimes people interpret that as just the atheist or the agnostic just has to sit back and hear my case and, you know,

I don't agree and I don't find it convincing, and then he doesn't really have to offer anything. I don't think that's the case at all. I think, really, when you boil down to the issues, there really are only two worldviews.

Now, I know that we have the Christian worldview on the one hand, and I would categorize the other worldview as the non -Christian worldview.

We can understand subcategories within the non -Christian worldview, say, for example, we have Islam, who looks at the world through the lens of the

Quran, right? You have the Mormon, who has their specific worldview perspective. We have, I know atheists kind of have problems with calling their perspective a worldview, but I'm gonna assume it's a worldview because I think it is, and if we want to interact on that, we can.

Every perspective has within it, if we were to look at the situation as only two worldviews, the

Christian worldview and the non -Christian worldview. Every non -Christian worldview has implicit or explicit within it the assertion that Christianity is false.

For example, if you are an atheist and you say God does not exist, that implies the falsehood of the

Christian worldview. If you are an agnostic or a little kind of a hybrid of an atheist -agnostic sort of person, you say, well,

I don't know if God exists. Well, that's an implicit assertion that Christianity is false, since one of the very important assertions within the

Christian worldview is that in a very profound sense, everyone knows that God exists, such that they're without excuse. Now, you don't have to believe that.

Well, I reject that statement from an agnostic perspective, but if you claim you don't know, we do have to grant this much, that that is an implicit claim that Christianity is false.

So when we're dealing with worldview against worldview, principle against principle, system against system, it's not this situation where just the one person provides a positive case and the other person sits back and just listens to what the other guy has to say.

I think in this kind of debate, when we're dealing with worldview systems, which have inherent within them ultimate foundations upon which everything else is built, we need to both interact with each other's worldview perspective.

And that's going to include things like worldview critique. We're going to have to internally critique each other's perspective.

It does nothing to throw stones, so to speak, from outside the Christian worldview and disagree with it while standing on the non -Christian worldview foundation.

If you want to attack the Christian worldview and the claims that I'm going to make when I put forth my argument, the only way that you can do it is to hypothetically grant the truth of my worldview and then show, given its principles, that it cannot stand.

And like fashion, it does nothing for me to critique the non -Christian worldview from the outside of the non -Christian worldview.

I need to hypothetically grant the truth of the unbelievers' principles and show that there is internal inconsistencies there.

This must be the case since we cannot speak merely of individual facts, since individual facts are not understood in a context -less context, so to speak, right?

Every fact of experience requires a context in which it can be interpreted.

And so we bring our worldview systems to interpret those specific facts. And that's why, as we engage,

I'm not so much going to be focusing on specifics. I want to focus on specifics in relation to a worldview system out of which we can make sense out of those specific issues that we might talk about, be it science or whatever the case may be.

So in closing, so I don't take up—by the way, I'm a teacher, and so I can talk forever, so I do apologize.

The argument—and I'm sure negation of P will be familiar—my argument is quite simple. It's a transcendental argument.

And my argument is that the truth for the Christian worldview is that if it were not true, you couldn't prove anything at all.

And so the Christian metaphysic, so to speak, provides the metaphysical context in which epistemological claims have grounding, in which knowledge is something that we could acquire, intelligibility makes sense, science, the coherency of history, philosophy, all of these things require as a necessary precondition, my argument is, that the

Christian worldview is correct, that what the Bible reveals about the world, that is actually the case, and that metaphysical context gives coherency for every single specific thing within a person's worldview.

And so the truth of the Christian worldview is that if it were not true, you couldn't prove anything at all. One more thing before I close.

It's a—there's a temptation to think that this argument is merely an assertion. It's not an assertion, it's an argument.

So if someone disagrees that Christianity is the necessary prerequisite for proof and knowledge and intelligibility, then we need to engage in worldview analysis at that point, so that you can ground knowledge and intelligibility within your own worldview, thus refuting my claim that the

Christian worldview is the only precondition for intelligible experience. All right, I hope that wasn't too long -winded.

So there we go. You got it. Thank you very much. We'll go right into open conversation with that.

So ready for you, Negation Key. Thanks as well for being here. All right. And guys, y 'all can call me

Ned. Don't worry about the formal whatever. But I mean, Eli, I love what you said, because you're right about all of it.

I mean, it's going to be wonderful. Not only are we teachers and we're going to be long -winded, so we're going to drive people nuts, but we're also going to agree from opposite sides of the fence, so people are going to be throwing stones in both directions.

But you're right. As far as, you know, sitting back and not making a case does nothing to help your side.

And, you know, from that aspect, as far as making my case, like I said,

I'll just open with, I agree that I have to demonstrate why with the

Christian God, knowledge, as far as it sounded like that's where you want to go was transcendental and get into knowledge and be able to prove quote unquote things.

We definitely start there, because I think I can show that because of the

Christian God, knowledge is unattainable. You can't get there. Okay.

All right. Well, okay, so let's begin. Now, what makes this easier is that you've acknowledged that the situation that I've set up is an accurate depiction of what it means for worldviews to engage in internal critique.

So let's jump in at that point, then. Would you admit then that we both have a burden of proof?

Oh, yes. Okay, cool. All right. So now we can just, we can just flip a coin to see who wants to go first, which world, let's build the world, you know, do you want to build a worldview?

Let's go we can just I mean, what? And again,

I don't honestly, I don't carry the way but it seems like since Christianity is the title, if you want to start with Christianity and go internal there and kind And by the way, just just for listeners who might be listening.

I don't mind talking about my worldview. I like to lay it out when when I have the opportunity. And with this issue of burden of proof,

I'm not trying to shift a burden so that I don't have to answer anything. I just don't want anyone to think that since we both acknowledge that we have system versus system.

And so we both have something to defend. All right. So I was just kind of saying that to joke around. But at any rate, alright, so the

Christian worldview provides a necessary foundation for knowledge. Because if we take a look at what a worldview is comprised of, we take the three foundations of worldview, metaphysics, epistemology and ethics.

Now, for those people who are listening, let me just briefly explain what those things are. Every worldview has a metaphysic and epistemology and an ethic.

Metaphysics asks the question, what is real? What is the nature of reality? And it's very important to recognize that what you say about the nature of reality will spill over into your epistemology.

And so we ask the question in epistemology, how do we know what we know? And this is literally everything.

How do we know anything about anything? So based upon the nature of reality, we then need to connect the nature of what we say about reality to the nature of knowledge and how it's gained and then move into the ethics as to in light of the metaphysical commitments and the epistemological commitments that we have, how then should we live our lives?

And when we lay those things out, it is important to recognize that they must be consistent with one another.

And so what I say about reality must also be consistent with what I say about how knowledge is gained and how

I should live my life. And so our worldviews need to be consistent. So from the Christian perspective, my metaphysic is that everything is created by God.

There is a creator -creature distinction that we make. I am not God. God is the original.

He created all things. Knowledge is possible because human beings are made in the image of God.

And so we reflect God's nature in various capacities. One capacity would include the ability to be rational, to utilize logic, which is itself a reflection of God's nature.

And everything that we know about anything is connected to God's revelation, either in general revelation, the creative order, which includes literally the universe, the heavens, the clear, the glory of God, and internally our own rational logical capacities are themselves a revelation of God.

My epistemology in light of my ontology includes the fact that God is able to convey aspects of reality to us such that we can know it.

Okay. And in light of that, there are certain ways that we should live in light of that. And that spills over into my ethic.

So within my worldview, knowledge is based upon God's revelation and his ability to convey knowledge to image bearers.

And so that's how I think knowledge is gained through revelation. And that means if I am to know that I'm holding a pen in my hand, my very ability to know that I would say is based off revelation as well.

Since sense experience was created for various purposes, that is itself a gift of God and the way

God created me, that's a form of revelation. So anything that we know would have a revelatory foundation.

And so God can convey to us certain things such that we can know them. That being said,

I do not believe we can know everything. And I can be mistaken about some things, but there are certain things that I cannot be mistaken about, which

I'm sure we'll get into when you cross -examine me. Okay. So I hope that kind of summarizes things in a,

I can't say short because I'm not sure if it's possible for me to be short in my explanation, but I hope that makes sense and I'm not just rambling.

No, that makes lots of sense. And yeah, I'll warn you, as long as you can go, I probably can double you every time.

Okay. Well, you have a white beard. It looks like you have more experience in this than me, so you probably could. That's not a good thing, by the way.

That's definitely, I ramble way too much. So cut me off if I get there. Don't worry, I will. Yeah.

So to me, that was fairly clear. I hope the audience is on the same page as what we're looking at. Just a couple of points of clarity about God.

I just want to make sure that we're on the same page. Effectively, the

God that you believe in is omni across the board, correct? God is omnipotent.

He is all -powerful, but of course, omnipotence defined within a Christian worldview context. God is omniscient.

He knows all truths and believes no falsehoods. And any omni that we could apply, if it's in accordance with how

God has revealed himself, then I would say God has those omni qualities. Okay, good. Also, God has a plan, and that plan must be carried out.

We can't, we can't nor anything else could thwart that plan, correct? Right.

God has a sovereign decree. And so when he, before he creates, if we can use the word before, we're going to be talking in popular parlance before anyone claims, well, that doesn't make sense before, you know,

God decrees everything that comes to pass so that everything that happens in space and time is an unfolding of his, his own counsel and purposes.

Okay, good. Yeah. I just wanted to make sure I kind of figured you were there, but just wanted I started dissecting, so to speak.

All right. So going to, we'll start with the metaphysics, like you were saying before, speaking about what is real, what,

I guess, I'm assuming that you're basing your reality on, for lack of a better term would be uniformity of nature and inference, at least to a certain degree.

I would say that knowledge of God is immediate, not immediate.

In other words, my knowledge of God does not come from a looking and seeing and drawing conclusions.

I would say the knowledge of God is inherent within my system. And it's upon that foundation, I can make sense out of everything else.

And so I'm not basing my belief on say, the uniformity of nature, because the uniformity of nature is part of my system.

So I hold that and it has coherence because of other things within my system. Right. And I should have been more clear on that.

I'm talking more ontology at this point, as far as what you believe about the reality of where you live and what we can glean from our surroundings, how, you know, water runs downhill, all of that would be based on uniformity of nature, inference, that type of thing.

That makes sense. Well, I'm going at the deeper level, all of those things I use and they help me gain knowledge, but it's only because of the metaphysical context in which

I'm operating on, which is the Christian context. So that the world is the way that it is.

And because the world is the way that God has revealed it. And because of that, it makes sense to use induction and logic and things like that, because I have a metaphysical grounding for them.

They're not just arbitrary assumptions that I hold. Oh yeah. And that's kind of what I was getting at is it's based.

Well, anyhow, we're on the same page there, I think. Now, I guess that's where my first pushback would come.

If I've got an Omnigod, something that literally can, within his power, do anything, let's say, even if we could constrain it and bound it by logical, you know, it's got to be, he can't make a married bachelor.

It needs to be within reason. But uniformity of nature evaporates.

There's no such thing as uniformity of nature with an Omnigod. It's only uniform as long as he allows it to be uniform.

In fact, we see that with every miracle. So you could not base knowledge in any way, shape, or form in any kind of uniformity.

Yeah. When you said that there's no uniformity of nature, unless the God is operating in that, you know, in a regular sense, right?

I mean, he can do miracles or whatever. Yeah, that's right. There's uniformity of nature because within the

Christian worldview, God's revealed to us that nature is uniform. However, when we say that nature is uniform, it is not necessarily so.

In other words, the laws are stuck like that. Otherwise, God would be locked out of his creation.

And so within the Christian worldview, I expect regularity, but also within the

Christian worldview includes the belief that God could and has intervened in specific points to accomplish certain purposes.

So I would say, for example, within the Christian worldview, I have justification for believing that the sun will rise tomorrow most likely.

But within my worldview, I could also say it may not if God desires to, but he's made promises that they will.

Seed time and harvest will come. And it makes that caveat that of course, when

Jesus comes back, things will change. And so I have a basis for regularity, but I'm not married to the regularity in the sense that the laws that God has put in place must be immutably so all the time.

So I could know things to a certain degree based upon God revealing. I operate in this way, but I also operate in this way.

I could redemptively act and perform miracles and things like that. Right. Which speaks to the point.

And again, I know at least we talked a little bit off air. I don't think you're going to go, how do you know?

How do you know? How do you know? But it does kind of get back to that question is that with most presuppositional apologetics, it boils down to how do you know with a capital

K, X, Y, or Z, or anything. And if we've got an omni -God that literally can do anything, include wipe us out of existence and do it in a way that effectively we never existed.

I would disagree with that. I would disagree with that. For example, if someone were to ask me, can

God right now send everyone to hell right now? Right now, just like, forget about it. I don't want to deal with anyone.

Send everyone to hell. The answer to that question is no, because he's already made redemptive promises. So to send everyone to hell, including people who placed faith in Jesus would actually cause him to go against his word, which would contradict what the

Bible says in regards to his inability to lie. So God cannot go back on what he has already promised and history is unfolding, moving towards his redemptive purposes.

He cannot go back on that. Not because he's not omnipotent, because omnipotence within the

Christian worldview does not entail that God does the logically impossible. And it is logically impossible for a holy and righteous and perfectly honest

God to actually engage in lying, which would be the case if he just said, yep, I'm going to send everyone to hell.

It doesn't matter what promises I made. Okay. So basically outside of potentially, and I'm assuming you were talking on being

Calvinist, whatever, outside of doing something outside what you were talking about, taking the elect and condemning them to hell.

Taking the non -elect and welcoming them into heaven. Those type of things, if you want to bound it by a logical inconsistency and say that's lying, okay, we're fine.

We can go there. But what I'm saying is any knowledge outside of maybe that small parameter,

I don't see how you can claim knowledge of anything, especially like with science, science, we don't prove anything.

And we make probability claims based on inference, based on repeatability, falsifiability, all the stuff.

I would say that you're at best in that same boat, but in reality, even worse off because at least with a worldview that encompasses uniformity of nature, and as far as we can tell, those uniformities hold,

I can make, I can have predictive capability. I would say you can't because -

But wait, let's finish real quick. Sure. But the problem is, is like you said, and you said you did a really good job of this saying that the sun will come up tomorrow, probably.

Again, that's the best you can get to. And, I mean,

I find it refreshing that there's a presupp guy out there that goes, okay, we're talking in probabilities, we're not talking in absolutes, because that's usually where we get to.

Right. But probability presupposes certainty as well, since probability presupposes a foundation upon which we can make probabilistic claims.

I'm not saying induction, and that's good enough to make predictions.

Induction has intelligibility because of the metaphysical context of a God who created the world to act in a particular way, in a predictable way.

And so uniformity makes sense within a worldview in which God, who knows everything, reveals to man that we could expect nature to act a certain way.

Now, I can leave it, you know, even within that worldview, yeah, God can perform miracles. But generally speaking, he's revealed to us, nature will work for the most part in this way.

It's safe to assume in science, even as a Christian, when I engage in science, I do not give science the place that it does not seek to hold, namely to give me absolute certain knowledge.

Science doesn't do that. Science is a pragmatic discipline. And that's the case for a Christian. And so when a

Christian uses science, I'm not trying to get to certain knowledge. What is certain is that nature is,

I'm able to use those principles because God has revealed to us that he created a world in which that makes sense.

So God has created a world in which making certain predictions based upon probability makes sense.

And he's created a world in which we can make certain knowledge claims about various things.

So for my worldview, I could account for probabilistic conclusions, and I could account for certain conclusions regarding knowledge.

Okay, so that, okay. I mean, I'm kind of stuck because I've got two ways

I want to go here. And both of them are like, ah, which we are fighting. Okay, I'll start with it.

I'll start with the second one. You said you have certain, there's certainty claims that you can make.

Not scientifically. No, again, that's fine. What would you say from an absolutist sense, you can claim?

You know, are you asking me what can I know for certain? Exactly. Right. That logic is valid.

Okay. Could it not be the case with an Omnigod that the logic that he is, oh, for lack of, well,

I'll use your word, revealed to you, could not hold, oh, maybe even other aspects that either you're not aware of that would conflict and in fact, prove wrong some of your quote unquote, certainty, just because God works in whatever way he wants to work.

And it's not so much he's lying. It's just that he's not going to reveal everything to you like you were talking about earlier.

Just because you know, certain aspects of a subject does not entail that you can be certain about that subject in its whole.

I'm certain that logic is valid. So I know that with certainty, that would answer the question. If you ask the question, what can

I know with certainty? I know with certainty that logic is valid, even if that means that there are certain cases that I misuse logic.

So I can create a logical argument to which I have a conclusion that does not logically follow, right?

I can misapply logic, but the fact that logic is valid, I know with a necessity because to deny it, let's say

I couldn't know it, I'd have to affirm it in order to deny it. Logic, I would say is demonstrated by a transcendental necessity.

It's true because of the impossibility of a contrary. Okay. And that's where I'm getting at.

How can you make that claim that it is transcendental and it is basic?

In other words, it could not in any way, shape, or form be revealed to you in a way that would show that the logic you believe is absolute in its correctness is not, is in fact, flawed.

Basically, what you're saying is how is it possible within my worldview that logic is not absolute?

No, that's not possible within my worldview sense. Within my worldview, logic is a reflection of the mind of God.

We're creating his image and we think our thoughts after him. In my worldview, logic is a reflection of his thinking and so it can never be different than what it is.

It can't be, you know, for example, the law of non -contradiction is not going to, you know, mysteriously become true.

That's inconsistent within a Christian framework. But again, what I'm saying is, is that your perception is incorrect.

Let's use the law of non -contradiction. Even though pure logic, what logic really is, okay, is something that law of non -contradiction doesn't hold.

However we get there doesn't matter. It just, in the real, real logic, it doesn't work.

But because you only have access to certain parts that God has revealed to you, it would seem to follow that uniformity, or I'm stuck on uniformity of nature, that law of non -contradiction is an absolute truth.

Isn't it possible that with a being that is this, well for like, just so much superior and has such omni properties, that he understands that, look, if I were to enlighten them to the true nature of knowledge, they would not be able to comprehend it any way, shape, or form any more than, you know, a dog or a cat can understand calculus.

It's just not going to work. So he piecemeals it together to where we get little bits and pieces that we can use, but the quote -unquote omni,

I don't know what the word would be, but omni -logic would negate a bunch of the things that we think are because of our experience.

That seems to presuppose that the logic that I'm employing could be different than the logic that God is employing.

No, no, it's only partial. In other words, well, here's an example.

If I ask you what is two plus two, or I'm sorry, one plus one? It's two. Well, I only gave you, you're right if you're looking at a base 10 system, but if I say, oh, we're in binary, it's not two anymore.

It's one zero. So, yeah, but real quick to interrupt you, I apologize, but even to talk about it, you're already presupposing the law of identity, the law of non -contradiction and the law of exclude the middle.

So even to talk, right. But those have to be valid even to speak about binary or whatever thing you want to talk about.

That must be universal and unchanging. Otherwise, okay, good, good, good.

Share your thoughts. It looked like you wanted to say something. I don't want to, I don't want you to lose your thought. No, I thought James was going to say something. Oh, I was just going to say, just so I don't want

Ned to lose his thought. Just so, if you're able to wrap up and then we'll kick it right back to Ned.

So if you have that thought in your mind yet, Ned, you can go back. I just want to make sure it didn't go too long.

Sure. Don't worry about it. No, but you're right within our bounded world.

The world that God has put us in with the piecemeal of logic, the small portion of logic that resides within our world.

You're right. All of that works. But the omni world that is encompassing all logic, the biggest where God resides, it would, again, we're only looking at part of logic because the way that you're presupposing is that you do have access to all logic.

And I don't know what that, I don't know what that means that access to all logic, logic are the proper rules of thinking.

In my worldview, I'm created in the image of God, whose mind reflects logic. And therefore the mind of God within my worldview is revealed to me in the sense that I can employ these and know them to be certain.

Otherwise, if they don't hold universally, then, you know, then yeah, I would be stuck in a skepticism because contradict

God can make something contradictory. You know, later on, I don't see what within my worldview, what you're saying isn't a possibility.

You're saying, well, I'm limited. And how could I know this within my worldview, God has revealed an aspect of his mind to us that gives us the preconditions for intelligibility.

And to know that these laws are unchanging and necessary. And that's where, and that's where I'm saying your problem is, is presupposing that God has enlightened you to all of logic is giving you everything that there is to do with logic is without foundation.

There's no way you can make that claim. Well, if there's a God who reveals himself and has revealed that revealed to us that were made in his image and that we can use these, then yes,

I do have within my worldview of the claim is he's revealed it. If, but there's no way you can, you can say that logic holds universally when you're back when you're founding that on an if statement.

I'm not asking. Well, I'm not, you use the word if I didn't use the word if, because I don't believe. Okay. So then, so then if I did, if I did, let me correct myself.

Um, I believe my worldview is true since the argument that I use was transcendental. I believe it's necessarily true.

So let me correct myself. I will not say if my worldview is true, I believe it's necessarily true because within my worldview,

I do not put contingency over God within my worldview.

God is the one who determines what is possible and impossible. And don't, don't get it twisted.

I'm not saying there's contingency contingently placed on God. I'm saying there's contingency place on us and our world that we reside in by God.

And so the thing is, is all I'm saying is, is even with an Omni God, there is no way that from our perspective, from what we're looking at, we can determine what the true state of that existence is, what

God's existence. What if God reveals it to us? And again, it would be, it would be,

I'm trying to think of the right word. I want to say, um, subjective in that it's untestable, unfalsifiable to know that this is the complete, um, essence of, you know, whatever you want to say.

So say logic there's, there would be no way for us to determine if there is something outside that bounds, if we're bound or unbound.

How do you know that there's no limits outside it? And, and, and the fact that it's not full survival is not a bad thing.

If something's necessarily true, then it's unfalsifiable. I'm saying that logic is necessarily valid or to deny it is to affirm it.

When you say logic, I just let me finish the thought real quick. When you say all of logic,

I don't even know what that means. That presupposes that there is something more than these necessary laws that we have.

These are the preconditions to even have discourse or to make any truth statements. So I don't know what it means.

It doesn't presuppose that they exist. It allows for their existence. In other words, it doesn't presuppose that they do in fact exist.

All it does, all my statement does is allow for the possibility of the existence of outside more logic.

I don't even know what to call it. And you're right. I don't know what that would be either, but from the Christian worldview, that's not an internal critique of my worldview because no, no, it is.

I believe it is because here's the thing. I have not done anything to mandate that your

God is in any way, shape or form limited. If anything, you're the one placing limits and bounds on your

God by mandating that he has again, let me finish. He has in fact, revealed this to us in its entirety by saying that it's impossible that he didn't.

It's impossible Ned for the law of non -contradiction to be falsified by some extra logic in the mind of God, because then that would mean

God can lie, which is a contradiction within the Christian worldview. Okay. How do you get there? Well, if the law of non -contradiction, a statement is both, can't be both true and false at the same time in the same way, when

God makes a statement, he can't then just contradict himself and violate the second law of logic because he'd be deceiving us.

Within the Christian worldview, that's impossible. God does not contradict what he has established already.

Within, okay, again, within our bounded world, within our existence, you're right, but he doesn't do that, let's say.

But outside this, there is another law that allows for both statements to be true at the same time.

I don't believe that's possible since I believe the law of non -contradiction is universal. It's universal.

It's not localized within my segment of the universe. It transcends the physical universe and it reflects,

I would argue, the absolute universal mind of God. And I understand that. But what I'm saying is, both of those statements, in my opinion, are without foundation because one of them is saying that you somehow...

Which statements? I apologize. Which statements you say are without foundation? Both claims you made about it being universal and...

It's without foundation? Yeah. Is that what you're saying? I'm saying that the claims that the laws of logic are universally true is without foundation.

Right. I would just disagree. I think the laws of logic are established transcendentally.

If you deny them, you affirm them. Now, if you say somewhere outside the universe, maybe they're not true.

That's just begging the question that logic is localized into this one little area. Who's to decide that it must hold in my local experience, but it doesn't hold in some other mode of existence?

I would say you're begging the question by presupposing that it is, by saying that this is the statement and therefore it works this way.

That's not... Well, no. I'm not begging the question in a fallacious sense because now we're dealing with transcendental proof.

I'm sorry? Again, that's the point that I say is without foundation, is making that statement that this is transcendental, that you somehow know in an absolute sense that this must be, without exception, transcendental and at the same time, claiming that there's an omni -god that can do anything.

No, he cannot go against the logic that he's revealed to us because that's an aspect of his own mind.

Wait a second, but you're not... Again, if we compartmentalize, if we have a bubble universe, we get into M -theory or whatever you want to, but the thing is what

I'm saying is we're within this constraint that God created and within this bubble, he says, okay,

I'm going to bestow on this creation these laws of logic and in those laws, in that creation, they are going to be universal within that boundary.

Then it's not universal. Then it's not transcendent either. But that's not the point. That's exactly it.

I understand, but what you just suggested there is not the Christian position. Okay, tell me why that's going against...

If we look at our universe as this bubble, God does not say, okay, I'm going to create a certain set of universal laws in this bubble.

Then they're not universal. They're localized. For us, the logic...

Wait a second. One second. They're not localized. If logic is is relegated to just our physical universe that God created us in, then they're not universal.

They're not. You can't say they're universal only within... They're not universal. And even if you were to say they were universal, let's say that these laws must apply just in this bubble.

That's not the Christian conception. In other words, if God is using a different form of logic, does that logic within that bubble reflect the mind of God?

In part, yes. Well, the aspect that it reflects is necessarily the case.

It's necessarily true. No, because there is no context within the

Christian worldview in which God uses a different set of logic than human beings. Because then in that case, not within the

Bible. Not within the Bible. You'd be arguing outside. Okay, all right. Then let's go back to the Bible. Where in Scripture does it mandate that these laws are universal?

Well, we deduce it from the character of God. Okay, so I like your point that we deduce it from the nature of God.

How is that your point? Because again, if we only have partial revelation of God, we don't see

God in his entirety. Of course, we're going to only get pieces. We're only going to get...

But Ned, the pieces that we get are necessary for intelligibility.

I agree. Those foundations must be unchangeable standards that transcend our localized existence.

The laws of logic are transcendent. They're not just a product of our physical universe.

He says, okay, logic only works in here. That's not what the biblical... Genesis would seem to indicate that God created everything in seven days.

How you can say that our universe that's described in Genesis, both one and two, is not compartmentalized is where I'm trying to get to.

How do you know that there's nothing outside of this creation? God doesn't have five, ten different other universes running effectively.

I would argue, Ned, that if God created multiple universes, they all would operate under the same logic.

Because logic, according to the Christian worldview, reflects the mind of God, and the mind of God transcends every universe that he might create.

But let's look at it this way. In this universe, God is going to reveal this part of his logical mind to us.

In another universe, he wants to see how his creation reacts to a different set of logical...

That presupposes there's a different set of logic, which I reject. No, no, no. It doesn't presuppose it.

It allows for the possibility. There's a huge... Then the possibility is not... That's not a possibility within the

Christian worldview. You're not understanding from a Christian perspective that the laws of logic are universal because God is universal.

They reflect a universal mind. And so when God reveals his mind to us, he's not a segmented where, okay, no contradictions here, but in this universe,

I'm going to reflect a part of my mind where there are contradictions. That is unintelligible. How can you know that?

Because by the impossibility of the contrary. Great. Show me how it's impossible.

The laws of logic are true. The laws of logic, law of identity, law of excluded middle, law of non -contradiction, they are transcendentally necessary.

Deny them, and you lose the foundation for intelligibility. In our universe, I agree 100%.

In our existence, you can. Again, I'm saying to make that leap, to make that next step, to make them universal and absolute, you don't have foundation to do it other than to say, that's what

I believe. No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm not holding to some kind of axiom that has no justification.

Like you asked me at the beginning, I think it was before we started.

You asked me if I was a Clarkian, and I told you no. One of the reasons why I'm not a Clarkian is because I don't start with axioms.

Axioms are by definition, not justifiable. What I start with is what I would like to call, people who know the methodology will know what

I'm saying, a Vantillian Transcendental Presupposition. A presupposition, contrary to popular opinion, is not an elementary assumption without justification.

A Transcendental Presupposition is an elementary assumption that is justified, but not by appealing to something external to itself, but rather appealing to its own transcendental necessity.

The transcendental, and that's one of the main reasons

I asked you about being Clark, or being a Clarksian, was because Clarksians, in my opinion, get it.

They understand that making that claim about the transcendental is an axiomatic claim.

No. Because, for example, when you say maybe it's possible that logic isn't universal,

I don't grant you that. You say, well, I'm not presupposing it. I'm just allowing for it. I don't allow that. That's not a presupposition of the

Christian world. Every time you say that, that's an external critique. You are imposing something that's not part of the

Christian worldview system. Logic is universal, and the laws transcend the locality of our universe if we assume the hypothetical possibility of multiple universes.

Okay, I think that we've got to beat this horse to death. I think both of us are kind of like, you know, because I'm looking at it from the

Clarksian end, saying that I would say that making the claim that these are transcendental and they are founded on that transcendental property is an axiomatic statement.

You're not going to agree with it. I would say let's move to the next point.

Just one more quick point, though. If you're thinking along Clarkian lines, Clark didn't believe that God has a different logic than man.

He didn't believe that at all. I agree with that. Again, as much as I would say that if you're going to go down that road,

I think Clark was closer, you're right. I'm still not on board with it. Well, you know, I mean, of course, I'm not a

Calvinist. In fact, I don't even believe at all. So I'm not going to believe everything. But in the point where he, for lack of a better term, admitted his dependence on axiomatic statements, that's where I think the difference between him and Van Till, there's a...

You have to know the distinction. We can move on because I know we're not going to agree here, but there is an important distinction between Clarkian axiom and the

Van Tillian transcendental presupposition. Transcendentals are justified. Now, if you believe that they're not justified, if you're saying, for example, an ultimate presupposition can't be justified by definition, what you're denying is the possibility of transcendental arguments, which is...

I'm not saying you're absurd. I'm saying to deny transcendental arguments is absurd because transcendental arguments provide preconditions for the very rational conversation that we're having.

But unless you have something last point to show, we could move on. Well, we'll move on. And I guess just one step back on this to make sure

I'm clear. So outside of logic, is there anything that you could know with absolute certainty?

Yeah. Can I just ask one question before I answer that? What do you believe that Christians believe, and this is just for clarification, that God created logic?

I think it is an emergent property of God, if that makes any sense.

Okay. That would not work because we don't believe that God has emergent properties, right?

Well, maybe it'd be better if I said it is part of God. It's not something separate from Him.

It's not something that is a creation of His. It's a reflection of who

He is, if that makes any sense. We would say that logic is God's thinking.

I mean, God thinks logically, right? So He doesn't think logically, and then there's a separate, different set over here.

That would be something that's not consistent with the Christian world. But anyway. Okay. And again,

I think we're going to disagree there because that's fine. Again, all we do is ask is how do you know that? Okay.

All right. Well, I don't want to get into being accused of being the precept agnostic going, how do you know?

How do you know? So what was your other question? So what's something other than logic?

Yeah, that you can know with absolute certainty. I can know with absolute certainty that God exists.

Okay. That's interesting. And I mean, you've probably heard this a hundred times.

But let's say that I am who I am. I'm an agnostic atheist.

And by that, I'm agnostic to God. I'm atheistic against certain gods. But let's say that you're sitting across from me, oh, a

Hindu is sitting across from me. We've got three or four different religions or even sects of those religions. How, without God, now again, this may be unfair, because I'm pretty sure where you're going to go is

God's going to have to intervene on my, he's going to have to take the first step, so to speak, to reveal it to me.

Without that, would there be any way that I could determine which one of you is representing the correct

God? Because both of you, every one of them that I would ask you, all of you would say, I know with absolute certainty my

God is the true God. Can you rephrase the question in a more simpler way? Since what you were doing was asking the question and then kind of expanding, and I lost what you were asking.

So can you simplify the question just so I can kind of capture what you're asking? Without God revealing himself to me, how can

I know, given a myriad of gods and a myriad of people claiming they know with absolute certainty their specific

God is the true God, which one is true? Right. Without God revealing it to you, you couldn't know anything.

I would say that any article of knowledge is revelatory, so I do not believe in autonomous reasoning that, independent from revelation, that we come to certain knowledge claims.

I would even include there, you know, Descartes' Cogito Ergo Sum. I think there's problems with that as well.

So without revelation, autonomy, I think, does not provide the preconditions for intelligible experience.

Okay. So if everything is a revelation of God, is that kind of a summation of what you just said?

Wouldn't that then hold that those other people believing those other gods was a revelation of God lying to them?

No. I would say that all men know that God exists in a very profound way, and that the construction of other religions is one of the many ways that natural man suppresses the truth about God.

They create gods after their own image. They worship the creation rather than the creator, so they create gods that they could handle, you know, gods that they can make with their hands.

It is within the Christian worldview, and again, someone doesn't have to say, well, that's ridiculous. All men know God exists.

If the Christian worldview is true, there's a very profound sense in which all men do know, and so God is not revealing to them the belief that their

God is true. God has revealed himself of his own existence, and they are suppressing that truth by constructing false gods, if that makes sense within my perspective.

All right, and again, from my perspective, how do I know that you're not the one that's suppressing, and they're not the one that's correct?

That's right. From your perspective, from your non -Christian worldview, I don't know how you would know, because I don't know how you could know anything, because you haven't gone through your epistemology yet, so I don't want to take that for granted.

You didn't go through your epistemology. You asked some questions about my perspective, which is fine. That's what we were supposed to do, but how would you know?

I don't know how you would know, given your own worldview perspective. How you know from my worldview perspective,

I would say there's a very profound sense in which you do know that God exists, and the way you know is evidenced by the fact that you use things like logic, like rationality, like induction, that only make sense if what the

Bible says about reality is true. Again, you say that, and this is the nature of a transcendental argument.

The knee -jerk reaction to that is, well, that's a cool claim,

Eli. You're claiming that. Demonstrate it, and part of the demonstration is to then say, okay, well, if my

God is the necessary precondition for intelligible experience, and the person says, oh, no, he's not, then you need to give a foundation and show me that I'm wrong.

Give me a foundation for knowledge, and so that's where we're going to get into moving away from an insert critique of my worldview, and then we're going to lay out your worldview.

What's your ontology? What's your epistemology? Are they consistent? Do they provide the necessary preconditions for intelligibility?

Okay. Does that make sense, though? I said a lot there. I mean, yeah, and I understand where you're going, but you're right exactly how that thread is going to work its way out, but I guess the other thing, and we're kind of shifting gears here, and then if you want to, we'll go into, because what you went through, the metaphysics, epistemology, and ethic, if we can just skip to the ethic end of this, that's another area that I would think would demonstrate that the possibility of the

Christian God being true becomes untenable, and the epistemological side, wow, it's been a long week.

Sorry. That's all right. Again, like you said, the metaphysics is going to feed that, so now if we can kind of push that one off at least for a little bit and come back to it if we need to, but the ethic end of it, ethic, or like you said earlier, how to live effectively morality and ethics together,

I would say it's going to be extremely problematic to get any kind of real ethic or morality given the existence of an omni -god.

The main reason is because, especially the Christian God, now there may be gods out there that I think we can get to an ethic or a somewhat objective morality, but an omni -god with a plan, you can't get there because it literally makes morality impossible, and I'll show you how

I get there. Let's say that you have an omni -god that is omni -benevolent, and the interesting thing is if the god is malevolent, it works the exact same way, but I would assume that if God does something, regardless of what it is, it has to be the best of all possible actions.

Would that be fair? Mm -hmm. Okay, so God being an omni -being cannot be a passive player.

There's no way to sit back. Who says? Well, I'm about to explain why.

Okay, okay. Because if he's omniscient, and he's all -powerful, and he has a plan, and again, he's omni -benevolent, if he has a plan and something is taking place that would go against that will, go against that plan, that can't happen.

It's impossible. It's incoherent that that action could even remotely take place.

Does that make sense? I understand what you're saying, but then you have to understand, again, within Christian theology, we make provision for those, we make those distinctions from the scriptures themselves.

We believe that God has a decree, like you mentioned before. He has a decreative will that is never thwarted, and he has a prescriptive will which he allows to be thwarted.

And when the prescriptive will is based off his revealed law, it is a sin to murder.

And God has decreed a world in which he allows people to disobey that. However, in their disobeying,

God also has a decree which always plays out. Now, the decree does not make the evil actions that he permits good, but it does mean that the decree, which has his good purposes in mind, he has good reasons for the certain evils that he does permit.

And so I would just real quick on that basis. Again, someone might disagree.

Well, I don't agree with that. That's fine. And I'm not saying you're saying that, but the fact is, if God is, part of his decree is to reveal his moral nature by giving us laws and a standard by which we can measure, then you could have objective morality, even when he decrees to permit certain evils.

It's actually the permission of certain evils that brings out even strongly the objective nature of those standards.

Good. So allowing or permitting those evils actually is a good because it allows for the greatest of goods.

And without the allowance of that evil, the greatest good could not be attained. The permitting is good, but what is he permitting?

He's permitting an evil action. But the thing is, is without that quote unquote, okay, let me kind of, let me get it to the,

I use this analogy to make it a little more clear. I've got a son, I've got a daughter. When they were young, there were times that we would have to take them and get them inoculated for the flu and all that type of thing.

Now, from their perspective, they're sitting in the doctor's office and they see this person walking in and pulling out this needle.

And they understand from past experience, that doctor is going to cause them pain by injecting him with that needle.

They have no concept that without that inoculation, they are going to potentially be set up for much greater suffering later on.

So that small amount of pain allows for a greater good. So even though that pain hurt, it was a good thing that they had to go through.

But from their perspective, because of their limited view, because of their inability to understand the grander picture, they're going to view that as a negative.

They're going to view that person possibly as evil. So from our limited perspective, what we view

God doing or allowing to happen in the same way the five -year -old is going to say, no, no, no, get away from me with that needle.

We're going to say, no, no, no, don't allow rape, don't allow Hitler, don't allow all this.

God says, I understand because you're limited, because you can't see the greatest of good. But this tool

I must use to bring about the best of all worlds. And if I didn't use that, my plan would not come to fruition.

Therefore, that tool, regardless how it's viewed from us, has to be a good.

No, the tool, again, for example, you get the example of Genesis chapter 50, verse 20, where the situation of Joseph being sold into slavery with his brothers.

You have at the end of the story, he says to his brothers, you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.

You have two intentions present in there. You intended to harm me. The intention of the brother's heart was evil, but God intended it for good.

What did he intend? One second, one second. What did he intend for good? To permit the objectively evil actions of the brothers.

The evil action is not good, but it is good that God permitted it because it was accomplishing

God's purposes. So when God decrees a good, it is good. When God decrees an evil, the evil isn't good, but his decreeing it is because he's accomplishing a purpose.

Within the Christian worldview, if you disagree with that, you're just... No, no, no. I'm trying to say, this to me is internal as it gets.

Where did that desire to do evil originate? Within the hearts of the brothers.

Independent of God and his will? No, God decreed that the heart would be affected in certain ways.

And if we follow scripture, that was literally scripted from the beginning before they ever were there.

Of course, there's no such thing that... There's no thing that happens that's outside of God's plan. However, we make a distinction between...

I don't want to get too overly philosophical, but we make distinctions between strong actualization and weak actualization on the part of God.

There are things that God actively performs, and then there are things that God passively brings about. He passively brings things about through permission, but the things that he permits will accomplish

God's purposes. Otherwise, we're living in a random world. They're just things that happen independent of God's...

Independent of God's decree. And that's my point, is that if everything is part of his prescribed will, there cannot...

He cannot prescribe evil. Not... No. Right. But you just told me that he prescribed the desire to do evil.

No, I didn't say he prescribed. I said he decreed. The decreed will of God is different than the prescriptive will of God.

These are important theological nuances that we have to make. Otherwise, we make a mistake in how

God relates to... In his permissive nature, it's still not part of his will.

It's part of his will to permit genuinely evil things to occur. Very good. To permit them.

Yes. Which, in order to allow that permission, allow that permittive action to take place,

I would fall back into the prescriptive side. Well, you could say that. That doesn't mean that's the case.

Here's the point. If we're talking about objective moral standards, let's say you disagree with every...

The validity of everything I just said, and that you still are proving a point. If an action within the

Christian worldview is deemed by God to be objectively evil, and the standard of determining that that's objectively evil is his character, his good character, as he's revealed it, then within that system, those actions are objectively evil.

If that's independent of whether God decrees it or whatever, it's evil and God's revealed it as such. So within the system, there is an objective standard.

Okay. So again, I want to get it at the essence. Because once we start to get away from what

God is going to allow or prescribe to happen, either through permission or prescription, both of those are actions within God.

And if we are looking at an omnigod, can he permit evil? No. Can he prescribe evil?

No. If both of those... False. That's false, though. He can permit evil. He can permit evil.

If God is omnipotent, then he's able to certain things to occur, but they're not random.

He permits them because as a good God, he has purposes for permitting them. But permitting them doesn't mean they're not evil.

The evil... We have to keep this in mind. The action that he permits is evil, but him permitting it for his sovereign purpose is not evil.

There's a difference between the two. No, I don't think so. Because here's the thing. Would, without him permitting those actions to take place, the greatest of all goods take place?

Can you ask the question again? I'm not sure I understand. Okay. Without him permitting the, like you said, ultimate evil, whatever you call it, evil in general, without him permitting an evil action to take place, could the greatest of all goods, his plan, come to fruition?

Well, it would depend. The things that are considered good are relative to his purposes. If God has a purpose, then certain actions, whether it's an active thing by God or a permissive thing of God, would be good relative to serving his ultimate purposes.

So if God has a purpose, then these actions are good in as much as it serves his purpose.

If he permits, then it's good that he permits, but what is he permitting? He's permitting evil. They are genuinely evil, and within the

Christian worldview, we can know that they're evil because we have the comparison of God's perfect nature expressed in his law.

All right. Before you follow up, that's the Christian perspective. I don't see the point you're making that within the

Christian worldview, we can't have an objective standard. Even if you disagreed with everything I said, we still have an objective standard.

I don't agree with your critique, but there is a standard to determine what's right and wrong. Okay. But all right.

And so I guess my view, just to kind of cut the chase a little bit here, my view as far as morality goes is you've got to have, number one, the possibility of his existence.

I would say if everything ends up being good, there's no such thing as morality. Second, if you can get past that hurdle and you can show that there can be good and evil, then you have to have identifiability.

In other words, I have to be able to tell what is good or evil. There's another argument that I bring to bear that shows, at least in my opinion, that with an

Omnigod, you cannot identify good and evil. That's false. Well, we can get there if you want to.

And then third, you have to have justifiability. As far as once you determine what is good or evil, justify why it is good or evil.

And again, so you've got a three -legged stool, so to speak. And if you take away any of the three legs, it's going to fall over.

So let's go through each stool. So what was the first one? So the first one is viability.

Can you actually have any type of moral system with an Omnigod that is omnibenevolent or malevolent?

Yes. Well, not malevolent. I would say if he's malevolent, then you're throwing a wrench into the whole thing because then you get into Descartes' evil demon and there's a whole bunch of things in terms that are problems.

That's not the Christian world. We don't want to go there. Right. We can constrain it. We'll just go to benevolent. Okay. So let's answer the first stool.

So within the Christian worldview, we have an objective standard. If the Bible is my standard and God reveals

His law to us and tells us it's a reflection of His good nature, that's the standard.

So how do I determine what's right and wrong? Anything that does not conform with that standard is wrong. Perfect. All right.

So we're moving on to the second one as far as identifiability. But I mean, I still think there's some bone to be chewed with possibility, but we can move on a little bit.

So let's go to identifiability. Again, and then it's kind of a setup.

I'll tell you, you know, whatever. Well, that's very nice. Listen, Eli, I'm about to set you up.

I just want to let you know. I do. I definitely am. I'm not here to get you or got you.

Okay. Cool. Cool. Cool. All right. So the thought experiment I use here is, is we're going to Alaska and we've gone through training.

We've got a deer rifle. We've got all of the stuff that we need. And we come across a ridgeline.

At the peak of the ridgeline, we look down in the valley below and there's a group of, you know, boys down there, 18 below, whatever.

It looks like, you know, Boy Scouts, something like that. And they're down there. They're going about their business, not doing anything. And we look off in the distance a couple of hundred yards away and we see two bears that are attacking them.

We know, however we know, we know that if we don't intercede there, those bears are going to come and potentially kill at least most, if not all the children.

Again, we have the means, we have the training, we were within range. What ought we do there?

Ought we drop to a knee and try to kill the bears? Or should we allow that to take place?

And again, that's not our deal. Yeah. Well, I mean, is the point, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, is the point you're trying to make that we don't have enough information to know what we should do?

And we never can. That's the problem. Okay. Well, let me respond to it because that's the second stool.

That's not analogous to the Christian worldview in regards to the objective standard. The objective standard is revealed to us such that we could know it, both not only through the external law given to us in Scripture, but also the

Bible teaches that the law of God is written in the hearts of everyone. So God's law is something that is not some ambiguous thing.

It's something that we can know. Now we can debate finer things in various contexts if you get to like case law, but the point is that if the

Bible is true, the law of God is written in people's hearts. So it's not as ambiguous as we're looking off and a bear's coming and we don't know what to do.

That's not analogous to the Christian story. All right. Well, I definitely want to go back to the written on our heart.

Can I stop real quick? I do apologize. I don't mind this line of questioning.

As you can say, I've been happy to answer them. We haven't gotten to your worldview and I don't think it's legitimate to start with ethics since my whole point is that without the metaphysical context and the epistemology ethics,

I mean, we could just assume all those things are in place and talk. I don't grant those things. I thought we went through the metaphysics as far as showing why

I don't grant your absolutist view. That's the internal critique. Yeah.

You tried to internally critique my perspective, but you have not laid out your own, right? You haven't laid out your own metaphysics.

You're absolutely right. That's what I was saying. Because I know we're running out of time and we won't be able to get to, because you've been grilling me, which is fine, but I don't know how much time we have left.

Maybe we can go a little bit into your own perspective to kind of show the point of what I was saying at the beginning that the proof of the

Christian worldview is that if it were not true, you couldn't prove anything at all. Let's get into your metaphysic, your epistemology, and then your ethic and see how you build your worldview.

I don't mean to cut you off if you were going through something. We could talk about it forever, I suppose. Exactly. Now, just to wrap it up, and then we'll definitely switch over.

Basically, the point of that is that setup is reflective of the she bears attacking the kids in the

Bible. With that, if we pull the trigger, and now there can be arguments made that we couldn't kill the would go in conflict to God's plan, because if he sent those bears like he did with Elijah, then he is wanting those bears to teach those children a lesson.

So us trying to do that could be considered to be trying to go against God's will, which again,

I think we would all agree is a negative. Even though we're trying to do a good and our heart tells us to do that, we can't know that God is not using that for a greater purpose.

And that would go across the board. So I'll end with that one. And then real quick, the

Bible, within the theology of God's decretive will and his prescriptive will, the

Bible does not teach that I'm responsible to know God's secretive purposes. That's my prescriptive. The prescriptive will is what he reveals.

I'm responsible for that. But if you're looking at an objective right and wrong for each given action, you cannot know because of that independence of God's will and your inability to know it, what action you ought to take to be more be reflective of that will.

I do know because based on his prescriptive will, he provides those standards and he and his decretive will makes provision for my disobeying that because even in my disobedience,

I can't thwart his plans. Okay. All right. Well, I'm not sure how much you got of that because that presupposes some theology and philosophical distinctions between the wills of God, which is a super interesting, but anyway.

So let's flip it. You, you come back. Sorry about that. All right. That's okay. That's okay. Okay. So what is your worldview and how does your worldview provide the preconditions for knowledge?

So give me your metaphysics. That's it's a tough question. I tend to side with,

I don't like terminology cause I'm very fuzzy on this, but I would say a naturalistic view.

I do believe that we are, you know, for the most part Adams in motion, we are matter.

And at the end of the day, yes, that's all we are. What do, how can

I, oh, how can I get from that point to an epistemology because, because of the way that chemicals, the matter in motion, we get emergent properties.

And we see that throughout all kinds of things in the same way that if we excite electrons enough, we're going to get a photon.

That's an emergent property. I can get that from nothing more than, well, again, internally internalizing my worldview.

We literally can get to a certain degree, almost something out of nothing. When you get to quantum physics and that level, at least somewhat, but I don't want to get all into that.

What's happening is, is we see that the more, God, I hate using these terms cause they're not accurate at all.

The more complex a mind, that's not right. The more evolved our mind, that's not right.

But I think, you know, where I'm going, the more reasoning we see, the more ability do we see from everything from logic, like you said, to compassion, to ethics.

We see that throughout the animal kingdom and it's based as much on complexity as it is also the dynamic of that, that, that animal.

Go ahead. Sorry, man. Okay. Real quick. I know, I don't know if he's going to cut me off cause we're finishing up, but you said we're matter in motion.

Okay. If we're a matter in motion, how do you account for personal identity through time since matter in motion or our chemical makeup, it's constantly changing.

If you don't have personal identity through time, then it really, you don't provide the preconditions for words like my,

I, or even knowledge claims. How do you have a conglomeration of chemicals producing emergent properties such that you could know that it's producing emergent properties?

You're already presupposing your continued existence, rationality. How do you get rationality from matter in motion?

How could you know that your reasoning is valid on that perspective? Those are the kinds of questions I would ask.

And I'd be interested if, I'm not sure if we have time, but I'd be interested in how you would respond to that. And if you've got time and James got time,

I'm more than willing to go over. If you want to keep talking, we can keep going. Okay.

Yeah. As far as being able to account for those,

I can account for those about as well as I can account for, or people could account for lightning, let's say 200 years ago, just because we can't determine exactly what the process is and how it emerges doesn't mean that necessarily mandates that it's not emergent.

We're basically missing a piece. And as much as I'm pleading almost God of the gaps here, because I know

I am, I think that's valid. The reason that I think it's valid is through induction, we know that anything that's been explained in the past has always, anytime we've made a supernatural claim and it's been quote unquote proven, it's been not supernatural.

So for lack of a better term, I'll play the odds. I'll say, okay, if I know that 200 years, a thousand years ago, you know,

Zeus was throwing lightning bolts and that's where lightning came from. Well, we know that's not right now.

Now that we have this other mysterious force, let's call, you know, self -awareness, morality, what we see, you know, reasoning ability, we don't know yet.

But if we look at history, what is more likely to tell us where that came from? Every time it's been us discovering it has been a natural force.

That presupposes that you could have knowledge on an ontology that you just put forth. And that's the very question when you kept, you kept using

I, but my question was about enduring personal identity through time. I don't see how you could have personal identity in time.

If we're purely matter in motion, when you utilize induction, induction, as you're familiar with David Hume and others who pointed it out, if you're relying on induction, you're relying on a fallacious form of reasoning.

It's begging the question. You need a justification for those things. Otherwise you're just being arbitrary when you say, you have difficulty answering the question of personal identity.

No, I just didn't get there yet. Okay. So you had difficulty. You said something you had difficulty answering. You said

I have as much difficulty answering that as you had something else. What would you remember? What I meant is, is self -awareness as far as my, my self -identity.

Now, as far as being able to differentiate my molecules from this chair or from whatever, as much as one rock can be split into multiple rocks, those atoms, once they are separated from wherever they come from to originate, if you want to say there was a, you know, the big bang was the conglomeration of every atom and every, every bit of energy that ever was before the expansion, it doesn't matter.

It's just separating the same things. So as Carl Sagan. Ned, Ned, I want to interrupt you,

Ned. I do apologize. Everything you're saying already presupposes knowledge, and I've yet to see how you get knowledge on an ontology in which you are merely matter in motion.

Can you clarify that for me? You're just saying emergent properties. Well, that presupposes knowledge. So can you get, move me through a step -by -step process where you can get from matter in motion to a claim about knowledge and then make that consistent with, with your ontology?

Okay. I can do it in a different worldview. I can do it if we are, let's say we are

Sims in a computer. If I am a brain in a vat, I can do all of that in this.

But as far as going from a purely naturalistic standpoint, the only thing I can fall back on, it is a undiscovered emergent property as far as what originates that, that ability to reason, that ability to claim knowledge.

We don't know where that, where the origination of that is. But to say that because we don't know where it is, is using a

God of the gaps argument. So the foundation of your ontology is based upon an undiscoverable explanation.

Not undiscoverable. Please clarify. Undiscovered. That's what

I said. Undiscovered. You said discoverable. Discoverable. Okay. All right. So undiscovered. So how is the foundation of your ontology not arbitrary?

In other words, how do you know it's even discoverable? You don't even know that. Again, it goes into, like you, my presuppositions, my beliefs about what is possible, both present and future tense, if not past tense and through induction.

So for you to be able to sit back and use the same type of claims and saying it's transcendental.

This just happened. And I say, where do you get that? And you say, oh, it's just transcendental, but it's not axiomatic. That's not what

I said, but that's not my, well, but, but we don't want to go back into the internal critique. That's not what I said. Okay.

Sorry. If I, if I misunderstood. I don't say it's transcendental because it's transcendental. There's, there's, that's connected to my metaphysic and there's a whole bunch of other things included in that.

Okay. We, I'd love to come back again and, and kind of, but whatever.

Okay. You know, what you, what you say that I'm just going, I want to go, but again, we're all going to get down to these base level beliefs that are either presuppositions or we're going to claim they're axiomatic and therefore we're stuck effectively.

We're stuck at that point. That's where I am with the emergent properties of reasoning, ability, self -awareness, all of that.

But the only, I say real difference in, in the, as far as where I use it, my, my foundation is, is

I look to nature and go, okay, I can see a dolphin. And apparently based on what we know that dolphin can differentiate themselves and know that they are the ones in the mirror versus another.

I can go to bonobo chimps and draw a correlation there. I can go all the way down to honey. Can I interrupt?

I do apologize. Yeah, go ahead. When you, when you appeal to chimps and dolphins, that presupposes that there is an external world apart from yourself.

If you start with your own existence, how do you move from your own existence to the reality of an external world?

Is the only way that I can do that is number one, acknowledge the fact that yes, we could go into solipsism and get to the point where we're nothing more than a brain in a vat, or we are now, do you escape that?

How do you escape that on your own principles? From the original question, if you've answered that negation appeal, you can go on to the next one.

I just want to make sure you have a chance to finish your answer to this question. I don't know.

I'm not sure. Maybe I forgot the first question. I'm sorry. I'll let you guys keep going.

All right. Again, I presuppose, I presuppose I am not there. I look at it as it is.

That's arbitrary. Well, so is yours. How do you get out of that other way? How do you get out of the same trap without saying

God has revealed it to me? And then when I say, how do you know that God revealed it to me? You say, because I believe it or because it's axiomatic or because I was the regulatory power of God.

Okay. Again, when I'm not just saying it's axiomatic, I'm saying my claim is transcendental in nature, deny it.

And I'll be stuck in your perspective, which you just stated, which does not provide the preconditions for intelligibility.

When you say, how do I know it apart from God revealing it? I don't know it apart from God revealing it.

My claim is that the revelation of God is part of the system. Now you might not hold to that, but in that system,

I have the preconditions for intelligibility and knowledge given your system. I don't,

I don't see by just positing arbitrarily. I exist. I don't know what I'm composed of.

You don't even know if you are a matter in motion. There's no way for you to know that your, your ontological starting point is based upon an arbitrary picking of an axiom axioms are unjustifiable.

And so anyone could pick any axioms. You've just chosen the matter of emotion. I exist. And in my opinion, you have, as Clark would say, well,

I'm not a Clarkian. I don't again. Okay. So as Van Till would kind of say, you wouldn't say,

I don't know, but anyhow, you are picking a set of conditions that say, this allows me to do this.

I'm doing the exact same thing. The only, how do you know that? How do you, how do you know? And I don't mean this in a sarcastic way, right?

When you say I'm just picking a system, you're presupposing the falsehood of the

Christian worldview. Since on the Christian worldview, I did not just pick it. It was revealed to me. Because wait a second, in my perspective,

I still allow for the Christian worldview. No, you don't. Yes, I do. Because what did

I say at the beginning? What did I say at the beginning, Ned, that even this, even the perspective, let me clarify this at the beginning.

When I, when I started that there are only two worldviews, there's the Christian worldview and the non -Christian worldview.

And, and that, well, that that's fine. But all the non -Christian worldviews have one thing in common, that they implicitly or explicitly assert the falsehood of the

Christian worldview. Even a worldview that says Christianity is possibly correct. That's implying the negation of the

Christian worldview, since the Christian worldview states that all men know that God exists. You don't have to affirm that, but it's a negation of that worldview perspective.

It's a negation of that singular statement, not the entire worldview.

Right, but we don't take the singular statement out as though we can look at them. We can't look at them independently of the worldview context.

You don't, that doesn't mean I can. I'm not constrained by the same things you are. Well, if you're, if you're going to posit that we can talk about individual things apart from a context, then

I would, then I would say that you're proving my point that knowledge is impossible, since knowledge is impossible if you disconnect specific things from a worldview context.

There's no way to define those things. No, what I'm saying is, is that is just as we can go, and maybe this is another discussion for a different time, but just as we could go into the

Bible and see that there are blatant errors that do not reflect what we would. External critique, right?

You're giving an external critique. Well, now again, I can do it from an internal and go, okay, I'm going to believe

I'm going to go to Genesis 1 .13, and I'm going to say there are two lights, one to rule the day, one to rule the night.

There's one, there's one light. There is, the moon is not a light. It does not emit photons. It does not in any way, shape, or form.

I don't think you understand the nature of internal critique. Yes, I do.

That's not an internal, that's not an internal critique, what you just gave. You tried an internal critique, but it's not a legitimate one.

Well, number one, if I go in there and I try to believe that, and then

I start to test those foundational claims, yes, I'm going to erode away from them if I don't agree with them.

That doesn't mean that I can't go in there and try to use it and say, okay, this says this is true. We're stating these are true.

Now let's look at what these claims are versus what we observe. Wait a second. These don't match.

At that point, yes, it's going to make it very, very difficult to come to a conclusion that yes,

I believe that unless I can come to some type of apologetic to explain it away. But again, within the

Christian worldview, you don't look at the scripture and then use some external judge as to whether the scripture is true.

Within the Christian worldview, it's the lens of scripture through which we understand everything else. If you hypothetically granted, if you hypothetically granted the

Christian worldview, you'd also hypothetically grant that God does not contradict himself. So within the

Christian worldview, if you see scriptures that seem contradictory, you would not be allowed to adopt an interpretation that would make those statements contradictory.

You'd have to understand them as possibly being reconciled. If there's more information or whatever, again, whether someone thinks that's a legitimate move or not within an internal critique, that's what you'd have to do.

You can't internally critique and say, well, this doesn't match with what I observed here. Well, wait a minute. Within the Christian worldview, what you observe there is interpreted in light of how

God has revealed, has revealed. But here's the thing. By constraining it with that mandate, by saying that you have to, in any way, shape, or form that the

Bible prescribes, cannot deviate from that, you are not giving a true internal critique.

All you're doing is following. You are just saying, it says it, yes. There's no critique there.

There's no - No, no, no. What I'm saying, an internal critique is this.

Maybe we should have defined this at the beginning. And if I give a definition and that was what you were assuming, I do apologize.

An internal critique is when you hypothetically grant the truth of the other perspective, and then judge it on its own terms.

But see, you say that I can go in and say, okay, these are true, these are true, these are true, but I have to stop there.

Well, you can't. If you take Christianity on its own terms, you'd have to grant possible reconciliations to what you think are contradictory.

So where is the critique? If all I do is go in there and grant everything is true? Say again?

How am I critiquing? If I go in there and all I do is say, yes, everything is true, where's the critique? Right. Well, the critique, the argument is that the

Christian worldview provides the preconditions for intelligibility. The critique would involve showing where the

Bible teaches that God is the foundation for intelligibility, and then showing that there's something within the system itself that does not provide those preconditions when it says that it is the preconditions.

But the way you do that is not the way you just did it. Like, hey, I look over here and this conflicts with here.

You're not operating in a consistent system. You're detaching data here, and then it's saying this doesn't match with this, and then so automatically the scriptures are wrong.

That's not an internal critique. But there's all, well, okay. Well, but I also did what you're asking earlier by showing with an omni -God, knowledge is impossible because everything is possible with an omni -God.

No, not theologically impossible. Within an omni -God, within the Christian worldview, contradictions can't be true, even if you're convinced in your mind that God can use different logic within different universes or whatever.

Only if you constrain your God and say your God cannot create outside universes. That's the only way.

No, that's false. God can create as many universes as he wants, but that doesn't necessitate that there are different logics within those.

That's where the logical connection is. Okay, all right. Then let's do it this way. You're constraining your

God to only being able to possess the logic that you know of.

There cannot be logic outside. No. I'm saying the logic that I know of is the logic that God has revealed that he operates on.

I'm operating on the mind of God as revealed in scripture, and so he's logical. When you say, but there's this whole other logic that's possible, that's not a feature of the

Christian worldview conception of God. It's just not. In your mind, you might think it's possible, but within the

Christian worldview, no. God doesn't operate on different logics if he were to hypothetically create other universes.

That's just within the system. That's not the case. To suggest that it's possible, again, that is an attempted internal critique, but then you're reverting back to an external critique because that's not the picture of the

Christian system. But see, again, I am granting the omni of God and giving him every omni.

You are the one who are constraining your God. I'm not constraining. If the Bible's true, God tells me what he does, and God explains what the nature of his omnipotence is.

The Bible teaches God cannot lie. That's a restraint that he puts on himself, but that's not an impingement upon his omnipotence.

I'm not mandating he does lie. All I'm saying is that he does not reveal everything to us.

Of course. Nobody believes that he created it. He doesn't reveal everything. Deuteronomy 29 .29 says the secret things belong to the

Lord, but the things revealed belong to us. What are those things that he's revealed? Logic, truths of logic.

All of logic. All of logic. The laws of logic.

I don't even know what that means, all of logic. I don't know what that means. I don't even know what it means to have -

Eli, you don't have to know what you don't know, but what I'm saying is when you fall back on that argument of,

I don't even know what that means. Well, it's incoherent to me. I don't think it's even coherent. That's what I'm saying. Well, and that's my point is

I want to be as generous as possible.

I like you. We have conversation. I don't want you to talk, but it's acts of dishonesty in that when you say,

I don't know what that means. I know you're intelligent enough.

We've talked enough to I guarantee you can conceive of, there may be another set of logical laws of logic, if you will, that we are not preppy to.

We cannot be preppy to because of the constraints that God has imposed on us that could in possibility, in theory, create problems with how we perceive logic working.

No. So thank you for being generous. Okay. If you can take my word,

I'm not trying to be disingenuous. I honestly am just disagreeing with you.

Within the Christian worldview, what you just suggested is not a possibility. Okay. And that's the exact same thing that you did when

I said about the moon being a light. Now you're saying that within the worldview, so you're basically cocooning yourself into this unfalsifiable, untestable little bubble.

Well, there you made a mistake there. It is unfalsifiable because if I have the truth and I'm convinced

I have the truth, then I don't believe it can be falsified. Things that are necessarily true are by definition unfalsifiable.

And what is my argument? What's the argument at the beginning? That the proof for the truth of the Christian worldview is that if it were not true, you couldn't prove anything at all.

The nature of that argument is that I believe my position is unfalsifiable. It is the necessary prerequisite, but that it does not mean that it's without demonstration, since the demonstration comes in its transcendental necessity, which we talked about.

And I don't think you understand the nature of transcendental. Based upon what you said in the discussion,

I don't think that you've fully grasped it because then you equate transcendentals with axioms and things like that.

And I don't make those equations. I want to give Negation a last word, just because we let

Eli, we gave you the start and also because we want to move into the Q &A. So Negation, the floor is yours and we will go into the

Q &A. Okay. And before we do that, Negation, I just want to say thank you beforehand.

I'll probably say it again, but I really did enjoy this conversation. This was really good. That works great because that's exactly what

I was going to say. Seriously, thanks.

This was fun. I'm more than happy to come back and talk to you anytime. Again, I don't even know what to wrap up.

I think we beat this horse to death a hundred times. I think that we've got a fundamental disagreement in what is axiomatic and what is a justified starting point.

And that where I will fully admit that my justification, my starting point is a presupposition is axiomatic in that I, well, maybe it's not axiomatic because I will still allow for the possibility of being a brain in Nevada.

But my belief is I'm not. And since I'm not, I'm going to act accordingly.

Whereas when we get to your worldview, this must be the case.

We cannot allow for anything else. And that's where we start to get into these problems.

You don't view that as creating a bubble that is,

I don't even, I don't want to get way down that rabbit hole.

I would be more than happy to talk again. And I honestly really would like to get back into the, to the moral argument as well.

And also on my stuff, because you're right. We didn't get nearly enough on the, my stuff. Gotcha.

Thank you very much, gentlemen. Really appreciated this. Really interesting. It's been deep.

That's for sure. And it's been a good, a good, like a work on the brain, a good workout.

And we're excited for these questions. A lot of good questions. It's been fun to watch this come in. So super chat.

Thanks so much for your super chat. I can't remember if I mentioned. Basically super chats, if you want to do it, they go to the top of the list for the

Q and A. And it also gives you the chance to make a comment toward one of the speakers that they, of course, would get the chance to respond to.

And with that, Jeff Dutcher, or Dutcher, forgive me if I mispronounced it. He said, can you get, well, let's see, can you get

Unirock 2 versus Nate Brody on? I will try. Thanks for that idea.

Ronald Madanka, thanks for your question. He said, Eli, tell your God to reveal himself right now, please.

The world has been waiting a long, it's long in all capital letters.

Well, again, again, we're coming from a Christian perspective. God has revealed himself.

And the evidence of that revealing himself is that people are operating under assumptions that don't make sense unless the

God that I'm talking about exists. Again, people can say, well, that's just the claim, but then that's where we're getting into the internal critique.

Show me that on your world, you can make sense of the things you're doing. Reasoning, induction, science. I'm saying without the metaphysical context of the

God of Christianity, you have no justification for those things. The very fact that you do them is evidence that you're relying upon the

God whom you know exists. And that would be my answer. You can disagree with it, but then we'd have to engage in some further discussion.

Gotcha. Thank you very much. Next up, thanks for your question. He said, if Christianity is true, wouldn't it mean that all other religions are wrong?

Even more so salvation is exclusive. Isn't that arrogance?

Why is it allowed? Well, again, by logical necessity, contradictory claims cannot be true.

So if I were to say Christianity is true, I'm implicitly affirming the falsity of every other worldview perspective.

That's not arrogance. That's just the nature of truth. If the Bible is true, then everything that contradicts the

Bible or negates the Bible would be false. So it's not arrogant. It's like saying, why is truth so narrow? Well, it's narrow because that's just the nature of truth.

And so that's interesting. Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the light. He doesn't say I have the truth. He says, I am the truth.

The claims of Jesus challenge every other worldview perspective and claims that they are false.

That's the nature of the Christian claim. So I don't think it's arrogant, although I do apologize on behalf of many

Christians, especially people from the presuppositional camp. We could often present that in an arrogant fashion.

And when we do that, I think we're acting inconsistently with the Bible. Gotcha. Thanks so much. This person, this is her own name.

This is, it's a voter profile. So stupid whore energy asks for Eli, how is your rendering of energy?

I don't understand. I don't understand it either. A lot of energy. So she says, or Eli, how does your rendering of omnipotence escape the famous McEar counterexample where it is only possible for this entity to scratch his ear and is therefore omnipotent?

Well, again, the analogy I don't, I'm not familiar with how the argument is formulated, but first of all,

I don't believe God has an ear. He's a spirit doesn't have a body. And I think I know what they're saying that omnipotence is, is just that God does anything consistent with his nature and doesn't contradict it.

So how is that different than just saying God does what he does? Well, what God does is far greater than what we can do since he's created all things and is the definer of what's possible.

It is within his nature to define what's possible and impossible. And so in that sense, we would define that as powerful relative to everything else.

That's not that, or doesn't have those qualities. So, um, I don't think that that, I mean, if I understood the, uh, the question,

I don't think that that's a problem for the Christian content concept of omnipotence. Gotcha.

Thank you very much. And next up stupid whore energy again, she strikes again, a lot of energy.

Like I said, what is your, she asks, what is your opinion of era consistent logics, which deny the law of non -contradiction?

Right. Uh, well to even speak about those logics, you have to presuppose the law of non -contradiction.

So to deny it, you're affirming it, even to discuss those other kinds of logics. If you, you know, you have a

Aristotelian logic, Boolean logic, different kinds of logic to even speak about it. You need to already presuppose the universality and validity of the law of non -contradiction.

So I would say that even to speak about those things, you're demonstrating those basic laws that we've, uh, that I've just expressed.

Gotcha. Thank you very much. Next up, they asked question for,

Oh, question for Ned. I say, say I presuppose, you know, logic based on your name.

Wouldn't the proposition of key that God exists must be true in order to be a negation of key in the proposition.

I don't know if I follow that. I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm not sure. It's a tough one.

That's I honestly, to be completely honest, I was hoping one of you guys would know what it meant.

So I'll try it one more time. I presuppose, you know, logic based on your name, wouldn't the proposition of key, namely the proposition that God exists,

God exists. I think you're saying, isn't it the case that that proposition must be true in order to be a negation of the key in a proposition?

No, I don't think that makes sense. I know it's for Ned, but I'm not sure if Ned understands it, but the negation of key doesn't have to presuppose the affirmation of P when you're just considering the basic construction of the, of the, uh, of the argument.

No, in fact, I was trying to write it out in logical form and it, no, it doesn't. No, we agree again.

Next up, Jim majors. Thanks for your super chat. He says, if God's word is divine revelation, why did the new

Testament authors use the, I remember this, right? Is, does the LXX remember it referred to these?

Yes. Okay. Then he says, why do we need to translate something that is divinely inspired by God?

Well, if God chooses to utilize language, then he's going to convey it to people who don't speak that language. So you could, you could convey knowledge of God, uh, that God reveals in different languages and capture the same essence of what

God is seeking to convey. So I don't think there's a problem with God revealing himself in Spanish and then revealing those same propositions, whatever they may be in a different language.

So I think language is an adequate medium to, to, for God to reveal himself. And I think that was always

God's intention since God created Adam in, uh, Adam and Eve in his image. And so that presupposes consciousness and logic and communication that, that we see, um, is, uh, present in the garden.

And, and I would agree with that if all, um, translations were, you know, had continuity and especially if they were perfectly, um, you know, reflective of one another.

Right. But I think what the, what the essence of the question is getting to is, is that a lot of the translations do not square.

And I mean, to a point where they are significantly, um, different. I wouldn't,

I wouldn't say, I mean, again, we can get into an issue of textual criticism and translation, which would be a topic for another show.

Um, but, um, I would say that the message of God that he desires for us to know is, is still, um, encapsulated in the imperfect translations of the inspired documents, documents that we have.

When you say significant differences, I, if you're talking about textual variance and things like that, then no, 99 point something percent of them are really irrelevant to the meaning of major doctrines and things like that.

So I would disagree. I would disagree on that. Well, I mean, I would say, and I'm assuming being a

Calvinist, you would not consider Catholics to be Christian. I would say, oh yes,

I would not. I would not. So I, and I, so I would disagree with, um, right. And they're using a variant of the

Bible that I would assume at least, and again, maybe I'm off on this, that you were saying would originate from a fairly the same place.

No. When you say a variation of the Bible, I would say that Catholics have the same New Testament that we have.

And, uh, the basic structure of the old Testament with the added Apocrypha, which was added in the 1500s.

Um, and I would not accept those. And I think that's where a lot of some of their, their, what I would consider their deviant teachings spring forth from.

You have the historical context of the Protestant reformation that they're responding to, um, the doctrines of justification by faith alone and things like that.

And so these books were included, which I would argue were never acknowledged by Jesus or the apostles to be, uh, on par with what we do accept as, as scripture.

And that's historically a fact. Jesus, Apocrypha or anything like that. And a

Catholic would argue the exact opposite. They could argue, but then, but then we would engage in, we would engage in a discussion over theology, which is precisely what

Catholics and Protestants do. Right. But I think that's his point is that if, if we have a divinely inspired, divinely created message, that message should be fairly straightforward and, and you wouldn't have the splintering effect, let's say after the original, um, it was as clear as it itself purports to be.

Well, the, the splintering and the deviations can have a bunch of different complex sources that are not necessarily grounded in the, in the ambiguity of the message.

There are a lot of different historical and theological, and even I would say in some cases, both from Protestant and Catholic, simple motivations as to why certain things are developed and you have different views on different issues.

But that's, that's not an issue of the, of the ambiguity of scripture. That's an issue more of the complexity of, of human beings, their philosophies, their commitments, political issues, and things like that.

So I wouldn't say that it's an ambiguity in the text. And I, and again, the Catholic could argue for the Apocrypha, which they do.

I don't think they would make a very good argument at that point, but we argue, and that's why we do apologetics. And that's why you do apologetics from your perspective.

People disagree with you, but that doesn't mean you don't have good justification for the positions you hold. Catholics will disagree with us over textual issues and what books should be included, but we engage in argumentation and it is not to no avail.

Since oftentimes, you know, you have situations where a Catholic will be convinced and say, you know what? I think the Protestant view is correct.

And then sometimes you have the opposite effect, right? So we need to, we need to take the arguments, make sure we present them clearly, but also take into consideration the complexity of human thinking and the traditions that people hold on to in that whole process.

Because the reason why someone converts to another side is not necessarily because the other side is true. There might be other psychological reasons included in that as well.

And I think that goes for both sides of the coin. Well, and again, if your worldview is true, the main reason they're converting is because it's part of God's plan and his will, and he deemed it to happen.

Absolutely. But the conclusion therefore would not be that it doesn't matter if we argue for it or not, because then that would presuppose,

I know I'm just saying, but some people might think that, well, if God decrees it, then what's the point of even talking about it? And that would fail to understand the distinction between a sovereign

God who has a decree and the idea of an impersonal fatalism. We do not believe that no matter what you do, it doesn't matter.

God just has a conclusion. We believe that God ordains the means as well as the ends.

He ordains the ends and the means by which we reach those ends. And those means include standing for the truth, arguing for scripture, and those secret decree of God is something that I'm not responsible to answer to because I don't know what it is.

Just so I'm clear, and I'm sorry, I'm going on the stand. I just want to make sure. That's okay. But you are Calvinist, which in my understanding, you're still of the belief that there are the elect, non -elect that are preordained before the foundations of the world.

So it doesn't, effectively, it doesn't matter. At the end game, it doesn't matter because if you're of the elect, you're going to go, and if you're not, it doesn't.

No, I wouldn't say it doesn't matter because the actions that God ordains in time are the means whereby those things play out.

So our actions still matter. Now, of course, our actions don't change God's decree, but part of his decree is that we act in certain ways, and he's revealed that, and he's made provisions for our disobedience for that in his decree.

And just so I'm clear, so effectively, those are, and again, it's going to sound maybe a little pejorative, but I don't mean it that bad.

That's okay. That it's, you know, effectively, it's either like actors with a script that are given the script, and you will follow the script to the letter, or a puppet master that puts this motion.

Yeah, I wouldn't say a puppet master or anything like that. There'd be some, again, analogies will break down, but assume differently.

I mean, within the Christian tradition, there are different understandings as to the nature of freedom. You don't have to adopt the model of that.

In some cases, for example, the relationship between human responsibility and freedom and God's decree, there are some

Calvinists who fill that in and give a metaphysical explanation as to how that works. Well, I'm not committed to adopting a metaphysical explanation, since the scripture doesn't tell us exactly how they work together.

So you have some Christians who affirm the truths that God sovereignly decrees everything that comes to pass. I am sufficiently responsible for my actions.

And in some way, it works out. It's a very complicated topic. And so you have different philosophies. But I'm not committed biblically to a specific metaphysical explanation, since the

Bible doesn't actually get into the metaphysical explanation as to how those things work. Next, thanks so much.

We appreciate that. And next up Ronald and Dhanka. Thanks for your super chat. He said

Christianity is Jesus dying for our sins.

Is that true or not? Well, Christianity is a system of beliefs, which include that Jesus died for sinners.

So I wouldn't wrap up the entire Christian faith in just those statements. Again, that the crucifixion of Jesus does not have any meaning outside of the broader context of the

Christian worldview, just as a man rising from the dead doesn't prove that he's the son of God, if you detach that resurrection from the broader context in which that resurrection has meaning.

So the crucifixion of Jesus has the meaning that it does because of the Christian system.

And so I would say Christianity at base is the system, which the crucifixion is a part of.

Thank you very much. Next up, we have a super chat from Cedro. Thanks for your super chat.

He says, for negation of he, you say metaphysics. Why does a God not make the cut?

Again, same guy. I think I explained that. I think I explained that a little bit earlier.

But as far as a God in general, I think you can get especially deistic

God. You can easily that God can make the cut. The Christian God can't make the cut, because in my opinion, it's internally inconsistent in that I've got a all good

God that doesn't allow for evil, but somehow evil exists with an all good plan.

Also, we can have knowledge, but there is nothing about this world that is because of his power and because of his omni being that is knowable, because everything is changeable.

So that's why I would say that the two biggest issues, at least what we talked about tonight, are going to be.

And that's why, in my opinion, he doesn't make the cut. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry.

I don't know if I can respond. Go ahead. You can go to the next question. If you'd like to make a really short one, you can.

But you have a lot of questions. Okay. So so just for the idea that God is all good, but doesn't allow for evil, but there's evil again, that's that's not the

Christian position. God does allow evil. I think the fallacy is that because God allows evil that therefore that evil can't be distinguished from good because God allows it, then it has to be good.

That's the faulty thing God can allow. It is good for God to allow evil things because it accomplishes purposes.

But that doesn't magically make the evil things he allows good or unable to identify whether they're good or bad.

So I would just disagree. There's a logical disconnect there. I think that doesn't follow. I'll leave it there because he made a couple of other comments.

It might be a little too long. Next up, this is for you, just Robbie. Thanks for your super chat. He says, Eli, if in the

Bible, Moses literally made a stick into a snake. How does it make sense that, quote,

Jesus is the door is an agreed metaphor and say

Bible's literal? You're probably wondering how the heck could you answer that?

Because that question made no sense. Well, we will interpret in light of various things.

When you do hermeneutics, you have to employ various interpretive principles. And I think the identification of genre and the kind of figures of speech that are being utilized, we know that Jesus is not a literal door.

Right. Because that's a figure of speech. And you can use you can use examples of figures of speech, which use things like that.

God, Moses, turning the the the staff into a snake, the genre in which that story is told is within a historical narrative.

And so there's no reason to believe that that particular instance is metaphorical.

Now, again, there are people say, well, the whole Bible is metaphorical. Well, no, it's not to interpret the Bible. Literally, you have to interpret it in light of its literature.

In many cases, it's clear in which Jesus is the door and Moses turning the staff. And that's clear.

But then there are some other airs of scripture. We have to work a little bit to understand the genre. And interpretation at that point can be a little challenging.

But that's what we work at. You know, so I have Bible studies and we get together and work through those things. Got you.

Thank you very much. Next up. Sid, you may go to Robbie.

I think through your super chat, they said, Eli, is it wrong for us to some?

Well, because the Bible says so. Is it wrong for us to what some like as you as if we're adding?

Maybe they might maybe they mean sin because maybe they were typing fast. Is it wrong for us to sin because the

Bible says that we shouldn't or I don't want to put words in the mouth of the person. I think that is what they're saying.

That's my best guess. OK, so can you ask the question again in in in the assumption that we think we know what they're saying?

Yeah. So they say, is it wrong for us to sin, quote, because the Bible's Bible says that it is wrong?

Is that what makes it wrong? Oh, yeah. Something's not wrong merely because the

Bible says it's wrong, because then we could ask the deeper question. Why does the Bible say it's wrong? Something's wrong because of the more deeper issue of the nature and character of God.

When we are made in the image of God and when we act in ways that do not conform with that image, we are violating his law.

And so the reason why certain things are sinful and the reason why the mention certain things that are simple is because they violate

God's nature. We're made in his image and so we're called to live and live consistently with his nature.

Got you. Thank you very much. Next up. Oh, sorry.

Oh, I'm sorry about that. Cedrico's Arabia. He's coming at you. Negation of P.

He wants a piece of you today. We appreciate you being here. He says, What's the source for logic in atheism?

Why can't I use an atheist argument and conclude that it's something made up or doesn't exist, but used for description?

Like this, this was tough because then he just ends it with a word like atheist.

You know, are you trying to make it hard on me? So it's

I'm so sorry. But you guys, what have you interpreted that last?

You nailed it last time, Eli. So this one, the first part, I actually, I understand pretty. I think

I understand clearly what's the source for logic in atheism. Why can't I use an atheist argument and do that?

It's something made up. Right. He's just asking, what's the foundation for logic on an atheist perspective?

Who's to say that logic is just something we use as a description, as opposed to something that's prescriptive.

And that's, that's exactly. And that's exactly what I would say is it is an observation in the same way that a law of science is not a law in that we must follow it.

It is an observation of what we see. And to our best understanding, that is how things work.

Logic is the exact same way. Our laws of logic are observations.

And based on those observations and based on inference, since we haven't seen law of non -contradiction or any of the rest of them, we can get into at least the top three we wanted to, but we haven't seen any of any violation of those.

Through inference, we assume that they are universal and they hold true in all instances.

But again, they're not prescriptive. They're descriptive. Right. I think, I think that's philosophically unacceptable to say that we haven't seen logic.

Well, we can't see logic. It's conceptual. And to say that it's descriptive and not prescriptive is to deny its universality and necessity.

If it's merely describing and we can't know that it's prescriptive, then what you describe is based upon your worldview lens.

If someone comes across and has a different worldview lens and describes things differently, you could have counter logics, unless you presuppose that they're universal and invariant and the same for everyone.

Not, not if you were to look at them and see if they actually work.

How do you look at a law of logic, Ned? Again, okay. Well, law of non -contradiction.

If I said that everything has to be itself, and it can't be to the law of identity or law of identity, whatever, it has to be itself.

Okay. Well, I can test that. Can something be not itself? No. If someone came along and prescribed to me and said, oh,

I've got a counter argument that I've got a non -law, a law of non -identity that shows that I can be non -myself.

Okay. Show me how that works. If they could show me how that works, then one of them is going to be negated. You can't have.

Can something not be itself? No, not that, not that we have observed.

Is it possible for something to not be itself? I am very hesitant to deal in any absolute.

Are you absolutely sure about that? I don't want to be annoying, but knowing, but you do deal in some absolutes by necessity.

But that's why I said, I didn't say I didn't deal in any. I said, I'm very hesitant to deal in any absolute.

In this case, not that I am aware of and not that I can conceive of, but I am still going to be cautious enough.

And I would say, hopefully, I'll be nice.

I'm not going to make that absolute statement in that it has to be. Yeah. I think, I think it's,

I think it's philosophically, and I'm not talking about you. I'm saying the concept is philosophically absurd to say that something can be itself.

And it's possible. I might, I'm going to be hesitant about it. It may be possible that something can not be what it is.

I think that's, I think that's philosophically absurd. And again, I, I understand that given where you're coming from.

But if you allow for possibility in all, in any realm, then all you have to do is, is see if there's a way to test for that.

And if there is, put it to the test. And that doesn't mean that it proves it. It just gives us a higher probability of that being at least consistent, if not universal.

But to make that, make the statement that it's absolutely absurd, that in every possible instant, every possible universe, every possible existence, there couldn't be something that breaks that law.

I, yeah, I think it's, I think it's absolutely absurd in any universe for something to be itself and then not be itself at the same time in the same way or violate the law of identity.

I think that's, I think that's absurd because the laws transcend those categories. One more, one more pushback real quick.

Yes. And that would presuppose just as long as for the next question, forgive me, I hate to just,

I'll give you a chance to respond to each of these. Just for the next questions, if we can try to make them a little bit quicker, otherwise we won't get anywhere near as many as we're hoping to get.

You mean the answers make the answers quicker? Yes. Yeah. Okay. All right. Basically by making that statement, you are presupposing all knowledge of at least that, um, that realm of logic, which

I don't, again, without foundation, because it's transcendentally necessity, a necessity, a necessity.

Yeah. Axiomatic. You're right. Transcendental. I love you, man.

Maybe a couple of sentences. Teal Garth, thanks for your chat. He said, can someone define circular logic for us, please?

You want to go? Um, well, is that just asking anybody? I thought, okay. If it's two sentences, it's anybody.

Okay. Circular logic is the idea that logic is circular by necessity.

You have to assume it in order to demonstrate it. And that's what I was saying, that it's transcendentally necessary.

If you deny it, you affirm it. If you affirm it, you affirm it. It's necessarily true. And just to piggyback on that, all arguments are circular at base.

You can't get away from it. Gotcha. Thank you very much. Teal Garth, thanks for your super chat.

They say, uh, ask, does God care about earth and climate? For atheism, what economy or society do you think would be most productive for surviving being surviving and being, my guess is it's something like, like riding.

So does God care about earth and climate? Will it be that question to Eli? Uh, he does.

But then when you ask the question, how might we, you know, work that out and, and, you know, make decisions in regards to how we interact with the earth, there are different ways to go about it.

I think that's something that Christians, if we really were conscious about that would be something we'd have to work through. So, uh, like I, like, you know,

I believe God cares about his creation, how we should interact and consider all the issues involved in that I think is, is a little more difficult and we'd have to kind of work through that.

So he hasn't given us all the answers to how that works, but he's definitely given us principles, uh, uh, by which we can begin to kind of, uh, work towards that at taking care of the earth, that is.

Gotcha. Thank you. And then for atheism, what economy or society do you think would be most productive towards survival or thriving?

Okay. Um, one that we agree on universal, universal goals for, for humanity.

Um, what that would mean is, is a consensus on where we're going and what we want to achieve as a species.

Once we get those down, now we can prescribe, um, a moral framework that would reflect that goal and hopefully allow us to achieve that goal.

So, you know, in my opinion, we want to try to make as little suffering as possible, um, while ensuring the survival of our species at the highest, um, and, um, uh, information.

God, it's way too damn late right now. Um, every word

I'm trying to find, I'm getting the first letter and everything's just freezing. Um, no, the highest where we should, we should in my worldview and the way that I would like to see it is diminish suffering as much as possible, protect the species as much as possible and value truth and, um, learning.

So we can ensure those things, um, come to fruition kind of close enough.

Gotcha. Thank you very much. Thanks for your subject. Best be like, uh,

Christianity is relatively new. Who was God before the

Judeo Christian God? Where'd he go? Well, if the

Bible is true, then, uh, the Christian God is the original God that created the heavens and the earth.

And so, uh, I don't see, I don't see the point of that question. If it's trying to make the point like,

Hey, what's going on with God? Christianity is new. Where was he before that? Well, he's the same God in the old

Testament and he's the same God that existed prior to the old Testament being written down. Gotcha.

Thank you very much. And Cedrito thanks for your next super chat. So Cedrito had a lot of questions.

I really appreciate it. Uh, they ask, ask the peace opposition list. His name is on the border. They say, ask the peace opposition list, how to escape circularity.

Okay. I know I have a name for crying out loud. Uh, yeah.

Uh, you, when you're dealing with ultimate foundations, you do not escape circularity.

We're all in a circle. However, I would make a distinction. I know some people would disagree, but I would make a distinction.

I think it's a valid philosophical distinction between a vicious circularity and virtuous circularity.

For example, I'm not committing a detrimental fallacy when I assume the laws of logic to prove the laws of logic, because certain things contrary to my, uh, my friends,

Ned here, okay. Uh, things can be demonstrated transcendentally.

Okay. They are demonstrated by their necessity. When we, that, when we justify ultimate presuppositions, we do not justify them by appealing to something outside of them because then, then, then if we do that, we're not appealing to our ultimate standard.

We're making that other thing, our ultimate standard. So in order to justify an ultimate standard, you need to appeal to the ultimate standard and demonstrate its transcendental necessity, deny it.

And it's already affirmed in the case of logic. And I would argue in the case of God, uh, just keep on moving.

Forgive me negation. I know you got a response. I wish I could see negation space, man.

I can only see your face right now. I'm sure he's like, I want to jump in. I want to jump in. I definitely went anyhow.

Well, I'll be good. We'll keep going. He's got a round in the chamber, ready to go. Sorry to stop you.

This is your Rabia. Thanks for your super chat. Yes. They said

God's sources, source of evil. I think they're saying what is God's source of evil? And they, then they asked what's

Satan in Christianity. What is Satan? I think they mean like in the moral realm, maybe.

So they, I, maybe even if they might be asking like, was, was

Satan a source of God's evil? Uh, the way it's written is God's source of evil.

I think they're asking like, what is God's source of evil? And then they're asking what's Satan in the

Christian world? Uh, I'm not sure I understand the question. I think it might be kind of like, uh,

I'm, I could be totally wrong. So forgive me, since cradle, if I'm wrong, it might be just kind of like a general understanding of Christianity.

Like they're wanting to get your perspective on these questions. Not like a trick question or just like, does

God have a source of evil? And if so, what is it? I think it's saying like, is there evil in God?

Yeah. Well, we have to define evil within the Christian framework.

We do not define evil as having some kind of positive ontology, right?

Evil is a, a, um, a deprivation. It is a, it is a moving away from the positive good, which is reflected in, in God.

God within Christianity has no evil, but evil occurs when his creation veers from his good nature.

Okay. So there's no evil in God, but he creates beings that, um, have the ability to move away from acting consistently with the goodness of God, his nature.

Gotcha. And then let's see, do you think that that as well answers what

Satan is in Christianity? Um, well again, well on the Christian story,

Satan was not always evil, but as God creating him, he had the potential to veer from God's, um, moral standards.

And in which case he becomes a rebel, so to speak. Now, did God, um, know that that was going to happen?

Well, of course, right? We get into that whole issue of, of God's decree. Um, but God decreeing that evil transpire is not, um, affirming that there is some kind of positive evil within God.

Uh, so I'm not sure if that's kind of what they're asking. That's how I'd go about that. Gotcha.

Thanks so much. And thank you everybody for your questions, your super chats, your just being here, hanging out with us.

It's been a blast. It is for, I'm honestly, I also, my brain is like kind of mush right now.

I'm like, we have talked, this has been a great time. You guys, I've loved listening to you. I appreciate you guys.

You guys really are a blessing to have around to be here and chat with. And so we want to say thanks for being here.

Want to let everybody know, a reminder, their links, both Eli and Negation of Thieves are down in the description.

So if you enjoyed hearing what they had to say, you can hear more at those links. And I want to say thanks again, gentlemen, for being here.

It's been a pleasure. And one thing I wanted to say is forgive me anybody out there who was like,

Oh, my question didn't get asked. So sorry. We had a lot of questions tonight. Can I just mention something?

If I, I just, if people are interested in my perspective, I just released a podcast.

You could download it on iTunes and other, it's called Revealed Apologetics. And basically I just go through the methodology.

I've only released one episode right now. I'm going to try to release episodes weekly and things like that. So if they're interested in how

I answer certain questions, they could actually email me at revealedapologeticsatgmail .com. And if they ask questions through email,

I could try my best to answer those questions in one of my segments on the podcast. So just throwing that out there. Awesome.

Just putting that in the description now. And once again, thank you guys so much for being here.

It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having us, man. It's always fun. Thank you so much. And thank you, Ned. Appreciate it.