Provoked - Debate with Atheist

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For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you, and for all those at Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is

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Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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What's up, everybody? Welcome to another podcast provoked. We are so thankful that you're here on this wonderful Wednesday that God has given us, and my red -headed sister is not able to be here today, which

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I'm kind of bummed, so I'm hoping the show doesn't suck. She kind of adds a spice and a flavor to it.

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But sitting to my left is Mark Oje, and we're going to be having a conversation with him. We'll talk to him in just a second.

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And to my right is Sarah Chouinard, and I'm going to introduce you a little bit better in a few moments. So if you just tuned in to Provoked, you don't know what the heck or who the heck we are.

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We are part of Apologia Studios and a part of Apologia Church. Really, the purpose of the show is to preach the gospel.

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That's what Jesus has called all Christians to do, therefore go into all the earth and proclaim the gospel.

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That's Mark chapter 16, verse 15. So that's our heart. That is the primary mission,

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I think, of the Christian church, right, is to go into everywhere and proclaim the good news of salvation in Jesus.

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And also, we want to rescue little babies who are headed to death at abortion mills. Desi, I don't know if you saw that video.

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A couple of days ago, I got a call and a mom was just reaching out to us for help. And my sister was able to call her and give her some counsel and love.

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And she's deciding to keep her baby. So we're super happy about that. And thirdly, we want to defend the faith and help equip our brothers and sisters to do the same.

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Scriptures say that we are to have an answer to those who ask. And we're supposed to go out into the world with the gospel and with the truth on our lips, with the spirit of gentleness and love for those that we want to reach.

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So that's what we're trying to kind of encapsulate as far as our mission here. Preach the gospel, rescue babies, and defend the faith.

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What are we doing or where are we going? Just so you know, kind of we're going as a podcast. I kind of like to know what I'm listening to and what they're planning on doing.

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But we want to really focus on debates. It's I think through the debate format that you really learn.

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I love learning audiographically and I learn so much just by listening to different topics and different people debating.

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Maybe a little bit different style for us is we don't want to, I was just talking to Sarah about this, we don't want to get into just this proud kind of debate format to where it becomes just semantics or just a name game or name calling or wordplay.

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It's actually, you know, honoring those that we're speaking to, valuing them and really explaining what it is we're doing and all the ins and outs, a very explanatory kind of debate format.

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So we're going to be debating some professing atheists, some pro -choicers, flat earthers. We've gotten a ton of message from the flat earthers about debating.

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Yeah. And so for all those, I've got a message like, when are we going to debate? When are we going to debate?

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We're really preparing myself to deal well with argumentation. So I don't know if you go on YouTube and just type in like flat earth.

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These videos get like millions of views, millions and millions. There's a guy out there and he's a science guy and he has started debating flat earth.

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Actually he did it about a year and a half ago and his videos got maybe 4 ,000, 5 ,000 per video. And when he started doing flat earth, it just like rocketed up to like 10 million, 1 million, 5 million.

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So there's a massive interest out there. And I think a question that we also get is why debate flat earthers when we know that the earth is irrefutably round, spherical.

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And I got that too, because a lot of people say, well, if you're debating a flat earth, you're almost giving a legitimacy to the theory, which

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I don't necessarily believe in that. I can kind of get that argumentation, but from a Christian perspective, most flat earthers that I've seen out there base their belief in a flat earth on the

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Bible. So they say, what you'd do is you'll present to them, I've done it before, you'll present to them like a mountain of scientific evidence out there that shows that the earth is irrefutably spherical and they'll completely not acknowledge the scientific evidence and say, the

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Bible says that it's flat, therefore it is. And so what you're doing is you're using the

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Bible to teach a lie. If you're using the Bible to teach a lie, then the

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Bible cannot be trusted. And so the Christian, his primary and her primary mission is to proclaim the gospel.

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And so if you're on like a Facebook, your Facebook feed, and you're saying, Jesus is the only way to God, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and you're elucidating the gospel.

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And then in the next, you say the earth is flat. Why would anybody believe in your proclamation of the gospel, which is firmly rooted in scripture, when you're trying to tell everybody the earth is flat?

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It doesn't add up. Go ahead. And we should be defending the Bible. When somebody's lying about what the Bible says, we should be defending that.

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That's part of our job as Christians, right? Oh, exactly. Yeah. That's our job. That's our duty. But when you say, hey, look at the scientific evidence, because all truth comports with reality, right?

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The flat earth does not comport with reality, therefore the flat earth is not true. But when you're saying, hey, the

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Bible says this, the Bible proves the earth is flat, then you're using the Bible to prove that which is a lie, and the

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Bible can't be trusted. So that, if you're hearing us, that's kind of our launching pad when we debate the flat earth, is we're going to look at the scientific evidence, which

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I think is fascinating and just out there for you to look at, but also get into the scriptures that people supposedly use to prove that the earth is flat.

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So what are we doing on this episode? We are going to talk with our friend, Mark Auger, and I pronounced your name, right?

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Yes, sir. Finally. And I appreciate you being here. I appreciate just your attitude and your willingness to be on and just your friendliness.

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I really dig it. I appreciate you, man. And then to my right is Sarah Shenard, and she's a member of Apology of Church.

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You used to be a lawyer, not now. Yeah, I'm licensed, but I don't really practice ever, so. Yeah, a lot of work, you said, not so much money.

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Yeah, yeah, because there's so many lawyers out there that you don't have to pay them very much. Yeah. Awesome.

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Well, I'm glad you're here, and the purpose that you're here is because you want to defend the faith, and like me, you want to continue to learn how to defend the faith, and you have to defend the faith to kind of know how to defend the faith.

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Right, right. You got to practice, get better. Exactly. And so we are Presuppositional Apologetics, which

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I'm going to explain in just a moment, but if you go on YouTube, there's not a lot of women engaging presuppositionally with atheists and whoever.

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Right. There's actually not a lot of presuppopologists at all, and definitely not a lot of women. Yeah, I don't even think there's any women.

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Yeah, probably. So I can't think of any, and maybe you guys, you can post a link in the comments below this video if there is, but it's kind of cool that you might be the woman kind of spearheading this public exposure of women who are biblically defending their faith presuppositionally.

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I think it's kind of exciting. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so I'm glad that you're here, and so what we're going to do is we're just get into it.

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I'm going to let Mark tell us a little bit about him and what he's doing, and then we'll go from there. Well, I mean,

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I appreciate you guys obviously having me, and obviously going through spirited debates.

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So I definitely thoroughly enjoy them, obviously, from a science standpoint, from an evidentiary standpoint, but also from a subjective standpoint based on interpretation or based on our own cultural upbringings.

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But yeah, I mean, as far as I'm concerned, I'm in events and entertainment, a bunch of different other industries.

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Retired Marine, been out for seven. What was your MOS, your job position again?

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So 0311, and then 6046. So I was a rifleman, so basic rifleman, aka a grunt.

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So you were infantry. Oh wow, I didn't know that. Yeah, so I was a grunt. Bullet catcher. Yep, yep, sender and receiver.

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But did that until I got injured, and then forcibly lat moved, transferred over to the air wing, and then

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I basically became a desk jockey, technical publications librarian through maintenance admin. My job was essentially to handle all the technical manuals that dealt with specific aircraft, eventually getting to the point where I was not just handling like a squadron, but I was also assisting like an entire base after I did the squadron.

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And I mean, I could bend your guys' ear off with ridiculous amounts of stories when it comes to -

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Maybe another time. Yeah, when it comes to the military career. But that's also another reason as to like why

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I have the beliefs that I have is because of what

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I have seen in or done in the military. Plus obviously like my upbringing and just my experiences in general.

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Cool. Awesome. Okay. So kind of our plan here, jumping or segwaying into our discussion is that when we defend our faith as Christians, it's important.

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If we're not presenting the gospel in the midst of defending our faith, we are really failing.

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We're not here, like Ed said before, just to win an argument or to somehow boast in our intellect, our ability to defend the faith, our ability to win some type argument, put somebody in their place.

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I think we see a lot of that. I just really don't think that's the humble approach because when we're dealing with somebody from the

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Christian worldview or Christian perspective, we're dealing with somebody created in the image of God. We believe Mark is created in the image of God and we value him.

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We believe he has dignity and worth and we are concerned about his eternal destination. So it's dealing with somebody in such a loving way that you have this motive that they would come to Christ.

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Of course, we can't make that happen. We can provide proof, I think, but we can't provide persuasion.

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I guess we can do our best, but ultimately it's the work of God through the gospel and through the truth and how

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Marky respond to that and whoever else. So all we do is try to do it with, I guess, feet of clay in our own brokenness and finiteness and we try to do it well and we try to honor

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Christ. But that's where we're coming from. We want to treat you with dignity and we're not just here to win our argument.

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So what I failed to do last time we spoke is I failed to really define,

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I think, adequately our base argument and how we differ kind of from different Christians in the field of apologetics.

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So what I want to do, and I kind of wrote it down so I'm getting old and I forget everything. Some guys could just stand up and just remember it all, but I wanted to just do a good job and so you can know exactly where we're coming from in our argumentation and then we'll just go from there.

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We'll see what you think about it and then we can let that conversation just kind of organically move around where it's going to move around.

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Awesome. I'll just add, sometimes when people practice precept apologetics, it looks like it's like a word game and we're just sort of tricking the unbeliever.

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So Zach and I talked about how if we could just tell you what we're going to do before we do it, we don't want to look like we're doing that, we want to be completely transparent about what we're doing.

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We don't want it to look like we're trying to sort of trick you. I think

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I'm pretty solid and I mean obviously last time when we came over and had our discussion and debate,

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I thought it was fantastic, it was great, it didn't feel like an argument. There's a fight to the death.

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Well yeah, and I think we can argue. Here's the thing is, you know, with the balance of that, it's okay when you can argue.

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Oh for sure. You argue and you have, like you said, a spirited debate and you get passionate about what you're about, that's completely fine.

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I guess behind it is the motive of the Christian. Is your motive really to bring knowledge to light and really lovingly answer and be able to respond to argumentation or are you just there to promote yourself?

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I just don't think that's part and parcel with the example of Christ, especially when...

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I can't think of his name. I must decrease but he must increase.

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John the Baptist. Ouch, don't let anybody know I forgot his name. I'm going to get fired from my pastoral job.

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So what did he say? He said, I must decrease, Jesus must increase.

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That's the humility of the believer in really handling God's Word and apologetics.

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So if you can condense it down to just one statement which I'm going to unpack, the proof that God exists is that if the

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God of the Bible doesn't exist, we couldn't prove anything. So as I'm going through this, you can chime on in and add to this explanation if you want and then when

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I get to the end, I'll hand it over to you. Okay. Sounds good. So number one in this explanation is we aren't classical or evidential apologists.

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So what does that mean? We don't simply present evidence to the unbeliever and place them in the judge's seat.

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People kind of look at that and they're just waiting in their interaction with a Christian just to hear where's the evidence so that I can believe, but we don't do that.

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And so we believe evidence is ample for the existence of God.

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I'm just going to give you a couple examples here. Information theory, I think, is some irrefutable evidence for God's existence and that is kind of summed up and information always, always, always requires a mind to produce that information.

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And so you must have a mind before anything was created, a mind really transcendent from natural creation.

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DNA, the information encoded in the first cell, must have had the information prior to its formation.

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So again, the source of information, even in the DNA, has to have a transcendent because it cannot have a naturalistic explanation.

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And of course you can respond to that too if you want later on down the road. So there's information theory, there's the irreducible complexity of like biomechanical machines.

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So within the cell, in order for a cell to have any type of functionality or stay alive, within that biomechanical machine is independent molecular machines that must have been created at once because they depend on each other for survival.

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So there is, we believe, good evidence out there, but we don't start with evidence with the hope that the unbeliever will be persuaded and through the power of reason and persuasion believe in God.

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We don't do that. So we are presuppositional apologists and we start with God as the only necessary foundation to believe or even to know anything.

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That is probably a good definition of presuppositional apologetics. We don't present evidence to the unbeliever so he can believe in that evidence and because of his belief in evidence, believe in God.

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No, we start on the foundation of God has to be the necessary starting point. You don't work through evidence to get to God.

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God has to be the standing point that you stand on. So why don't we just lay out evidence to the unbeliever?

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Number one, unbelievers will not accept the evidence. And this has to do according, because we're standing on the foundation of God's word, we go to it for our answers, right?

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For our truth. As we seek truth, we go to God's word. And so this non -acceptance of the evidence presented to the unbeliever, it has to do with the condition of the soul and the natural bent for people to reject

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God. That's all throughout the scriptures. It says our hearts have enmity with God, that we don't seek after God.

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Somebody once said this, the unbeliever wanting to find or seek after God is kind of like the criminal wanting to find a cop.

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So when we're dealing with evidences, we're dealing with worldviews. And our worldviews are really our foundational presuppositions.

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They determine how we interpret the evidence that's presented to us. So an atheist and a creationist or an atheist and a

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Christian, they'll look at the same evidence provided to them and they'll come up with two very different conclusions.

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And you know that, because I know you argue with, lovingly argue with Deandre, which I appreciate. And so you guys are looking at two different things, whether it be scriptural testimony or whatever, and you're coming up with two different conclusions.

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So the atheist, will look at maybe like a fossil and they'll say, well, this came during a long process of random chance mutation.

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And it gives evidence that evolution is true. And therefore we really don't need God. We've explained it through the process of Darwinian evolution.

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He'll look at that fossil. And then the Christian and their creationists will look at that same fossil, the same thing, same piece of evidence presented to them.

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And they'll say, oh, this is just evidence that God exists. How could this come from nothing?

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Things like this, you know, this is the, an example of the, you know, the creatorship of God.

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This is a unique fossilized organism. Or, you know, they'll get into maybe not only the study of origins when looking at fossils, but we'll get into like the divine inspiration of the scriptures, something like this.

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Christian will say, look at the Bible and they say, this is obviously inspired by, by God. I remember

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I didn't grow up in a Christian home whatsoever. I didn't have any type of Christian influence whatsoever. Somebody preached the gospel and all of a sudden

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I just believed. And I knew from that moment, this is God's word. But the atheist will look at the, the same

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Bible and say, I don't see any proof. This is not adequate proof that this is inspired by God.

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This is just kind of bronze age thoughts of some goat herders back then. So what we're dealing with in this explanation of our apologetic method is we're bringing, we're dealing with the fact that both parties are bringing their worldviews.

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They're bringing that you bring your worldview to bear upon the evidence, which determines what they believe about that evidence.

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So when we debate, we're really essentially debating worldviews. And just a definition here is not my definitions.

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It's Dr. Bonson's definition, but he says a worldview is a network of presuppositions untested by natural science.

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And in light of which all experience or evidence is interpreted. I'll say it one more time. A worldview is a network of presuppositions untested by natural science.

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And in light of which all experience or evidence is interpreted. So our worldview consists of our presuppositions and our presuppositions.

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And I know I'm throwing around philosophical jargon. That's why I kind of wanted to explain it, you know, because when

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I first heard this, I was like, I gotta get a dictionary. And you're like, what? Yeah, exactly.

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What's a worldview? What's a presupposition? We don't normally use this just in everyday lingo, you know? So a presupposition is something that is assumed in advance or taken for granted.

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So we assume these things, these things that we assume, and then those are what construct our worldview.

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Then we bring this worldview to bear upon how we come to intelligible conclusions about whatever.

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You know what I found interesting, Mark, when you were giving your introduction, you said, you basically said, that's how I get my worldview.

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You know, this is my military experience, that plus being raised the way I was, that's why

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I believe what I believe. Correct. You might as well have been saying, that's where I got my worldview. It is.

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It's 100%. It's like, at the end of the day, we are a product of what influences our life.

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So there are plenty of people in the world who will never know the word of God, never understand religion or any sort of belief or faith -based system, simply because they have not been exposed to that influence.

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Now, that then poses the question, all right, well, does God or does faith or that belief -based system, does that even exist?

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Well, to that person, it's almost like ignorance to it. And it's not saying that ignorance is an excuse for it, but ignorance is bliss in that regard.

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So now you have the ability to choose consciously right and wrong. And I feel like that's where belief -based structures, again, come into play.

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It's our interpretation of what we're reading, what we're influenced to, and what we're exposed to will, again, build us as who we are.

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Like me, I was raised in a non -denominational Christian household by a

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Catholic father and a Christian mother. And after being raised in that, we're talking every single

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Sunday, every single Wednesday, we're talking Bible study classes, like everything that you could possibly get to.

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And until I was of a certain age and certain things in life happened that influenced my life, then kept on moving and moving and moving and being experienced to, again, multiple cultures, multiple religions, multiple beliefs.

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And then you had to start essentially building your own conclusions to support the,

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I guess, everyone's rhetoric. And it's like, well, this person's wrong, this person's right. And it's like, we start then building our own interpretation of what is right and wrong.

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Okay, cool. Yeah, actually, that's a good place to connect because I want to finish this, not to interrupt you or anything, but I think you said a good thing, is you challenge their worldview.

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And that's exactly what presuppositional politics is, is you challenge your worldview to see if it can hold up under its own, really, what it proclaims inside of the worldview.

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Do these things actually hold up to reality? Truth, one of the best definitions of truth, if you would accept it, is truth is that which comports with reality.

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That's why flat earth can't be flat earth, because it does not comport with reality. You're not a flat earther, are you?

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No. Okay. I've talked a lot about it, but I'm not asking that question.

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I've been around the world, and I've been north and south and east and west, and I've done it a few times, so I'm fully understanding that we're on a ball.

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We're on a ball. Again, it's just the challenging of the worldview to see if it comports with reality, if it's true or not.

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So I was talking about presupposition, something is assumed in advance or taken for granted. So we make presuppositions every single day, don't we?

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So we pick up a book, and we presuppose it was written by an author. We really don't think about it.

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This book could not have arranged itself. It must have had an author. So we turn on our cars without fear.

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It depends upon what kind. I had a 1976 Firebird, so sometimes I would turn it on. I don't know if it would start up.

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But typically, when we go and put the key in, we don't even think it's not going to start. We're actually surprised if it doesn't start.

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So we're assuming, we're presupposing that the laws of physics, which the internal combustion engine is really built based upon, is going to work today the same as it worked yesterday.

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And that's something called the uniformity of nature or the principle of induction. So we assume these things.

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We take these things for granted. And so when we say things like that's not logical or that's not rational, we're presupposing the laws of logic that exist.

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And the laws of logic are epistemological necessities for us to come to any type of conclusion, to know anything.

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So when we say, well, science says the earth is spherical, we're presupposing induction or the uniformity of nature that the universe operates in a consistent law -like fashion.

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When we say that's not fair, that's not evil, that's good, you should be doing this, you shouldn't be doing that, then we're really presupposing an objective standard of morality.

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We're presupposing that an absolute, when people throw the word absolute around, it means it applies to everyone everywhere at any time, regardless of the person, regardless of location, regardless of their place in history.

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When it's absolute, it applies to everybody. So as when you say those things, we're giving evidence that these foundational presuppositions exist, and they must exist for us to come to moral conclusions, rational conclusions, scientific conclusions, really for us to prove anything to be true within the field of morality, ethics, or science.

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So if we're to know anything, again, they got to exist. If the laws of logic didn't exist, then we could not come into any rational conclusion if they didn't, right?

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Because if they didn't exist, I could be here and I could be there. So one of the laws of logic is the law of identity.

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A must be A. So I'm Zach, and I can't be Zach and not Zach at the same time, or the law of non -contradiction.

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We're here in the studio, we can't be here and not here at the same time. So if those things did not exist, how could we come to any type of rationality whatsoever?

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If an objective standard of morality doesn't exist, then we could not say things like that was evil, or that was good, that was wrong.

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We couldn't even have any form of law that we could be accountable to if the laws of logic were really not objective, or sorry, the laws of morality were not objective.

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Because the guy would just say, well, I have my own set of morals. So what

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I'm saying is within our universe, the way that we live, the way that live our lives, it goes to show that these things actually exist.

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If the universe didn't operate in a uniform law -like fashion, assuming that the future is going to be like today, or the future is going to be like the past, or the laws of science, the laws of gravity, the laws of physics, if they didn't perform in a law -like fashion, then we couldn't come to any scientific conclusions.

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We couldn't do things in labs. We couldn't even go through the scientific process to come to these conclusions.

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So our contention, kind of to wrap this up, and I'm sorry for going so long, is that the

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God of the Bible is the only explanation that provides us with a rational explanation that accounts for the complete conditions of intelligibilities, that actually accounts for the laws of logic, morality, and uniformity of nature, that those things find their source within God himself and his self -revelation.

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So what we do is we take, whether it be a Christian worldview, an atheistic worldview, an agnostic worldview, and if it doesn't recognize

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God as creator, then it fails to provide a logical rationale or explanation for these things.

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So if it fails to do that, then it fails to be true because it can't comport with what's real, can't comport with reality.

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Whereas a Christian worldview can account for these conclusions and these realities, and thus providing a foundation to come to intelligible conclusions.

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So when we say, when an atheist appeals to logic or ethics or science, what they are doing is they're stepping off the base, the foundation of the worldview, and they're stepping on the

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Christian's worldview. They're actually borrowing from us things that we can account for in our explanation of epistemological realities and our explanation of reality itself.

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And so when an atheist says something that's not rational, or this is wrong, or this is,

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I came to a scientific conclusion, they're proving that God does in fact exist.

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And if you deny that, we couldn't prove anything. So if I need to explain that a little better,

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I'm just going to let you kind of process a little bit, but I don't know how good of a job I did in that. But that is the base argument, that we know that the

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God of the Bible exists because we could not, again, come to any rational conclusions if he is not the necessary answer to those questions.

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Where do the laws of logic come from? Why do we have morality? How could we ever expect the future to be like the past and for there to be any uniformity or any laws in just a random chance universe?

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So we would say it's because of God. What do you think? Let me just add something really quick. So basically when we're practicing precept, what we're doing is saying, okay, this is the

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Christian worldview. This is the non -believers or the unbelievers worldview. That's going to look different for different people. So our worldview and your particular worldview, we're just comparing them.

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So which one makes better sense of the world? Which one's more consistent? Which one helps us understand the world we have today?

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So that's basically what we're doing when we're practicing is comparing. Maybe that's a more simple way of putting it. It's which worldview makes sense, which makes sense.

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And then I think maybe a rebuttal will be, well, you guys believe the guy rose from the dead. You guys believe an ax head floated on water.

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You guys believe that a virgin gave birth to a baby without having sexual intercourse with a physical male.

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So I can understand where you say, well, testing yours, it doesn't seem as though these things can happen, but our, that's why our necessary starting point is an omnipotent, all powerful, omnipresent, um, unknown, eternal

29:48

God. No, we would say known through the scriptures and through the person of Jesus Christ.

29:54

Yeah. So, uh, an unknown is known through unknowns.

30:01

We would say, no, you couldn't know anything without God. So again, an unknown would be known through unknowns.

30:09

Help me understand what you mean. Yeah. Just let us know what you mean. So if the only way to justify the only way we're looking, the only way to justify logic and everything is that God must be real, right?

30:20

So that would literally, that logically would state that God is an unknown variable that makes things known.

30:29

We're not sure there's no definitive behind God because God is the definitive.

30:35

If God is the definitive, so he makes everything known, right? He is, we don't necessarily know.

30:41

We have a generalized understanding, right? We follow scripture, things of that nature to better understand

30:46

God, but we don't fully understand it because there's no way to fully understand him.

30:52

There's no fully way to. Oh no. I mean, I would, I would just challenge that and say, I agree. There's no way to fully understand

30:59

God because in the scriptures, it says his thoughts are above ours. So his own self revelation in the, in the scriptures tell us that he cannot be fully comprehended, but he can be comprehended.

31:10

So it can be, but he, again, that, that would then, that would then logically place him as, cause again, we can't fully understand.

31:17

Okay. So therefore he is unknown. I would say not fully known. Correct. So therefore unknown.

31:23

No, I wouldn't say I would, I would disagree with that. You can know something. I mean, say we know about the laws of physics.

31:29

Well, we don't fully know about the laws of physics. We know about, uh, we know some of it. We know some of it.

31:35

So he can be known to the extent that he's revealed himself and he has revealed himself in such a way that we can know that he exists.

31:44

And so that's through creation. That's through the life of Christ. And that's through our conscience, right?

31:50

Giving us this moral code that we really can't get away from, but go ahead. I don't want to steer us away.

31:56

Don't worry. That's why I love this. Uh, I guess from, from my standpoint on it is, is again, it just confirms ultimately that God is like, he is like people know of God.

32:11

They don't know God. They know God as far as their interpretation and their belief structure allows them to.

32:17

And that again, comes through, uh, influence education and just furthering morality, depending upon what each person's culture allows them to be exposed to.

32:28

Again, if you're not exposed to it, then how do you know God? And again, it's in that regard, it would technically be through theory.

32:37

You want to answer that? Well, I was just going to say, so scripture tells us that everybody knows God, but atheists or unbelievers are suppressing that truth and unrighteousness.

32:46

Is that what you were going to say? Oh yeah, that's the way I was going to just kind of question him about epistemology about, cause he's talking about knowing, you know, you're making claims about our inability to know

32:56

God fully. And then somehow because of that, he's unknown. He's not known, but she's right.

33:02

I mean, and this has to go back to kind of the evidence from a Christian view is that we can give these things to you.

33:08

And we believe that they are, it's, it is an irrefutable proof, but from the atheistic mind, it's, it's really what sin has done to the mind.

33:16

We don't come to that conclusion on our own. We reject it. Um, but you know,

33:22

I mean, this as a personal attack, when we do abandon God as our necessary foundation for knowing anything, what we'll do is we'll always get into the realm of absurdity.

33:34

So let me explain. So I'm going to just ask you a question. Let's just let you talk. When you're talking about knowing, you've talked a lot about, no,

33:42

I know this, or these people only know this because they were influenced by a certain religious influence.

33:49

So they can only know because of their parents taught, you know, that Allah was God or whatever it may be.

33:55

So, but my question for you is how do you know anything? How can we know anything? I mean, what is your epistemological foundation?

34:02

Yeah. There isn't like, again, it all comes on a basis of influence. There is no way to, there's no way to, to, to justify it because just as we're all saying, there's no actual evidence to support that.

34:17

And then when you come into the aspect of, of not evidentiary, right. And people are just like, Oh, I have a belief because I have a belief.

34:24

Some people's logic can follow that suit. And that's just, that's totally fine. It's like looking at a colorblind person and they say that's gray versus blue, you know, it's like, but it's an actual color though, for sure.

34:37

But to them, that's what I'm saying is that exposure, that influence, what has provided them in life. Right.

34:43

So for us through our eyes, we see blue, right. Through theirs, they see gray.

34:49

Now it's to look at this and say, who's right and who's wrong. To us, we're looking at it and saying, duh, us like it's blue.

34:57

And he's looking at it and saying, well, duh, it's gray. Is one of them wrong? That's the fun part is like the truth to that is technically speaking from a logic standpoint, they're both right.

35:11

Now from, and what's really hard, what's really hard for people to grasp and accept is somebody else's view is somebody else's beliefs, somebody else's understanding of the world.

35:24

And it doesn't, it being, it being true that it's blue and gray at the same time violate the law of non -contradiction.

35:32

It's the law of identity. So that law of identity is based on who's law.

35:40

Yeah. So that's a question. So I think what you're saying is the law of logic. We would say that they would find their basis in God, that they are the way that God thinks he created us in his image.

35:50

For sure. God is immutable. He is immaterial and he is absolute. Therefore those laws of logical action are actually, you want some more?

35:58

Oh no. I just looked at it. I was like, I was like, yeah, we can, we can stop. It's okay. No worries. You're good. You're good. You're good.

36:03

Anyway. So the laws of logic are immutable. They don't change. They're universal.

36:09

They're immaterial. You can't go into the, you know, the cabinet and get a box of laws of logic.

36:15

So they're material. So we would say from our perspective that the laws of logic have their basis in God. He, he created us the way that they think, but you would say the laws of logic can change.

36:25

The laws of logic are a construct of man. I think that, so here, here's a question.

36:31

Could the universe existed and not existed before man was ever, had ever come upon the earth?

36:38

For sure. For sure. Okay. So that's where we would say if we deny,

36:44

I'm respecting you. If we deny that God exists, that's where you get into the realm of absurdity when it's, it would be an absurd notion to say the universe could exist and not existed.

36:57

Yeah. Mark can exist and not exist in same time. Mark can be sitting here and at the same time, be at the

37:04

Starbucks down the street. So that doesn't comport with reality. And so therefore it's not true. Right?

37:09

So here's reality. 8 billion people die tomorrow. Does man exist? No, he doesn't exist.

37:19

If we all died tomorrow, you see what I'm saying? So it's like internal combustion. Yeah. I'm just saying like, I'm just saying, right.

37:25

So do dinosaurs exist? You know, they did. So, so the question, so the question is, if man existed, it's like, all right, cool.

37:37

Before man existed, did man exist? No. Maybe in the mind of God.

37:43

Right. So that's what I'm getting at. It's a variable of, it's a variable of unknown that we justify with a known, right.

37:48

Based on unknowns, right. And that unknown is based upon multiple interpretations because perception is reality.

37:57

How we perceive life and our perceived belief, right. Is what creates our reality.

38:03

And thus inversely, that's what creates our morality. Because morals, again, are just different from one person to another, unless you place a law, an irrefutable law behind it.

38:14

Now, the real question that I always present to people is one, I personally don't care what somebody believes in.

38:21

What truthfully I come down to is, well, let me scratch that. I care if somebody believes in right and wrong.

38:28

However, right and wrong is again, privy to interpretation and morality based on life influences. So I could go and I could be sitting right here and we have a belief of what is right and wrong.

38:39

Like last time we talked and you were like, do you believe rape is bad? And I'm like, yes, I believe rape. Yes, I believe rape is bad.

38:45

Right. But I could go to somewhere else in the world and you could ask that same question to somebody else.

38:51

And perhaps their views are not the same. Now we would look at that in almost kind of like a disgust or in a moral standpoint, we'd be like, and, but again, different cultures, different influences.

39:04

And now we're going to have to get into the discussion of things that happened thousands of years ago without proper documentation up to tens of thousands of years ago without proper documentation, all the way up to millions of years ago, again, without documentation.

39:19

Maybe this puzzle will be, you said a lot of different things like the nature of the laws of logic and the nature of morality.

39:27

And then you're getting into the scriptural text right there, just reliability too. So maybe, because I know you wanted to kind of camp on morality a little bit.

39:35

Yeah, that's my favorite. So what we're in, correct me if I'm wrong, what

39:40

I'm hearing is that morality can really be open to one's interpretation. That one, that morality does not find itself in an, or coming from an absolute standard or source of standard for sure.

39:53

Right. So it's subjective. So when we're saying it's relativistic or it's subjective, what we're saying is

39:59

I really determine what is moral. From my perspective, I could determine what's good.

40:04

And I determined what's evil. I don't think it's an eye. I think it's a week because unfortunately we live in society.

40:12

Oh, sure. Okay. So society's a society's alteration of what is morally acceptable, depending upon what culture you're in.

40:21

Like a perfect example, right? If we follow scriptures, one of the commandments is thou shall not commit adultery. Right.

40:27

So like you remember years back, and we're talking only like a few decades ago when, when adultery was like a punishable offense, you know, and nowadays it's still a universal code of military justice.

40:39

I think it is a correct, but now look at, look at just in general, like say you're not in the military, you know, right.

40:48

Say you're just normal Joe Schmo and you're married and you have an affair. Like now it's no longer a punishable offense and depending upon where you are and like what's going on in your lifestyle.

40:57

But that has thus far changed. Now, is it still a commandment? For sure. Right. Is it still a commandment? Same thing is thou shalt not steal.

41:05

You know? So you're saying it's up to the society to determine morality for that society. I think that's it.

41:11

Yeah. Society determines that and, and based on an initial foundation, like an initial law, right.

41:18

It creates an understanding of morality, which again is kind of almost objectified depending upon, on interpretation, because in some cases, like thou shalt not murder.

41:29

Well, in what case is it all right for you to take somebody's life? Is it self -defense?

41:36

Is that still not murder? Like what's the justification to it? And then that's when we come down to the logic standpoint of what is what.

41:43

So the physics thing that you were talking about real quick, did you just jump back? The physics thing. The number one is the number one because somebody dictated that that was what we were going to call it.

41:54

They dictated that word. So they identified oneness and called it one. Correct. And they identified two as two and so on and so forth.

42:02

Some different language. Correct. And therefore that is why the word God, the name

42:08

God, that is why that exists because we, we have utilized that word.

42:14

We have now come as a society for, for now thousands and thousands of years as God is, is, is that, and that is for multiple religions.

42:25

Yeah. So I want to come back to that because I think you're really onto something, but like I said, I really like morality.

42:31

So can we go back to that? I love it. I love it. So go to another place in the world where child rape is okay, according to society.

42:40

So is it okay to rape children at that point in that place? In that culture, in that society, that's what their culture and society dictates.

42:47

So it's okay. According to them. I mean, we're here and we have our own beliefs. Yeah. So go ahead.

42:54

You looking at them, is it okay that they're doing it? So you here with your moral system, you're looking, watching the news, whatever, looking at them saying, we're totally fine with raping children.

43:05

Is it okay? You saying it's okay for them to rape children because they're all okay with it.

43:12

Again, that's my belief is no, but that doesn't mean that it is.

43:18

And that's the unfortunate part. That's truly the unfortunate part is, is people have this sort of justification for things going down.

43:26

Like, do I believe that that child rape is bad? Of course, every single day, of course.

43:31

But, but again, that's my belief. That's my belief. We are not under universal morality.

43:38

Yeah. So we don't, we don't have that. What we're getting to is we do. Our claim is we do have this universal morality that all of us at all times believe that it's wrong to sexually violate a woman or a man or a child.

43:52

And so we would say, regardless of whatever society out there, whatever their, their moral code was, we would say that was wrong and we would go to them and try to rescue.

44:04

So mid 20th century, Germany, Hitler was killing all sorts of people. He killed like 20 million

44:10

Russians as well as Jews and homosexuals and mentally impaired. And so what do we do? We sent allied forces in.

44:16

But my question is when we hit the beaches of Normandy, what, couldn't they say, hey, you know what? You guys have your standard of morality.

44:23

I, we have our standard of morality that we created. And why didn't we just say, you know what? I mean, if morality is really based upon subjectivity and, you know, individual interpretation, why did we go forward and actually stop them from doing what they were doing?

44:40

Because they attacked us. Because, because, because them and their allies attacked us, like we weren't in the war until, until, until Pearl Harbor.

44:52

But we were like, now we don't care. I get that. Japan started the war and I understand that. And then we came in and we're like, all right, we're going to, we're going to push you guys because they attacked us.

45:01

I totally get that. But what I'm, what I'm getting at is that if morality is based upon the consensus of a particular people group and a geographical location, why didn't we just turn around?

45:12

Why did we do have anything to do with escaping them or trying to set them free?

45:17

Is that what we should be doing or should we be going and trying to set them free? Do we have a right to go set them free?

45:22

No, not even. Okay. Now you're trying to play God. And that, don't get me wrong.

45:29

And don't get me wrong. Like I understand that that's what like the definition of Christian is, is being Christ -like and therefore in the aspect of saving.

45:35

But ultimately when it boils down to it, now you're talking about forcing somebody's hand versus preaching the gospel and bringing somebody to light.

45:45

You're no longer bringing somebody to light. You're trying to force them to light and therefore by forcing to stop them. Okay. Well, that's a category area because we're talking about rescuing people from physical harm here.

45:55

And so we would say, is it okay for us to even walk out of the studio? And if we see a guy beating on a woman, is it okay for us to go stop him?

46:03

Should we do that? Would the, is it an evil thing for him to beat on the woman and should it necessitate our intervention?

46:08

Or should we say, no, we shouldn't force his hand. That's his moral code. The guy can, I mean, it originates from himself.

46:15

Just let him do what he's going to do. I mean, so what I'm getting at is what comports with reality is we don't live like morality of subjective.

46:24

We don't do it. Or we would open up the prisons. We would open up, we would have no system of jurisprudence.

46:31

So we do. We do. We open up the prisons and we do live in subjective morality and we do allow things to slide and maneuver forward.

46:39

And it happens every single day. Even in our culture, we could literally see somebody getting beaten down.

46:45

And what do we see on YouTube, on TikTok, whatever the forces may be, somebody just holding a camera.

46:50

Right. And we think that's wrong. Yeah. And so in that regard, right, you're now we're talking about universal morality, where right now we're more, we are more as a society.

47:00

And this is, again, this is our society as it stands right now. Our society years ago obviously was different. And then therefore thousands of years ago, again, was completely different.

47:07

But we as a society, we look at morality and we're like, Hey, stop it. Versus some people are like, yeah, that guy deserves to get his butt whipped.

47:16

And it's. Oh, sure. I think what that is. Subjective interpretation. It's what sin has done in the mind of the person to, because man,

47:23

Jesus called man evil. And what he's talking about, he's talking about the, what sin has done to our faculties, to our mind, to our reasoning powers, but getting back to morality or what is ethical or not.

47:37

Say a guy owes you a thousand bucks, right? 2 ,000 bucks. And, um, he comes to you and he says, you know what?

47:44

I think the right thing to do would only be to give you $3. Sorry. I'm looking at him in the camera.

47:49

He owes me money. I see you watching this right now. Okay. So you're a, this guy's owes you 3000 bucks.

47:56

You, you, you helped him in a time of need. For sure. You didn't even have that much money. You helped him. It was at great cost to you.

48:01

And it's time for him to pay you. He comes, he walks to the door. He says, Mark, you know what, to me, I think the right thing to do would be to give you $3 instead of 3000.

48:11

What would you say? Cool. Thanks. You would. You just let the rest go.

48:18

Oh, you, you, you mistake that giving means receiving. If you're somebody who's going to be giving, you have a, you're giving without the expectation of receiving.

48:26

You loaned him the money. No, it doesn't matter. Well, I think it does in that transaction.

48:31

No, my, my mother, one thing that she did teach me when we were, when we were in church, right.

48:38

In the aspect of tithing, right. I was seven, eight, when she taught me this is that she was like,

48:46

I don't give 10%, right. With the expectation that, that I'm, I'm getting anything back.

48:53

I don't do that. I give 10 % because I have it within me to give 10%.

49:00

And giving 10 % of me, right. Is something that I myself find wholesome and loving and caring.

49:09

It's something of my being, right. That, that provides me what I need, right. And this is something, this is the reason why real talk.

49:18

This is the reason why I help people. My CPA absolutely cannot stand me.

49:23

Love her to death. Can't stand me. They actually did my taxes. I actually gave right through like loans and giving and helping and so on.

49:30

I gave over $90 ,000 last year. Yeah. And when we look back then and I was like, I really did.

49:38

And it was just, it was, it was one of those like jaw, jaw on the floor. But then I looked back and I was like, oh man,

49:43

I could go back to all these people and be like, give me, give me, give me. And I could hunt it down and all this other nonsense.

49:49

But is that going to be healthy for my mind, my stress, my anxiety? Is that going to be healthy for me as a person inside of like the world?

49:56

Right. Okay. I want to provide and give to others, right. Without an expectation of receiving, because I do believe that people need help.

50:06

People need savings sometimes. And if I have it within me to be that, to help others,

50:12

I'm going to try my best. Will I fail? Almost 99 .9 % of the time.

50:17

Okay. I will. Let me take us back just a little bit, because we went back through something what Pastor Zach said kind of quickly.

50:25

We go out, finish the podcast, go out into the parking lot and there's a man beating a woman. Now we were talking about, should we go into other countries and save people?

50:36

And you said we would be playing God if we did that. Would we be playing God if we saved the woman in the parking lot?

50:42

Yeah. So we shouldn't do it. It's again, your own morality. Like for an example, right?

50:50

Let's just throw this out. And again, it's privy to interpretation. It's privy to influence. And obviously it's privy to the perception, right?

50:57

Say that woman had a gun and we didn't know, right? And all we see is him beating her butt, but she's got a gun and we don't even know it.

51:06

And so we go to like swamp him, right? And she's the one who's got the gun. Well, we could say hypothetically, we know she doesn't because we can do whatever we want with exactly.

51:16

And that's my point. This is a victim being just assaulted by an oppressor, right?

51:22

So we have a victim based on what we understand and know to be a victim, right?

51:27

And then we, again, are privy to our own interpretation and our morality and our own judgment right now, me personally, right?

51:34

Versus me morality, right? But like me personally, would I go up and stop something? Oh, being a

51:39

Marine and being raised the way that I was raised in my influences, I'd go up and I would interject.

51:45

Of course. What if Zach was the only man there and he didn't? Again, we're preaching morality.

51:51

Okay. Right. But you're okay with that because it's his morality. He just chose not to. I'm not there.

51:57

It's going to be between himself and his own morality, his own feelings and his own interpretation of what is right versus wrong.

52:03

So what I'm confused about though, is that you are complaining about our society and how we watch videos on YouTube and people are just holding the camera.

52:10

So you seem to be upset with them, but you are okay with Zach not doing anything in the parking lot because it was his own morality.

52:17

I'm saying if we're going to preach, right? If we're going to preach acting like God, right? Versus the viewership of it.

52:24

Like, it's not looking at those people holding the camera and saying, hey, like you guys are bad. Don't get me wrong.

52:29

Like when you go look on YouTube and you see the comment sections, they're like, you guys are just watching this unfold. Like you let that person die.

52:36

That's when we have this preordained judgment against people who didn't take action.

52:43

I think it's in that evidence that somebody says, hey, you should have done something. This guy was being beat.

52:50

You should have ethically, the right thing would have been to interpose, to interject yourself.

52:56

And so when they say that, they appeal to an objective standard of morality that they assume they presuppose that people know inherently.

53:07

And so that's where we, our contention is, is when we say, hey, that's wrong, or that's evil, or I wouldn't, I wouldn't rape a kid or I wouldn't rape a child.

53:15

And we all sort of like, yeah, you know what? And so from a random chance universe, so we would just find no accounting.

53:22

You know, why not, you know, to my advantage is just an involved animal. I mean, why not do this to a woman?

53:28

I mean, why not cheat? Why not lie? I mean, why are all these should have, you should do this.

53:33

This is wrong. This is morally binding on you to do. So I think from a Darwinian evolutionary understanding of things, just chance processes, mutations, we're just evolved animals.

53:45

I don't get where morality would even spring forth. That's where we're saying in our world that we live in, we do.

53:51

I mean, so here's a question I had for you. You know, a guy stands before a judge and he breaks all sorts of laws.

53:56

And the judge says, Hey, here's your penalty. And the guy's like, Hey, you know what? That might be unethical for you.

54:01

But for me, I think it's completely ethical. We don't see the judge just throw up his hands and say, you know what?

54:07

You're right. I mean, really morality comes from our own subjective experiences and from our own personal interpretation.

54:13

So defendant you're free. We say, no, it doesn't really matter which you believe is moral. You may have believed it was okay for you to put cigarette butts out on this kid's head, but you're going to pay for it because that's the world we live in.

54:27

He is, that law is based upon an objective standard morality, or if not, why would we even have any jails or any law or anything like that?

54:34

You know, but again, based on culture, I mean, you can go look at one person doing a protest in the United States versus someone doing a protest in another country.

54:42

And then if they're doing a protest in another country where they don't allow it, they, that person gets arrested and then executed, right.

54:49

For, for having that. So something that we take for granted here, right. That we have as a law, right.

54:56

Like it may not be acceptable elsewhere. So the truth behind this is right.

55:01

And this is, this is where things get like really like heated. It's all right. God created that man.

55:06

Yes. Cool. So if God created that man and God created everything. Yes. So that means

55:13

God created him with the ability to attack that woman. Yes.

55:19

He's given enough from a, from a biblical foundational perspective, Christian worldview.

55:25

He's given us the freedom of choice. So God created everything though. Yeah. God created all things, all things must have, he must be the necessary explanation for creation.

55:36

That's the whole. So if he's, if he's the necessary for creation, right. If we follow, if we're going to follow that narrative and, and I'll, I'll concede on it.

55:44

If we follow the narrative that God created everything, right. That he is the, the master programmer, designer, developer of everything.

55:50

Right. Then he created sin. You have to create, if you created everything, then you created everything.

55:58

You didn't just create some things. Things didn't just develop. They didn't just magically happen.

56:04

And there's no rhyme or reason. It's not like, oh, sin wasn't created. Sin was, was, was altered, adjusted evolution, right?

56:13

No, God created everything and sin is included in everything, right?

56:19

Choice is a part of everything. Influence is a part of everything, morality, so on and so forth.

56:25

So everything means everything. It's not pick and choose.

56:30

So that means God created this person with the ability to rape. God created this person with the ability to murder, to steal, so on and so forth.

56:42

I would find it rather interesting that somebody created something and then placed a rule on that something and then looked at somebody and said,

56:51

Hey, I'm going to give you fear and hope to drive your choice based on morality.

56:59

At which point societal views, right? Dictate what he did and did not create.

57:07

And then you have to go back and ask the same question to the same people who utilize God as the, the evidence of, of everything.

57:16

If he created everything, then he created everything. You can't say that he didn't create sin.

57:25

So from your claims here, you're saying that, um, God created everything, so therefore he must have created sin if he created everything, if he created everything.

57:35

So what we're getting at is as you make certain knowledge claims, right? As you make certain truth claims, um, you're making a claim now that you believe comports to reality, right?

57:47

But what you've told us all throughout this episode is that the laws of logic are relativistic or subjective, that morality is subjective, that, um, what's the other one?

58:02

And we haven't gotten to that one. Laws of logic, morality, uniformity, uniformity of nature. These things are not really based in any objective reality.

58:10

They are just subjective to man's opinion. So really my response to all that is from a

58:16

Christian worldview, I would say, I would say a number one Christian worldview is that God created man and that man in his fallenness sins.

58:25

But the Bible says that God is not the author of evil. But what I would have to only do from your epistemological foundation for what you believe is true and what you, you believe is knowable is just say, you know what

58:38

I believe contrary to what you're saying. I, you know what, for me, my truth is, is that God did not create sin.

58:46

So my answer is how would you rebut that when you've explained your epistemological foundation already?

58:53

So that means you're for sure how you know what you know. Yeah. So if God created everything, how is he not the author?

59:03

Yeah, I know. But if truth is relativistic, where's our starting point? If the laws of logic are,

59:09

I could just say a bunch of gobbledygook. I'm going to root. I'm going to root. I'm not,

59:14

I don't, I'm not the type that like step backs. I'm the type that goes direct to root.

59:19

And the direct to root is God created everything, but he's not the author of some of it.

59:27

That. Based on what standard? That's the Bible. What's your root for knowledge? That's the

59:32

Bible. If I, if I have to follow what Bible says, I'm, and I, and that's, this is me saying the, the, if the, if factor, right?

59:39

The, if factor is an illogical factor, right? So it's an unknown provided by a known believed by unknowns.

59:48

So if God created everything. Say that again. Okay. Is that what you were talking about before, but we said it wasn't, it's unknown.

59:56

It was not fully known. I think that's what we decided. If it's, well, if it's not fully known, then it, then it is unknown.

01:00:01

It's tomato, tomato, like potato, potato, you know, but same exact thing is in that regard is if God created everything, how is he not the author?

01:00:13

Right. And, and that's, if we follow that, that's, if we follow that, that the, the, the Bible's viewpoint, the standpoint and like how we, how we perceive and interpret what the

01:00:23

Bible says, right? That, that is, that is when we read, that is our truth. That is our light. That is our understanding.

01:00:29

And we will grasp it. Well, given your worldview, we can leave where you can read the Bible, whatever way we want.

01:00:34

There's no standards that we have to based on interpretation. And it's, it's privy to a perception because that perception is based on a reality based on our cultural influence, but there's no reason to even discuss anything.

01:00:45

There's no reason to even debate. If I could just say, Hey, you know what? I think the answer to whatever question you're giving me is yellow is red and blue is green.

01:00:55

It's nonsensical because in, in the world that we live in laws of logic don't have to pertain to you.

01:01:01

They're subjective. They're based upon my own explanation, but what I'm saying is, and I'll let you go for a second, but what I, my contention is, is what

01:01:09

I had said before is that when the atheist makes these knowledge claims or appeals to truth or appeals to that, which is rational, then what they have to do is they have to step off their foundation and step on the

01:01:21

Christian's foundation. Now, what you're doing is you're speaking to us from the authority of God's word.

01:01:28

We said, what, why do you believe it? Why, by what standard do you come to the conclusion? I'm challenging God's word based on an if.

01:01:35

Not based on a factual, based on an, on an if. I'm basing this, not on a factual.

01:01:41

I'm not trying to jump off my thought process. I'm trying to maneuver myself into the understanding of somebody else's thought process by saying, all right, well, if, if, and then this is in this, the debate factor is if, if I have to concede, right, my thought processes and my views, right, in order to accept somebody else's views, then let me utilize somebody else's views and have the logic behind it, right?

01:02:06

And, and follow your laws, follow your rules and your regulations that, that are by what you guys say.

01:02:12

And if I follow that and two plus two is not equaling four. Okay. Then you have just, but once again, you've abandoned your atheism just so, you know, epistemologically.

01:02:22

No, I'm saying is if I have to concede it, I saw it in, in, it's not abandoning. It's, it's, you have to, you have to be able to, in, in understanding and in belief -based structures, right?

01:02:33

You have to understand not just one viewpoint, you have to understand multiple viewpoints. And that's what a lot of people, when it comes to faith, understanding, interpretation, perception, that's what a lot of people miss is you're not just looking at it from one point of view, right?

01:02:47

You're looking at it from multiple points of view. And that is very, very apparent, right? And extremely logical when it comes to this day and age, when we have so much factual proof is that the perception of one viewpoint will be different from the perception of another viewpoint.

01:03:00

Absolutely. Logical to you, right? Logical to you. Can I jump in? No, what I'm saying is, is it's, it's logical, it's logical to both sides, right?

01:03:06

So you guys have your, you guys have your logic because you perceive it one way. There's a perfect picture, right? There's a perfect picture of this, this gentleman getting out of a car, right?

01:03:14

And he's putting up the, the number three, right? And when he's putting up the number three, like this, so this camera is, is catching what probably looks like maybe a middle finger, right?

01:03:24

So maybe it looks like, maybe it looks like I'm flipping you off, but this camera or that camera. We have different worldviews.

01:03:29

Yeah, yeah. I see things differently. Yeah. So it's, and that's how it is. It's based on the aspect of perception. So what I'm saying is if in a, in a debate, it's about understanding both sides.

01:03:39

It's not about the argument to it. It's to understand, all right, cool. Is this where you guys are coming from? Okay. And if, and if I have to concede what my thought process is, and then

01:03:49

I have to think about what you guys are, are pitching me in a manner of speaking, I then say, all right, cool.

01:03:54

If he created everything, that would make him the author of everything. Okay. But that same scripture says that he's not the author.

01:04:03

That's contradictive. Okay. Can I jump in? Sure. Okay. So what you're describing is you're in your worldview, you have your presuppositions and you're thinking, okay, they're coming from this perspective from their worldview with their presuppositions.

01:04:16

I'm going to leave my foundation, sort of go into theirs and see what that's like, right?

01:04:21

You said, hypothetically this, you know, I believe the Bible to be true. You can't do that. And it's not that you're breaking rules.

01:04:28

It's that, hold on, you physically can't do it. Like we can't even identify our own presuppositions.

01:04:35

So to leave them is just impossible, even if we want to try. So we can pretend like we're doing it.

01:04:41

We're not actually doing it. This is why I hesitate a little bit on you getting sort of into the

01:04:47

Bible, because there's a ton in the Bible. There's a ton of evidence. There's a ton of prophecy in the

01:04:53

Bible that we technically could talk about. This is going to sound weird. And I know this isn't going to make sense from your worldview, but we just, as Christians, we hesitate to do

01:05:02

Bible study with the unbeliever because those prophecies are for the believer. When we come talk to you and we come out into the world and talk to the unbeliever, we're comparing worldviews, right?

01:05:11

Because we can't get away from that. We can't get away from our presupposition. So the only thing we can do is compare them. So we're going to compare our worldviews, show the unbeliever that they've sort of fallen into absurdity.

01:05:22

We're going to share the gospel, pray that God changes your heart, and then we're going to go back into our churches with our brothers and sisters and talk about the

01:05:29

Bible. Then we're going to talk about sin, and we're going to talk about, you know, the fall and all of these things that you're wanting to talk to us about.

01:05:37

For you to truly step out of your worldview and into ours and see the world the way we do, the

01:05:44

Holy Spirit has to change your heart. That's the only thing that can happen, right? You can't pretend. I mean, you can pretend, but it truly is just pretending.

01:05:51

You'll never see the Bible the way we see the Bible until the Holy Spirit changes your heart. Sure. Yeah, I mean, and that's from our

01:05:57

Christian worldview is that, you know, the Bible says the spiritual things are spiritually appraised. What does that mean? That just means that as we read the

01:06:03

Bible, it's the indwelling of God himself through the Spirit that gives us the capacity to even understand.

01:06:09

So when we say we don't do Bible studies with unbelievers, it's not a slide on you.

01:06:15

Of course, we're just employing what the scriptures say about God and about himself. But what we're saying, what my response to, did

01:06:22

God create sin? No, he would just say, no, he didn't create. That's just a wrong interpretation of the scriptures.

01:06:27

But he created everything. He created everything? Yeah, he created people with the freedom of choice to sin, and so that's why they're culpable.

01:06:39

Therefore, he created sin. No, I don't think he created it. So you have to program everything. Sin is an activity, though.

01:06:45

Yeah, so you have to program it. Well, I think from an evolutionary perspective, yeah, you would have a point that if we're just chemicals firing off, then

01:06:57

I would see where there's a choice there. You don't just sin. There has to have been a programmed choice, right?

01:07:05

Somebody had to have created you with the ability to have a choice, right? And therefore, creates the choice to do what?

01:07:16

Sin. Therefore, creating sin. It is a byproduct, so it's like a stepping stone ladder, and that's the logical way through it.

01:07:24

But my logic says, no, you're wrong. But the Bible says that. He created everything.

01:07:29

You're interpreting the Bible incorrectly. But he created everything. You know, but you're appealing to logic here, but my logic is relativistic.

01:07:37

It's just my logic. But is everything everything, or is everything something? It's whatever I determine it to be.

01:07:43

If the laws of logic only work based upon my own subjective definition, then yeah.

01:07:48

And therefore, God is an unknown that we justify through knowns based on unknowns.

01:07:54

And therefore, God is one, subjective, right? Two, based on influence, and three, also determined based on morality, and that's society's morality.

01:08:05

I'm sure this is my fault. I am not following that first part of your logic. The unknown, known, known.

01:08:11

All right, so. Just slow it down for me a little bit. So we cannot fully know God. We know of God, right?

01:08:18

So we cannot fully grasp and or understand what, who, or anything about God.

01:08:25

Can't fully. So therefore, God is an unknown or not a fully known.

01:08:31

If we can do that second one, I'm with you. Right, so God is not fully known. And since God is therefore not fully known, right, we now have to justify what we know about God in that theory, right?

01:08:44

We have to justify what we know. And therefore, there has to be evidence to support that. That evidence is the known component, right?

01:08:53

But that known component is based on an unknown variable.

01:08:58

It's based on unknown factors. Okay, maybe it will help us out a little bit because I'm not following it too. I don't agree with the terms here. I don't think when you say

01:09:05

God is unknown, that he is not at the same time known. And maybe I'm misrepresenting him.

01:09:11

He's not fully known, but he wouldn't be an unknown. Yeah, so we don't need to use the word unknown. But what I'm saying, I'm going to ask you this question, Mark, and after this,

01:09:18

Not fully known versus unknown is I think tomato. And then we want to share the gospel with you because that's what we got to do. And then maybe we'll pick it up on part two.

01:09:25

But here's my question for you. And this will be the last thing we kind of touch just because it's run along and people don't want to, they don't want to listen to stuff that's too long.

01:09:33

Okay, so how do you know anything to any degree whatsoever? How does Mark OJ know anything?

01:09:41

It's only based on my interpretation, my influences, things that I have interpreted and things that I am influenced to that will again, determine what

01:09:53

I do and do not know. And again, what I do and do not know is subjective to somebody else's do and do not know.

01:10:01

And therefore that influence as well. Okay. Do you think you could be wrong about everything you claim to know? Oh, yeah. Okay. So we would say when you

01:10:09

I could, I could So we might be right about everything we believe. Yeah, you guys might be right. And I might be right.

01:10:14

And you guys might be wrong. And I might be wrong. So we're getting into the really the impossibility of certainty, but we would, our contention would be in love that we don't, we don't live that way that we do have that God has given us the ability to know to a degree.

01:10:29

And I agree with you that God is incomprehensible. So he's incredible. I think about God, he sustains the universe, but I get like unknown, but we would say we don't live as if we don't know, because when you say

01:10:41

I could be wrong about everything that I claim to know, you've given up knowledge. And that's, that's the, that's the mind blowing part of it.

01:10:49

But you do know some things. We know that we know things based on what somebody has told us. Mark, I want you to go back and listen to this and listen to all of the certain knowledge claims that you've made.

01:11:00

For sure. You see, you've made claims to ethics. You've made claims to logic. And those could all be wrong. But you've given it, but Those could all literally, those could all be wrong.

01:11:09

Every single one of them, even the one plus one equals two. Literally, everything has the ability to be challenged.

01:11:18

Everything has the ability to be challenged. Again, it's based on a perception of what we know to be true based on unknowns.

01:11:27

So that was a good question though. Think if we lived that way. We do live that way. Think we lived as if there's no certainty in whatever we did.

01:11:34

It's like, why would we even get up? I mean, we wouldn't even know that the laws of logic worked one day to the next.

01:11:42

Uniformity of nature. We start our car and it turns into a mushroom. Jason Lyles said that.

01:11:47

Or why would we stand in a building? Because these contractors built the foundation to a specific girth or wideness because based upon true knowledge of what the building can hold, its structural integrity.

01:12:02

We live in the realm of certainty or we wouldn't even walk out the door for survival value.

01:12:08

But that's based on our knowns, our known factors. Is it possible that one plus one doesn't equal two? I mean, in some way that I don't understand, possibly.

01:12:18

All right. Well, hey, let's stop there. No, we love you and I hope you know that. We're building a good relationship here.

01:12:25

And I do want to continue on because let's just unpack and dig more.

01:12:31

We have much to talk. We talked a lot about the laws of logic. Many, many episodes. What I want to do, and you know that if I'm doing this, even though you disagree, you know that I'm loving you.

01:12:40

For sure. And I'm at love for you guys too. Yeah, well, what I'm going to do is share the gospel with you.

01:12:45

And it's out of the gospel that I really show my love for you because I care about the state of your soul. I do believe that God created every single one of us.

01:12:54

I think the words, the very words that come out of our mouth in a moment by a moment, give testimony to that.

01:12:59

That's basically our defense of the Christian faith. And we can get more into that later. But the gospel, the good news is that we can come into relationship with the

01:13:08

God of the universe through the entry point of Jesus Christ, that we as humans were fallen in our sinfulness.

01:13:14

So we don't do the things that God would want us to do. And we do the things that he wouldn't want us to do.

01:13:19

So we are corrupted internally at the level of our heart, mind and faculties and will with this sin.

01:13:25

And so that's kind of the state of every person. We are criminals against God. We don't really believe that about ourselves.

01:13:31

Scriptures say that we're pure in our own eyes. But the Bible also says that this God that created us stepped into his creation in the form of Jesus.

01:13:40

He lived this perfect life for 33 years that we can live for 33 seconds. And then he goes and dies upon a cross.

01:13:46

He receives in himself the penalty for sins that we deserve that he didn't deserve. And it was an act of love by the creator towards his creation.

01:13:54

Sheer grace, sheer mercy. You know, it'd be like you and I, we go get lit and we're driving at two in the morning and we stop by Circle K.

01:14:04

We get more fuel up on booze, right? And then we feel like a bump at about 3 a .m.

01:14:10

Don't drink and drive. Yeah. And so we're driving and we're criminals in that moment.

01:14:16

We feel a bump and then we wake up. The cops are surrounding us. They say, hey, you guys are intoxicated. We just ran over a family crossing the street.

01:14:23

And in the state of Arizona, we get capital punishment. So you and I are in the courtroom. We're about to be headed off and they're going to kill us via injection.

01:14:32

And all of a sudden, this individual comes in the room. He talks to the judge and he says, you know what? I love these guys. I'm going to take their penalty for them.

01:14:39

They unshackle us. We're liberated. We're set free. He takes it. That's the picture of what Jesus Christ has done.

01:14:45

I know you don't believe that, but that's okay. It's not that I don't believe that. I just understand the timing of that world.

01:14:55

When that happened and why that happened and the history around surrounding what happened.

01:15:03

Which it could be wrong. Just as you could. Are you saying that you believe it happened historically, but you don't believe that he died for our sins?

01:15:11

You do know that. What is the symbol to Christianity? Cross. You know how long crucifixions were going on before Jesus?

01:15:20

Tons. 600 years before Jesus. And did you know that Jesus wasn't crucified just by himself?

01:15:30

It was with many other people. And do you understand that treason laws were a thing back then with Tiberius being the emperor whilst he was on Capri and he was raising his grandson?

01:15:45

But that could all be wrong. I mean, the history I'm talking about. But it could all be wrong.

01:15:51

I mean, we have subjectivity in the way that we evaluate things. No, I'm just talking about how history, including the

01:16:00

Bible, how history as far as books, history as far as the Bible, history, how it defines that time period and what has gone on during that time period, right?

01:16:11

And the culture of that time period, right? Those historians who jotted that down could have been lying.

01:16:17

So the historians that jotted down the Bible could have been lying? No, we would say no.

01:16:22

But from your worldview, it's completely plausible for that. But let me finish.

01:16:28

For sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure, for sure. Okay. Jesus dies. He's risen, risen from the dead.

01:16:35

It's the evidence that, of course, God became man in the person of Jesus. He does this.

01:16:40

He's seated at the right hand of the Father. And what does he do? He commands all men everywhere to repent. And so there is a day of judgment.

01:16:45

The Bible says when we die, we don't just fade off into nonexistence. We stand before him and he judges us according to his law, something that we've all fallen short of.

01:16:53

Christians should be the least self -righteous people on the planet. We're no better than anybody else. We would say better off eternally because we know that as we embrace

01:17:03

Jesus as Savior, we turn from our sins, then we will have passed from death to life, and we can be certain about our salvation.

01:17:09

So that's the good news. And grasping the good news and responding, which we would pray you would do, would be to turn to Jesus, placing your faith in him and turn from your sins and then receive the life that we'd have for you.

01:17:22

And then when Jesus saves us, he doesn't only save us in our eternal state, you know, being with God forever, but he really heals us now.

01:17:32

He saves us from the effects of sin now when they're debilitating effects and destructive effects on everything that we are.

01:17:38

So that's the gospel. And we do it because we love you. Ultimately, we want to point you to Christ. So let's continue on.

01:17:45

Thanks for coming. For sure. Yeah. And let's, I like it. You're a scrapper and I appreciate it.

01:17:50

I can see it. I appreciate it. So anything you want to say? No, I just appreciate you being here.

01:17:58

I've been trying to get atheists to come talk to us and it is kind of hard to do. So I really appreciate you a lot. Okay, fun.

01:18:04

All right, guys. Well, that was provoked. We're so thankful for Mark OJ to be on and our sister Sarah to help me out here is my beautiful little tiny little redheaded co -host is out praying for her.

01:18:16

So be looking for more debates. We're going to debate more atheists. We'll spend more time with Mark. We love having him on.

01:18:21

Maybe we'll eat something while we do that. Be kind of fun. Like Joe Rogan style or something. We got flat earthers coming up.

01:18:27

But we pray that if this was somehow helpful for you and to glorify God, just share it. We want to get the truth of the gospel out.

01:18:33

We want to contend with world views and have loving civil discourse like we did today.