Is this TRUE?

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Eli Ayala. Thank you so much for joining me today for this, or tonight for this live stream. And I'm excited. I think we're gonna be covering an interesting topic, a common thing that we often hear that's put forth by many atheists.

And so hopefully I can shed some insight into how we might interact with this common phrase as you guys have recognized is simply looking at the thumbnail, okay? And again, I don't claim to be adding something particularly new to how to respond to popular atheist quips.

However, it doesn't mean that I can't have something helpful to say. You know, you could say something and you say it in such a way that, hey, it resonates with someone better than say how maybe someone else might've said it.

So hopefully the content of this video will be useful for folks. Now, again, we are live here. So I'm gonna wait a few moments for people to kind of trickle in. And just to let folks know, I am going to try to do live streams Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I'm gonna try to be consistent. I do have to make room for things in terms of family and other things that might come up, but the goal is to do a live stream twice a week. I'm gonna try to do that. Or if I'm invited onto another show, that'll count and won't be included in the two live streams a week thing.

So if someone invites me on their channel, like I was just recently on Joel Sedeckes' channel on the Think Institute, we talked about debate strategies, how to debate atheists. Highly recommend you check that live stream out.

I thought that went really well and we covered some great ground there. But yeah, that's gonna be the goal for me in terms of going forward and being more consistent. I'm really excited. Actually, we are, no we, it's just me.

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Okay?

All right, so extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, or extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. I've heard it in different forms, and this is a famous kind of phrase that has been taken from, I don't know if Carl Sagan, the astronomer, the late astronomer, he originated it, I'm not sure.

But it's typically associated with his book, The Demon-Haunted World, Science as a Candle in the Dark, and I think it was published 1995. I don't know if that's an original publishing date or another edition or whatever.

But nevertheless, this comment often comes up. Atheists are notorious for always bringing this up, right? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, or extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Now, what inspired me to cover this is I was listening to a debate between Greg Bonson and Edward Tabash, Greg Bonson and Edward Tabash. And I think it's interesting when you look at that debate and you compare it to Dr. Bonson's debate with Gordon Stein, there's a slight difference.

Greg Bonson is using the transcendental argument, okay? But in his Gordon Stein debate, he's focusing on logic. He says that God is the necessary precondition for logic and he tries to argue that, okay?

And in his debate with Edward Tabash, he's focusing on the principle of induction, okay? That you cannot justify induction without the Christian worldview because you cannot project what will most likely happen in the past based upon regularities.

I'm sorry, you cannot project into the future what will most likely be the case based upon regularities of the past unless you presuppose something that is not itself empirically verified, that there's uniformity, okay?

And of course, he highlights correctly that Bertrand Russell and David Hume, folks like that have pointed this out. This is not like a weird presuppositional observation, right? And so that was the difference between those two debates.

Now, it's within this context, during the Q &A section of the debate with Dr. Bonson and Edward Tabash that this question came up. And I wanna read for you Dr. Bonson's response. I thought it was great because I don't think he believes that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof or extraordinary evidence, however you wanna say it.

But I think he kind of just grants it and then offers his answer as though it still answers, it still answers that assertion even though he probably doesn't believe that that's required but let's suppose it's true.

He gives an answer to that line of reasoning. And so here's what he says. So here's a question that's asked, okay? Here's a question. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs. Where is the extraordinary proof of your extraordinary claim for God's existence?

And Dr. Bonson answers in the following. He says, very good. He says, you're right, okay? I don't think he actually believes this but I think he's saying this to kind of just plan to it. He says, you're right.

Extraordinary claims do require extraordinary proof. And here's the extraordinary proof. When you talk about a claim, which when rejected undermines the possibility of making intelligible all other claims, that's extraordinary, okay?

He says, you see, if I reject the idea that there are so many pounds of Cocoa Puffs in the world that claim doesn't really affect a whole bunch of other claims. It may affect claims about how much money can be made for selling cereal and so forth, but it's rather limited.

However, when you make the extraordinary claim that the philosophical precondition of intelligibility for anything is based upon that worldview that's a rather significant claim. And so he goes on to say, and now that hasn't been disproven.

He's saying that Mr. Tabash hasn't disproven his point. He says, in fact, it has been assumed in everything my opponent has had to say that the universe is uniform, that we can use the inductive principle that there are moral absolutes all of which comport with the Christian worldview.

And that's why the extraordinary claims of Christianity or about the existence of God or the supernatural have been met with the extraordinary proof that when you reject it, you undermine all philosophical possibility of making rationality, science, or morality possible.

And then he concludes with this. He says, for you see, in a sense, the supernatural is the presupposition of the intelligibility of the natural. So when anybody appeals to the natural world and says, this is intelligible, I say, you're already assuming a worldview that you reject.

Okay, now that is in a thumbnail, his transcendental response. Now, I don't think Dr. Bonson believes that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I think that phrase, it's touted around quite a bit, but I don't think that it is coherent and is a good standard at all in justifying various claims.

And I'll explain why in just a bit, okay? But I thought that was a fun bit of the debate that's during the Q &A session, okay? Now, the phrase extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof or extraordinary evidence or whatever.

As I said, it's often attributed to Carl Sagan. Although the sentiment behind it seems kind of reasonable, the idea that if someone makes a claim that seems far-fetched, this is kind of the heart behind it, right?

Or they make a claim that's unlikely based on our current understanding of the world, the assertion is that they should equally provide compelling evidence to support that claim. So for example, if someone claims that they've seen a unicorn, right?

The burden of proof is much higher than if they were to simply claim that they saw a horse. Okay, that makes sense, right? So in a general sense, there's kind of an appearance of intuitiveness to that phrase.

And I think that's why a lot of people use it, right? That seems intuitive. But I think there's good reason to not think that this is a good way of requiring someone to demonstrate something. As a matter of fact, I think there's a number of problems.

First, I think it suffers from ambiguity, right? If we were gonna do kind of a linguistic analysis of the phrase and claims require extraordinary proof or extraordinary evidence, I think it's important to understand that there's great ambiguity there, okay?

The terms extraordinary or proof, okay? Can be very highly subjective, right? They can vary from person to person, right? What one person considers extraordinary, another person might say, well, it's not that extraordinary, right?

Depending on their prior beliefs or their presuppositions, they're gonna have different takes on that. And so, for example, a Christian might not find the claim of God's existence extraordinary at all because, well, he's a Christian, right?

And of course, the atheist might find the claim that God exists as really extraordinary. So what constitutes something extraordinary? On a surface level, we can agree what seems extraordinary, but at a foundational level, when you're dealing with someone's ultimate foundations, I mean, what you rate as possible or impossible is going to be a feature of your worldview, right?

What determines your theory of possibility and impossibility? That's a function of your worldview, okay? And so when we're dealing with deeper issues, I mean, we're gonna have to get down and dirty and kind of deal with the fundamental framework with which someone is operating in, okay?

So again, when someone says extraordinary proof, I mean, that's just very, what is extraordinary proof, right? This person, well, this is what extraordinary proof is. But that person will be like, well, no, I actually think this is extraordinary.

There's just no objective way to rate that. And so I think it gives too much wiggle room for a person to subjectively shift back and forth to what they consider extraordinary. Or if extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, it's so subjective and ambiguous that no matter how many pieces of evidence or arguments I give, if you are determined not to believe my position, all you need to do is say, well, it's not extraordinary enough, you see?

So it's very, very subjective and very ambiguous. I don't think it's a good method of justifying certain claims, okay? I also think there's a certain level of philosophical inconsistency, right? For the requirement for extraordinary proof assumes an epistemological framework that can be shared by everyone, right?

Again, that's why I say it's so important to recognize that everyone has worldviews. We assume metaphysical positions, epistemological theories, and so forth. And so we need to take all those into consideration, right?

For example, if someone believes that empirical evidence is the only valid form of proof, then they're gonna dismiss other forms of evidence like logical arguments, which can be considered a form of evidence or testimonial evidence, right?

There are different kinds of evidence, but your worldview is going to narrow down what you will accept. And so many atheists might say, well, I accept a wide range of evidence. Just give me any evidence.

And then of course, when you give them evidence, then they say, well, that's not a real demonstration because what they implicitly are thinking is that a demonstration is something along scientific or empirical lines or things that are testable by the empirical sciences and so forth.

And so on the one hand, many atheists will deny that science is the only way to demonstrate something. But then when you give them some non-sciencey evidence, then that's not good enough because it's not demonstrable in the scientific sense.

And the reason why that happens is because, that's because they have a different epistemology, okay? So there you go, all right? Also, I think the phrase also tends to ignore the context of the claim, right?

For instance, claims about historical evidence or metaphysical truths may not be subject to the same standards of proof as claims about everyday physical events. So the demand for extraordinary proof might be reasonable and say something like within the scientific context, but it might be unreasonable in a philosophical context or a theological context.

So I think all of these things need to be taken into consideration, all right? So let me divert from my main talking points here and let's see if there is anything in the comments here that we could interact with.

Scott Terry, hello, Scott Terry. Let's go, yeah, thank you. Thank you for the excitement. I appreciate that.

Let's see here.

Conservative mirror on the way to the silver play button. I don't even know how many subscribers you need for a silver play button. I would imagine I'm not even close yet, but maybe someone could look that up.

That'd be pretty cool.

Let's see here.

Does Eli have a Discord server? No, I do not. I try to keep my social media things limited. It's just, since I do all this by myself, it's hard to keep track of multiple things. I used to have a TikTok.

I had a pretty decent following. It's just hard to keep up with YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and all these other things. I kind of do this on my own, so there you go.

Let's see here. Let's see.

Conservative mirror says most people believe in God, so saying a God exists isn't so extraordinary, I would say. Yeah, and conservative mirror, if you're an atheist, that's interesting because as an atheist, if that's what you are, I don't know what you are, but as an atheist, you're admitting, yeah, it's not that extraordinary.

You might just have some reasons why you don't believe it. Yeah, well, other people might say, God exists, that's such an extraordinary claim. So again, that just lends to the whole subjective nature about it, right?

What one person considers extraordinary, another person obviously is not going to consider extraordinary. So it's not really a good method for determining what's true. Chip Seal says the last line of our national anthem is a question today.

In my estimation, the answer to that question is no.

Okay, all right.

Reno Slim says if your God actually existed in reality, apologetics would be completely unnecessary. No, not even close. Even though that sounds profound, that literally makes no sense and is not a good comment.

It doesn't follow at all. If God actually existed in reality, apologetics would be completely unnecessary. So that means if things are true, then we never have to defend what's true. Think about that.

If something is true, then we wouldn't have to defend what's true. So if it's true that God exists, we would never have to defend his existence. No, within the Christian worldview, there is something called sin.

There is this idea that people don't like God, right? And so they will, what the Bible says they'll do, they will suppress the truth and unrighteousness. You don't have to believe that, but within the Christian worldview, that is precisely what people do, okay?

To think that something is so evident to someone that, oh, it's so evident, I'll just affirm it. No, people have reasons why they want to deny what is true. So just because God exists, that doesn't mean apologetics would be completely unnecessary.

It is because of the reality of sin, right? That's what makes apologetics necessary, okay? So this doesn't follow at all, okay? That does, not even close, yeah. But thank you for sharing your comments.

I do appreciate it, Reno Slim, okay? I really want to respond to that, Reno, but I'm trying to listen to the live stream. Yeah, okay, there you go. All right, so extraordinary evidence requires extraordinary proof.

Where is the extraordinary proof of your extraordinary claim for God's existence? Let's hypothetically grant that that is a good line of questions. I have another question here, sorry. Apologetics asks a question.

How would you describe the innate knowledge of God that all men have from a revelation? What's the content of this innate knowledge? Yeah, well, the content is described in Romans 1, right? They have a knowledge of God, his eternal power and so forth, everything that's laid out in Romans.

Well, actually, let's read it. Let's interact with that. Let me get my Bible here, on my Bible app. I'll be reading from the ESV. Sorry if there are folks who don't like the ESV.

Let me see here.

Give a thumbs up if you're down with the ESV.

I like the ESV.

Come on, man, let me see here. So Romans 1, we'll start in verse 18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

Now, this is interesting because you cannot suppress the truth if you do not have the truth. Keep that in mind.

I think that's helpful.

For what can be known about God is plain to them. So the content of the knowledge is something that is plain. Plain to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, these are the content of this innate knowledge, his eternal power, his divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.

So they are unapologetus, without an apologetic or without excuse. For although they knew God, and this is an interesting phrase there, although they knew God, the Greek there is nontestanteon, and it literally means knowing the God.

They're knowing the God, okay? So it's a very specific God that they know, yet suppress. They did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.

So the nature of the innate knowledge is the type of knowledge that makes men culpable before God for suppressing, okay? And so that's what would we, I mean, you can hash that out in more detail, but just generally, just to answer the question, the scriptures do speak of the nature of that innate knowledge, okay?

All right, let's see here.

Do, do, do, do, do. Let's see here, boom, boom, boom.

Christine Vress says, "'You seem to be conflating not liking someone "'with not believing someone exists. "'Non-atheists have never once disliked God. "'They don't believe he exists.'". Oh, is that the atheist position, Christine?

The atheist position is that they don't believe that God exists? I thought atheism was a lack of belief. Isn't that what we hear all the time? I'm not saying he doesn't exist. I'm saying I lack belief in God, right?

So again, if you don't believe he exists, then that is the traditional definition of atheism. I think that's a good definition, but I hear different definitions. So I'd be curious to hear what you think atheism actually is.

Nevertheless, my claim is that you do have a knowledge of God and that you're suppressing that knowledge and unrighteousness. Again, you're going to say, that's ridiculous. I don't believe in God. And then I've addressed that in other videos.

I'm not going to rehash that here. If you're interested, you can look at my other videos where I explain how the fact that you know God can actually be demonstrated, okay? So again, I won't go through that now.

I apologize, Christine, if you've never watched my other videos, but I have covered that at great length, so I won't cover it here. But thank you for your comment, okay?

Let's see here.

Scott Terry says, "'Didn't you debate Pine Creek?'. Yes, we had a debate slash discussion years ago. I think I remember him demanding extraordinary evidence.

Yes, he did.

And he was talking about the purple dragon. We'll talk about the purple dragon today. We'll get to that, okay?

Let's see here.

So Paul's right. Humans have an innate belief in God. It's just a mistaken belief. Yeah, well, if it's a mistaken belief, that means you have a standard of determining truth and that you could determine truth from error.

So what is that standard of truth? If you're an atheist, how do you get truth in an atheistic worldview? When you study the history of philosophy, I mean, we get a long history of skepticism and an inability to justify truths such that we could know them for certain.

You have the problem of hard solipsism, all these sorts of things that people don't like to talk about, okay? How do you answer those key questions that are pertinent to epistemology and the issue of truth and the ability of a person to distinguish between truth and error, okay?

Are you certain that we are mistaken about the innate knowledge that Christians believe we have? Is it mistaken, okay? How do you demonstrate that? How do you demonstrate anything? How do you justify the preconditions for demonstration?

I mean, these are the type of questions I've been asking years and waiting for someone to respond, okay? And here's what doesn't work. When I say all men know that God exists and they say, I could disprove that right now.

See, I'm an atheist and I don't know God exists. I'm arguing that you are suppressing the truth and you are self-deceived, yeah. Now you might say I'm self-deceived, but if you watch a previous video, I focus on explaining how we can demonstrate that the self-deception is in the one direction and not the other, okay?

Again, that's a big topic, okay? Not the topic of today's live stream, but I've discussed that at length. You can check that out and I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts maybe in another live stream.

You say, hey, I watched this video and here's my response and I'll try my best to interact with it, okay? All right, let's see here.

Just watched it again, I don't like that.

It's dragons and unicorns, yes. Self-deception, fascinating topic. Yes, I have a whole video on self-deception and it's more, here's what I warn people. When I claim that someone is self-deceived, I'm not merely saying you're self-deceived and that's it.

I do try to explain how that can actually be evidenced and how it can't be turned around on what I'm saying. Now, you might think it can and I'd be welcome to interact with that, but I'm not simply saying you're self-deceived and that's it.

There are ways to demonstrate that a self-deception is actually occurring. Check out my other video on self-deception. I think you'd find it interesting, okay? All right, I sent it down a rabbit hole, sorry.

All right, okay, so as a matter of fact, that was the video that I said, when I say the unbeliever is self-deceived and is suppressing the truth, I'm not saying that you're simply self-deceived and that's it.

So that the response that you give is nah-ah, well, you're self-deceived. I'm not saying something as simplistic as that. So give me a solid and just look into what I'm saying and really think about what I'm saying.

I'm not simply saying you're self-deceived and leaving it at that because then that would be superficial. So please, I might not be the smartest person in the world, but at least grant me the respect that I'm not saying something as simplistic as that.

There's more to what I'm saying on that topic, okay? All right, let's see here.

I'm getting sidetracked with such good questions. You guys have good questions.

Let's see here.

Yeah, so apologetics. Okay, I'm never gonna get to the dragon analogy if I keep taking these questions, but these are gonna be, keep asking them. You know what, apologetics, I'm gonna save that question.

I promise I'll get to it later. Otherwise, I'll never get through my main stuff. People are gonna click on the video and they're gonna be like, man, why did you talk about the main thing that you were talking about?

So keep those questions coming. I will try my best to get to all of them. I promise, okay? Actually, no, I don't promise. I want my yes be yes, my no be no. I will try my best, okay? All right, let me take a quick sip of water.

All right, so extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Where is the extraordinary proof of your extraordinary claim for God's existence, okay? Now, again, I don't think that's a good method for demonstrating a claim, okay, for reasons that I've expressed, okay?

But what happens if we hypothetically grant that, right? We could say in principle, hey, man, you've raised a great point. I agree that extraordinary claims should be supported by extraordinary evidence, whatever that means, okay?

But again, I would point out that the nature of the claim itself is often determined by the kind of evidence that is appropriate. So let's consider an analogy. Suppose someone claims, now I'm gonna be talking outside my area of expertise.

So if anyone knows the facts regarding what I'm gonna say, I'm just gonna use an example, okay? So suppose someone claims, I don't know, that the earth has a molten core, okay? Okay, so someone claims that the earth has a molten core.

Now, at first glance, this might seem like an extraordinary claim because especially if you consider that no one has actually ever drilled all the way to the center of the earth. Now, I don't know if that's true.

I'm pretty sure it's true. No one has drilled to the center of the earth, right? But geologists accept that claim based on various types of evidence, right? Things like seismic readings, the behavior of earth's magnetic field, indirect observation of volcanic activity and things like that.

So in other words, the claim is supported by evidence that while not direct, is nonetheless compelling within that framework of geology, okay? Now let's turn the claim to God's existence, right? I would argue that the claim is extraordinary, not because it's unlikely, but the assertion of God's existence is foundational, okay?

The claim is that God exists as the necessary precondition for everything else, for logic, for morality, science, human experience itself. And this isn't just any claim. It's a claim that underpins the very possibility of making any other claim.

And so the proof then from my perspective is also extraordinary because it's transcendental. If you reject the existence of God, you're left with a worldview that can't account for the very tools you're using to question his existence.

That's the claim. Someone's gonna disagree. I can account for the tools. Great, let's hear it. How do you account for the laws of logic? Well, the laws of logic is a function of the brain. That doesn't work.

Laws of logic is simply a language we made up.

To explain reality.

That doesn't work, right? Reality is reality. The Tom Jump stuff, that doesn't work either, okay? And talking really fast and using really big words doesn't make it work, okay? It's just, it's not a good epistemology, okay?

You're gonna have to make sense out of universal abstract principles in an atheistic worldview. You have to make that fit within your worldview, unless you don't think logic is universal and abstract and unchanging.

There are people who reject that, okay? There are people who reject that the laws of logic are universal, okay? When you undercut the universality of the laws of logic, that doesn't work, all right? You can refute yourself.

You've destroyed one of the preconditions of intelligibility, okay? So again, our argument is that the Christian world, you can account for these, can provide a justification for them, and the non-Christian world, you can't.

And when they try, they either cannot account for the laws of logic, or in trying to account for the laws of logic, they violate their own principles, okay? So the laws of logic, the uniformity of nature, moral absolutes, all these things that we rely on every day, I would argue, and I have argued, cannot be coherently explained or justified without the existence of God.

And so the extraordinary proof, from my perspective, the extraordinary proof that you seek, Mr. Atheist, is found in the very impossibility of the contrary. Without God, it couldn't make sense. Out of anything at all.

You start saying silly things like, reality's reality, language is not universal, language is just a process of our brains, and then you run into all types of philosophical problems,.

Okay?

Now, let's give another analogy for this, okay? So if I were to claim that language is necessary for communication, right? That might seem extraordinary to someone who believes that something like gestures or pictures could suffice, right?

But when we dive deeper, we find that even gestures or pictures rely on what? They rely on a shared understanding of symbols, a kind of language, if you will, right? And so the extraordinary claim that language is necessary is supported by the fact that all other forms of communication presuppose what?

They presuppose some kind of linguistic structure. And so likewise, the claim that God is necessary for the intelligibility of the world is supported by the fact that every argument, every piece of evidence, every claim that we make relies on the order, logic, moral structure that God provides.

And so when you argue against God's existence, you're in effect borrowing from the Christian worldview.

To do so.

Now, again, what's the atheist gonna say? And what do the atheists say when I say you're borrowing from the Christian worldview, okay? Because many people lack the capacity to think deeply and respect what the other person is saying.

They will misinterpret what we're saying, the nature of our claim, and pretend we're making something superficial, okay? When I say that you are borrowing from the Christian worldview, a bad response to that, a response that evinces a complete and utter misunderstanding and ignorance of what we're saying is to turn around and say, okay, ready?

Well, you're borrowing from the atheist worldview, okay? Or how do we know you're not really borrowing from the Muslim worldview? For you see, when we say as Christians and as presuppositionalists that you're borrowing from the Christian worldview, that is not a mere authority claim.

I'm not simply saying you are borrowing from my worldview, nana, nana, poo-poo, that's it. No, we seek to demonstrate that you are borrowing from the Christian worldview for the very things that you need to even engage in argument, A, makes sense and is accounted for within our worldview and is not made sense of and accounted for in yours or the other hypotheticals that you appeal to.

And so every time you appeal to these things, we're going to point you back, well, those make perfect sense within our worldview. You can't make sense out of it in your worldview. So why are you borrowing from our worldview, right?

Then you get this thing. Well, what if there's a hypothetical worldview out there that accounts for all these things? Cool, Mr. Atheist, do you hold to that hypothetical worldview? If you're saying that perhaps there's a hypothetical worldview that provides these necessary preconditions and you don't hold to that hypothetical worldview, then you're implicitly admitting that you're standing on some other worldview that's not this hypothetical one that provides those preconditions.

And so you're implicitly admitting that the worldview that you are currently standing on in order to make your argument is insufficient to provide the preconditions for the argument that you're making.

And so it's self-vitiating, it's self-refuting, okay? So again, you don't have to agree with it, but at least understand we're not making simplistic claims. You know that God exists. And then someone says, well, you're just borrowing from another worldview.

Or, you know, when I say the unbeliever is self-deceived, well, no, well, you're self-deceived. You know, that's such a, we can turn it around. No, I want you to try to turn around, show that the Christian worldview is self-deceived and is actually borrowing from another worldview.