Atheist Claims all Morality is Subjective | Apologetics Live 0022

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really live. All right, everybody. Welcome to Apologetics Live. And we have a new person here.

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Andrew's not here, and that's always a good thing. And so we have Eli Ayala, and you can see, go ahead and laugh, say hello.

00:17

Hello, hello. And that's Eli Ayala. And Ayala is Arabic for, nah,

00:22

I'm gonna kill you, I'm gonna kill you. And so it's, you know, it's what it is.

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And I've known Eli for a while, he's a good guy. Anyway, people will be joining us, and Eli's new at this.

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He's a newbie at simple stuff like this. And it's not that hard to do, but he has trouble because there's some issues.

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But, you know, that's all right. Everybody's got issues, except me. So we're gonna be waiting for people to come in.

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Now, what I'm doing, Eli, to let you know, is, oh, we got nine watching, good. I'm taking that URL.

00:59

And I can give it to you if you want. Tell you what I'll do, I'll email that to you as well. I should've done that earlier.

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And it's, you can actually make another browser where you can see people chatting. But what we've done,

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I've put this up on the CARM website so that people can get in what's called a participation, come into this room and they can talk to us.

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But on the other hand, there's gonna be people who don't wanna participate in this direct context, and what they're gonna do is, actually, you know what, you could do.

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Why haven't I sent it to you? It's on the CARM website. So I just, I updated it.

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So if you go to the right near the Apologetics Live, Apologetics, under the newsletter, you go down past the radio section that says

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Apologetics Live. One says Participate, and one says Watch. You're already participating, so all you gotta do is click on the

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Watch, and it'll open up another window, and then you can see that people are in.

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We've got 16 people now. And then in that text area, they sometimes ask questions and stuff like that.

02:08

Yeah, I see Apologetics Live. I don't see a link to click on. Participate, the word

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Participate, and then the word Watch. Yeah, yeah, I see on the right your newsletter.

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Go underneath that, match, click Live Radio. Okay. And then Apologetics Live, right?

02:27

I see Apologetics Live, but I can't click on it. It has like a... Does it say

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Next Is? What's the date for Next Is? 2 -28 -20. Refresh your browser. Refresh your browser.

02:38

Oh, there we go. Look at that. See, look, Internet 101. Okay, there we go.

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Participate and Watch, okay. Click the Watch. A window will open up, and then you can see people on the right -hand side who are adding stuff in.

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The KD, no. And then commercials will blast with... I don't know if you can do any commercials. There we go.

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There you are. All right. I get to see your face twice. That's... That's definitely a good thing.

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So what we can do is you can... I'm giving him a play -by -play. He's supposed to kind of co -host with me, folks.

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And it's good to open this up for him as well. Open to Bay365. We cannot choose God because of our sin nature.

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We are enemies of God. That's true, Tommy. But nevertheless, so what I want you to do is introduce yourself really fast.

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And then we'll talk about some stuff. And then if people want to call in, they can come into the participation room and they can get on the mic.

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They have a whatever, a camera. They can talk. And all this is being recorded. Or they can ask questions in the chat area, and we can work it that way.

03:45

Sure, yeah. Well, my name's Elias Ayala. Nobody calls me Elias. Everyone calls me

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Eli. And a lot of people find it cool to kind of tell the story about how

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I got into apologetics. I actually lent out my iPod to my brother -in -law to DJ a wedding.

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And so he actually emptied my iPod and replaced it with all his content. And so after the wedding was over, because he used the iPod set up to giant speakers, they kind of had the reception and stuff.

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And when I went home, I had all of his content in my iPod. And so it was through browsing through the stuff that he left in there,

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I kind of listened to the Greg Bonson, Gordon Stein debate that way. And I was like, who's this guy, Greg Bonson?

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I learned about William Lane Craig. And I think before that, I was listening to CARM for quite some time.

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But that kind of opened the door to apologetics. There's some more to that story, but some people find that quite interesting.

04:44

Oh, you were talking. I lost interest there for a second. I know it was one of those things.

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So you guys could tell that we know each other. I insult him a lot. But that's what I do with my friends. So you and I have had a lot of good conversations over the, what, years now we've been talking.

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Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And - I forget how long. I forget how long it was.

05:05

It's been years. I wouldn't say 10, but I'd say more like anywhere from three to five, I'm getting that impression, three to five years.

05:12

I remember the first time you picked up the phone and I was surprised that you picked up the phone when I called the office.

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I was starstruck because when, you know, back in the day I used to go through CARM and I thought the website was awesome.

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And, you know, I've listened to your podcast for like a million years. And I was like, let me call the office.

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And you picked up, I was like, this is Matt. And you're like, yeah. And then I was like, oh my gosh. So the rest was history.

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And I haven't stopped bothering you with phone calls ever since. That's right. A bit annoying. It's really been horrible. Yes. So I taught on Friday last week at a church and this guy's an adjunct professor at Liberty.

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And he said, look, dude, I want to meet you. And I go, okay. He goes, why? He goes, people at Liberty quote

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CARM all the time. And he said, it's just, if it's a CARM reference, it's a good reference. And so they do that and he wanted to meet me.

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So that was good. And today I went into a restaurant, fast food, Chipotle. My wife loves

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Chipotle. And she's in the car. I had to go in there and get some food. And I'm talking to the people behind the counter.

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And this one guy goes, you sound like somebody I know. And I said, okay. And he goes, are you

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Matt Slick? And I go, yeah. He goes, yeah, I used to listen to you on the radio. So he was happy to meet me and stuff like that.

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So it was kind of fun, you know, whatever. People are impressed until they spend five minutes with me.

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Then that quickly goes away. That's what I've discovered. All right.

06:36

What are some of the things we've talked about? Because that is a long list. We've talked about transcendentals.

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We've talked about the issues of canon. We've talked about the difference between Vantillian apologetics and Clarkian apologetics, axioms, ultimate presuppositions, world views, atheism, inconsistency, logic.

06:57

Mullinism, open theism. Oh, a lot of mullinism. We've talked a lot about mullinism and things like that.

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Yeah. So I'll tell you what, folks, if you guys have any questions, you can either participate in the room and ask a question or you can go into the just the chat part of the watch it and I can read a question or something like that, or.

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We can just talk because some of the conversations we've had have been pretty good and I wish that some of them had been recorded.

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And so you'll call me up. What's a typical question you'll ask me? Um, well,

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I usually call you up to talk about the topic of mullinism and the logical priority of God's counterfactual knowledge or something like that.

07:42

Why don't we talk about that since you brought that one up? It seems to be right there. OK, so I'm going to hang the ball to you and you tell us what's mullinism.

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Mullinism is a view of God's omniscience and mullinists understand God's knowledge in three logical moments that can be kind of categorized as God's could knowledge,

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God's would knowledge and God's will knowledge. So, for example, God has what's called natural knowledge, his knowledge of everything that could happen.

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God has his middle knowledge, his knowledge of counterfactuals, everything that would happen if certain states of affairs would obtain.

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And then you have God's decree in between God's middle knowledge and his free knowledge, which is his knowledge of what will, in fact, actually be once he decrees a world that he desires to actualize.

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OK, so mullinists understand God's knowledge in those three logical moments.

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And they use that system to answer the philosophical conundrum of how to reconcile

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God's sovereignty and human freedom and responsibility. So which one of those natural, middle or free knowledge, which is the main one?

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Not or it would be and so God would have natural knowledge, middle knowledge and free knowledge. Yes. But which one of them is most known as in the context of mullinism?

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That would be God's middle knowledge. Right. And so. And so what that is, is is

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God knows what any free choice will be of anybody in any circumstance. Basically, it's what it is.

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Right. It would be God's knowledge of counterfactuals. And this is important, logically prior to the decree.

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So it's God's knowledge of what would happen if he were to decree a certain state of affairs.

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And OK, so somebody is asking questions. Let's just talk like we normally do, because I don't like that.

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And I think the problem with it, and I think the problem lies in the idea that God seems to be reactionary to the idea. He knows what will happen under different circumstances, even if he's logically decreed them.

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Then he knows what certain free will creatures will do in certain circumstances. And it seems to be and I've had trouble understanding this from various mulliness, it seems to be then that what's happening is

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God will then decide what to decree based on what he knows will happen if he decrees under certain circumstances based on a libertarian free will.

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Right. But I mulliness wouldn't say that God is responding because this counterfactual knowledge is knowledge of what a person would do if he were to create that person.

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If God didn't desire to create such a person who would do something in that counterfactual situation, then

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God would just actualize a different world in which the person would do what he desires. So so it's not a reactionary perspective where God saying, well, man's going to do this, then this is what

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I'm going to do, because God can choose to actualize someone or not. We could actualize the world or not.

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But I still see it as being reactionary because he knows what person the person will do in situation A versus situation

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B. So he knows which ones they will choose, which one Bob, Bob.

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OK, Bob's going to counterfactual world of potential world of a potential world of B. He likes what he's going to do and be over A.

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So God creates B because he'll behave in a way he wants him to. That to me still is the idea of God being reactionary.

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I guess my issue with Molinism is not so much the reactionary issue, since some people can kind of weave them their position and kind of explain that whether we agree or not.

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It's really this issue of counterfactual truths that have truth values independent of God's decree.

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In other words, how could something be true if God doesn't decree? So there are these truth values that are true, independent of the will of God.

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And so this is this is related to the common objection against Molinism, which is which is called the grounding objection.

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What grounds the truth values of these things? I hear this from atheists. That kind of answer is from atheists.

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It's the same thing. They use grounding or grounding philosophy all the time. Sure, sure. But but in defense of the

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Molinists, the Molinists would say people would ask, like, what what grounds these truths? The Molinists will sometimes say that they're not required to provide an answer to that because and I know you kind of made a little smirk there.

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I'm not a Molinist, but I don't necessarily have a problem with that since what we're asking is we're asking the

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Molinists to explain some aspect of God's infinite knowledge, which can be very difficult.

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So, you know, Molinists actually relish in the fact that Calvinism, for example, has its mysteries and Molinism answers questions that apparently

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Calvinists can't answer. And so they shift that place of mystery. It may be. And how are these truths grounded or some other aspect of the system?

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Well, I would say that they can answer some things Calvinists can't, but they do so incorrectly. Or at the expense of some other important doctrine.

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Right. I say they do it improperly because ultimately what I see Molinism to me, if I were to really dumb it down and distill it down, do you get the scrapings off the pot?

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What's it really that what's left over is this that what Molinism teaches is libertarian free will.

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And God will decide and decrease certain things to do by his logically prior knowledge based upon what people do in counterfactual situations.

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Say that again, that. Say the statement, you know,

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OK, OK. Oh, that's right. Well, you say that again.

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OK, that, you know, it's not just as bad as OK. So libertarian free will is not compatibilist free will, which is the reform position.

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But libertarian free will is the basic idea that an individual, a sinner even, is simply capable of making choices.

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This is not not going to leave the sentence as this is how it truly represents. But for now, that the center can then make a choice.

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That's so to speak, contrary to a sinful nature. And all he needs is the right circumstances, information. I would be careful in defining libertarian free will, including in the definition, this issue of what man can or cannot choose given their sinful nature, because the libertarian freedom is defined as a particular view of freedom.

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It doesn't necessarily have to automatically apply to issues of soteriology and how man can respond and things like that.

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That's really important, because Molinism is sometimes falsely seen as some kind of soteriological system, kind of a

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Molinism is just a view of God's omniscience, as Kirk MacGregor, the he who wrote the biography on Louis de

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Molina. I think he makes a very important point that Molinism is just a view of God's omniscience.

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What you do with Molinism can have can affect certain areas of soteriology and things like that.

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And that's why some people are open to Molinism because of its flexibility. You can be a

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Molinist and lean more towards an Arminian understanding of soteriological issues, or you can move more towards a

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Calvinistic understanding of soteriological issues. But there is no necessary pull in either direction.

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You can be quite creative if you wish to hold to the Molinist view. Yeah, I would say they're creative indeed.

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And their leaning is is is incorrect. They should they should stick with what the scriptures teach.

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Libertarianism is the idea, and this is what I would break it up because we have to find our turn, but libertarian free will, this idea that the human being, even in his sinful state, is capable of finding

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God. All he needs, and this is an oversimplification, but is the proper information and circumstances.

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And he's able to make that choice. Now, that's the that's a robust, but very base idea of what libertarian free will is, because that's what it comes down to.

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Ultimately, where compatibilism would say, no, that within the doctrine of total gravity, they're not capable of being able to make that choice.

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They're not at liberty to do that. But libertarian, I mean, what rule compatibilism is, is that man's free will is compatible with God's sovereignty.

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Libertarianism says not really. And there's variations in this. We've talked about this. Right. And but those variations are super important because they can be.

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Yes, they can be talking about libertarian free will. But even that term is not specific enough, since as you remember your discussion with Dr.

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Kirk McGregor, that there is hard libertarianism and there's soft libertarianism and the issue with soft libertarianism is that when you say the definition really fast, it sounds a lot like compatibilism.

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Well, that's why we've talked before. And I said soft libertarianism sounds exactly like compatibilism. Right. Right.

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And you said that's right. It does. It does sound very much like it. Yes. And then you'll talk to some Molinas who know this kind of terminology.

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They'll they'll say, well, the verb tense doesn't mean that it means this. And that's why we go this way instead of this way. And I get really annoyed with that kind of thing, because I think what they're trying to do is give too much to the human being, because look at this, if God is going to look into the future, logically prior, not in a temporal sense, folks, he doesn't look to see what's going to happen in different universes, but the things can only exist if God decrees them to exist.

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So those potential universes only exist in the mind of God. They've not been actualized. So there's potential worlds and one actual world.

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And so he knows all variables of all circumstances because he would create them and no matter what universe he created, all of those variables are under his sovereign decrees and ordination and things would happen a certain way.

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So that's just that's you disagree with that. And you've got to we need to talk Bible. But here's the thing.

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If there's universes, one, two, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. We've got universe one through ten.

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We have ten universes. And Bob in universe one is going to do one action in the universe to a different and so on and so forth.

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And God wants to pick out what Bob's going to do because that's what he wants Bob to do.

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And he's only going to do it in universe number seven. And then if God picks universe number seven, based on his factual middle knowledge of what he'll do in his free will, creatureness or libertarianism in that context, then how is it not true that God is reactionary?

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Well, we've talked about this, the difficulty about these discussions is it's actually hard to actually put into words what one might think about these things without sounding jumbled.

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I mean, you get into some philosophical distinctions and things like that, but ultimately, if someone wants to hold to Molinism, which

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Molinist that I've that I've spoken to, they want to do it because they think it's biblical.

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And we have to be very careful, too. And I think this is where the discussion needs to take place because Molinism, its popularity has come from the philosophical realm.

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The works like from people like Alvin Plantinga and William Lane Craig, Molina's works have not been fully translated.

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The parts that have and have become very popular are those philosophical issues. But as you would understand that Molina actually gave a bunch of biblical reasons why he held to his view.

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And I think he but why did he start Molinism from Molina? Why did he start it, though?

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Yes. Yes, he started to give a response for the reason to give a response to the reformed understanding.

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But that doesn't make it false, as you would. So he was a devout Roman Catholic who wanted to refute the idea of God's sovereignty, and in order to do that, what he did was he tried to develop a method in order to elevate man's freedom.

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Well, I don't think he did it for the purpose of elevating man's freedom. No, the purpose was to deal against, to work against the reformation movement.

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And one of the tools he developed was the, I believe, the exaltation of man's freedom to a place that the scripture does not.

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That would be your interpretation of what he was trying to do. But Molina most definitely would not have understood himself to be doing that.

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He really believed that the pillars of God's meticulous sovereignty and man's genuine freedom were biblical truths.

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And so he tried to reconcile them in a way that you don't injure one of those doctrines, which he found to be biblically based.

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Yeah, but they can be biblically based because God is sovereign even over our choices. He opens the heart of the king, moves the heart of the king where he wishes to go, properly opens the heart of the one.

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Yeah, but I'm... You know, all of a sudden, God's sovereign. And. Yeah. And Jesus could do nothing of his own initiative.

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He'd only do that which the father decreed that he do, and he had freedom. So that's a perfect example of compatibilism.

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Yeah, I just. But also there's another another important distinction to demonstrating that we're not completely free in one context does not mean that someone doesn't have libertarian freedom in a different context.

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So, for example, you have you have some people who believe that, you know, God could could violate man's freedom.

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But that doesn't mean he always does. So what would it mean to violate? Forgot to violate man's freedom.

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Well, yeah, well, there we go. That seems to presuppose some kind of autonomy, autonomy within the freedom of man, which we would we would reject, obviously.

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But but in libertarianism, there is an element of autonomy of man's will. Depending on who you talk to.

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I know what day of the week it is, because some will say that it isn't independent in a sense of a seity almost, where others will say, well, it's not because we're contingent and the contingencies affect.

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But even then, the idea of libertarianism is the idea of complete freedom to be able to decide and that God is looking at these situations in a counterfactual basis.

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When you say complete freedom, though. I would not equate, for example, a soft libertarian view with an auto and a full out autonomous will because because on soft libertarianism, man is limited by his nature.

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It's just that unlike the Calvinist position, the soft libertarian would say that there are multiple choices that he could make libertarianly that are consistent with his nature.

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So there's still a limiting. There's not a good and utter autonomy on the soft libertarian view. Right. And that's why

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I say soft libertarianism is similar to the biblical doctrine of man's total depravity, because total depravity is a condition or teaching of the nature of man.

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But it has it is an effect upon the nature of man. What's that effect? Total depravity's effect is that he won't freely choose

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God. But in libertarianism, the effect of total depravity does not necessitate that he can't choose

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God of his own. Right, right, right, right. That's the difference. And that's the problem. And that's what I see as in the view of God, that he's looking down the quarters of time logically prior in his creative work and potential worlds in his mind, whatever, and he says in that circumstance, libertarianly speaking,

22:39

Bob will do this here, but not there. And so God goes, this is what I want. That's the problem.

22:46

I think another problem, too, is if you're going to support your view biblically, for example, you get to this issue of God's counterfactual knowledge, whether it's logically prior to his divine decree or logically posterior to his divine decree.

23:00

Let's talk about that, because I'll come back to it. Logical priority. We'll come back to that. Yeah, well, the point is, in order for it seems to me, in order for libertarian freedom to be true and one would be able to demonstrate that biblically, you'd have to demonstrate biblically that God has his counterfactual knowledge logically prior to his decree.

23:20

But the Bible doesn't speak of those issues. So it seems as though you're right at the start, inserting an external philosophical notion upon the biblical upon the biblical text.

23:32

And I've certainly said that's the case. I said, I said, you know, our conversations we've had, you know, hours and hours over the years,

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I've said, in my opinion, Molinists start with philosophy, not scripture. Yeah, but but what

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I appreciated with your discussion with with Dr. McGregor is that unlike many

23:48

Molinists, for example, William Lane Craig actually thinks that the biblical data is underdeterminative in this in this this in this particular issue, that that the

23:58

Bible doesn't talk about those things. But he says that when you do assume Molinism, it actually makes sense out of the biblical data, according to him.

24:05

But Dr. McGregor actually believes that you could you could you could almost.

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Demonstrate the reality of libertarian freedom by certain verses which seem to necessitate

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God having knowledge, counterfactual knowledge logically prior to his decree, and so he'll try to demonstrate libertarian freedom by looking at certain biblical texts.

24:27

So whether he does it successfully is the debate, but I do appreciate that he attempts to do that.

24:32

He thinks that the Bible supports that particular view of freedom and explores the relevant passages.

24:38

Right now, let me interrupt. It looks like the video is not working on at least on my computer, on my screen, just watching, not participating.

24:48

So if you can still hear me in that venue, the watch is watching. Could you.

24:56

Could you type in that you can still see or what do you think it might just be on my end, do you still see, can you still hear me?

25:05

No, I'm talking to the people who are in the chat side, because what I see is an error occurred.

25:12

Please try again later. They might not be able to hear me. It might be you talking about YouTube or you talking about here on the

25:18

Hangout on YouTube. And I just refreshed my screen and people are saying,

25:24

OK, so it's OK. It was on my end. It froze, got an error. So, all right.

25:30

Sorry for the disruption there, but I had to check it out. So, OK, so back to the issue.

25:37

This is what I have a problem with, why I have a problem with with Molinism, because when

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I look at the scriptures, I let the scriptures decide what I want to believe, what I'm going to believe, what I have to believe, what

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I must believe. I see the supremacy and sovereignty of God and his independence from us and his non -contingency on us.

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And that's the doctrine of aseity. Nothing about his nature's essence needs us or anything else for his existence.

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And this includes his decisions, because if it did, it was just his if his decisions needed another source in order to influence his decisions, that he doesn't have that doctrine of aseity.

26:16

And that doesn't work because then we'd have to know all possible universes and the things he would decree and a thousand possible universes.

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And then he's going to pick one that he wants because he knows how it's going to work in that place by those creatures with that libertarian free will, then

26:30

God is absolutely contingent in his actions and decisions on logical priority of what he sees people will do.

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And that, to me, is a reduction of God's majesty with an exaltation of man's sovereignty, of man's ability and his free will.

26:43

That's what I believe is why Molinism should be abandoned by Christians.

26:49

It should not be defended because what it does inadvertently is lowers

26:54

God and exalts man. That's how I ultimately perceive it. Now, how do you how do you define aseity?

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Aseity is God's independence of anything, his non -contingency.

27:07

And it has to do with his nature and his essence of eternal existence. He's immutable, unchanging, he's eternal.

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Psalm 90, verse two, he's absolute. He has existed. And this isn't the right word for using for God, but that's all we have.

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He's existed for forever before he decided to create. So it could not be that any of his decisions to decide to create are based upon something he would see inside of the creation if he were to create.

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It has to be dependent upon his nature, not anything outside of him. And so Molinism, from what

27:40

I understand, and maybe I don't understand it properly because it is difficult to understand in a lot of areas. It gets very sophisticated.

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But what I see Molinism to say, God's logically prior knowledge, we've got to talk about what that means so they understand it, is logically prior knowledge means that God will now know in different situations what's going to happen before it's happened.

27:58

And then he, that's what I want. Right. How can that not be reactionary and contingent?

28:03

What I was saying, because I asked the question, because I've always understood aseity as relating to God's, you know, metaphysically, as ontologically speaking,

28:14

God is not contingent upon anything external to himself for his existence, right? I did not know, therefore, that if, if, if God, let's say, for example, if God did look into the future and that was the basis upon which he creates, how that would challenge his aseity in regards to his being.

28:35

You see what I'm saying? It seems as though there's a blurred line where you're now applying the idea of God looking into the future, this is not how

28:43

Molinist position, but if he were, that that would affect his aseity. I don't see how that affects his aseity if we understand aseity as relating to God's being, because the

28:53

Molinist agrees God is, God exists ase, he doesn't, his existence and his being in nature is not contingent upon anything external to himself.

29:02

The Molinist affirms that. Yeah, and aseity is that God is eternally self -sufficient in himself and not dependent upon anything else.

29:12

And let's just work with it and say for his existence. OK, let's just say that it has to do with an ontological essence of his existence.

29:20

All right, then is it OK then to say, well, wait a minute, but his existence is independent of all things.

29:29

His eternal nature is independent of all things, but his thoughts are not.

29:37

No, his God's knowledge is not contingent upon anything external to himself.

29:43

So, for example, God's knowledge of everything that could happen. That's just natural to him. God's knowledge of what would happen if he were to create.

29:53

That's that's natural to him. It's not contingent. He doesn't have to, on the Molinist view, he doesn't have to create.

29:59

So what he knows, what they, you know, the knowledge that includes what people would do, that knowledge is natural to him.

30:06

And and he might he didn't have to choose to create them. So so his knowledge of what his counterfactual knowledge is not contingent upon other beings existing.

30:17

It's just that if he were to create beings, he knows exactly what they would do. So if he knows what they would do in one circumstance, he knows what they will not do in another circumstance.

30:27

Sure. That that would be in other words, God, God, according to the Molinist view, God has a large set of options as to everything he could create.

30:36

God can create a world in which the moon is made of cheese. You hear, you know, and he knows what would happen if he were to create a world in which the moon was made out of cheese.

30:44

He knows what would happen if he actualized a world in which I was wealthy. And he knows what

30:50

I would freely choose if he actualized the world in which I was flat broke, disgusted. So let's break it down and bring it home.

30:57

All right. So, OK, Bob. Ten possible worlds, ten represents all of them, just ten possible worlds.

31:04

And in different worlds, Bob's going to choose ten of ten different shirts, ten different types of shirts in his closet.

31:12

And in each different world, he's going to pick a different shirt. All right. Now, so God knows what he would do in each situation.

31:23

Why? Well, OK, so so so let me back up a little bit, OK? So let's say

31:29

God has an option to pick. He has more options than 100 worlds. By the way, folks, he does not believe in Molinism.

31:36

That's right. Yeah, I'm a Calvinist. So, yeah, which which, by the way, I won't confuse anything.

31:42

But there are Molinists who also claim to be Calvinist. Yes, they do. At any rate. So so say

31:48

God has this these this large option of worlds he can actualize. And he has the potential to actualize a world in which determinism is true.

31:57

Let's let's do the ten. Yeah, I'm going to limit it. I'm going to limit it. So if God desires to actualize a world in which creatures had libertarian freedom out of those, you know, we'll call the infinite options that now limits the options to only worlds in which people would be libertarian free.

32:16

OK, and in those worlds in which God knows what libertarian free creatures would do, he knows the results, how everything would hash out.

32:23

And so he picks the world that fits what he desires to accomplish. And so he sovereignly actualizes that world.

32:30

And he he picks a world which he desires to occur based on what? Based on.

32:37

In other words, if I if I desire, if I desire for you, my ultimate desire is for you to go buy an ice cream at Carvel.

32:45

I can choose a world desire. I can use a world in which I actualize, which you have libertarian free will and you don't go to Carvel.

32:53

If I want you to go to Carvel, I just won't actualize that world in which you use your libertarian freedom to not go to Carvel.

32:59

So I'll just pick the world in which I know you would use your libertarian freedom to go precisely where I want you to go.

33:05

So you retain your freedom, you retain your responsibility. And I'm sovereign because I choose a world that meets the ends that I desire.

33:12

Right. Yeah. And I understand that's what you're saying. In other words, what I'm saying is, yeah, so God is picking, picking the world to occur where you do what he wants you to do.

33:20

So his decision on which world is based on your decision that he wants you to do in the first place. Well, it's based upon what he wants to accomplish.

33:28

It just so happens that part of what he wants to accomplish includes you having libertarian freedom and using it in a way that accomplishes precisely what he wants.

33:37

Yeah. If we're assuming libertarian freedom is true. And that's yeah. Now, here's the question. Well, I'm going to back to where it comes out.

33:44

This is where people got to understand this. This is the problem with the libertarian, with their melanism. This is how I see the problem with it is that we have these worlds, 10 worlds, 10 shirts.

33:54

OK, it doesn't really matter because it's just easier for people to understand and comprehend. Let's say in this one world, what

33:59

God wants is is Bob to wear a blue shirt and let's just say that occurs in world five.

34:05

Right. Of the ten possibilities. Let's just say that's the case. Why blue? He's got his own reasons. But in world one, he's

34:13

Bob will not freely pick the blue and nor in world two, three, four or six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

34:20

So God knows which ones he will do in his libertarian free sense. So now God's choice of which world to bring into actuality is based upon his knowledge of what he will do in his freedom.

34:32

Bob's in his freedom. And that's why God is now bringing actualization of the potentiality based on what he sees

34:39

Bob will do. So therefore, God's decision is now based upon what he sees. This will happen.

34:45

It's not when you say based upon it, it's based upon what he wants to accomplish in that world.

34:54

It just so happens that the way he accomplishes those things includes libertarian choices along with his own intervening.

35:02

Yeah. So what it would mean is then what we get interventions on our thing. We got to get this basic principle down. So God wants the blue shirt to go forth.

35:08

There's whatever reason that's what God wants. OK, and so he's going to pick the blue shirt in this world.

35:14

So therefore, God's will and the man's will are harmonious and God actualizes that.

35:22

So it necessitates that God's choice is restricted to that world in which

35:29

Bob will act in a manner consistent with what God wants. So he can't pick.

35:34

God cannot then pick another world because it's not based just on his will, which is sovereign in any world view, but which it should be not the moment in this one, but it's because that's how this guy is going to freely behave in that world.

35:49

So that's why God's picking that one. There are many worlds that not God, there are someone else.

35:55

There are many worlds that may include Bob libertarily picking a blue shirt.

36:01

The blue shirt picking. No, no, no, no, no. This is an illustration for points. There's only one out of the 10 that he's going to pick the blue.

36:09

Yeah, but I don't want to limit it because limiting the analogy is now is now putting a limitation on God out of these options.

36:15

He only has a small amount of choices. But what am I doing? I'm using an illustration to teach people.

36:21

OK, all right. That's what it is. As I said, remember, to teach people so they can understand concepts of what the basics is about the idea of because this is where it comes down.

36:31

Once they get this, they go, oh, I see what Matt's saying. I see what the issue potentiality is. Then we can talk about the interactability of God in a world view.

36:40

And then we get back to the libertarian versus compatibilist world. OK, OK, I got you. Yeah, so so I I'm I guess

36:48

I'd have to revisit that because one of the best books out there, if people are struggling with this topic, especially if you're a

36:55

Calvinist, because I think in terms of a Calvinistic framework. So I'm not looking at Mullen ism independent of anything else.

37:04

Mullen ism presented from when I studied these things, presented a challenge to my Calvinism.

37:09

And so I'm always looking at Mullen ism and Calvinism side by side. And if anyone is interested in kind of tackling the issue,

37:17

Kenneth Keithley, who's a professor at Southeastern Seminary down in Wake Forest, he wrote a book called

37:24

Salvation and Sovereignty, and he explores Mullen ism side by side with Calvinism.

37:31

And so these issues, these issues come up. I would push back on some of the things you said, but I'm actually it escapes from my memory some of the points that Dr.

37:39

Keithley brings up. But but yeah, definitely interesting questions and and it gets complicated really fast.

37:44

Yes, it does. So I try and do and I teach people I want them to understand an issue is is let's break it down and I'll even say this is awfully simplified.

37:54

And then I'll say, but understand this principle. It represents it accurately in one sense, but not in another.

38:01

And then we have to go in because you and I will have these two hour conversations like this over the phone and we understand the shortcuts of theology and terminology.

38:10

We go we go. But a lot of people who are listening don't write. And this is the issue is we want people to understand.

38:17

So I try and break it down and then say, but there are variables in here. Now, once we get the basics down, let's introduce a few variables that can affect how the basis.

38:26

Now, the problem, however, with that is they're going on. How I analyze Mullen ism to be ultimately based in.

38:33

And that that's one of the problems because I could be wrong about it. Sure, but you understand Mullen ism better than I do.

38:40

And you've talked a lot about it. You've read a lot about it's one of the things you've just kind of hopped on and just really been studying about it.

38:45

So that's great. But it's still for I understand the Mullen ism. We had our discussions, God's choice to actualize.

38:53

OK, folks, let me back up. Potential existences and actual existences. God knows an infinite number of potential universes he could have created, but there's only one that he actualized.

39:05

Now, there's even debate about that. Because if God knows all things perfectly and has all perfect knowledge, he's only going to actualize one perfect one, which is consistent with his perfect knowledge and decrees.

39:15

So there wouldn't be any potentiality outside of that. It's a whole other discussion. But nevertheless, important.

39:21

That was an important that's an important point, because that's exactly what I because a lot of one guy that I was interacting with, we were talking about whether libertarian freedom is actually coherent or not.

39:30

And so he asked me, well, he said that, well, does God have libertarian freedom?

39:36

Could God have chosen not to to create? And I said, I'm not sure.

39:41

I don't know that it sounds irreverent to say, you know, God may not be free to not create.

39:47

But it seems as though if God knew what he would do from all of eternity, how could he possibly. Are you

39:54

OK? You're you look sorry. It's stories from over there. Sorry, folks.

39:59

OK, that's OK. What is a big guy? Tell him to come on up, OK? There's an

40:07

Airbnb next door. Some people moved in for a week while they're waiting for a house. And I went over and introduced myself.

40:12

I got talking to them. And I said, come over on Wednesday. What we're talking about more for Bible study. It might be that guy.

40:17

He might be coming in. I might have him sit down. He can listen in. I might put us on speaker and everything else we can see. I don't know.

40:23

I'm going to find out. Hopefully he doesn't have a gun. And, you know, he's in a gorilla suit. I don't know. There we go. That would be hard.

40:31

So hold on, let's see. So is there. It is. I'm looking, waiting, we're seeing.

40:39

Are you writing a complete string? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Come on in. I'm OK. I'm on the

40:44

Web. We're having a sophisticated discussion on theology. You want to sit down, listen, I'll put it on so you can hear us if you want.

40:51

Did you have what you coming over for Bible stuff or just what? Oh, you are you're taking off.

41:00

Well, you're going to be I come over next door in about an hour if you want to say hi and stuff. I have a Thursday night thing

41:06

I do for two hours. And so what I do is we talk theology. We're talking about Molinism, counterfactual knowledge, things like this really stupid, sophisticated stuff that people be on about.

41:20

We have a seat, listen, if you want, I'll put it on speaker so they can do that. OK, hold on. I'm going to change my speaker so you can listen.

41:26

OK, in fact, I'm going to do I'm reading someone's comment here. It's hilarious. That person wrote,

41:31

I hear a middle knowledge and my brain goes middle earth. That's pretty good.

41:37

Yeah, I agree. Let me do this. Let's see. And speakers, I'll do. Hold on one sec.

41:45

OK, say something. Something. All right. There you go. All right. So now can you hear me

41:52

OK? Yeah, you're good. And it doesn't sound as good as when I use the headset, right? You're fine. That's what my wife says.

41:58

Thank you. I like that. You're welcome. I use that line on a lady to date the hospitals because that's

42:05

OK, you're fine. I go, well, thank you. My wife agrees. So anyway, what are you doing?

42:13

Tony, I suck with names. I bought this. So this Tony next door and Tony next door.

42:19

Yeah. So this is it. So this is a you don't know about this. This is YouTube.

42:25

And so every Thursday night from six to eight, I get on and my radio show.

42:30

I get on here and we have discussions. And so this guy right here, the ugly one that's right there. You know, see, yeah, he weighs and we're discussing some sophisticated

42:41

Bible stuff and we're discussing some problems. So where were we? We were at the

42:47

OK, so libertarian free will. The problem with God, if God, if God has it. Well, God can only act in a manner consistent with his nature, but he's certainly free to do what he wants to do, but his nature is holy.

42:59

First Peter one, 16. So you only do that which is holy. He cannot sin. He cannot lie, for example, Titus one, two. So how do we define libertarianism?

43:06

Here's a problem. Another problem I see with Moanism is that the definitions offered are often man centered libertarianism to me is a man centered definition.

43:14

It's not started with God as the standard of righteousness. Be perfect for I am, you know, be for your holy heavenly father is perfect.

43:21

Matthew five, 48 or first Timothy one, 16. Be holy for I'm holy. Well, God is the standard of righteousness.

43:27

God is the standard of all things and even a free will. And God doesn't have compatibilist free will because compatibilism deals with the issue of man's nature as it relates to God's sovereign choices and predestination over that.

43:39

So libertarianism is anti compatibilism, so it doesn't even apply to God.

43:45

I would just be careful, I guess, when you say that libertarianism is man centered, that is an interpretation.

43:51

I say it is you say it starts with man, but that is not necessarily true.

43:59

Maybe people you've spoken with start with man, but some Moanists believe it. I mean, we might disagree, but they genuinely believe that it's biblical to say that God is so sovereign that he could have chosen to refrain from creating if he wanted to.

44:15

My response to them is to take the right hand and put it in front of their face with their left and slap themselves upside the head, because what they're doing,

44:23

I believe, is still assigning a human based value with their anthropomorphizing God. OK, because libertarianism deals with the ability of man to be able to act in a manner consistent with his own freedom so that God retains his freedom.

44:37

That's the impetus. This is what Molina started. He wanted to harmonize God's sovereignty and man's freedom.

44:43

And so when you that to me is the starting point is of equality with God and man and the issue of free will.

44:49

And you can't have that because God is sovereign over our free will. He moves the heart of the king where he wishes to go.

44:55

Proverbs twenty one one. He opened Lydia's heart to believe the gospel. Acts 16, 14.

45:01

This is God's sovereignty is automatically over our and libertarianism compatibilism deals with human nature, not

45:07

God's. If we were to throw a monkey wrench in this discussion, it is interesting to see that those who affirm that God has the ability or the freedom rather to refrain from creating.

45:20

Many of the people who affirm that and affirm Molinism also have an interesting view of God's simplicity because of the classical view of the simplicity of God that is equal to all his attributes.

45:32

You have no room for the possibility of God doing anything other than what he does. We discussed that in seminary, whether or not he did.

45:41

And I don't believe he could have. Not that God is limited or has to answer to something outside of himself and get into the youthful dilemma.

45:48

We get this thing about, no, God's nature is perfect and he has freedom within his perfection in a way that we can't even comprehend.

45:57

It's not comprehensible. Like I said, I say this every now and then. One of the best things I learned in seminary is when a professor went up to the board and said, gentlemen,

46:04

I'm going to teach you one of the most important things you can learn in seminary. There is a God. You are not him.

46:10

You can tell Eli that we've talked. I've listened to your podcast since as far as I can predict everything you're going to say.

46:19

Well, then you also know that I'm that humble about all of it, too. And you wouldn't challenge the fact that I know what you're going to say because you believe in the spiritual gifts.

46:30

You believe in the charismatic gifts, too. I'm I'm I'm more lean towards that side. I have some friends who are trying to who are trying to get me to become a cessationist.

46:39

So we're interacting a little bit and I'm doing it with some. Maybe we can talk about that at the top of the hour, take a break here for five.

46:47

I'll talk to Tony here, nice guy. And then we can talk about the charismatic gifts, continuationism, because the biblical position is they're still around.

46:55

And I can defend it. I can do a good job defending it if you guys want it. But we'll see what the listeners want.

47:00

I mean, OK, enjoy our conversation because maybe maybe there's you don't get it. Maybe they're going, uh, they're too smart for me,

47:09

I don't know. Well, speaking of that, I do have to tip my hat off to my

47:14

Molinist friends. I do greatly appreciate my discussions with them because they definitely keep me on my toes and make me think about, you know, really deep issues.

47:23

I've I've had only respectful discussions with with Molinist. And I think yeah, I think the problem is these kinds of discussions can get so heated that you really never get anywhere.

47:33

So I just I just want to let people know I appreciate my Molinist friends. They do keep me on my toes. They do.

47:39

But what they when I talk to Molinists who are really knowledgeable and articulate, it only strengthens my understanding of reformed theology,

47:47

Calvinism. And it demonstrates to me that what I was my my basic understanding of Molinism is and this is here's another example.

47:56

When I say this, it's way too base. But it's the premise by which I think ultimately it resides in is human centeredness.

48:04

God's reactive work to his logically prior knowledge that he has in potential universes. And this is why he actualized the one we're in now, because of what he saw we would do in whatever circumstance.

48:13

And that's what he chose that by definition is reactionary. And now what a Molinist should do is say, what's wrong with that?

48:21

That's what he should say. And what's wrong with that? And then we get into the issue of God's aseity and non -contingency.

48:27

OK, yeah, well, interesting stuff, man. I know Dr. Williams is responding to that way.

48:38

Put him on the spot. No, we used to have talks like this in the coffee shop back in San Diego, in La Mesa, La Mesa.

48:46

Yeah, that's a good deal. You know, there's big Christian coffee shops and that's where we talk mostly

48:53

Calvinism. Yeah, I'm a Calvinist, Calvinist, Calvinist, Calvinist, Calvinist.

48:58

Yeah. And Arminianism and the whole thing, you know. See, we have an

49:04

Airbnb next door and this big U -Haul drives up. And in all the years it's been there, I've never seen a

49:10

U -Haul. So I thought, what is going on? Did the guy sell the house? Because I know the guy who owns it.

49:16

And so I went over there and stuck my nose in somebody else's business and introduced myself. And I was curious, particularly since we'd had publicly some stuff happen and some other stuff.

49:26

And the atheists are going, yeah. But anyway. Do you want to hang?

49:33

Yeah, it's interesting. And yeah, it's unfortunately, though, hopefully it doesn't get divisive.

49:41

Oh, no, no, no, no. That has happened, you know. Yeah, no, we have good. The group of people that we talk about this, we can disagree really strongly, but we can also, in the meantime, insult each other and we're laughing about it because we know.

49:56

That's why I like Eli here. He should be a continuationist like me in the same level as I am, obviously.

50:03

It's oh, no, we've got traditional Catholic. And the division starts now.

50:12

I'm just kidding. Yeah, you know about Catholicism. People don't know.

50:18

I teach on it a lot. You haven't seen my website, have you? No, if you could write it down,

50:24

I'll show it to you. I have to check it out. We got to leave you up to see.

50:30

This is a that's my website right there. And see, yeah,

50:36

C .A .R .M. Dot org. And so I got all kinds of stuff on it for years and years.

50:43

And I've been getting rid of books, you know. You know, we're going to move.

50:49

But anyway, OK, so I got a question. OK, let's ask the people in the chat room.

50:54

We've got 47 people watching. Do you guys want to have Eli and I continue on this discussion of Moanism counterfactuals, logical priority, or would you like to hear us discuss the continuation of the charismatic gifts or the evils of Roman Catholicism or whatever it is or doesn't all of the above?

51:15

Oh, thanks. I just don't want to listen to traditional

51:20

Catholic read off the Aikens material and the Diamond Brothers material. That's getting kind of tiresome.

51:26

Yeah, you know. And we've got to spend so much time talking to him. I don't want to talk about that right now.

51:33

Maybe OK, we got a vote for Moanism, a vote for art, for Catholicism and a vote for continuationism.

51:42

I'll vote for gifts, the gifts that would be. Yeah, I'm going to give you my reasons why the gifts are still around.

51:50

I believe that they are. But sure, let's see.

51:55

He said it unless the Bible's changed. Right. I'm with him. I mean, we can argue with each other's ideas and opinions, but the

52:05

Bible, that's something different. I don't know about you guys, but I'm Sola Scriptura. And that's for the traditionalist in there.

52:14

What does that mean? It means that the scripture alone has that place of final authority. And that's what

52:21

I believe in. That's right now, Matt. Now, Matt, a common a common objection against continuationism is that it challenges the the doctrine of Sola Scriptura and the sufficiency of scripture.

52:38

What say you? Yes. OK, you know why it doesn't?

52:44

Because in First Corinthians 14, they're speaking in tongues or interpretation of tongues, word of knowledge, there's word of wisdom, just prophecies that occur.

52:51

And they were not canonized. So there is a level of revelation that comes from God through the Holy Spirit that manifests to the church that is not meant to be canonized.

52:59

Those people who say it challenges a canon apparently don't have First Corinthians 14 in their Bible and they don't read it.

53:06

Or if they do read it, they go. And then we shut them in and they go, OK, it's eagerly desired.

53:15

Yeah, that's right. Eagerly desire the charismatic. Now, let's just jump right in.

53:20

Look, the word there's there's the word for charismatic comes from the Greek charismatic. Now, there are charismatic gifts.

53:28

I'm going to show you guys something. This is really important. How many believe you can type it in? How many believe the charismatic gifts have ceased

53:36

Okay, with the closing of the canon or whatever it is, all right, they'll say the charismatic gifts.

53:42

I'll put, I'll put my question. I'll put a question mark since I'm not sure. I lean towards your position, but I, I, I hear some interesting arguments on the other side.

53:53

Oh, I would love to hear the irrational, interesting arguments too. So when

53:58

I did my debate in, with, uh, uh, what's his name in Houston on the charismatic gifts, uh, man is a shot out of a cannon.

54:07

That's right. That's right. You did have a discussion with JD Hall a while back. We had, yeah, but I kept it low level with him and there was some areas he could not answer.

54:16

And there's some things he's got to twist stuff. But nevertheless, um, uh, you know, if he and I want to do a public debate, real debate on it,

54:23

I'd be glad to. Okay. But I mean a serious go at it debate. But um, uh, so here's the thing,

54:31

Romans 6, 23, for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift, charismata, the free gift of God eternal life, let me ask you, have all the charismatic gifts ceased?

54:46

Well, if the, if that's described as a charismata and it still occurs today, then it can't.

54:54

Yeah. And literally what it says is, uh, that, uh, charisma, but the gift, the charisma, the gift of God, the word free, uh, isn't really there.

55:05

It just says, give charisma. I heard the question because I don't have a strong Greek background. Um, is there another

55:12

Greek word for gift that doesn't use charismata, uh, Doron? Okay.

55:18

And what's, what's the difference between Doron? It's been a long time. Um, Doron is a

55:24

Greek word that is used in various terms of gifts, but the, what I like to do is show that it's used in different ways.

55:30

And you can also go to, I think it's, uh, let me get my Bible program down to this monitor down here.

55:37

Okay. Hold on. I think it's in, um, 1

55:43

Corinthians 2 to 12 or 14, I think it's 14. Uh, and also, uh, pneumatic us, uh, spirituals.

55:52

Okay. Now concerning spiritual gifts rather than not, why you'd be unaware that's Rome. Uh, 1 Corinthians 12, uh, right.

55:59

One. All right. And in verse 14, excuse me, 1 Corinthians 14, it says, um, pursue earnestly the spiritual gifts, but it's pneumatic again.

56:09

And it would, you know, from the pneuma, the spirit, they come from the Holy spirit because that's where they're gifted at. A lot of people don't know this, but there are different kinds of gifts listed in 1

56:19

Corinthians 12 Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 14. And there are charismatic gifts and there are non charismatic gifts.

56:26

Non charismatic gifts would be such things as helps administrations. Now what's the Greek word there when referring to those kinds of gifts?

56:33

I think it's pneumatic. Let me, let me see. I'm only asking because when you say, when you refer to eternal life as a charismatic gift,

56:42

I wonder if someone can make the argument that the context there is not the gifts that's referenced in those other portions of scripture.

56:48

We're talking about, you know, speaking in tongues and prophecy. I wonder if one is using that word in a different context and just equating them with one another.

56:57

And you always have to check that. Uh, absolutely. Um, but the word, let's see the word that there's helps,

57:03

I've forgot, it's been a long time that I've discussed this, but, uh, in 1 Corinthians 12, 28 helps administrations, various kinds of tongues.

57:11

And the word helps there is, uh, uh, until limpses, uh, until, until lame sis, okay.

57:25

Until emphasis. And it just means helps, but it's listed and it will log with administrations.

57:31

Okay. And, uh, Kuberans, Kuber naysays is the

57:38

Greek word here for different things, but it's a gift to the church. People have, have the ability to do helps just to help people and administer.

57:47

We have people coming over here to help us because of my wife's situation and stuff like that. Um, so there are people who have the gifts of, of, uh, let's see, where's the word helps.

57:56

Here we go. Uh, healings helps administrations. Uh, well help and administration.

58:04

They're not a charismatic gift because anybody can do them. Technically speaking, even unbelievers can be helpful.

58:09

Even unbelievers can be administrators of various things and helpful, but there are only charismatic gifts.

58:16

Those are the ones from the Holy spirit is emphasized as he indwells the believer and actualizes those things that he's capable of working in and does work in people.

58:28

Sure. Those are for the gifts of the church. Those things are, uh, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues, word of knowledge, word of wisdom, and things like that.

58:36

The Christian church exemplified those. Now let me show you something.

58:42

First Corinthians one seven. This has been tying to first Corinthians 13, but first Corinthians one seven so that you're not lacking any gift.

58:50

And the word is charisma. Now what are you staying at? First Corinthians one seven.

58:56

Let me read the whole thing to get the context. Paul called as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.

59:02

His sauce that these are brother to the church of God, which is at Corinth to those who've been sanctified in Christ Jesus saints by calling with all who in every place call upon the name of our

59:11

Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours. Verse three, grace to you in peace from God, her father, Lord Jesus Christ.

59:16

Oh, and everybody could get the context. Okay. I think my God always concerning you for the grace of God, which was given to you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in him and all speech and in all knowledge, even as a testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you.

59:30

Verse seven, so that you are not lacking in any charisma awaiting eagerly the revelation, the apocalypsis of our

59:41

Lord Jesus Christ. Notice what Paul does. He equates not lacking in charismatic gifts with the return of Christ.

59:49

That's what it does right there. What people will do is they'll say to me, well, Matt, what he's talking about, there's only the Corinthians.

59:55

You're not talking to the whole church, but it first contains one, two to everyone, everywhere who called upon the name of the

01:00:02

Lord Jesus. That's a universal admonition and it's the entire church. So that doesn't work.

01:00:07

And plus two verses later, first going to use one nine. God is faithful to whom you're called in the fellowship of the son,

01:00:13

Christ Jesus. That's us today. So anybody who would say that verse one, two, three, four, five, six is for the for the universal church, but verse seven is only for the

01:00:24

Corinthian church. Nate nine is not for universal. That kind of of exegetical gymnastics just doesn't work.

01:00:31

But notice what he does here. You're not to lack any charisma while you're waiting for the apocalypsis of Jesus.

01:00:39

Well, that's what Paul does. That's the problem. Yeah, we're still we're still waiting. So the gifts are still here.

01:00:45

Now check this out. The first Corinthians 13. If I speak with tongues, you know, men of angels, but do not have love.

01:00:53

It goes on to get the prophecy, et cetera. Verse four. Love is patient. Love is kind. We know all this stuff.

01:00:59

Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness. Bears all things. Verse eight. Love never fails.

01:01:04

But if there are gifts of prophecy, they'll be done away. If there are tongues, they will cease.

01:01:10

If there's knowledge, it will be done away. For we all know in part and we prophesy in part.

01:01:15

When the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. Now, some people say that what the perfect is, is the completion of the canon.

01:01:25

I don't believe that. Well, even if they believe that, that's weak because it's not you don't get that from the text.

01:01:32

You don't get it from the text. That's just an inference. Yeah. Right. But because they will presuppose that any charismatic gift must be canonized, which first Corinthians 14 proves is not true.

01:01:43

Okay. Then they will assume that the word perfect, which is telos in the Greek, complete, perfect, mature.

01:01:50

Telos in the Greek means the completion of the canon. And then the partial will be done away with.

01:01:56

The charismatic gifts are the partial. But that doesn't work because they can say that, but does the context necessitate it?

01:02:03

Because check this out. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, thought as a child, reasoned like a child. When I became a man,

01:02:09

I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.

01:02:17

So then what's the antecedent of then? What the antecedent of then is, is when the perfect comes.

01:02:24

So do we say then that when the Bible is completed, that's when we see face to face? No. In fact,

01:02:31

I've done a search on the phrase face to face in the Bible and every single occurrence that deals with his personal encounter.

01:02:40

So for now we see in a mirror dimly, but then when the perfect comes face to face, now

01:02:47

I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I have been fully known.

01:02:52

That's a cryptic statement that I have been fully known, but I know what it means.

01:02:59

And the reason I know what it means is because I've done a search on how God uses the word no, Gnosko in the

01:03:05

Greek, K -N -O -W, as it relates to us. So John 10, 5, excuse me,

01:03:10

John 10, 27, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. Galatians 4, 8, 9, when you did not know

01:03:18

God, you serve by nature those which are not God's. But now that you've come to know God or rather are known by God, now you've come to serve to a living

01:03:26

God. You go to Matthew 7, 22 and 23 where Jesus says on that day, many will say to me,

01:03:32

Lord, Lord, do we not prophesy in your name? Cast out demons your name before many miracles your name. And he'll say, and he said, and I will say to them,

01:03:38

I never knew you. Get away from me. You who work iniquity. So when

01:03:44

God says, I know you, it means you're saved. He says, I don't know you. It means you're not saved. The only place where I know you is in reference to an unbeliever.

01:03:53

I forgot the verse is when Jesus says to the Pharisees, I know you, you have your father, the devil, right?

01:03:58

And he immediately qualifies it. So it's not just the phrase. I know you, but it's, I know you, you are. He's saying, I know who you are, your essence.

01:04:05

And he's saying that they're demonic. So what we see here is that the perfect cannot be simply the canon, but when

01:04:12

Christ returns, which is first Corinthians one, seven, waiting for the apocalypsis of Jesus, the perfect comes.

01:04:20

He says, for now we've seen him a mirror dimly, then face to face. When Jesus comes back, we'll be caught up to meet him.

01:04:26

First Thessalonians four, verse 16, Gentrify verse two. Well, that's a rapture.

01:04:33

Okay. We now we see mirror dimly then face to face. That's a personal encounter. Now I know in part, but then when the perfect comes,

01:04:42

I'll know fully just as I have been fully known. The phraseology is one of salvation.

01:04:49

He's not talking about the completion of the canon, because if it were, are we fully known by God with the completion of the canon?

01:04:56

Yeah, of course not. Are we see face to face when the canon is completed? Of course not. I have a question here.

01:05:02

So I was, I was speaking to a retired Presbyterian pastor, and we were talking about this issue.

01:05:08

Very well -known guy. Actually, he actually debated James White on the issue of infant baptism. So he's,

01:05:15

I'm sorry. How'd he do? Did he do well? Oh, now I'm biased. I'm a huge fan of Dr.

01:05:21

White, but I have to say his name is Will. I don't pastor Will Shishko. I have to say he did very well against, uh, against James White.

01:05:29

I think he might've pulled ahead in the debate. Okay. Huh? I hold to that position.

01:05:38

I hold. Yes. Yeah, I know. You're talking about that at a time too.

01:05:44

Right. I have a good argument for it. But when we were talking about the charismatic gifts, um,

01:05:50

I posed the question, are the gifts for today? And he, he, he said that, and this is an interesting way to come about it.

01:05:57

He said that that's the wrong question to ask. Not, not whether if it's for today, he says the better question to approach this whole issue is the question of what is the purpose of the gift so that when you explore the purpose of the gift, then hopefully, according to his view, you will see that it's no longer for today.

01:06:15

And so he said, starting there is a more helpful way of approaching to come to that conclusion. So if I were to ask you the question from his perspective, what is the purpose of the gift?

01:06:25

And could you answer that question also leading into why also you think it's for today? Well, we would have to go to this thing called the

01:06:34

Bible. The Bible. Very good. Okay, good. Okay. And what we would do is go to first Corinthians 14.

01:06:40

And what we see in first Corinthians 14, it's been a long time since I debated this, so I don't have it all memorized. Okay. You got to try and find the first Corinthians 14 verse what?

01:06:50

Well, I don't know yet. Okay. Because it talks about, okay. I had to get myself set up. I wish you all spoke in tongues.

01:06:59

Okay. Well, we'll leave that back up. We'll just go through an exergy. What verse are you in? First Corinthians 14 verse two.

01:07:06

For one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men, but to God. For no one understands, but in his spirit, he speaks mysteries.

01:07:12

Now we could look at that and say, speaking in tongues is speaking to God. And there's mysteries being spoken.

01:07:18

And we can discuss what's the purpose of that edification of the individual, obviously not the edification of God.

01:07:25

Do we still need that today? Of course we do. I don't speak in tongues, but you know, but one who prophesies speaks to men for edification and exhortation and consolation.

01:07:35

So when he prophesies speaks for edification and exhortation, do we need that today? Sure. Yeah. When he speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but when he prophesies edifies the church, do we still need the edification of the church today?

01:07:47

Yeah. Now I wish that you all spoke in tongues, but even more that you would prophesy.

01:07:53

But now Paul is saying he wants the whole church and people to prophesy. Why? Edification and exhortation.

01:07:59

Do we need that today? Oh yes we do. Especially since that stupid guy who's the pastor of the

01:08:05

Hillsong church up in New York city, Carl Lentz, who was on The View said that about abortion when he said, well, you know, everybody's got to act according to their own convictions.

01:08:18

I did it. I'm gonna write an article on it. I read it. I transcribed it. I know what you're referring to. Yeah. Anyway, so look at this, but even more that you would prophesy and greater is one who prophesies than the one who speaks in tongues unless he interprets so that the church may receive it.

01:08:34

Edifying. Do we need that today? Yes. I can go on and on with this chapter doing the same thing.

01:08:41

So now what if someone says, all right, fine. So we need edification. We need all these things, but what can you tell me that is not now available to me in scripture?

01:08:52

So what's the use of that since we do, I'm not saying that that verse that was mentioned before is talking about when the canon is closed, then these things will cease.

01:09:00

But let's assume if someone was, we're thinking along those lines, we have the Bible, we have the fullness of the gospel.

01:09:06

If you're going to encourage me or give me a word or exhort, exhort me, what can you say that's not already there in scripture?

01:09:14

All kinds of stuff. Um, Oh yeah, there's, there's, there's a lot. So, and by the way,

01:09:21

I'm asking because I, I want to see where you're coming from. I'm not necessarily saying I hold to that view at all, but go ahead.

01:09:27

What Sola Scriptura means is that there's nothing outside of the scripture. We don't look at it. It means the scriptures are the final authority and everything we examine with our history, with our church fathers, with the councils or whatever it is, would have knowledge, would have wisdom, would have everything.

01:09:40

So, um, we have, uh, for example, people having visions and dreams of Jesus in the middle

01:09:47

East and Muslim countries, and they're converting by the thousands. They don't even have the Bible in some countries.

01:09:54

It's illegal to have a Bible. They can be killed for it or exiled or whatever it is. He did examples in the

01:10:00

Bible where he warned people and stuff. That's that falls under it. I believe as well.

01:10:06

That'd be under word of knowledge or word of wisdom, but exhortation. So we see in the middle

01:10:12

East that this is happening right now to people who don't even have the word of God. There's a book you can get called BRUCHKO.

01:10:17

B -R -U -C -H -K -O. And it's a guy by a guy named Bruce Wilson. And it's an account of him going down to South America to the

01:10:25

Modoloni tribe and in South America, skipping all kinds of stuff. He was a missionary and he ended up learning the language of a certain tribe.

01:10:34

And it was a prophecy in the tribe that there'll be a white haired man, he had blonde hair, who would come to them with the word of God written on banana leaves.

01:10:47

They didn't have scripture, but they had a prophecy that was somehow in their culture. And there's lots of things like this throughout the world.

01:10:54

I myself once very distinctly remember. And Charlie, I don't know. It wasn't Charlie was there on this one.

01:11:00

It was, it was a friend of mine. I've known for like 40 years. It was Dave Kimball and Dave not here.

01:11:07

So I'm sitting at the Swabian ministry back in Southern California, just a half a mile from the crystal cathedral cost 22 freeway at the

01:11:14

Santa Anna drive -in before they tore it down. And I had the Swabian ministry.

01:11:20

And I remember a guy came up to me and he was talking to me. We had a booth.

01:11:25

We had tables, we had rocks with rocks on them and for tracks and evangelism.

01:11:31

We did this every Saturday for two and a half years. And this guy comes up, he had dark hair, slender guy, about 20, mid twenties, early twenties, light, light frame.

01:11:43

I remember this guy and we're talking and he's telling me why he did not believe in the word and did not believe

01:11:48

Christ. And he's giving me some answers and I'm asking them some questions. And all of a sudden, all of a sudden there was this presence.

01:11:58

And I knew, I don't know how to describe it. Just, it was just, and I remember looking at him and I knew exactly what his problem was.

01:12:08

And I spoke to him with such authority and truth. I said, this is, I remember the exact thing

01:12:13

I said, but it was basically, you know that God has spoken to you about, and I listed like two or three things out.

01:12:19

He's spoken to you about them in your heart, in your mind, you know, and what's happened is you have refused to believe because you want such and such as such and such.

01:12:29

I mean, it was specific. And this went on for like 30 seconds. And then all of a sudden this presence left.

01:12:36

And that guy literally, he was looking at me like someone had just performed the greatest magic trick in the world.

01:12:45

His, his mouth was open. His eyes were bugged out and he actually stumbled backwards.

01:12:51

And he just, he couldn't believe what he's hearing. He walked off. He doesn't believe anything. No, but you know, my friend

01:12:57

Dave, who I still know, you know what he told me? He was sitting there and he saw this. We were, he was here just a few months ago.

01:13:03

We got talking about it. And he said, Matt, I remember that. He said, right when this started with you,

01:13:11

I saw around you a presence that looked like heat, heat waves, and it was shimmering around you as you spoke.

01:13:19

And it left when you stopped. Really now. Okay. That wasn't scripture, but it didn't contradict scripture.

01:13:29

Yeah. And that's the point, because I know, I know a lot of people who tend to be very strict. Well, wait a minute.

01:13:34

And now you're basing things on your experience. Uh, what did I do with my experience last? That's right.

01:13:40

And we always analyze it in light of, of scripture. What I loved about your, your discussion with, uh,

01:13:46

JD Hall is that you pointed out that he has no category for, uh, he has no category for understanding your experience.

01:13:55

In other words, right? He couldn't, you believe the Bible. You had an experience. You don't see the experience contradict scripture.

01:14:02

Now, if he just asserts, well, these get this, that didn't actually happen. It wasn't really what you thought it was. What do you do with the experience?

01:14:10

Yeah, exactly right. And that wasn't on this experience, but it was on that experience where I prophesied over that girl. That's right.

01:14:15

That's right. And that's what details and time references. And it all came to pass. Right. And that stumped him because, you know, if I, it was a hearsay, what's he going to do?

01:14:24

But no, this is it. This is me. This is, I, this happened. I remember it clearly. This is her name. This is where it was.

01:14:29

I could take it to the place where it was. I mean, it happened in real time and he stumbled at that point because his worldview didn't allow it to occur.

01:14:35

Right. Well, he wants to be consistent in what he affirms, but he now has to, he has the problem of now disbelieving what you say, even knowing that you are a reliable source.

01:14:47

You know, it's not, you're not like an unbeliever trying to trick. I mean, you're saying like, Hey, I'm, I'm a rational guy.

01:14:52

I, you know, I'm not overly emotional. This is what happened. And he has no categories for it.

01:14:58

He can't even say you're, you're lying because he doesn't want to say that, but you can't affirm the validity of what you're saying because he's already committed to a particular understanding of, of the guests.

01:15:08

Yeah. It reminds me back in seminary, I was sitting there talking to a guy and I can tell you, it was one of those, another moment where I go, what?

01:15:15

And I, I can tell you, I can take you to the door. I was standing in a particular room and I told him about the experience

01:15:21

I had where, when my buddy, a, a different Dave, who I've known even longer, another day, we had a seance before I was a

01:15:28

Christian in my room and a blue ball, a blue ball of white materialized and turned into a, the figure of a man that then dissolved and a yellow cross materialized in the room and moved across.

01:15:41

Now I saw it. I still remember saying this, my friend, Dave, we're still friends. I got out of my cell. He's on my cell.

01:15:46

I could call him up. You know, we talked about it. He goes, yeah. Okay. I told my friend this and he, he looked at me in seminary and he's a cessationist, a strict cessationist.

01:15:56

He said, I believe he was a strict cessationist. He said, that never happened. You never saw it. They turned around and walked off.

01:16:04

And I was dumbfounded because it was obvious that his presuppositions were guarding everything so much.

01:16:11

So he wasn't open to anything. Now I have a high view of scripture. You know, I have an extremely high view of scripture, but the scriptures teach at first 15 to 14, that tongues and prophecy and interpretations, which came from the spirit of God, doesn't mean it'd be canonized as proof.

01:16:26

So it doesn't threaten the canon. If it did, then why aren't those things canonized? They didn't need to be.

01:16:32

So that argument just falls flat on its face. And did the, are the gifts still needed for today?

01:16:37

Yeah. Just go through first Corinthians 14. I hear people say, well, okay, they weren't canonized, but whatever those utterances were, would they have held the equal authority with scripture since their source is

01:16:51

God? So you have God say again? No, because only the scripture is ordained by God for the purpose of being scripture.

01:17:00

Yes. But the authority, the authority level would still be the same. Would it not? The scriptures are universally applied.

01:17:08

A specific thing. Like when I prophesied to Tony and I said, and you know, you're not going on your mission.

01:17:14

You're going to stay. What's going to happen in five months. You're going to meet a guy. He's going to become your spiritual mentor in 18 months.

01:17:20

You two are going to have a special bond and you need to go do mission work together. Yeah. That's not for the church.

01:17:26

It's for him. But it's for him, but for him, is it, or sorry, her, is it as equally authoritative as scripture?

01:17:37

Since if, okay, so that, that's the, that's the good. I'm glad you said that because that's the issue that I have difficulty understanding that if the

01:17:45

Bible is the word of God, because it's inspired by God and a prophetic utterance or a word of knowledge is given to you by God, you have

01:17:53

God speaking in both. And I don't see how there are different degrees of authority when both of those things are functioning.

01:17:59

If they're equal in authority, then both need to be inscripturated because the idea is that scripture is that final authority.

01:18:06

If they're going to have equal authority, then of scripture that need to be inscripturated by the definition of them being equal in authority.

01:18:13

But the fact is, if you read first continues 14, the tongues and the prophecy need to be judged by the elders. What are the elders going to judge it by?

01:18:20

Or church comes together and judge it, but by scripture. So all things must be judged by what God has ordained is the canon of scripture, which is as self -testation as being true.

01:18:29

So anything that I would prophesy or have a word of knowledge must be examined against the word of God. Okay. Does not have equal authority.

01:18:36

So I don't see it logically following from the idea that if they're equal in authority, that therefore they both have to be inscripturated.

01:18:46

I don't see how that logically follows. If they're equal in inspiration. And so that's what

01:18:52

I'm saying from their perspective, if they're going to argue that, well, you prophesied so why isn't it equal to scripture?

01:18:58

They're putting it on equal level of scripture. If that's the case, if they're saying it's equal, then I'm going to ask them, they shouldn't be inscripturated because that's what they tell me.

01:19:05

Well, they should be. Well, I'm saying, I'm saying that it's equal in authority, but it may not be equal in its application to everyone else.

01:19:13

Exactly. Well, what's the intention of the new Testament? For example, say again, what's

01:19:19

God's intention in a broad sense? What's God's intention with the new Testament? Well, in the new

01:19:25

Testament gives us information of the gospel and the new covenant and how it applies to every believer and, and, and unbeliever too,

01:19:32

I suppose what, what God has to say towards them as well. Right. But it's to the believers. It's to the church, the church.

01:19:38

Right. Right. So if I were to stand up someplace at a conference, let's say

01:19:44

I was, I asked, I was asked to speak at a conference. Okay. There's a thousand people there. And all of a sudden, right.

01:19:51

And I say, thus sayeth the Lord, he has for the church, blah, blah, blah. You know, uh, that usher me out the back doors.

01:19:58

I don't get stoned, but if I'm sitting there talking to an individual and say, this is what

01:20:06

God is, has for you. That's not the same thing. The scriptures are for the church.

01:20:11

Corpus, um, please the corpus. No, I know what you're saying. And I think that's a good,

01:20:17

I think that's an important point because the new Testament is for the church. A specific word is for an individual.

01:20:26

Right. I'm not differentiating. I mean, I understand that differentiation that once for the church, one specifically for a person, but it seems as though if they both come from God, the binding authority is equal in the sense that while the specific word for the individual is not for everyone, it's still authoritative for the person that you're giving it to since it's coming from God.

01:20:48

That's what I'm saying. But no one knows if it's coming from God. If I were to prophesize, I did with that, that girl,

01:20:53

Tony, right. If I were to prophesy, she doesn't know what I'm saying is, is from God. In fact,

01:20:58

I remember after I was done, it would same kind of a thing happened, you know, and then it was gone. And I remember going, what the heck was that?

01:21:06

How did I know that? Right. And so I'm not speaking as an apostle because I'm not, you know,

01:21:11

Paul said, I'm telling what I'm telling you is, is the word of God, you know, okay, I'm not doing that. And the people

01:21:16

I know in the charismatic circles, they don't do that. They do not. Some do and mistakenly, but they're not supposed to, but they don't put their, their word equal to the, to the scriptures, the purpose of God's revelation to us.

01:21:30

We have, you know, we have general revelation, the sun, the created order, the anthropic principle.

01:21:35

We understand all this stuff. We understand there's a revelation of God that is given to us at very low levels.

01:21:41

And that's even at the unbeliever. So that they're without excuse Romans one, 18 through 31. We know they're without excuse because the evidence of God has been in creation.

01:21:48

That's a form of revelation, but we call it general revelation, not special revelation. And for those who don't know, special revelation is a scripture and the old

01:21:56

Testament prophets, new Testament apostles given to us as self -authenticating power. It's the voice of God.

01:22:02

We recognize it and it's ordained by God very specifically. And it's, it's inspired, but yet within that same word, in 1

01:22:10

Corinthians 14, we will see the movement of the Holy spirit in the church. And yet it's not as scripturated, nor is it said to be of authoritative level, equal to scripture.

01:22:20

In fact, it's to be judged. The only way to judge it is by the scriptures themselves. And so when we say, see this, look at this, it says this here.

01:22:30

Um, this is verse 27. If anyone speaks in a tongue, it should be by two or at the most three and each intern.

01:22:39

And one must interpret. But if there is no interpreter, he must keep silent in the church and let him speak to himself and to God.

01:22:45

Let two or three prophets speak and let others pass judgment.

01:22:51

But if a revelation is made to another who is seated, the first must also keep silent for you can all prophesy one by one so that you all may learn and all may be exhorted.

01:23:02

And the spirits of the prophets are separate the prophets. Now, wait a minute. If I were to be at a, a debate and I were to rephrase this into my own terminology and say it, they would complain about that because as I often do,

01:23:20

I'll quote scripture. They don't know I'm putting scripture. And then they say, no, I don't agree with that. Well, this, they might know cause it's so sounding.

01:23:28

But the point is that it says, if you're going to prophesy, people need to pass judgment. But if it's prophesied, it's coming from God.

01:23:35

Then why are men judging God's words now? Because there's a different level of revelation that's proven to exist in first Corinthians 14 and a revelation with his intent.

01:23:47

So if God, if it was that, I don't know how to explain it, but with Tony, when I prophesied, which is the only time it's happened like that in my entire life in such detail, if that was for God to do, that's his desire to do that through me for her, whatever reason,

01:24:01

I don't know. Maybe for something later on, we've since lost contact. Maybe it was something that she needed. I don't know, but it was not intended to be for the church at large.

01:24:10

And so it's a different level. And people don't like that. They kind of assume that there's different, that it's all the same level of authority from God.

01:24:17

Not true. Because we see that proven in first Corinthians 14. So those objections don't carry any weight.

01:24:23

They don't, they don't merit any challenge to the issue of continuationism. And besides Eli, first Corinthians 1 .7,

01:24:30

you're not to lack any charisma while we're waiting for the apocalypses. Of Jesus.

01:24:36

Right. So are we lacking any charismatic gift? Oh, all. If that, if that interpretation is correct, then, then no, we shouldn't lack.

01:24:44

Wait a minute. You're doubting my ability. I'm just granting a little more validity to the fact that there, these are interpretive issues as well.

01:24:56

And if, uh, Hey, listen, listen, I lean towards that perspective.

01:25:03

I grew up in a charismatic church. Uh, now, now you speak Spanish too. That's probably tongues too.

01:25:09

Well, actually that surprise, surprise. I don't speak Spanish. Actually. I'm, I'm, uh, you understand it better than you speak it.

01:25:14

Is that what it is? Yeah. I speak Spanglish. So let's look at first Corinthians 1 .7.

01:25:20

You tell me what it means. I agree with you.

01:25:26

I agree with you. I'm just trying to, I mean, where I think I, I think of objections that might come up when, when you make a statement and stuff like that.

01:25:33

So I, I agree with you. It's just, it's interesting. James White. And I talked about this verse once.

01:25:39

And how'd that go? Um, it didn't go that well. Uh, I don't know if he remembers it, but I do.

01:25:45

But, um, uh, he, he explained it and I don't remember what he said, but he explained it in such a way that I, I just went, what

01:25:51

I, you know, maybe his knowledge is so much greater than mine that I wasn't able to comprehend it.

01:25:57

Uh, but I just said, well, I, I, I, you know, and, and we didn't, we didn't agree.

01:26:03

All right. Right. So, but I mean it right there, um, that you're not lacking any gift, any charisma.

01:26:10

Now, if it's only to the Corinthians, then we've got problems for everything else in that, in that, that epistle.

01:26:16

But if it is that we're not to lack, uh, so that you are not lacking any charisma awaiting eagerly the revelation of our

01:26:25

Lord Jesus Christ. We did. So when you, when you spoke with Dr. White, did you guys mention that particular passage? Yes.

01:26:31

That's the specific passage. And I'll give you more details in private sometime. Sure. Sure. Yeah. That must've been interesting.

01:26:36

Cause I, my, my first time I met Dr. White was, I clumsily dropped a pile of books that I, that I brought to get signed.

01:26:44

Cause he came over to Long Island and he stopped his talk. And he was like, I spent many hours writing those, but I wasn't even embarrassed.

01:26:51

I was like, Oh, I'm so sorry. It's my first time I ever met Dr. White. I mean, he didn't ask me to sign my books when, when we met.

01:26:57

Listen, I don't know, man, Dr. White's Dr. White. Mr.

01:27:02

Slick is Mr. Slick. I'm sorry. You know what it is? I don't talk to Dr. I've, I've talked to, to, uh, what's the guy that helps him out?

01:27:09

I don't remember. But now it's all right. I understand. Yeah. It's all right. That's because you can have good judgment.

01:27:15

Hey, I've listened to more of your stuff than I have Dr. White. So you should, you should feel flattered. I value your perspective.

01:27:21

All right. All right. Well, anyway, uh, but 1 Corinthians 1, seven to me is a killer verse.

01:27:28

And 1 Corinthians 13, the perfect, when you look at the antecedent of, of then face to face, and then we know he's fully known.

01:27:34

I don't see that it is any way of being anything that's related to the eschaton, excuse me, to the completion of the canon, but it has to be the eschaton for those who don't know that's the return of Christ.

01:27:43

Right, right, right. Right here. The same thing in 1 Corinthians 1, seven, that you're not like any charisma while you're waiting for the return of Christ.

01:27:50

Do you have a little revelation? Real quick, uh, Matt, who's the guy you debated the formal debate on this topic? Cause I want to take a look at that.

01:27:56

I don't think I've ever seen it. I can't remember. Yeah. I believe it was

01:28:02

Sam Waldron. All right. Yeah. Someone just posted in the, in the thing here. Okay. I'm going to, I'm going to check that out. Hey, Hey, why don't we, um, if it's okay, why don't we switch gears and talk a little bit apologetics, man?

01:28:13

Let's do it. Go for it. What do you got? Oh, it's called apologetics live. I don't know if people are interested in, I mean, this is fascinating stuff.

01:28:20

I can talk about stuff all night, but. Well then what do you got, man? What do you got?

01:28:26

Uh, well, what, what, what, what do you, what is an interesting, what is the most fascinating, uh, topic to study when you're studying the opposing sides that are out there?

01:28:36

Evolution. He says evolution for, um, evolution is easy to beat because all you got to do is go to the information structures.

01:28:44

If you started information, uh, theory and what information is and how it's, uh, encoded in biological structures, and then you apply mathematics to it, you can realize that it's impossible for life to form by spontaneously.

01:28:56

And that's why there's, could be no life anywhere in the entire universe. It's it's, it exceeds universal probability bound and it's mathematical improbability issue.

01:29:03

That's interesting. I love discussing. And that doesn't stop them though. Well, it does.

01:29:08

It doesn't stop them because I would actually push back and say that the most important thing is not to go to the facts themselves, but to the intellectual world worldview framework with which we interpret it.

01:29:18

You know what? You see, this is interesting because when I listened to apologists like well known apologists and they explain why they're

01:29:25

Christians, the answer usually is because of the evidence. And so sometimes we answer these questions about evolution and things like that.

01:29:33

And we appeal to facts and things like that. That's not why we're Christian. I think the very important thing when we're answering the question where we're

01:29:39

Christian, we need to give an answer that's consistent with the scriptures where it says that, that his spirit bears witness to our spirit.

01:29:45

It's a miracle of God that makes us believers. And then of course we have the benefit of appealing also to a worldview that can make sense out of the data of our experience.

01:29:53

But I think a lot of people go the backward backwards route and go straight to the facts. And that's why people talk past each other.

01:29:59

I think. Well, you and I completely agree. It's a presuppositional issue, right? I think everything's a presuppositional issue.

01:30:06

I would presuppose that to be true. And you would be presupposing that I'd be presupposing that I presuppose you're correct.

01:30:12

That's correct. Cause I presuppose it also. That's right. For those who don't know, presuppositionalism is folks, the idea of in a base form, you presuppose the

01:30:22

Trinitarian God's existence and the inspiration of scripture, and then work from that premise and everything falls in place.

01:30:30

Yeah. That's a priori. Yep. And if you were to, if you were to presuppose, for example, the opposite worldview, a no

01:30:39

God worldview, then you cannot account for the issues in the three main categories of philosophy, epistemology, our theory of knowledge.

01:30:46

Let's just get into the metaphysics and the essence of the nature of the universe and how we came about. You can't do that. And rationality.

01:30:52

Right. They can't deal with these things. Right. And I think from, from a methodological standpoint, if people are wondering,

01:30:58

Hey, what's the difference between say a presuppositional method and a non -presupposed presuppositional method.

01:31:04

The issue is that a presuppositionalist reasons from God, whereas classical is the classical approach.

01:31:10

The traditional approach is region reason to God. So the one grants the ability of human reason, independent of divine revelation.

01:31:17

And the other one starts with God's revelation and says, if you don't start on that foundation, you can't have all those other things that are essential to a coherent worldview.

01:31:25

Right. And the former is basically humanism, which is elevating man's ability in his cognitive sense, to be able to judge the truth about God's existence.

01:31:33

Yes. Never something that God allows for or supports in scripture. He never defends himself.

01:31:40

He never as the true and living being, and he never defends the issue of how, you know, something is true.

01:31:46

He just assumes his own position. And then we operate from that. And I've done this with atheists so many times.

01:31:52

And when I've done this, they, one guy actually said to me, well, it sure is convenient for you when you do that, isn't it? He said it mockingly.

01:31:58

And I said, yep. Yes. That's one of my, one of my favorite apologetic responses.

01:32:05

And I've learned this from you and it is the most powerful response. When someone makes an assertion, I usually respond with so I'm joking and I'm not joking.

01:32:15

People have like, what do you mean? So I'd like, so even if I grant what you're saying, it doesn't, you know, the, your conclusion doesn't follow.

01:32:21

It's been a funny response, but quite useful. Well, yeah. For those who don't know, when I say that it's not,

01:32:27

I don't intend to stop there. Right. I'm building is, is getting them, you know, just, you know, I think, well, so what?

01:32:33

Like an atheist might say, well, slavery is wrong in the Bible because society said so.

01:32:39

And I go, so, and I want him to start unpacking his position.

01:32:45

And it's, it's fun to go, you know, if you do it like this with a raised eyebrow and a kind of a shirt, and you kind of just go, so economic arguments for that one, the what?

01:32:56

For slavery, it's uneconomical, non -economical. Well, there's different arguments.

01:33:02

Yeah. I, but yeah, it, you wouldn't have, we get it. We have now, we still continue to slavery.

01:33:09

I mean, they've done studies on it. Oh yeah. Yeah. There'll be, we're talking positionally about the issues though, what they'll do.

01:33:16

But, um, that's what we do. You know, so I'll, I'll, I'll talk to the atheists and what I want them to do.

01:33:22

It's like when I was on my radio show and a well -known atheist woman got on once she'd been on national TV and, um, blah, blah, blah.

01:33:28

She's on my show. And she said, all babies are born atheists. Now here's the principle of argumentation.

01:33:35

It's not as the, so what category it's the, how do you know category? Right. An assertion.

01:33:41

And I just said, how do you know? So these Uber simple, ultra, you know, very simple statement.

01:33:47

So why is that wrong? How do you know? These kinds of questions are what really are deadly inside of the presuppositional camp.

01:33:56

When you're asking someone else to justify their assumptions, we can do it in Christianity.

01:34:02

They can't do it outside of Christianity. Right. And, and then the interesting thing too is, well,

01:34:08

I think an important thing to, to, to remember when you're doing apologetics is also recognizing that sneaky shifting of the burden of proof.

01:34:15

How do you, how do you know? Well, how do you know they are? Well, wait a minute. You made an assertion. You may even validate the statement.

01:34:22

And I can say, I know they aren't sick, but what kind of slavery, for example, what kind of slavery are you talking about? Because in the

01:34:28

Bible property is to be returned to the owner. But if a slave is considered property in that sense, it's called chattel slavery.

01:34:34

If that's the sense that it was, then why is it when a slave escaped, he was not to be returned.

01:34:40

Right. Right. And I say it to people and they go, uh, I go, so what kind of slavery? Cause there's different levels of slavery and things like that in the

01:34:47

Bible. And they talk about stuff. And so usually what happens when I'm doing apologetics with someone in, Oh, I love the moralist.

01:34:53

We start moral apologetic. That's the easiest. That's the best. Did you see my debate with Dan Barker out in, uh,

01:35:00

I've seen all, I think I've seen all your debates that Dan Barker debates are fun with the, uh, uh,

01:35:06

Oh yes. My favorite, my favorite was, uh, you know, he, he, he equated evil with that, which, uh, without which brings harm.

01:35:15

And so you, you gave the example of a woman who's put under when she's at the dentist and the dentist has his way with her.

01:35:21

And then she gets up, she's not harmed. She doesn't know what happened to her. Is it right or wrong? And so you kind of held his, his feet to the fire on his view.

01:35:29

It would have to be, he'd have to admit in front of a live audience that there's nothing wrong with that. Um, I don't remember how he responded to that though.

01:35:36

Uh, not well, I said this, you know, I used his arguments.

01:35:42

Um, and I, uh, I did this. I said in your debate with Peter, I have written down,

01:35:47

I had his notes, the notes there. Yep. And we can get into the moral one, but in your debate with Peter Payne at the university of Wisconsin in March, 2005, at about 35 minutes and 40 seconds in, this is what

01:35:58

I said to him. You said that quote, telling a lie can sometimes be a very good moral thing to do.

01:36:04

Close quote. You also said in the Q and a section of your lecture to the campus, atheists and secular humanists at the university of Minnesota in October of 2006, second part, uh, 35 seconds in that quote, the action that results in the minimal amount of harm is the right action period.

01:36:20

Close quote. My question, Mr. Barker, since you say that the right thing to do is the action that minimizes harm, that line can be good and that religion causes great harm.

01:36:32

Cause he had said that. Then shouldn't you lie in our debate in order to win the debate so you can convince people that religion is harmful thereby reducing overall harm in the world.

01:36:42

And you, if the audience did, they went, Ooh, there's no way out of that.

01:36:48

That question. That's a Matt Slick objection. Only you would, only you would use that example.

01:36:54

So intricately, uh, that, that that's, that's good. And there's nothing, there's really nothing you could, I mean, he'd have to admit on his own standard.

01:37:01

That's precisely what he would have to do. And I think a lot of atheists don't understand too, is bringing up moral conundrums doesn't answer the question as to whether something's objectively good or bad or whether it's relative or whatever, you know?

01:37:14

Yeah. Okay. Got something for you. Good to see you coming on my, one of my shows someplace lately saying that all morality is subjective.

01:37:22

No, it's an absolute statement. And I said, okay, prove to me that all morality is subjective. And he said, morality, see how you're going to respond to this.

01:37:30

Good. I answered him, but I said, he said, we have subjective morals. God has subjective morals because God's morals are subjective to himself.

01:37:39

Therefore, all morals are subjective. And if they're all subjective, they're not absolute.

01:37:45

We don't have to really trust them. So now what do you mean by it? Uh, morals are subjective to God.

01:37:50

I'd ask for, I would ask for him to clarify that. It comes out of his own essence, his own preferences. He decides whatever he wants.

01:37:57

They're subjective to him. So if he decides, well, they are, in other words, God is, is the standard of goodness.

01:38:04

And so if he issues his law, which reflects his good nature and commands his creatures to obey that, it would be, it would be an obligation on our part to live in accordance with those laws.

01:38:17

And those laws would be good because they issue from his, his ultimate good nature. So they are objectively good because God is objectively good.

01:38:26

And it is an objectively good thing for us to live in accordance with those things. Because as creatures, we'd be obligated to live in accordance with how

01:38:33

God has commanded that we should live. So I don't see how that, you know, I wouldn't apply that it's subjective to God because you're, you're talking about God doesn't have this moral system that he has out here.

01:38:46

It's a reflection of who he is and who he is, is binding on image bearers that are required to live in accordance with what he's commanded.

01:38:54

In other words, as creatures, we wouldn't even be able to define goodness without appealing to his, to, to the objective nature of his own essence.

01:39:02

There you go. So I don't. You're right. Very good. Very good. So what I told him, and there's different ways of saying the same thing.

01:39:09

I said, well, in the sense that you're defining it, then by your definition, of course, it's objective.

01:39:15

Right, right. It's objective, but it doesn't mean that the morals that he reveals are not absolute.

01:39:21

Since God is immutable and absolute. Right. And therefore the nature of those morals reveal that of his character also take on the properties of, of transcendent absolute truths.

01:39:34

Therefore we are the ones obligated to follow them because it can be no others. Right. If God were to say, if God were to say, love is good, it's objectively true.

01:39:45

Even if that's subjective to himself, like I'm the essence of love and I know love is good because it's consistent with my nature.

01:39:51

If he were to tell me love is good. And we asked the question, is love objectively good?

01:39:57

Yes, because it is from whose perspective. Well, God, it would be from God's perspective.

01:40:04

And to answer that question, to say whether to himself, say again, I'm going to play the other side a little bit to himself.

01:40:11

I can't hear you. Is it objective in relation to himself or subjective? We should define subjective and objective right now.

01:40:19

Right. If we were to say something is objectively good, then we're saying that it's good independent of anyone's opinions of it.

01:40:28

Now, if God were to say something's objectively good, all he's saying is that the thing that he's calling good is a reflection of who he is.

01:40:36

And so there's a subjective element to it, but there's also an objective element to it. For example, I could have a subjective opinion, but my subjective opinion is either objectively my opinion or not.

01:40:48

You see? So even my sub, even subjective opinions have objectivity to it. If that makes sense.

01:40:54

Yes, it does. I understand. But here's the thing. Now, let's just work with it some more.

01:40:59

I mean, what he was saying, and I thought it was an interesting idea, but it helps clarify other issues because the morality that God reveals is not out of the euthyphro dilemma.

01:41:10

And I explain what that is for people. The euthyphro dilemma is deals with morals. Does God recognize that there's a statute of morals set out there to which he's obligated to follow?

01:41:21

No, if that's the case, then God is subjected to something outside of himself. Right. But the other side is, well, if he just decides that's good, that's bad, it's because he does, it's arbitrary.

01:41:32

Then God's whims are what makes something moral and something could be morally good or morally bad either way.

01:41:39

It doesn't make, it's not intrinsically. And they call that the euthyphro dilemma. It's a false dichotomy because, as you've already very well stated, the issue of the morality emanates out of his character, which is absolute, eternal, immutable, and transcendent.

01:41:54

And so therefore the morals themselves. So it's a third category. And that's why the euthyphro dilemma just falls flat on its face.

01:42:00

So, all right. And incidentally, I did, well, let me get back into the question that I developed for that debate, which

01:42:06

I use with every atheist, which at stumps them on the issue of absolute morality. We get into the issues of logic with them and I'll ask them,

01:42:13

I'm kind of shifting here. We can go with it, but I'll say statements are either true or false.

01:42:18

It's called the third law of logic, the law of excluded middle. So I am a man.

01:42:23

True. Okay. I am holding my phone in my hand. True. I am pregnant.

01:42:30

False. I am living right now in Africa. False. Okay. Statements are either true or false.

01:42:35

And I got him to admit that that's the case. All right. Well, then is the statement true or false? It has a moral value to it.

01:42:41

The statement, it is always wrong for anyone to torture babies to death merely for one's personal pleasure.

01:42:47

I asked this of him because he said he could find an exception to any moral absolute, thereby demonstrating that God doesn't exist because the implication is that Christians would say that moral absolute exists because there's an absolute mind, absolute transcendent

01:43:02

God. And he said he could find an exception to any one of them. And I gave him this and he couldn't find an exception to it.

01:43:09

And so he was stumped. And so basically that proves that his worldview is false by his own admission, but he won't recant.

01:43:17

But nevertheless, so we use the combination of the truths of absolute, the laws of logic in the statement issue with a universal moral application, always true for everyone.

01:43:28

And then he was stumped. And so this is one of the things I'll use to demonstrate that there are universal moral absolute.

01:43:35

Nevertheless, here's a question I'll ask somebody. And I'll say, you know, pick up any object.

01:43:40

Is this cup, it's a little espresso cup with coffee in it. Is this cup morally good or bad?

01:43:48

It's a non -sequitur because an object doesn't have morality to it. Right. If I were to throw the cup at a person, is that morally good or morally bad?

01:43:59

Well, well now the person is throwing it. And so the person has moral values that he needs to adhere to.

01:44:05

So you're, you're a moral agent throwing an, an amoral object.

01:44:11

Right. An amoral, not immoral, but a, which means without the negation. Right. In that sense.

01:44:17

So it doesn't lack morality in any way, shape or form. It's just what it is. So then when we talk about the issue of morality, so is throwing an object at somebody moral or not?

01:44:28

Or if I use what I normally use as I slap somebody, is it right? Morally right or morally wrong for me to slap the person?

01:44:35

Depends why you smack them. Depends on the intentionality. That's right. Because if I don't like your haircut, which isn't much of a haircut and I slap you, then that's not a good reason.

01:44:45

But if I'm, if I see a really bad, you know, a super venomous spider on your cheek and the fat,

01:44:51

I see it arching up in his standard attack mode and I just go whack, then it's a good thing

01:44:57

I've done. But the exact same action gets, has different moral value because of the intention.

01:45:03

So morality is necessarily tied to intentionality, at least on our view.

01:45:09

And the intention must be in accord with what the objective moral standard says is our intentions.

01:45:15

That way they qualify them as good or bad. So we can intend to do something, but whether that intention is good or bad is, needs to appeal to an external moral standard and absolute standard, which issues from the very nature of God.

01:45:26

Right. Exactly. Exactly. Correct. Let's go to that next step. Perfect. People have to understand that intentionality deals with sentient beings.

01:45:35

And since we're made in the image of God, there's a moral action to everything that we intend to do. Anything and everything we intend to do.

01:45:43

Tire shoelaces. Whether we eat, whether we tithe, whether we, whatever it is we do, there's an automatic moral connection to every intentionality.

01:45:54

See, that's a funny thing that you said that, because I agree, but getting back to the Molinism thing, I remember in your discussion with Dr.

01:46:00

McGregor, where he referred to actions that were morally neutral, which we disagreed over, that there are no such thing as, as, as morally neutral actions, since we are to do everything unto the glory of God.

01:46:12

Everything. And I challenged him on that. I think he took a step backwards on it, but he's a very bright guy and humble guy as well.

01:46:20

But nevertheless, every action has a moral value to it because it's intentioned by it, by somebody who's living in God's world and is acting in a manner that must be consistent with God's ultimate decrees is prescriptive, decretive, permissive wills aspect of his desires.

01:46:38

So everything has a moral value that we do. And people don't like that. And you're right.

01:46:43

There's no neutral moral action. just because I might not be able to identify the moral element to it.

01:46:51

So for example, if someone were to say, is it moral? Is it a moral choice to choose to eat a hot dog or a hamburger?

01:46:57

Just because I can't identify in what way it's moral doesn't mean it's not since, for example, it may be moral when

01:47:05

I'm choosing between things, my intention, I might not even be able to identify the specific intentions that I have at a moment, but because you got, it is moral because it has to do with life and you're eating and sustaining life.

01:47:18

So there you go. That's a good answer. And eating hamburgers is morally superior to eating.

01:47:24

It is, especially when my wife cooks them. Oh, here we go. That's right. So, and this is what surprises a lot of Christians that every action has a moral value.

01:47:34

They assume the atheistic view unintentionally. It's another form of humanism in the church of morally neutral, neutral actions.

01:47:42

And there can't be right. The atheist wants her to be morally neutral action so that they can, and their subjective experience to decide what is moral and what is not moral.

01:47:52

Right. Folks, this is how

01:47:57

Eli and I actually have conversations on the phone. Not all, but except, except when

01:48:05

I'm talking on the phone, I'm usually pacing and walking around my office. I, this is the, it is difficult for me to talk and sit still for this long.

01:48:13

I usually walk around. My wife asked me, what are you, what are you doing? I'm with my, my little earrings.

01:48:19

You called my AirPods. Yeah. Earrings. Yeah. Just walking around my house. Well, I have,

01:48:27

I got an idea. Maybe we could have people ask questions if they want. Anybody want to ask any questions or anything?

01:48:38

I got one. Okay. All right. This is a, I don't know if I should ask it.

01:48:44

It's kind of hardcore. Well, personally, then we got to get off the mic here, but it's something that's bothered me.

01:48:53

I don't know. It's like, okay. You know, the end times are unfolding, right?

01:49:00

Yeah. Should we resist the one world government? Yes. Well, that, well, that question is already packed with eschatological presuppositions.

01:49:13

You know, to even say that we're in the end time already assumes, already assumes particular interpretations of verses, chapters like Matthew 24,

01:49:22

Luke 21 and Mark 13. And some people look at those. Look at this. Take the stone out of my hand, grasshopper.

01:49:31

Well, I'm serious. It is. Is Matthew 24,

01:49:36

Luke 21 and Mark 13 are those quote, great tribulation passages. And, and asking the question already assumed.

01:49:45

I do 24, 17, Mark 13, but go ahead. Thank you. Thank you. I give the stone back.

01:49:53

But, but the question presupposes that we're living in the end times based upon, if I can, if I can just assume based upon what we see around us happening, you mentioned one world government, things like that.

01:50:04

And that's not necessarily the case. It really depends on where you land eschatologically. Well, yeah.

01:50:10

I mean, personally, I, I, you talk pretty clearly with the

01:50:17

EU and everything. It looks pretty. Plus the technology is available now too.

01:50:24

Sure. To do the whole one, one, you know, one world government market, the beast, they're always talking about the

01:50:30

Navy now has commercials where they're saying a global force for good. I mean, they're, they're not even talking about the

01:50:36

U S Navy anymore. It's pretty obvious. And the thing that's bothered me is like, and then there's a lot of churches compromising, which is predictable.

01:50:48

They're, they're also just no borders. We don't need nations anymore, though. It's okay for Israel, but not anybody else.

01:50:55

And all this other stuff. Okay. So it's kind of like, it doesn't look like a whole lot of people are resisting.

01:51:04

And I've always, as a Christian, I felt bothered. Like, is it support?

01:51:09

You're just supposed to roll with it because it's been prophesied or, or should you resist it?

01:51:18

Well, I think it's very important to ask yourself whether we are, what we're seeing around us are in fact, things that are predicted in scripture.

01:51:26

For example, you made mention of technology. Well, where in scripture does it talk about the development of technology as being a sign that we're living in the time where a mark, where a mark of the beast can, can come about.

01:51:39

I don't think that the scripture actually says that, for example, people appeal to catastrophes like earthquakes.

01:51:44

Look there, we're experiencing many more earthquakes. And so, look, this is an indicator of living in the last days when in fact, the

01:51:52

Bible does not say that the end will be preceded with more earthquakes. It just says there'll be earthquakes in various places.

01:51:59

So we have to be careful what we, you know, when we interpret scripture, we don't want to interpret scripture with the

01:52:06

Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. We don't want to do what's called newspaper exegesis, where we look at world events and impose those events onto certain texts that we think are teaching what we think they're teaching.

01:52:18

So, so I would argue that a lot of things that people think are in our future.

01:52:24

A lot of it is actually referring to something else. Now I know that this is another discussion and people have different views, but that's what

01:52:31

I meant by when you asked the question, it kind of assumed already a theological perspective as to how all of this hashes out.

01:52:38

So again, that's, that's a broader conversation. Okay. Well, I, I just personally,

01:52:43

I, yeah, I don't know if I can agree with you, but I think it's, it is playing out and it's getting close and they're, they're, they're bringing up a lot of it on their own impetus.

01:53:00

Can you be a little more specific so I can follow along? We always talk about global this, global that.

01:53:05

I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's in the language. They don't want any national boundaries, obviously.

01:53:16

It's, it's heading towards global. It's all, it's the rhetoric is in, is everywhere. And which, which scripture would you understand referring to a one world order and things like that?

01:53:28

Well, the mark of the beast, you know, you can either bind or sell. And it seems to be out of the reconstructed

01:53:33

Roman empire, but you know, people aren't sure it's part of the eschatological view of a lot of premillennialist options.

01:53:41

but you say, you say the, a re, a re, um, what'd you say before, a reestablished

01:53:47

Roman empire? Intelligence is, it's a part of the whole. Right. But, but again, as I say, the artificial intelligence is a part of it.

01:53:55

Again, that one doesn't get that from the text of scripture. That's, that would seem to be an assumption. Even what

01:54:00

Matt just said about a reestablishment of a Roman empire that already presupposes a certain theological commitments that would have to be argued for.

01:54:08

For example, I see in, uh, you know, the predictions that are made in revelation. And when you read all of the new

01:54:14

Testament, there is, there's a lot of talk of what we'd call the time text, things that were to happen near soon at hand.

01:54:22

Um, and so I tend to think that a lot of what we're, a lot of people are expecting in the future. We're actually something that was relevant to the early church who first read, uh, the new

01:54:32

Testament corpus, especially a book like the book of revelation where right at the beginning, it says, blessed is the one who reads and, and, and, uh, you know, adheres to the words of this prophecy for the time is near.

01:54:42

So a lot of these judgments and things that we kind of think are in our future. I think there's strong indication that a lot of it actually was referring to something that was right on the cusp for the early church when they first read those, uh, you know, the

01:54:55

New Testament documents. Hence partial preterism. Right, right now, not everything of course, but, but even though like the tribulation, um, when you take a look at the tribulation, you know, you have this belief that there's a seven year tribulation that we're waiting for.

01:55:09

You don't have in the new Testament, this clear teaching of a, of a seven year tribulation that actually comes from a particular interpretation of the book of Daniel.

01:55:17

And that, uh, again, we'll open up a whole nother door of discussion. Uh, don't forget

01:55:22

Daniel two 43. That's a very significant verse. Eschatologically. Okay.

01:55:27

I'm going to read it to you. I'm just throwing it out, salt and pepper in the problem and the issues. Cause it's a lot of fun.

01:55:33

A lot of people don't know this, but Daniel two 43, this is Nebuchadnezzar and the dream and the stature and everything.

01:55:38

And in that you saw the iron mixed with the clay, they will combine with one another in the seat of men, but they will not adhere to one another.

01:55:47

The exegetically, it looks like the, they can't be people. What do you mean? I've heard this,

01:55:53

I've read this, that the Hebrew construction seems to imply that they will combine with one another in the seat of man.

01:56:02

And what does that mean? That's the question. It seems to imply that the, they are not humans.

01:56:10

Okay. But what does that have to do with the timing of, of those things that we were talking about? I'm just throwing it out for fun.

01:56:15

because the very, cause the very interesting thing is in the book of Daniel, the angel tells Daniel to seal up the words for the time is not yet.

01:56:22

And then until is that he gives a condition with it. Okay. Until now, what is it?

01:56:28

A prophecy. And what does he say? Oh, people go to and fro and knowledge increases.

01:56:36

Right, right, right. Right. Say again, which is nowadays. It definitely, well, but knowledge increased from the time it was first uttered to, you know, the first century.

01:56:49

Okay. I'll leave you with this. There's, it says the image will speak. That's a perfect representation of AI.

01:56:57

It is. It could be AI, but it could also be. Okay.

01:57:02

I mean, it's like saying like the, the people see how, you know, fighter helicopters in the book of revelation.

01:57:07

Again, I think if we are to interpret those symbols, I newscasters right now.

01:57:14

I mean, that's sure. Sure. I'm aware. I'm aware of the, the AI stuff. Here's the problem though. If that's what it's saying, then those prophecies are completely useless to the people who first read it.

01:57:25

I mean, take a look at the book of revelation. It's written to seven actual churches. And if it's actually, no, if they are useless because there's prophecies in there that are useless to us nowadays.

01:57:33

So, I mean, you know, yes, but these are pertaining. These are pertaining to a judgment that that was on the very cusp for those people.

01:57:42

That's why you have the words near soon. The ends of the ages are upon us. These kinds of things, these events that, that we, that you're describing are actually described as near and soon for the people who first heard it.

01:57:54

People ask me, you know, are we living in the last days today? I think that's a very interesting question because in the book of Hebrews chapter one, the writer of Hebrews written over 2000 years ago says that in these last days,

01:58:06

God has revealed himself through his son. So he actually calls the days in which he's living the last days.

01:58:12

So again, we've got to be very careful what we take from the text and apply to us.

01:58:17

We can't do that if there's not warrant for doing that. Now, obviously it's going to depend on how you interpret certain passages in scripture, of course.

01:58:25

All right. So it's eight o 'clock my time, which 10 o 'clock your time when we're supposed to end eight. So there's going to be an after show.

01:58:32

If you guys are interested, John Wilkins, are you going to provide an after show? If you are, you can put the link up.

01:58:41

And I'll do a couple of things. I'll maybe come back in. You want to join us in the after show? Say again? You want to join us in the after show,

01:58:48

Eli? Yeah, I'll stick around. All right. So what we do, we close this one out and then we open, it's like another

01:58:55

URL that our link we're going to go to. Okay. You're just going to send it to me on my email?

01:59:04

Tell you what, I don't know if John's listening, but John would have to send it to me, Facebook me if you want.

01:59:11

And then I'll, I'll email it to you. But I got to check on my wife, got to check a few things. And then it might not be for 15 minutes.

01:59:18

And what's the name of the gentleman that, that I was just talking to? Tony, sorry.

01:59:24

I just wanted to say thank you. And it was a pleasure to have you for the show. I love you were there. Just keep an open mind about the end times.

01:59:35

Hey, you know, and it's, it's awesome that those are super interesting topics, but they're, they're definitely not topics that we should divide over.

01:59:42

So I'm, I'm totally fine with, you know, different perspectives and things like that. Yeah. Especially mine, which is no one else holds to.

01:59:49

That's a problem. Let's do this, John. You're going to post up. I don't know if he's ready.

01:59:55

It's called. What's it called? John's fingers. I'll tell you what

02:00:00

I'm going to do. I'm going to, I'll be back in like 10 or 15 minutes and I'll, cause John often, well,

02:00:05

I'll text him and he'll. Actually, actually met my, my, I think

02:00:12

I actually can't stick around. Okay. Text here. Yeah.

02:00:17

I'm actually a teacher. So tomorrow I actually have to wake up early. I just remembered. Tomorrow. I'm sorry.

02:00:23

What are you going to teach tomorrow? I teach at a Christian private school. I teach all the Bible classes. So I teach apologetics, doctrine, and all that kind of stuff to like middle school, high school students.

02:00:33

That's good. Well, listen, Elias, Elias, before you go, I just want you to know that trend horn is going to be having a podcast one day, a week, starting,

02:00:43

I believe this month. And you're a very good apologist. If you're interested, he's wanting to debate others.

02:00:51

Matt slick is invited as well. That's Trent horn of Catholic answers live. Or I'm familiar with, with horn.

02:00:58

Yep. Well, thank you for that. I might check it out. Thank you. Yeah, that'd be great.

02:01:03

I want to do a formal debate with one of their biggies sometime on a, on a specific topic.

02:01:08

We'll see how that goes, but with all due respect though, I think dr. White handed mr.

02:01:15

Horn handed him a, well, let's, let's just say he gave him a proper whipping on the topic of whether one could lose their salvation.

02:01:24

Now, of course I'm biased because I'm Protestant, but, and you read the Bible and believe it.

02:01:29

Yeah. I've listened to a lot of debates and it was a very good debate, but I do think that the

02:01:34

Protestant perspective came out on top. But just saying, but thank you for the invite. All right, man.

02:01:42

I wouldn't shut it down. I got to feed the cats, got to do a couple of things. I'll see if I can find the link. You won't be on anyway, and we'll see what happens.

02:01:48

I might go into a discord and I think I'll do. I'll look for the after show.

02:01:53

I'm going to discord. Also. We'll see what happens. Okay. All right. And I just want to say real quick, thank you, Andrew.

02:01:58

If you ever listened to this for allowing me to tag along. So take care guys. It was fun. I think people are enjoying you and I interacting because we can do some good stuff.

02:02:06

Yeah. Good stuff, man. I appreciate it. All right, man. God bless buddy. All right. God bless. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.